Abstract
This article focuses on Bishop Stephen Neill’s years (1969–1973) as the founding chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Nairobi. While he succeeded in his goal of establishing a fine academic program, almost nobody lamented his departure. While chiefly about Neill, the article touches upon larger issues related to Anglicanism and colonialism in a newly independent Kenya. It features a summary of interviews with Professor Jesse Mugambi, a longtime professor at the university, who worked with Neill during this era. It also includes a brief assessment of Neill’s time in Nairobi from the missionary-demographer David Barrett. A shorter version of this article was given in January 2023 to the American Society of Church History.
Stephen Neill was one of the great Anglican scholars of the twentieth century. He lived from 1900 to 1984, and had an amazing and diverse career. He was educated at Cambridge, where he won nearly every academic prize that could be won. When he finished his studies, he chose to become a missionary to South India—a move that stunned everyone around him since his student career was so illustrious. 1
Neill worked as a missionary in India in the 1920s and 1930s. While still a young man—in his late thirties—he became bishop of the diocese of Tinnevelly in 1939. He served in that role for five or six years and then resigned due to a scandal. He had beaten some of his clergymen, and eventually had to face the unfortunate reality that his first love—India—would no longer be his home. 2
Thus, Neill returned to Europe and worked at the newly formed World Council of Churches in Geneva, in the late 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s. He traveled the world during these years. He became a well-known speaker on college campuses, and published many books—around seventy over the course of his career.
After working in Geneva for nearly twenty years, he moved to Germany to become a professor of missions at the University of Hamburg. Despite living in a French city for twenty years, Neill was also a competent German speaker. During his Hamburg years (1962–1968), he worked at a very high level, writing several books that were major contributions to scholarship. 3 While in Hamburg, Neill became recognized as one of the most outstanding and influential living historians of Christianity. As a result of this extremely productive period of only seven years, Neill was invited to join the elite British Academy.
When Neill was nearly seventy years old, he was gently forced to retire from the University of Hamburg. He wanted to keep working, however, and was pleased to respond to an invitation to move to Nairobi, Kenya, to help establish a Department of Religion and Philosophy. This was a strange move for a man who had spent twenty years in India as a clergyman, and had become a famous scholar in the Western world. What did Neill know about Africa, and why would he be invited to work in Nairobi?
Neill was no rookie when he moved to Africa. He had visited the continent numerous times, and conducted a major research project there in the early 1950s. 4 At one point, in 1936, Neill was even invited to serve as Bishop of Mombasa, which he turned down. 5
Neill was no stranger to Kenya either. In fact, the idea of him starting a Department of Philosophy and/or Religion in Nairobi had been kicked around by several people for several years before it finally came to fruition. 6
In 1968, Neill “was ready to leave Hamburg,” but was open to new adventures. When the invitation came from Nairobi, the timing seemed perfect. 7 Neill was invited to serve as Visiting Professor of Religion for three months, and his salary would come from the church. The first of his responsibilities was “to get the idea of the Department widely known” by lecturing on the world’s religions and basic issues in the scientific study of religion. As predicted, Neill’s lectures attracted attention and in short order the idea of a Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies began to morph from an idea into a reality. 8
But it was not without a fair amount of opposition. The churches thought the department would be too liberal, and university people thought a religion department was inappropriate for a secular college. Thus, if the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies were to come about, it would have to be paid for by private donors. Thus, Neill and others, after a comprehensive search, came up with funding from several Christian and Hindu organizations. 9
Nairobi—a new world
Although Neill had visited Nairobi, in many ways it was still “a new world” to him. The year was 1969. Kenyans achieved their independence in December 1963, so the colonial past was still visible, including the Mau Mau uprisings against the British in the 1950s that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of East Africans. President Jomo Kenyatta (in office from 1963 to 1978) emerged as a reconciler who opposed retaliation against the British. Yet he was determined to make Kenya “unmistakably and unconditionally an African country.” 10
Stephen Neill in 1984. Used with permission of The Lutterworth Press.
