Christianity & the Congo

Few countries in Africa proved more receptive to the work of Christian missions than the Belgian Congo. Since 1878, when the first Protestant missionaries (Baptists) arrived, their numbers grew impressively to 2,000 (some 1,200 of them Americans), plus 5,500 Roman Catholics.

In recent years, the missions concentrated on training more and more native clergy to take over the churches' work. Last week this gradual process was violently interrupted by the savage explosion of riot and terror (see FOREIGN NEWS) that forced most U.S. missionaries, on the urging of the State Department, to leave their posts. At least two missionaries--Southern Presbyterians John Davis, who flew more than 70 missions in the Korean war as an Air Force major, and Mark Poole, known as "The Flying Doctor'' --worked day and night flying out stranded mission personnel.

Home in the U.S., the missionaries had tales of horror as well as heroism. "They beat up our daddies,'' said ten-year-old David Ellis, whose father and mother were among three U.S. Baptist missionary families at Nsona Mpangu, 160 miles from Leopoldville. "They made them lie on the ground and marched all over them.'' Yet again and again, the missionaries reported, African Christians risked their own lives to protect their white brethren. One U.S.

missionary, whose wife was raped while their three children cowered in the next room, told how an African "pleaded for us, even though he too had a bayonet pointed at his belly." Everywhere in the Congo, Africans begged missionaries to stay on. In several areas, crowds kept evacuation planes from landing in order to forestall the departure of their doctors and teachers.

Most of the missionaries talk about returning as soon as possible--some have already gone back to set up medical relief teams. They are sure that Christianity is a lasting force in the Congo (example: the Senate of the new republic, a moderating influence in the crisis, has many mission-trained Christian members). But it is also plain that the riots are precipitating the end of an era in the Congo. The Rev. Glenn Murray, 51, a Presbyterian missionary who has spent 20 years in Africa, takes an optimistic long view. "This whole thing will work out best for the church." he said. "It was very difficult to pull out and leave them, but now the Africans will have to take over the church themselves and accept responsibility, and perhaps they will develop it into even a more worthwhile thing than we could.

Perhaps it will be stronger in the end than if we had stayed there."

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