African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the 20th Century

African Reformation provides an important overview of African-initiated churches (AICs) throughout sub-Saharan Africa. It examines the emergence and growth of churches resulting from the interaction between Christianity and African pre-Christian religions. Concise histories, teachings, beliefs, and practices of representative churches in different African countries are also examined. Beginning from the earliest "Ethiopian" and "African" churches that emerged at the end of the nineteenth century and ending at the "new Pentecostal" or "Charismatic" churches of the twentieth century, this book's analysis is primarily historical in its approach. Some of the movements discussed in this book include the birth of the modern AIC movement in the Kongo Kingdom under the prophetess Kimpa Vita, the fascinating story of the Liberian prophet William Wade Harris, the rise of the spiritual churches in Ghana and Aladura churches in Nigeria, and the parallel movements that occured in Southern, Central, and Eastern Africa. Zionists, Apostolics, and the Zulu movement of Isaiah Shembe in South Africa are also discussed. The story of Simon Kimbangu and Kimbaguism in the Congo, the tragic episode of Alice Lenshina and the Lumpa movement in Zambia, and the struggle of the first AICs in Kenya and Uganda are some of the other stories told here. Finally, the significance of the AICs for the mission and theology of African Christianity is considered, and its contribution, as Anderson eventually suggests, is so far reaching that this "African Reformation" is at least of the magnitude of the Protestant Reformation in Europe.