Smith, Edwin Williams (1876-1957)

Missionary anthropologist and linguist

Smith was born of missionary parents of the Primitive Methodist Mission in South Africa. After study in England, he served as a Primitive Methodist missionary for a short time in Basutoland (modern Lesotho), and then from 1902 to 1915 in Northern Rhodesia (modern Zambia) among the Baila-Batonga. In 1915 he returned to England, eventually putting his linguistic abilities to work at the British and Foreign Bible Society, first as an agent in Italy, and later by giving editorial supervision to Scripture translations in many languages. He published several scholarly works on the Ila language, most notably his Handbook of the Ila Language (1907), which for 50 years was considered the standard, and The Ila-speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia (1920). He also played a principal role in the translation of the New Testament.

Smith was an outstanding anthropologist, and his publications and lectures led to his becoming president of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1934 and to serving from 1940 to 1948 as editor of Africa, the journal of the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures (now the International African Institute). Indigenous African religious beliefs were little understood until Smith demonstrated through The Secret of the African (1929) and African Belief and Christian Faith (1936) that the whole life of the African people was permeated by religion. The Golden Stool (1927), a plea for sympathetic understanding of Africans by administrative authorities, and Aggrey of Africa (1929), which attempted to interpret whites and blacks to each other, had a beneficial impact on race relations in Africa. Missionary biography and historical research was another of his areas of interest. The Mabilles of Basutoland (1939) contains much valuable information on the work of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society in Basutoland. After retirement in 1939, Smith was a visiting lecturer on African anthropology and history at the Kennedy School of Missions of Hartford Seminary. In 1942 he received an honorary D.D. from the University of Toronto.

Philip C. Stine, “Smith, Edwin Williams,” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 625-626.

This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

Smith’s mission thought: social anthropology for mission

Our ideal is not a Christian world made of a uniform pattern throughout, but one that preserves within its unity all the diversity that the Almighty has given to the individual peoples. In the essential things let there be agreement, but in the forms which embody them, let there be variety. Christianity is (so to speak) a pure spirit which can extract from its environment multiform bodies (Smith 1928: 259).

In the major mission fields of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries an effort was made to understand indigenous religious and cultural systems. The main avenue for such an understanding was their written texts. In India, for example, missiologists read the Vedas, Bhagavad Gita, and the Mahabharata. In Africa, however, where there were no written texts, missionaries were at a loss to understand the traditional beliefs of the people. How does a missionary understand the religion and culture of a people without written texts? Early missionary anthropologists answered this question with the tools necessary to read culture and religion embodied in the lives of people. Edwin W. Smith was a pioneer who appropriated social anthropology for missional purposes.

Making a clean break from his predecessors, who argued for civilization and the introduction of the English language in missionary endeavors, Smith strenuously argued for the vernacularization of Christianity. That is to say, he advocated the translation of the Christian faith and the text of the Bible into indigenous forms. Smith hoped for churches that were “. . . united with the disciples of Christ throughout the world, but self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagating, and truly African” (Smith 1928: 168). He envisioned this happening in the following manner:

It is necessary to urge that our religion be presented to the Africans, not in antagonism to, but as a fulfillment of their aspirations. In actual practice this means, among other things, cultivation of their languages, conservation and sublimation of all that is of value in their customs and institutions, frank recognition of the measure of truth contained in their religion. It implies, not a paganization of Christianity for the purpose of making it easier to the Africans, but the Christianization of everything that is valuable in the African’s past experience and registered in his customs (Smith 1928: 260).

This quotation highlights another aspect of Smith’s missiological anthropology: Christianity as the fulfillment of traditional religions. If Christianity was the fulfillment of African aspirations, then there was some measure of truth to be found in African religions. Smith, therefore, argued for a positive view of African religion(s) and culture(s). Without anthropology, there was no means for developing such a view (class notes).

Smith was instrumental in the conference “The Christian Mission in Africa” held in Le Zoute, Belgium (1926), which he chaired. His written report advanced the idea that religion is not limited to a textual representation; it may also be preserved and developed in culture and human beings. This conference was the first major consultation on mission in Africa and Smith used it as an opportunity to engender a positive view of African religion in the missionary community.

In addition to his anthropological contribution, he emphasized education. The Phelps-Stokes Commission studied the issue of what kind of education is best for the interests of Africa. Smith proposed that education must be contextual, integrated (black and white), and equal. He also focused on the notion of :trusteeism,” a proposition that the colonial powers were trustees of their people; and missionaries shared in this role by developing the moral and religious realms of life (class notes).

by Roman Williams

Bibliography

Primary

Smith, Edwin W. Handbook of the Ila Language. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1907.

_____. The Ila-speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia. London: Macmillan, 1920.

_____. Robert Moffat, One of God’s Gardeners. London: Student Christian Movement, 1925.

_____. The Christian Mission in Africa: A Study Based on the Work of the International Conference at le Zoute, Belgium, September 14th to 2lst, 1926. New York, U.S.A.: London International Missionary Council, 1926.

_____. The Golden Stool: Some Aspects of the Conflict of Cultures in Modern Africa. London: Edinburgh House Press. London: Holborn Pub. House, 1926.

_____. Aggrey of Africa. New York: Richard R. Smith, Inc., 1929.

_____. The Secret of the African. London: Student Christian Movement, 1929.

_____. African Belief and Christian Faith. London: United Society for Christian Literature, 1936.

_____. The Mabilles of Basutoland. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1939.

_____. The Life and Times of Daniel Lindley. New York: Library Publishers, 1947.

_____(ed.). African Ideas of God: A Symposium. London: Edinburgh House Press, 1950.

_____. Great Lion of Bechuanaland. London: Published for the London Missionary Society by Independent Press, 1957.

Secondary

Doke, C.M. “Obituary, Edwin Williams Smith,” African Studies 7 (1958): 53-61.

Meier, Wilma, ed. Bibliographie afrikanischer Sprachen. Wiesbaden: Harressowitz, 1984. [contains a language-related bibliography.]

Young, W. John. “The Legacy of Edwin W. Smith.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 25, no. 3 (2001): 126-130.

Links

“MUNDUS, Gateway to missionary collections in the United Kingdom” contains a biographical sketch of Edwin W. Smith and describes related materials about him held at the School of Oriental and African Studies Library, University of London.

London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) homepage.

An essay on the life and work of Edwin W. Smith by John Young.