‘Render to Caesar’

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between missions and the government during the late colonial and early independence era in Sudan. I approach the matter of religious liberty by looking at missionaries’ references to Scripture and their understandings of the roles of Church and State during a period of political change. Acknowledgments that Christians are called to ‘render to Caesar’ were coupled by defiance to the government’s aim to inculcate Islam in the South. Mission articulations of religious thought allow for a useful comparison to the liberationist religious rhetoric that Southern Sudanese Christians fashioned during the First Civil War. Missionaries were co-architects of political theology during an era of sociopolitical change.

Christianity in (South) Sudan: Historical backgrounds, contemporary contestations, and future directions

“…The period has also represented a dynamic period in Sudanese Christian historiography. New historical dictionaries were published that can provide starting points for general information on Christian individuals and/or organizations (Kramer et al., 2013; Kuyok, 2015); Sudanese writer Steve Paterno's study of Catholic priest Saturnino Lohure and fellow Sudanese William Levi's autobiography are compelling additions in the field of Sudanese life history (Levi, 2005; Paterno, 2007); Amal Fadlalla, Melani McAlister, and Allen Hertzke each shined a lot on the roles of the American Church (and African American Christians in particular) in the 1990s and early 2000s (Fadlalla, 2018; Hertzke, 2008; McAlister, 2018); and Heather Sharkey and I have explored dimensions of Muslim‐Christian/Church‐State relations in colonial and postcolonial Sudan (Sharkey, 2006; Tounsel, 2018, 2020).…”