There was tension in East Africa, however, as various people groups vied for political power. In Neill’s view, Kenya appeared tranquil on the outside, but “there was the feeling of deep discontent not far below the surface.” 11
Despite the political pressures, Neill loved the city, writing, “Nairobi must be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.” He also noted, however, the crushing poverty there, for example the time he went to a man’s house for tea and found the family of eight crammed into one room—without electricity or running water. This grave lack of basic services led to a very high crime rate that tended to keep the foreigners in a state of alarm. There was “a constant fear of robbery and theft.” Cars were stolen with regularity. Burglaries were common. 12
When Neill first arrived at the university, he found that “nothing had been arranged” for him. Rather than a proper office, he was given a “cubby-hole . . . with partitions which did not reach the ceiling,” no telephone, an incompetent secretary, and no colleagues. For one of the first times in his life, Neill found himself completely unprepared for the task at hand—his courses would start in ten days, and he was expected to teach both religion and philosophy courses. That first term did not go well, and Neill felt his lectures were very bad. 13
At one point, Neill was “in the classroom eighteen periods a week.” He commented, “to give so many bad and unprepared lectures is a soul-searing experience, which I do not wish ever to repeat.” 14 In addition, he was frustrated by the pace of progress, writing: “Anyone who lives in Africa soon discovers that it takes five times as much energy to get anything done in Africa as it does in Europe.” 15
He felt much better about his apartment, which was very low cost, located less than a mile from the university, and about half a mile from the Anglican cathedral. The two bedrooms meant Neill had a quiet study to work, and another room for guests. 16
Neill was given a middle-aged man as a servant, and he proved to be, in Neill’s words, a “thorn in my side.” The man worked hard, was exceedingly neat and good at cleaning, but he tended to be “sullen and scowling.” Neill was accustomed to “smiling Indian servants” from his years in India, but this man had a mind of his own. Neill wrote, “If I looked into the kitchen to give him his order for the day, quite often he would not even look up from what he was doing.” 17
Neill built an excellent team of teachers for his new department: Malcolm McVeigh, Cuyler Young, Said Hamdun, John Mbiti (who attracted huge audiences whenever he lectured), Taran Singh, Father Joseph Donders, Joseph Nyasani, Henry Odera Oruka, Terence Day, Reginald Fuller, Hugh Pilkington, and M. W. Mathews. Neill also arranged several public lectures and invited the community. He started to build a very respectable library with funding from the British government. Progress was being made. 18
However, Neill quickly developed a colonialist reputation while in Nairobi. He was now an elderly man, past the age of retirement for most Europeans. And he felt it. He blamed it on the hot weather, although Nairobi is nearly 6,000 feet above sea level and it rarely gets above eighty degrees Fahrenheit. The altitude took a toll on him, and he could rarely work in the evenings, often being “too tired even to listen to music.” 19
Neill’s old enemy—insomnia—also resurrected and haunted him due to what he thought was the stillness of the evenings combined with the intense humidity. Neill started taking sedatives just to catch a bit of “artificial sleep.” The predictable result was physical and mental exhaustion. As a result Neill felt he made “many mistakes” in dealing with colleagues. He provoked unnecessary opposition, and alienated many who could have become his friends. 20
During Neill’s fourth year, he decided to offer a course on African Christianity. He asked the History Department to do it, but they demurred. Thus, Neill offered it, knowing there would be major holes in his curriculum.
At that time, in 1972 to 1973, Neill stated that one of the most difficult aspects of teaching African Christianity was that there was simply no textbook yet written on the topic. Furthermore, Neill felt that his students had fallen under the spell of the anti-missionary myth, which he found particularly offensive. After all, Neill had been a famous colonial missionary. 21
Neill’s course on African Christianity had fifteen students, and he knew that, as a white man, he “would have to walk very warily.” He determined not to show his cards so that he would not lose the confidence of the class. He wrote, “My method was simply to help them to see that the history was far more complicated than they had been led to suppose.” Neill’s topics still hold up well today: the uniqueness, resiliency, and antiquity of the Ethiopian Church; Muslim-Christian interactions; Protestant missionary societies; the Roman Catholic “White Fathers”; and the African prophets William Wade Harris and Simon Kimbangu—as well as the movements they spawned. They also discussed topics such as polygamy. Neill adopted the German “seminar” format for this course, which meant that each student had to prepare a factual paper and present it in class for discussion and debate. 22
