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In Kenya, Protestant missionaries have just about won back the 39,000 (out of 40,000) Kikuyu and Embu Christians who deserted the churches during the Mau-Mau uprising in 1952. Identification of mission Christianity with "imperialism" is the church's biggest problem; two years ago, nine parishes of the Anglican diocese seceded and have appointed their own bishop. Twelve splinter churches have been formed, including the African Israel Church (whose members wear turbans), the African Interior Church, the Church of Christ in East Africa, and the African Brotherhood Church.
Many feel that Christianity's greatest handicap in Africa is its record of tolerating segregation, notably in South Africa. Two such sworn enemies as South Africa's Premier Hendrik Verwoerd and Cape Town's Anglican Archbishop Joost de Blank agree that a crisis is at hand for Christianity on the continent. Said Verwoerd last week: "We are faced today by threats to the future of civilization, to the contribution of the white man in South Africa . . . Christianity is threatened in Africa more than anywhere else." His prescription: continued segregation and repression.
Archbishop de Blank sees the Christian church in South Africa "at a crossroads. Unless it openly and publicly repudiates the doctrine and practice of compulsory segregation, it is condemning itself to extermination—and the whole of South Africa will be wide open to secularism and non-Christian creeds."
*Second only to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England, a distinction established by Pope Innocent VI in the 14th century.