A missiological exploration of the encounters between Reuben Omulo and the Church Missionary Society in Central Nyanza, Kenya

Abstract

This research examined the Anglican Church’s history of mission in Central Nyanza, focusing on the formative role played by Reuben Omulo, a Luo mission innovator. It explored the key features of the mission praxis of Omulo and his encounters with the Church Missionary Society (CMS). It adopted Kritzinger’s (2008) seven-point “praxis matrix” in an “encounterological” approach to probe the encounters between the mission praxes of Omulo and CMS. This involved investigating the dynamics of the interaction between those praxes, focusing on each of the seven dimensions in turn. The study used data from personal interviews and discussions with a selected group of respondents from Siaya and Kisumu Counties, among families and places where Omulo worked. It analysed secondary data from relevant published works and other written materials from private archives. The pre-colonial encounters forged the diverse Luo people into a nation, as this research clarified, and further described those complex relations, which shaped critical features of the Southern Luo world, priming them for their encounters with the European colonialists and CMS missionaries. CMS’s intention for indigenizing the Church met resonance in Omulo. As the research illustrated, Christianity met spiritual needs that traditional religion could not. For Omulo and his colleagues, more so, the vernacular Scriptures eliminated ambiguities in the Luo religion, making the transition to Christianity more effortless for them. The study revealed a creative tension between Omulo and CMS praxes, which for Omulo was an attempt to balance Christianity’s demands with traditional responsibilities and integrate the Luo into Christianity. But CMS sought to interpret the Luo worldview to infuse it with the Scriptural message of Christianity. Omulo and his colleagues proved to be active recipients of the Gospel, as the study showed, for protesting colonial injustice, compelled the authority to reform, and further stimulated CMS and Anglican Church in Kenya to embrace a social justice spirituality. The challenges facing the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) can be traced to how CMS established the African Anglican Church in Central Nyanza, as this research showed. This research, therefore, suggested that the ACK should focus on empowering the laity as her primary agency for mission and that the Church’s mission praxis must reaffirm culture to speak to the core needs of the people. It recommended that mission history be studied with the praxis matrix as part of an “encounterological” approach.