This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Adrian Hastings" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(April 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Adrian Hastings (23 June 1929 – 30 May 2001) was aRoman Catholic priest, historian and author. He wrote a book about theWiriyamu Massacre during theMozambican War of Independence and became an influential scholar of Christian history in Africa.

His 1997 bookThe Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism posits that the concept of nationhood has historical roots that extend back to the medieval period, rather than being a solely modern phenomenon. He challenges the prevailing view that nations andnationalism emerged primarily in the 18th and 19th centuries. Hastings emphasizes the role of religion, particularly Christianity, in shaping national identities. He argues that the translation of theBible intovernacular languages played a crucial role in fostering a sense of national consciousness and community.

Hastings also explores the significant influence of theJewish people on the concept of nationhood. He suggests that the ancient Jewish nation, with its strong religious and ethnic identity, served as a model for later European nations. He argues that the Jewish experience, with its emphasis on a shared religion, common ancestry, and a historical narrative, provided a template that other groups adapted in forming their national identities.

Hastings, a grandson ofGeorge Woodyatt Hastings, was born inKuala Lumpur,Malaya, but his mother moved to England to bring up the children when he was little more than a baby. He was educated atDouai School (1943–46) andWorcester College, Oxford (1946–49). In his final year at Oxford, Hastings discerned a missionary vocation. He joined theWhite Fathers but later left the order to become asecular priest in the Diocese ofMasaka, Uganda.^{[citation needed]} His sister was the distinguished lecturer, translator, and writer Cecily Hastings, who worked for the publisherSheed & Ward.^[1]

Hastings studied theology at theCollegium Urbanum, the college of theCongregation of Propaganda in Rome. He was ordained in 1955 and awarded a doctorate in 1958. His lifelong association withThe Tablet dates from this period. In 1958 he also obtained a teaching degree fromChrist's College, Cambridge and in 1959 he took up his priestly functions in Uganda.^{[citation needed]}

In Uganda, Hastings served in pastoral and teaching functions and was charged with interpreting the documents of theSecond Vatican Council to priests in Africa. His notes on these documents were later published. He also agitated for a relaxation of the discipline ofclerical celibacy in the African context, attributing the low numbers of African clergy to the cultural alienness of this requirement.^{[citation needed]}

In 1966, after bouts ofmalaria, Hastings returned to England and became active in ecumenical dialogue through the preparatory commission of theAnglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. He was also commissioned by a number ofAnglican dioceses in Africa to prepare a report on Christian and customary marriage. From 1972 to 1976 Hastings was on the staff of an ecumenical missionary school, the College of the Ascension inSelly Oak, Birmingham. In 1973 Hastings brought the massacres carried out by the Portuguese army during theMozambican War of Independence to world attention, first inThe Times and later at the United Nations. He created a controversy in 1973 with an article inThe Times about the "Wiriyamu Massacre", in the Portuguese-ruled overseas territory ofMozambique, revealing that the Portuguese army had massacred some 400 villagers at the village of Wiriyamu, nearTete, in December 1972. His report was printed a week before the Portuguese prime minister,Marcelo Caetano, was due to visit Britain to celebrate the 600th anniversary of theAnglo-Portuguese alliance.^{[citation needed]}

The Portuguese army at the time denied the massacre in an official investigation but the Portuguese government commissioned another investigation, by Jorge Jardim, who located the former village, photographed the remains and delivered a full report to the Portuguese government proving the existence of the massacre and advising that it be acknowledged and explained. Marcelo Caetano and his ministers discussed the report on 18 August 1973 and instead decided to appoint another military investigation which once again alleged that Wiriyamu did not exist.^[2]

Portugal's growing isolation following Hastings' claims has often been cited as a factor that helped to bring about theCarnation Revolution coup which deposed Marcelo Caetano, the leader of theEstado Novo regime that ruled thePortuguese Empire, in 1974.^[3]