Neill figured his fourth year in Nairobi would be his last, but he was asked to stay a few months into the fifth year. Pressure was increasing on the entire university to “Kenyanize as quickly as possible.” Neill referred to the anti-foreigner sentiment as “tribalism,” and felt that it had won the hearts and minds of the vast majority of Kenyans. It was becoming clear to Neill that he was no longer welcomed. It was not necessarily personal. It was just the ubiquitous power of the vast winds of change blowing through Kenya at that time. 23
In Neill’s final few months in Nairobi, he began to sense that foreigners were being shown the door, and this was as true in the churches as it was in the university. Neill was forlorn about this development, as he had never thought that tribalism was the answer in an age of global Christianity. Neill had seen this sentiment before, in his final years in India, just before Gandhi led the nation to independence. Neill was now seventy-two years of age, and this was the kind of battle that could not be won. If Kenyanization was the collective will, then most foreigners would be forced to leave. 24
Despite the fact that Neill felt exhausted much of the time in Nairobi, and struggled to get much done in the evenings, his scholarly output during this time was remarkable. During his Nairobi years (1969–1973), he published seven books and numerous articles. He was also preaching often, guest lecturing, traveling regularly, carrying out all of the responsibilities of a professor, as well as heading a new academic department. The books that Neill published during these years were: 1969 – One Increasing Purpose (London: The Bible Reading Fellowship) 1969 – Ecumenism Light and Shade (Toronto: Ryerson Press) 1970 – Call to Mission (Philadelphia: Fortress Press) 1970 – Bible Words and Christian Meanings (London: SPCK) 1970 – The Story of the Christian Church in India and Pakistan (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans) 1970 – What We Know About Jesus (London: Lutterworth) 1970 – Concise Dictionary of the Christian World Mission (London: Lutterworth)
The groundbreaking nature of his scholarship was not as obvious in Nairobi as it was a few years earlier in Hamburg. The library resources were not nearly as strong in Nairobi and his workload was significantly more onerous in Nairobi than in Hamburg. Developing and administering a new department that was growing prolifically was extremely taxing on him. In addition, for most of his Nairobi years, Neill was a man in his seventies. He was never able to sleep well in Nairobi, and became dependent upon sedatives to put him to sleep. In spite of all this, Neill produced a fairly impressive corpus of writing. Two books a year would be stellar for most academicians, but compared to Neill’s years in Hamburg, it was a decline in productivity.
Assessments on Neill’s time in Nairobi
Professor Jesse Mugambi, an acclaimed theologian from Kenya, was at the University of Nairobi during Neill’s years there. One of the first things Mugambi emphasized to me, was that East Africans were “scared” of Neill. He said Neill did not “interact” with Africans.
First impressions go a long way, and the impression Neill made on Mugambi was that he “had a ‘bloated ego,’ very much like many Britons of his age and status.” Neill may have had the idea that he had come to “civilize” Africans, as many Westerners did. Also, Neill was “autocratic.” He was puzzled when Africans told him “No” to his face. As a former bishop, he was not used to this kind of behavior. “He had been used to being obeyed without question,” especially in the church. And when “African bishops would not let him have his way,” he was extremely surprised. 25
Mugambi said that “Neill knew nothing about African religion and culture, and he was not interested.” He claimed that Neill often displayed “racism and arrogance,” and “sometimes seemed to enjoy it.” He said, “Neill belongs to a generation of British imperialist intellectuals who believed that the British Empire made the twentieth century, very much like many of the American elite today believe that the twenty-first century will be shaped by the USA. They were grossly mistaken.”
In Mugambi’s mind, Neill never fully understood his role—that he was a guest. His sense of “indispensability” was off-putting to Africans, and he should have known that it was his job to train a successor and then get out within four years at the most. Neill was not sensitive to the African way of doing things, and “only wanted to order his way about.” He had a “bullyish etiquette, especially when he lost his temper over matters requiring bureaucratic procedures.” 26
Mugambi said: “Racism is a very dangerous disease. [And] Neill suffered incurably from it.” Mugambi then made this argument: “Neill himself ought not to have come to Africa, and if he came, he ought not to have taken that role of leadership before learning about the African culture and religious heritage. It was English nepotism that brought him to Kenya. [He was] an exploiter of Africa.”
Mugambi also critiqued Neill for never becoming fluent in an African tongue, arguing, “Neill had no appreciation of the African cultural and religious heritage. From that perspective, he was a tragic failure as a missionary. I think he perceived this failure at the end of his term in Nairobi.”
According to Mugambi, Neill’s time in Nairobi was a missed opportunity. “He became a role model for hardly anybody among both staff and students.” Indeed, his relations with Africans were “puzzling.” He continued, “He had come to ‘help’ Africans, but he could not relate amicably with them. . . . Neill’s relationship is a dramatic illustration of the pervading and persistent institutional relationship between North Atlantic ‘benefactors’ and African ‘beneficiaries.’”
