Why they became Christians. A historical effort to find the voices of the people during the pioneer years of the CMS mission in southern Nigeria

This work is a curious study on the lived experiences of the southern people of Nigeria who first encountered the Church Missionary Society (CMS). Specifically, it focuses on those natives who eventually accepted the Christian faith. The interest is to discover the factors that led these natives to dare the authority of the local culture by converting to Christianity in a clime when traditional religion reigned supreme. Unlike most missionary studies that primarily focus on the missionaries, the attention of this work is on the people or the recipients of missionary endeavors. Was their conversion by coercion and manipulation or was it voluntary, prompted by personal decisions? This work is very useful for people with a curious historical interest. It is also interdisciplinary, cutting across major academic fields like History, Missiology and Ecumenical Studies.