Religious Movement

African Initiated Churches

Also Known As AICs · African Independent Churches · African Instituted Churches · African Initiated Church The bare form of the name. The atlas files this entry under a longer, shorter or differently punctuated form.

Origin from 1884

African Initiated Churches is the collective name for Christian churches founded in Africa by Africans, without the agency of a European or American mission. They range from Ethiopian churches that separated from mission bodies over the question of African leadership, through prophet-healing churches such as the Aladura of Nigeria and the Zion Christian Church of southern Africa, to the Kimbanguists of the Congo, who number in the millions. What these churches share is institutional independence rather than a common theology, and together they account for a very large share of African Christianity.

Facts

Disputed

Defining Doctrinal Position

No single position across the movement's member churches 2

African Initiated Churches is a collective name for a large and doctrinally heterogeneous category, Christian churches founded in Africa by Africans without a European or American mission's agency, ranging from Ethiopian churches that separated from mission bodies purely over the question of African leadership while keeping mission doctrine intact, through prophet-healing churches such as the Aladura of Nigeria and the Zion Christian Church of southern Africa that reworked doctrine substantially, to the Kimbanguists of the Congo, who number in the millions. Allan H. Anderson's African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth Century (2001) treats institutional independence, not shared theology, as what actually defines the category, which is why no single doctrinal position can be stated for it as a whole: the label groups these churches by how they were founded, not by what they teach.

Doctrinal Position Detail

Allan H. Anderson's African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth Century (Africa World Press, 2001) argues that African Initiated Churches, ranging from Ethiopian-type churches that separated from mission bodies over African leadership through prophet-healing churches such as the Aladura of Nigeria and the Zion Christian Church of southern Africa to the Congo's Kimbanguists, share no single doctrinal position because what unites the category is institutional independence rather than a common theology, so the doctrinal range runs as wide as the institutional history that produced it. 2

Baptism

Bengt G. M. Sundkler's Bantu Prophets in South Africa (Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, 1948), the founding academic study of the movement, distinguishes baptismal practice by branch: Ethiopian-type churches, which separated from mission bodies chiefly over African leadership rather than doctrine, kept the baptismal practice of the mission tradition they left, while the prophet-healing Zionist and Aladura churches developed their own emphasis on adult baptism by full immersion in running water, read as spiritually cleansing and healing. 4

The category covers churches founded independently across the African continent that agree on very little beyond that independence, so no single baptismal practice can be stated for African Initiated Churches as a whole. What Sundkler's study and the value above record is the range between the two largest branches, not a rule binding every church in the category.

Attributions

Church Family

A collective category, not a single communion: what these churches share is independence of foreign mission, not a common theology 1

Origins

Origin Period

from 1884 2

Origin Period

to 1921 3

Origin Period

An ongoing category rather than a closed founding window, running from the late nineteenth century Ethiopian-type secessions through the prophet-healing and Zionist churches of the early to mid twentieth century. 2

Place of Origin

Sub-Saharan Africa, independently across many countries rather than from one centre. 2

Founder

No single founder; each member church has its own, from Ethiopian-type secessions led by African clergy through the Aladura founders of Nigeria to Simon Kimbangu, whose movement in the Congo took his name. 2

History

Separation or Divergence

No single separation; each member church achieved institutional independence from European or American mission control on its own, from the Ethiopian-type secessions of the late nineteenth century onward. 2

Belief

Sacraments or Ordinances

No single position across the movement's member churches, which range from those close to mission-derived sacramental practice to prophet-healing churches centred on prayer, prophecy and healing rather than a fixed sacramental system. 2

Organisation

Governance

No central authority 2

Ordination

Varies between provinces or member bodies 2

Practice

Liturgical Language

The vernacular 2

Status

Status Today

Living tradition, practised today 2

Learn More

Three Streams, and Why the Typology Is Useful

Studies of these churches generally sort them into streams, and the sorting is worth knowing because the label covers bodies with very little in common beyond their independence.

The first stream is usually called Ethiopian, a name taken from the verse about Ethiopia stretching out her hands to God rather than from the country. These churches separated from mission bodies over control rather than over doctrine, keeping the liturgy, the confession and often the name of the parent church while insisting that Africans should lead it. The earliest date from the late nineteenth century in South Africa and West Africa.

The second stream is prophet-healing, and it is much the largest. These churches were founded by a person who received a call, and they centre on healing, prophecy, dreams and the direct action of the Spirit. The Aladura churches of Yorubaland, the Zionist and Apostolic churches of southern Africa, and the Kimbanguist church of the Congo all belong here, though they arose independently of one another.

A third stream is often distinguished for churches whose practice draws more heavily on ritual purity, uniform and hierarchy, and there is real argument about whether it is a separate type or a variant of the second. What the categories are for is comparison, not classification for its own sake, and every scheme in the literature has churches that sit awkwardly across two of its boxes.