Mugambi emphasized, however, that these prejudices were not at all unique to Neill: Neill’s attitude was not unique. It was pervasive among “experts” on Africa, and this attitude still lingers on among North Atlantic “experts” on Africa. Books that are being published today by North Atlantic Africanists are replete with this attitude, presupposing that Africans can neither “name” nor “explain” themselves. They can only be “named” and “explained” by others. Neill was a child of his time. He was a child of the British Empire. Neill was condescending towards Africans, but his attitude was representative of most missionaries and expatriate personnel working in Africa at that time. He may have been extreme, but other expatriates were on the same wave-length with him, even though they would have been less explicit in their prejudices.
According to Mugambi, little has changed in the way Westerners believe themselves to be competent on a topic after zero to negligible experience in a context, especially when it comes to Africa. It was a common view among expatriate personnel that decolonization had come too soon, if it should have come at all. Again, this attitude lingers on. Kenyans have become immune to uninvited and unsolicited lectures from self-appointed expatriate “experts” about every thinkable topic. The validation and accreditation of that expertise is almost always non-existent. Under normal circumstances Neill would not have qualified for a professorial appointment in Philosophy and Religious Studies in an African university, having not conducted any research on Africa. But he was neither the first, nor the last of such expatriates in Africa. They keep coming!
Stephen Neill was certainly a gifted man, but due to his perceived arrogance, he struggled to make friends with the people around him, especially while living in Africa. Despite this flaw, Mugambi wrote, “We must learn to appreciate both the strengths and weaknesses of other people. We can achieve this only if we are able to appreciate our own limitations.” 27
When I asked Mugambi about Neill’s seeming inability to conceal his temper—which likely pushed people away—his perspective was balanced: Neill’s personality trait is not unique. . . . Some clerical and lay leaders are hot tempered. Perhaps Neill’s prolific output is a manifestation of his passion for rigour. We find such manifestation among famous artists and composers. St. Paul was pious, but he was also hot tempered. . . . Jesus was pious, but in a rage he drove money-changers out of the temple, calling them thieves.
I also asked Mugambi about Neill clashing with a female professor named Dr. Louise Pirouet at Nairobi. I learned about their clash from the famous World Christianity scholar David Barrett, as he mentioned the tense relationship to me in an interview.
28
Father Donders also brought up this situation but explained it away by saying, “Neill had difficulties with women.”
29
Mugambi had not heard of the clash, but provided illumination nonetheless: Dr. Louise Pirouet was the first woman to be employed on the teaching staff of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies under Neill. Her doctoral research was on African Evangelists in Uganda. The thesis was published as “Black Evangelists” (London: Rex Collings, 1978). It is understandable that she and Neill would clash, because she was appreciative of African initiatives in religion, while Neill had the opposite attitude. Neill was also a “male chauvinist,” while Louise Pirouet in her time could be described as a “feminist.” If Neill clashed with Pirouet, I would attribute the clash more to the differences of character disposition than to gender conflict.
30
Neill’s years in Nairobi were full of interpersonal strife, as clashes seemed to greet him at every turn. Surely after four years he realized that his time in Nairobi must soon come to an end.
For all of the critiques that Mugambi offered on Neill, there is a persistent respect that comes through. In 2012, he wrote, Neill was a very perceptive thinker, a faithful citizen of the British Empire, and a committed servant of the Church of England. Whatever his shortcomings as an individual, he put his whole heart and mind onto any task assigned to him. He was not a Team Player, and that, perhaps, was his greatest weakness. His greatest strength was his brilliant mind.
31
Hardly a more accurate description could be made of Neill.
