The explorer W. Winwood Reade charged that the average missionary was so badly educated as to not know more than an eight year old child (Reade, 439). He mocked Mr. Rooke, a missionary he encountered in the Gambia, who refused hot meat on Sunday but committed gluttony with biscuits and cheese. His ungrammatical utterances, "ungentlemanly" sermons, and lack of knowledge about Islam caused Reade no end of disgust. On one occasion, he asked Rooke what he thought of Calvin. Rooke replied that he had met Mr. Calvin in London and "liked him very well" (Reade, 331). Considering the fact that Calvin espoused one of the most cherished theologies of Victorian Christianity - that of the elect - Rooke's ignorance placed him in a religious category too comparable to African savagery to earn Reade's respect. "No man can gain influence over negroes unless he can gain their respect," he stated, "and they are quite shrewd enough to detect such palpable ignorance"(Reade, 439).
The hierarchical notion of Christianity relegated certain denominations or movements as only a little higher than African "superstition." The hierarchy was one more way to stress that Africans were at the bottom of the pyramid; but missionaries, who tended to be "fanatical," were certainly not close to the top.
However, missionaries saw their brand of Christianity in a better light than their critics. They, too, compared it with African superstition and declared it to be intellectually superior. In his work Researches in South Africa, published in 1828, the Reverend John Philip, director of the London Missionary Society in South Africa, included a defense of Christianity over African beliefs. He attributed all African superstitious beliefs to "ignorance." When causes were unknown, he argued, people substituted a religious belief or practice to explain it. This caused superstition. However, superstition had the potential to grow into or progress into religion (Chidester, 89-90).
