"Den andra omvändelsen" : Från svensk mission till afrikanska samfund på Örebromissionens arbetsfält i Centralafrika 1914-1962

Sammanfattning: The Örebro Mission was founded by John Ongman in 1891. Missionary work in Central Africa began through Ongman’s local church in 1914, at first within other mission societies, but was later continued by the Örebro Mission. From 1921 the Örebro Mission developed its own work in Middle Congo and Oubangui-Chari within French Equatorial Africa.The aim of this thesis is to study how the process of change took place, starting with pioneering work undertaken by Swedish missionaries and resulting in the founding of independent Baptist churches. The analysis is based on the classic three-self policy, aiming at self-governing, self-supporting and self-extending indigenous churches. Using the principal-agent perspective in history writing, the role and significance of a number of key persons are focused. The interaction between the internal process and the cultural, political and ecumenical contexts is taken into consideration.The thesis shows that the three-self formula was used from the beginning as a theoretical goal, but also that its realization was seen in a very long time perspective. Several steps were gradually taken in that direction, but the study shows that contextual factors became as important incitements for the change as the missionaries’ own theologically based motives. It rather took “a second conversion” from a colonial mental framework to speed up the process in its final phase towards the creation of African denominations and the integration into them in 1962 of the Swedish mission structure and work.