David Barrett (1927–2011) was another who interacted with Neill during his Nairobi years. Barrett held a PhD from Columbia University (1965) in the sociological study of religion, and became famous in missiological circles for his influential World Christian Encyclopedia that was first published in 1982. He devoted much of his latter career to religious demography and essentially birthed that academic field. He was an ordained Anglican priest and spent many years in Kenya. Barrett was deeply impacted by the life and ministry of Bishop Neill, and considered him his mentor. It was Neill’s lectures on “the call of the unevangelized millions” that filled him with an urgency to go overseas for mission work, leading to his move to Kenya in 1957. He lived and worked there in various capacities until he finally left Nairobi in 1985 due to “disagreements with African Anglican church authorities over the scope of [his] research.” He and his family relocated to Richmond, Virginia, where he remained until his death in 2011. 32
In an interview that took place just one year before his death, Barrett answered questions about his relationship with and observations of Stephen Neill. Barrett’s take on Neill’s time in Nairobi was that it all “depends upon one’s point of view.” Neill had some important achievements while in Nairobi; however, there is another side. Some people did not appreciate him, such as the local bishops. Barrett said, “His relationship with African bishops was puzzling.” This was an interesting statement coming from Barrett, who had also experienced the ire of the African bishops while he was living in East Africa. However, Neill’s dealings with the local bishops seemed to be far more confrontational. Barrett stated, “He was really lording it over black bishops. He was criticized for his view that African bishops were being appointed too soon. Some say Neill was anti-African.” Barrett noted that “Neill was brilliant in some things but disregarded indigenous clergy” throughout his career. For example, after reading Neill’s History of Christianity in India in 1984 and 1985, Barrett thought, “This is the old stuff.” Neill seemed to understand Christianity almost exclusively from the colonial perspective rather than the indigenous, a perspective he held to the end of his life. 33
Barrett was one of several who led the charge for Neill to go to Nairobi after his time in Hamburg came to an end. The archbishop of East Africa at the time was Leonard Beecher. Bishop Beecher approached Barrett one day and said, “I heard you are trying to get Neill as professor. Ramsay [Archbishop of Canterbury, 1961–1974] wrote a letter opposing this.” Barrett asked to see evidence, but Beecher refused to produce the letter. Eventually Barrett and other Neill supporters managed to invite Neill, but not without a fight. According to Barrett, Bishop Beecher was skeptical of Neill due to rumours about what happened with Neill in India years earlier. With a sense of satisfaction, Barrett said, “Eventually we got Neill.” 34
True to Neill’s reputation for disregarding African indigenous religions, Barrett said Neill “dismissed” them. Instead, upon arrival to Nairobi, Neill set his mind on organizing the “parochial archives,” meaning the archives of the church. Barrett stated that Neill took them over, trying to get them into a respectable shape. Clearly, Neill’s focus was on the church and Christianity, and he held little regard for anything unrelated. 35
Regarding Neill’s personality, Barrett said Neill had quite the temper. “He lost his temper, slammed the door, and pushed me out” one time. Neill was reviewing the minutes of a meeting and was irritated by the distraction. He noted that people seemed always to develop strong feelings about Neill: “You either loved him or couldn’t stand the sight of him.” Barrett also mentioned Neill’s confrontation with Professor Pirouet as an example of his relentless social struggles. 36
In defense of Neill, however, Barrett stated that “The situation in Africa was really quite a mess” when Neill arrived. As Neill detailed in his autobiography, he was not allowed into Kenya until just a couple of weeks before he had to start lecturing, and the scaffolding of the department that he was supposed to establish was in absolute disarray. This placed enormous strain upon Neill, who was nearly seventy years old at the time. 37
However, much of the problem was Neill’s nature. He expected others to rally around him, and often came across as selfish. For instance, Barrett said he read through the entire manuscript of Neill’s History of Christian Missions before it was published in 1964, carefully vetting all footnotes and offering feedback, but “Neill never said thanks.” Barrett also mentioned that once when Neill was speaking to a group of Church Mission Society missionaries in Nairobi, the overall impression was that Neill had “an inflated ego.” Barrett, who at one point was strongly in Neill’s camp, opined about that day, “He probably deserved it.” 38
Barrett was clear, however, that Neill’s brilliance shone through every time he lectured. “Every lecture was good. Everybody drank in every word.” This perspective was ironic because the precise word that Neill used to describe his lectures in Nairobi was “bad.” Neill was a perfectionist when it came to his lectures and writings, so it is quite possible that the frenetic context he was working in led him to have an overly critical view of his performance during that strained early period of his Nairobi employment. One final point made by Barrett was extremely important: Neill “did an excellent job organizing the department in Nairobi.” 39 And that is precisely why Neill went to Nairobi in the first place.
Neill’s time in Nairobi was tumultuous, but certainly, all was not in vain. Before Neill arrived in 1969, there was no such thing as a Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies in Nairobi. When he left in 1973, there was a world-class Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. And the standard Neill set has remained exceptionally high for decades, to the present day. That is no small accomplishment. Hiding in plain sight is the fact that Neill was, after all, hired to establish that department. He did it, and with flying colours.
By 1973, Neill was having obvious physical problems. He had allowed himself to become “totally overweight.” He was “not a healthy person.” He also had major trouble with his drooping eyelids that required multiple surgeries. He was beginning to face his own mortality in Nairobi, and read the obituaries in The Times of London every single day, observing his generation dying off. In some ways he was living in the past, often reminiscing about India and the WCC to those around him. 40
In 1973, Stephen Neill retired to Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, where he lived out his final decade of life. He passed from this life on Friday, July 20, 1984, seated in his armchair, while reading The Economist. The housekeeper who discovered him said he had a slight smile on his face.
Footnotes
Notes
Author biography