Competition and Conflict between the Africa Inland Mission and Church Missionary Society in Nandi (1939-1990).

Abstract

This study focuses at the conflict and competition between the African Inland Mission (AIM) and Church Missionary Society (CMS) in Nandi (1939-1990). The research attempts to examine the nature, effects, conflicts and competitions of AIM and CMS and impact their relationship on the Nandi community. The study analyzes how conflict and competition developed from 1939 as soon as the CMS came to Nandi, because the AIM believed that Nandi was its sphere of influence after the Kikuyu Conference of 1913, zoned the country into regions with the aim of eliminating conflicts and scrambles over converts in the interior of Kenya. The arrival of the CMS from Maseno in 1939 therefore was the beginning of rivalry between the two major denominations in Nandi. This study recounts the various forms of rivalries and how they gradually increased such that by the 1980’s the rivalry had considerably intensified. Several factors catalyzed the rivalry these were: political, cultural, colonial and religious. These conflicts have featured through several faces for example land, sponsorships of schools and hospitals and even through social and political fields. This thesis attempts to recommend possible ways of mitigating the conflict that has been in existence for 70 year