Aweis A. Ali | Africa Nazarene University, Nairobi, Kenya
Email: amazingwisdom@gmail.com
Abstract
For many people, “Somali” and “Christian” are oxymoron but history is littered with enough evidence that this assumed oxymoron is one big fallacy. The purpose of this brief history is to highlight the long and consistent engagement of Christian missions among Somali people in the Horn of Africa. This work will review few of the most prominent mission organizations among Somali people, the challenges and success of these organizations in Islamic Somalia. This review will also elaborate the rebirth of the Protestant mission work in Somalia in the 1950’s and the impact the collapse of Somalia’s central government in 1991 still has on the church in Somalia. Somalia has 128 years of continuous Christian presence which started in 1881. Unbeknownst to many, there are numerous established Christian house-churches in Somalia today. While the exact number of these Somali Christian congregations in Somalia are hard to know, estimates range from few dozens to several dozens. There are also thriving Somali Christian congregations in the Somali inhabited regions of Kenya and Ethiopia. Sustained missionary work among Somalis started in northern Somalia in 1881 when Roman Catholic fathers opened an orphanage in what was then British Somaliland. The first Protestant mission work was established in southern Somalia in 1896 when Swedish Overseas Lutheran Church (SOLC) opened mission work in what was then Italian Somaliland. While the Roman Catholic mission quickly faced intense objections from the local Somalis, the SOLC encountered minimum opposition from the local people. Through their orphanage ministry, the Roman Catholics witnessed the conversion of many children while the ministry of SOLC produced numerous adult believers in a short span of time. Both mission organizations were eventually expelled from the Somali lands by the colonial powers but some of the local Christian communities they left behind hung onto the faith despite the intense persecutions they faced from the Somali Muslims.
Key Words: Somali church history, Christianity in Somalia, Somalia missions, persecution
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Suggested Citation
Aweis A. A,. (2020). A Brief History of Christian Missions in Somalia. African Research Journal of Education and Social Sciences, 7(1), 2020. Available online at http://arjess.org/social-sciences-research/a-brief-history-of-christian-missions-in-somalia.pdf
