Let me be as clear as I can, right from the jump: Christianity did not arrive in Africa via white Protestant or Catholic missionaries. It didn’t arrive shackled to the sails of slave ships. It wasn’t handed down from the papacy or piped in through colonial conquest, as though Africans were somehow sitting around, spiritually starving, waiting for the white man to show up with the gospel and a mirror.

Christianity was in Africa before it ever reached European soil. Full stop.

Let’s start with some actual history, because God knows we need more of that and fewer whitewashed Sunday School myths. By the fourth century CE, Christianity was already thriving in parts of North and East Africa. The ancient Kingdom of Aksum (modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea) embraced Christianity as a state religion before Rome ever did. The Bible was being translated into Ge’ez—an ancient Semitic language still used in the liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church—long before the Germanic tribes north of the Alps even knew how to spell “Jesus.”

The Garima Gospels, believed to be the earliest surviving Christian manuscripts in Africa, were produced around the same time the Council of Nicaea was convening. These aren’t fragments or speculative reconstructions either, they’re beautifully preserved, elaborately illustrated texts that predate anything in Europe. And while it took until the 8th century for the full translation of both Testaments to be completed by the monk Abba Pantaleon, the Ethiopian Church wasn’t sitting around waiting for Rome’s blessing. They were doing theology. They were copying and preserving scripture. They were worshiping Christ long before Europeans showed up with their cannons and crosses.

In fact, the Ethiopian canon is considered the oldest and most complete Bible in existence. Depending on how it’s counted, it includes between 81 and 88 books, which is far more than the 66 books found in your standard King James Version. Included are texts like 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and other writings that western Christianity would eventually toss out like last week’s spice-less leftovers. But these weren’t just theological oddities. They were sacred. They were authoritative. They were African.

So when folks say things like “Christianity was brought to Africa by missionaries,” what they’re really saying is: white Christianity. The sanitized, state-approved, empire-aligned, colonizer-friendly version. The one that came bundled with forced conversions, economic exploitation, and “benevolent” racism. The one that says, “Sure, your soul matters… but only after you’ve been baptized, renamed, stripped of your culture, and taught to obey your master.”

Let’s not kid ourselves: when Europeans brought Christianity to the Americas and reintroduced it to Africa, they weren’t bringing Jesus. They were bringing Jesus™, the brand. They came not to witness but to dominate. And while I have no doubt that many sincerely believed they were “saving souls” from heathen damnation—bless their colonizing little hearts—the road to hell is often paved with good intentions. Especially when those good intentions come wrapped in Manifest Destiny and white saviorism.

It was once a requirement for enslaved Africans to be baptized before being sold. Let that sit with you for a moment. People were forced to accept a religion—sometimes in a language they didn’t understand—as a precondition for being trafficked like livestock. Jesus said, “Go and make disciples,” not “Convert them before the auction block.” Does that sound like something the Prince of Peace would condone? Or does it sound more like a grotesque marriage between empire and religion?

Now, I’m not saying that everyone who ever went on a missionary trip was some nefarious villain. I’m sure many were (and are) genuinely loving, generous people who believed they were doing God’s work. But intention is not the same as impact. And when your “mission” involves erasing cultures, imposing western norms, or perpetuating systems of white dominance under the guise of spreading the gospel, then I’m sorry, but that’s not Christ. That’s colonialism. That’s spiritual imperialism. And it’s not just in the past.

Even today, the language of missions often reeks of that same old superiority complex. We talk about “taking Jesus to the nations” as though Christ hasn’t already been there for two thousand years. We see non-Western Christians as theological toddlers in need of American babysitters. And we treat our own culture as if it were the gold standard for orthodoxy. All wrapped in an American flag and, just for good measure, a Christian one too.

That’s not evangelism. That’s narcissism.

So maybe instead of asking, “Where can we send more missionaries?”, we should ask, “What can we learn from those who’ve been following Jesus longer than we have?” Maybe we need fewer “missions trips” and more sit-the-fuck-down-and-shut-the-fuck-up trips. Maybe we need to sit at the feet of African theologians who preserved Christianity in their languages, on their soil, in the face of Roman persecution and European erasure. Maybe the call of Christ isn’t to go colonize the world in His name, but to confront the colonizer within us.

Because the gospel wasn’t born in the halls of European cathedrals. It was whispered in deserts, shouted from mountaintops, and translated by African monks before Europe even knew it was holy.

So the next time someone tells you they want to “bring Jesus to Africa,” remind them that Africa never lost him. It was the West that misplaced him—somewhere between power and profit. And maybe, just maybe, it’s time we find him again.