In this post, University of KwaZulu-Natal scholar Christopher Merrett continues his reflections on controversial yet remarkable historical figures in South Africa, focusing also on their significance today. This post expounds upon the untold life of John William Colenso, a colonial activist, bishop, theologian, mathematician, imperialist and humanitarian whose candle still burns posthumously in protest against contemporary religious and political discord. In his previous piece, “What can Richard Turner, Philosopher of Hope, Tell Us About History and Humanitarianism Today?,” Merrett discussed Turner’s political ideas about “educating” the masses against an autocratic and repressive colonial regime, ideas that invited a premature death and risked perpetual obscurity. The CIHA Blog presents these posts as part of its continuous engagement with tensions in the imperialist ideologies that undergird religious humanitarianism and the ongoing problem of skewed approaches to humanitarian discourses in Africa.
by Christopher Merrett
A very remarkable people, the Zulu. They defeat our generals and convert our bishops.
This memorable quotation has been attributed to nineteenth-century British prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, although it has no known source, and the bishop was John William Colenso (1814‒1883), the first Anglican bishop of Natal who lived and worked at Ekukhanyeni, Bishopstowe, just outside Pietermaritzburg, for over thirty years. Like all historical figures, we must consider him in the context of his time, but in terms of the long march of history we can legitimately extrapolate his conduct and beliefs and question their meaning for us today.Colenso was a patriarch, a paternalist and a staunch imperialist; a thoroughly politically incorrect person in contemporary terms. He did not believe in equality, but he did value and practise respect. This meant that in Victorian, colonial Natal he was an Establishment figure increasingly at odds with his own Establishment. Like many highly intelligent people he reached conclusions quickly, so was regarded by others as overbearing. Disinclined to find fault with the system of imperialism, he nevertheless recognised its shortcomings, which he blamed on the failures of individuals. Unusually for his times, he distinguished between ends and means, and subjected the colonial regime in Natal to withering scrutiny.
Colenso, a mathematician from a conventional religious background, experienced early personal difficulties. And he was fated to live at a time when the nature of faith was being challenged by scientific discovery, especially geological, and the second Industrial Revolution. Influenced by his wife, Sarah Frances, he was exposed to the religious thought of S.T. Coleridge and F.D. Maurice, which argued that faith is intuitive, a matter of personal conviction, not obedience to imposed dogma; and that godliness and worthiness are present somewhere in all humans. It was an antidote to the pessimistic, non-inclusive Victorian view of humankind that ultimately contributed to segregation and apartheid. The need for inclusivity and universalism became particularly evident to Colenso when he needed to transcend ethnic and cultural boundaries. Famously, he was challenged by William Ngidi at Ekukhanyeni about literal interpretations of the Old Testament.
In many senses he was a thoroughly modern theologian. His writings were based on a number of premises: first that new truths, part of history as process, can be faced without loss of faith; second, God as a loving presence; and third, the fact that Christians are not a chosen few. It was an approach predisposed to Christian social activism; although this may not be the way to view Colenso: he was, instead, a conservative patrician with a well-developed conscience. The trial that led to his excommunication was a ‘ridiculous exhibition of religious prejudice … [without] legal standing’ according to his biographer Jeff Guy, a foretaste of political trials to come in South Africa. His broader religious mission was at an end and he was banished from the established church world.
He turned to political matters and in the case of the trial of Hlubi chief Langalibalele Hadebe he documented a trail of irregularities and a swathe of injustice that led to London’s censure of the colonial government and recall of the Lieutenant-Governor. At the time of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 and its tragic aftermath, the civil war in Zululand of the early 1880s, Bishopstowe was a nerve centre for information and analysis connected to Cetshwayo and the Usuthu that put Colenso further at odds with the local hierarchy and colonial society, but countered colonial government propaganda and prevented multiple cover-ups.
In a sense Colenso was a failure: he won many battles, moral and political, but in his lifetime none of the broader struggles. John Khumalo, educated at Ekukhanyeni, called him a ‘beacon of light’ and we may see him as a voice crying in the wilderness. His confrontation with the crudities of colonial Natal was made in the name of truth, justice and humanity. That has enormous meaning for us today in post-apartheid South Africa. Speaking truth to power is something of a modern cliché, but it was clearly true of Colenso. Today, along with our current archbishop, we can imagine him fighting in the constitutional corner for the rule of law. J.W. Colenso’s descendent, Gwilym Colenso, described the bishop as ‘a voice questioning the legitimacy of an absolute authority that recognized no other viewpoint than its own.’ And his conflict with dogmatic religion prefigured the broad Anglican Church of today in which faith is consonant with lived experience and the imperatives of a just society. But the causes he chose to fight made him into an outsider and a victim, a social and political outcast in spite of his eminence. He and his wife and family paid an astonishingly high price for their beliefs and actions.
Thirteen years ago I wrote an opinion piece for The Witness in which I argued that Colenso could be considered Pietermaritzburg’s first human rights activist. Although this was challenged, I believe it to be a valid point of view as long as we regard him as a man of his time; not of ours, but with much to commend to us, a patron if you like of modern activist organisations. In his era he could be considered a missionary to his own people who epitomised individual courage and commitment, but was let down in his struggles with church and State by those who should have known better and supported him. All the more surprising is the fact that his memory is sustained in this city by the name of just one suburb.
Colenso leaves us with an eternal question: why is it that a just cause is not always, and perhaps only rarely, a winning one? Perhaps it leads us back to the reflections in March about Richard Turner and his philosophical questioning of the nature of power: where is it located, who wields it and how, and to what end, purpose and effect?