A certain Lothrop Stoddard prophesied as follows (the year was 1920):

Certainly, all white men, whether professing christians or not, should welcome the success of missionary efforts in Africa. The degrading fetishism and demonology which sum up the native pagan cults cannot stand, and all Negroes will some day be either christians or moslems….

Mongo Beti is perhaps the most assiduous writer to have taken up the challenge of Mr Stoddard dealing expertly and authentically with the claims of Christianity as a filler of spiritual holes. His weapon is a deceptive generosity which disguises, until the last moment, a destructive logic, incontestible in its consistent exposition of cause and effect. His priests are never complete villains but are revealed to be complete fools. Even where he has presented the representative of the Christian Church as a figure of inner doubts on the way to eventual enlightenment, it is only...