Late in 1913 a barefoot figure carrying cross, calabash, and Bible crossed the frontier from Liberia to the Ivory Coast and began the most effective evangelistic crusade in modern African history. His name was William Wade Harris, a native Liberian. Tens of thousands followed Harris, establishing churches in regions that had never seen a missionary. Harris himself was arrested by French colonial officials, treated roughly, and expelled from the colony in 1915. But his followers persisted, forming congregations that were "discovered" when the missionaries arrived years later.

The Christian world in the twentieth century shifted its center south of the equator. This historic transference was largely carried out by African, and Latin American, Christians like Harris.

For some, the issues have been more social and political. John Chilembwe, a Baptist convert, established a self-run mission near his home in modern Malawi in 1910. When in 1914 the colonial state began to press-gang Africans into ...

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