FROM CHINAMWALI TO CHILANGIZO:

tongues. Hilary Mijoga (1998:31) noted that vernacular translations of the Bible in
Malawi 'accelerated the spread of the Gospel.' The Scriptures had been translated into
Chinyanja (now Chichewa) which was the common language (although in differing
dialects) ofabout two-thirds ofthe population. As Lamin Sanneh has shown in his work
(1989: 170), Scripture translation played a central role in showing the significance of lo­
cal religions as providing the language for Christian apprehension.
The local assimilation of the Gospel message shifted Christianity from any Western
possessiveness and accorded the translatability principle as the 'only true basis and
starting point for seeking indigeneity,' for not only is African Christianity 'overwhelm­
ingly vernacular, but also that it is through the vernacular that the living forces of the
primal imagination are perpetuated and carried forward into Christian usage' (Bediako
1995:123, 175). Kenneth Ross (1996:109) also shows that translation 'acted as a power­
ful affmnation ofthe integrity ofpre-Christian African religion' as seen in the use ofthe
traditional African names for God - Chiuta, Mulungu, Leza.
In summary therefore, the religiosity of the African people in Malawi, coming from a
primal religious framework, coupled with the translation ofthe Scriptures into the local
languages, produced vigorous independence and originality which characterized the
indigenous people's response to the Christian message. The indigenous people then
became the agents with responsibility to pass on to others their newly found faith.
The concerns of the culturally biased Western missionaries who met at the 1910 Edin­
burgh conference of whether the animist could be converted were therefore unwar­
ranted. Thus in 1926, in Le Zoute Belgium, the missionary movement was forced to
change its attitude and affirmed that 'Africans have been prepared by previous religious
experience for the reception ofthe Gospel and that their experience contains elements of
high religious value' as noted by Bediako (1995:201).
The Southern Baptists' missionary zeal therefore found the 1960's Nyasaland a fertile
soil where the Gospel was already growing. It cannot be denied that Malawians
responded to the Christian message as they heard it 'in their own language.' However,
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