Reluctant Messenger of Science and Religion Science and the World's Religions Are Pieces to ... Book

This is an innovative work of post-colonial postmodern theory. It is charged with plenty of examples and a plethora of information and sources, but does tend to get repetitive. For the weary grad student looking to get the gist of this work for a seminar, read the introductory pages, first and last chapters.

Chidester’s historiography is lackluster when it comes to dealing with the impact of racism and colonial law as it pertains the manner in which indigenous Africans were being treated; its all religion all the way down on this one! He also neglects academic sources’ impact on creating knowledge of religions from the 17th-19th centuries, but instead focuses on missionaries (who wrote to evangelize and so tore down indigenous religions), colonial government officials (writing to dominate), and travelers (writing to shock and sell rather than relate accurate information). One can’t escape their impact on the formulation of public opinion, however, so like a true Foucaultian, he makes a huge deal about them. I tend to agree that their writings were constructive of a narrative up to a point while scholars like Ivan Strenski severely criticized Chidester for this methodology.

The best point Chidester makes is the notion that none of these sources were gathering information on religion accurately at all—a serious detriment to the formation of later anthropological theories on human cognition, ritual, and religion—and that intercultural exchange was actually producing new religious landscapes! Assuredly, the interaction between colonists and Africans created new paradigms of both African religions and Christianity at the time, and this negotiation of religion was evaluated and called “African religion.” Unfortunately, Chidester does not give us any information on the reality of African religions to see what colonialists were getting wrong at the time, and one is left to wonder if any of the writings of the time can be used as accurate source material. Of course, this is always the loaded supposition of postmodern theory.