Christianity and colonialism

Christianity and colonialism are associated with each other by some ideas, because of the service of Christianity, in its various denominations (namely Protestantism, Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy), as the state religion of the historical European colonial powers in which Christians likewise made up the majority. Through a variety of methods, Christian missionaries acted as the "religious arms" of the imperialist powers of Europe. According to Edward E. Andrews, Associate Professor of Providence College Christian missionaries were initially portrayed as "visible saints, exemplars of ideal piety in a sea of persistent savagery". However, by the time the colonial era drew to a close in the later half of the 20th century, missionaries were critically viewed as "ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them", colonialism's "agent, scribe and moral alibi". Meanwhile, "differing South Asian groups who enthusiastically embraced Christianity have been mocked as dupes of Western imperialists" and criticized as being "separatist minded by their initial communities."

In some regions, segments of a colony's population were forcibly converted from earlier belief systems to the Christian faith, which colonial regimes used to legitimize the suppression of adherents of other faiths, enslavement of colonial subjects, and exploitation of land and maritime resources. Christians and Christian institutions around the world, however, also participated in anti-colonial and decolonization movements and were themselves transformed in the process.