Opportunities for Malawians to demonstrate their leadership skills were severely limited during the colonial period. Even the Missions, like Livingstonia and Blantyre, that provided a high level of education often frustrated their graduates by requiring them to work under European supervision on an indefinite basis. This study shows how some early Malawian church leaders took advantage of an unexpected opportunity that arose during the First World War. European missionaries were not allowed to enter Tanzania, but African staff were permitted to cross the border to help the Tanzanian churches to regroup after the devastation caused by the war. For such remarkable figures as Yoram Mphande, George Nyasulu and Jones and Catherine Chikoga, this was a chance to show their mettle.

Kenneth R. Ross is Professor of Theology and Dean of Postgraduate Studies at Zomba Theological University. He is also Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria, Honorary Fellow at the Edinburgh University School of Divinity, Senior Research Associate at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Boston, USA, Series Editor of the Edinburgh Companions to Global Christianity (Edinburgh University Press), and Associate Minister at Bernvu CCAP. He is the author of many books and articles on World Christianity, including the forthcoming co-authored volume Hope in Times of Crisis: Reimagining Ecumenical Mission. He has been researching and writing about Malawi church history and theology since he first arrived in Zomba in 1988. This book brings together a collection of essays written during the early 2020s in which Ross characteristically brings theological questions to the study of history while often adopting an historical approach to the study of theology. All ten essays are grounded in the Malawi context while their themes also have relevance far beyond it. "..a very valuable addition to Malawianist scholarship."- Dr Markku Hokkanen, University of Oulu

Africa was not evangelized by the European (and American) churches, but by the European (and American) mission societies, a process that thoroughly changed the religious geography of Africa. This book traces the origin of this change to William Carey, who proposed in 1792 to make the mission society as a voluntary association the "Means" to propagate the Gospel. The mission societies did what the churches could not have done. In this seminal paper Andrew Walls explores this often forgotten feature of missionary history.

Malawi's first two Presbyterian ministers, Harry Kambwiri Matecheta and Stephen Kundecha, were ordained in March 1911. Ecclesiastically, this made them fully equal with their European fellow-ministers. There were, however, subtle and not-so-subtle racial codes that reminded them that they were expected to occupy a subordinate position. This Occasional Paper explores how they discovered their identity and vocation in a challenging context.

Isobel Reid offers a concise account of the origins, establishment, and some internal dynamics of the Livingstonia Mission, in particular those impacting missionary families as seen through the eyes of a young missionary couple at its Bandawe station. This study not only demonstrates a general awareness of the roie and initiative of the people of Northern Malawi, among whom and with whom the Scottish missionaries lived and worked, but also of the specific importance of interpersonal relationships between Scottish and Malawian women - as in the case of Marie Martin and her Tonga women friends. Race as the primary dividing line was thus subverted by mutual gender awareness. From 1978 Isobel Reid, a qualified nurse/midwife, with her doctor husband and young family lived for 18 months on Ekwendeni CCPA Mission Station before transferring to Mzuzu where Dr. Reid was in charge of St John's Roman Catholic Mission Hospital for four further years. A consequent academic interest in mission history resulted in an MTh (Edinburgh 1999) which provided the basis for this book.

Over the last decades, an ever-growing gap has developed between traditional marriage and the officiation of it as a church wedding, because of the expenses involved in a "proper" church wedding. These are not demanded by the churches, but by common social expectations. Irrespective of whether a church sees marriage as a sacrament or as a civil order, much emphasis is put on it, by the churches and by society. Many churches exclude those "not properly married" from the sacraments. But why should the churches put so much emphasis on their church wed-dings, a ritual not found in the New Testament, and which came into the church only almost a thousand years later?

Jack Thompson's deeply-moving account of the nineteenth century Lovedale mission to Malawi revolutionizes our stereotype of missionaries in colonial southern Africa.

This pioneering and fascinating book is the first to tell the story of the remarkably enduring bonds between Malawi and Scotland from the time of David Livingstone to the flourishing cultural, economic and religious relationships of the present day. Why should there be any significant relationship between one small nation on Europe's north-western seaboard and another in the interior of Africa? How did it reach the stage where in 2012 Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs in the Scottish Government, could describe Malawi as Scotland's "sister nation"? This book attempts an answer.

A key theological emphasis of the church is the priesthood of all believers. This emphasis implies that lay empowerment and lay participation are central to what the church does. Yet, lay participation is a bit of an unfulfilled promise in many cases. This book brings together church leaders, theological educators, as well as practitioners who are actively involved in lay ministry here in Malawi, so that a stronger theology of laity for the Malawian church can emerge.

Life in Tanganyika in the 1950s and a look at race relations between whites and black Africans and others in this East African country are some of the subjects covered in the book. It's full of human interest stories, including the author's. Born and brought up in Tanganyika, the author writes from personal experience. He also got the chance to ask many ex-Tanganyikans a number of questions about life in Tanganyika in the fifties. Many of them were born and brought up in Tanganyika during the same period the author was. And many others went to Tanganyika as children but grew up there. The ex-Tanganyikans he contacted lived in different parts of the world including Tahiti, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Italy, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, the United States, the Middle East, and Russia among others. And they all had interesting stories to tell about life in Tanganyika in the fifties. The perspectives they provided, and the memories they shared with the author about their lives in Tanganyika, are some of the most interesting aspects of this book which focuses on one of the most important periods in the history of Africa. The book is a primary source of information on how life was then in Tanganyika during one of the most important decades in the history of the country just before independence.