Christianity Theme Analysis

In A Grain of Wheat, Christianity occupies a complicated position. Both the imperial British and the freedom-fighting Gikuyu utilize various aspects of the religion, and for Kenyans it seems alternately a source of hope and a symbol of the whiteman’s invasion. Throughout the narrative, Ngũgĩ’s depiction of Christianity suggests that it plays a complex role in Gikuyu culture, acting sometimes as a tool of Western colonialism or, when integrated with traditional beliefs, a profound source of meaning and revolutionary spirit.

Christianity initially enters into Kenya as a tool of colonialism, encouraging its adherents to adopt Western values and reject their traditional beliefs. The narrator recalls that the first white people to enter Kenya are Christian missionaries who, by their humility and gentleness, win the trust of several Kenyan tribes. However, when the missionaries suggest that Kenya should submit itself to live under the “shadow of [British] authority and benevolence,” their listeners only laugh at the idea, suggesting that the Kenyans do not perceive the threat hidden within the seemingly gentle Christian message. As Christianity’s influence slowly grows, however, Kenyan converts begin rejecting their ancestral beliefs, “[treading] on sacred places to show that no harm could reach those protected by the hand of the Lord.” Their blasphemy demonstrates that they begin to favor the doctrinal beliefs of the Christian missionaries over the beliefs of their Kenyan ancestors. As the authority of the missionaries grows, “people saw the whiteman had imperceptibly acquired more land to meet the growing needs of his position,” and before the local leaders can protest, other whitemen have arrived, carrying “not the Bible, but the sword.” Thus Christianity is revealed not to be a tool for salvation, but for invasion and colonization.

However, when Christianity is integrated with traditional beliefs and not allowed to supersede them, the stories of the Bible have the potential to become powerful vessels of meaning and fuel anti-colonialist sentiments. In contrast with those Kenyans who reject their sacred spaces, many Gikuyu place the stories of the Bible alongside their traditional beliefs and practices such as animal sacrifice, polygamy, and circumcision of both men and women, which the missionaries try to keep them from. Rev. Jackson, a Kenyan minister, argues that “Ngai, the Gikuyu God, is the same One God who sent Christ.” The wisdom that Rev. Jackson derives from the Bible, while still maintaining Gikuyu ancestral beliefs, makes him a sought-after council by Gikuyu village elders, demonstrating the way in which Christianity may compliment cultural values, rather than override them. (However, when Rev. Jackson eventually adopts a strictly orthodox version of Christianity and rejects his traditional beliefs, the Mau Mau execute him as a traitor to their country.) As a boy, Kihika buys a Bible and becomes obsessed with the biblical story of Moses and the Exodus, seeing it as a natural parallel to Kenya’s oppression at the hands of the British and fueling his conviction to rid Kenya of its colonizers. In the same way, though Kihika does not seem interested in the idea of salvation, he does see in Christ’s life the need for a movement to have a leading, self-sacrificing figure. The entire village of Thabai adopts this biblically informed narrative, explicitly naming Kihika as their Christ-figure in the struggle for freedom. When allied with with traditional, ancestral beliefs, Christianity becomes a vessel of meaning for the revolutionary spirit of the Gikuyu people and the Mau Mau fighters, lending its stories to help them understand their own plight. The fact that Christianity can be either a tool of oppression or a fuel for liberation suggests that it is dynamic, capable of being utilized for many different, even opposing purposes.

Through the difference in religious practice and conduct, the narrative suggests that the Kenyans are, in many ways, more Christian than the British missionaries. Although the British introduce Christianity to Kenya, the narrative and the characters often show that even the missionaries do not seem faithful to its tenets. Kihika recounts in a revolutionary speech, “[The missionary] went on reading the word, beseeching us to lay our treasures in heaven where no moth would corrupt them. But he laid his on earth, our earth.” A Grain of Wheat suggests that for the whiteman, the self-sacrifice of Christianity seems only to apply to others, as a tool to claim more for themselves. The British characters in the story, though more traditionally Christian, rarely speak of the Bible, while the Kenyans robe themselves in it, finding their call to freedom not only in the Book of Exodus but in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation’s depiction of a “new earth” as well. This, along with the brutal, decidedly un-Christian conduct of the British colonizers, suggests that the Kenyans, though they have synthesized their beliefs together, are more faithful to the spirit of Christianity than the orthodox missionaries who brought the message in the first place.

Although Ngũgĩ would eventually go on to reject all Christian teaching as undue Western influence, his depiction of Christianity in A Grain of Wheat depicts it as complex, dynamic influence, fueling both the rejection of traditional beliefs in favor of Western ideals as well as the fight to preserve traditional Gikuyu beliefs and throw off British oppression.