In 1976 Hastings was appointed to a lectureship in the theology faculty of theUniversity of Aberdeen. He was an authority on nations and nationalism.^[4] In his 1997 book,The Construction of Nationhood, he traced the origins of European nations back to the Middle Ages, arguing for the centrality of Christianity to European national identities. According to Hastings, the biblical idea of the ancient Israelite polity, with its fusion of land, people and religious polity... was almost monolithically national" and spread through Europe.^[4]

From 1982–85, he was Professor of Religious Studies at theUniversity of Zimbabwe. From 1985 to his retirement in 1996 he was Professor of Theology at theUniversity of Leeds and he was involved in theLeeds University Centre for African Studies. From 1985 to 2000 he edited theJournal of Religion in Africa. Later in life Hastings was active in raising awareness of the atrocities accompanying thebreak-up of Yugoslavia and the reassertion of Serbian control overKosovo. He was a founding member of the Alliance to Defend Bosnia-Herzegovina.^[5]

In 1978, Hastings came to the decision that as a Catholic priest he was free to marry.^{[clarification needed]} In 1979, he married Ann Spence without seeking ecclesiastical permission or resigning from the priesthood. This was a clear breach ofcanon law and he was automaticallyexcommunicated by reason of Canon 2388 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law (in force at that time), although, largely because since leaving Uganda he had not been subject to the oversight of any particular bishop, no official recognition was given of that fact. Notwithstanding this, on occasion he exercised his priestly ministry after his marriage.^{[citation needed]}

Hastings died inLeeds on 30 May 2001, aged 71, and was interred in St Mary's Roman Catholic Church,East Hendred, Oxfordshire. The Adrian Hastings Africa Scholarship Fund was founded in 2001 at the University of Leeds in his honour.

Hastings wrote more than forty books, including:

• Church and Mission in Modern Africa. London: Burns & Oates, 1967.
• A Concise Guide to the Documents of the Second Vatican Council. 2 vols. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1968–69.
• Wiriyamu. London: Search Press, 1974.ISBN 0-85532-338-8
• In Filial Disobedience. Great Wakering: Mayhew-McCrimmon, 1978.ISBN 0-85597-249-1
• A History of African Christianity, 1950–1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.ISBN 0-521-22212-5,ISBN 0-521-29397-9
• A History of English Christianity 1920–1985. London: Collins, 1986.ISBN 0-00-215211-8,ISBN 0-00-627041-7
• The Church in Africa, 1450–1950. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.ISBN 0-19-826399-6
• The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.ISBN 0-521-59391-3

Wikiquote has quotations related toAdrian Hastings.

• Obituary inDouai Magazine 164 (2001)
• Obituary by Ingrid Lawrie in LeedsAfrican Studies Bulletin, 64 (2001), pp. 6–8.
• Ingrid Lawrie in the Oxford DNB (by subscription)
• The Adrian Hastings Africa Scholarship Fund
• The African Activist Archive Project website has a photograph ofReverend Adrian Hastings at the United Nations at a press briefing on 20 July 1973. Reverend Hastings testified before the UN Special Committee of 24 on decolonization about the massacre of civilians in Tete Province in Mozambique by the Portuguese army in what became known as the Wiriyamu Massacre and other atrocities committed by the Portuguese army.

• 1929 births
• 2001 deaths
• 20th-century English Roman Catholic priests
• Malaysian people of English descent
• Malaysian emigrants to the United Kingdom
• British expatriates in Zimbabwe
• People educated at Douai School
• Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford
• Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge
• White Fathers priests
• Academics of the University of Aberdeen
• Academic staff of the University of Zimbabwe
• Academics of the University of Leeds
• Historians of Africa
• British historians of religion
• Religion academics
• Scholars of nationalism
• 20th-century English historians
• Christianity in Africa
• World Christianity scholars
• English Roman Catholic writers

• Articles needing additional references from April 2024
• All articles needing additional references
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• EngvarB from August 2014
• Use dmy dates from August 2014
• Articles with hCards
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from July 2013
• Wikipedia articles needing clarification from July 2013