Sources African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson with Bantu Prophets in South AfricaBengt G. M. Sundkler, Aladura: A Religious Movement Among the YorubaJ. D. Y. Peel, Kimbangu: An African Prophet and His ChurchMarie-Louise Martin

Healing, Prophecy, and an Argument About the Name

Healing is the engine. Across very different churches the pattern repeats: a person is ill or afflicted, the mission church offers medicine and a sermon, the indigenous specialist offers a remedy the convert has been told to abandon, and the prophet church offers prayer, water, a diagnosis in spiritual terms and a community that takes the affliction seriously. The Aladura churches went further than most and for a period rejected both hospital medicine and traditional remedy in favour of prayer alone. Historians of these movements have generally treated the healing offer, rather than doctrine, as the main reason for their growth.

Prophecy does the second half of the work. A founder who hears directly does not need the sanction of a mission board, and the churches that grew fastest were those that could name a living source of authority in the community itself.

The name is contested and the disagreement is substantive. Independent stresses separation from mission control. Indigenous stresses African origin. Initiated stresses that Africans began them rather than merely took them over. Instituted stresses that they are churches with structures and not movements. All four abbreviate to the same three letters, which is convenient and slightly misleading, and different writers use different words on purpose. The atlas uses initiated and records that the choice is not neutral.

Sources African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson with Aladura: A Religious Movement Among the YorubaJ. D. Y. Peel

Connections

Associated With

Protestantism

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Zulu

Zulu Christians produced some of the founding congregations of the African Initiated Churches movement, among them the Zionist and Ethiopian-type churches Bengt Sundkler's study documents in KwaZulu-Natal; the connection is cultural and historical rather than an affiliation of the Zulu people as a whole.

Source Bantu Prophets in South AfricaBengt G. M. Sundkler

Belongs to Tradition

Christianity

Composed Of

Aladura

The Aladura churches of Nigeria are prophet-healing churches of this kind.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Kimbanguist Church

The Kimbanguist Church of the Congo is among the largest of them.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Zion Christian Church

The Zion Christian Church of southern Africa is one of the largest.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Holds Element

Almsgiving / Charity

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Amazing Grace

Inherited from the missions and still sung, alongside hymnody the churches composed for themselves.

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Baptismal life

Source Zion and Pentecost: The Spirituality and Experience of Pentecostal and Zionist/Apostolic Churches in South AfricaAllan H. Anderson

Bishop

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Charity

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Christmas

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Church Bell

Rung in many of these churches, carried over from the mission stations they separated from.

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Congregation

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Cross

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Denomination

What these churches share is institutional independence rather than a common theology, and each is a church in its own right rather than a branch of a mission body.

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Easter

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Evangelist

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Faith

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Fasting

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Foot washing

Kept in some of these churches, commonly alongside communion, rather than being a mark of the whole group.

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Good Friday

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Gospel Book

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Gospel Music

Sung worship in these churches draws on local musical traditions as readily as on the imported repertoire, and gospel music is one strand among several.

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Holy Water

Blessed water is a working instrument of healing in the prophet healing churches, prescribed by a prophet for a named affliction rather than used for a blessing at the door.

Source Zion and Pentecost: The Spirituality and Experience of Pentecostal and Zionist/Apostolic Churches in South AfricaAllan H. Anderson

Hope

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Laity

Prophecy, healing and leadership in these churches are exercised by members of the congregation, and the prophet's authority rests on gift and calling rather than on a seminary.

Source Bantu Prophets in South AfricaBengt G. M. Sundkler

Marriage Ceremony

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Minister

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Ministry

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Mokhukhu

The mokhukhu is the drumming, stamping dance of the Zion Christian Church's men, performed in worship and not as display.

Source Zion and Pentecost: The Spirituality and Experience of Pentecostal and Zionist/Apostolic Churches in South AfricaAllan H. Anderson

Observing the Sabbath

Some of these churches keep Saturday, an inheritance from the Sabbatarian missions that touched parts of the continent, while most do not.

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Pastor

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Pentecost

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Pilgrimage

The annual return to Moria for the Zion Christian Church and to Nkamba for the Kimbanguists gathers these churches in their millions, and each has made a place of its own founding a destination.

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Prayer

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

The First Assembly of the World Council of Churches

The Kimbanguist church was admitted to the World Council of Churches in 1969, the first church founded in Africa by an African to be received into it.

Source Kimbangu: An African Prophet and His ChurchMarie-Louise Martin

Tithing

Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)

Watch Night

The watch night service is widely kept, carried into Africa by the Methodist missions and taken up by the independent churches after them.

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Held Differently

Baptism

Baptism in these churches is commonly by immersion in running water, in a river or the sea, and it is understood to cleanse and to heal as well as to admit, which the mission churches' font did not claim to do.

Source Zion and Pentecost: The Spirituality and Experience of Pentecostal and Zionist/Apostolic Churches in South AfricaAllan H. Anderson

Exorcism

Deliverance from witchcraft, sorcery and ancestral affliction is central to the prophet healing churches, and the readiness to take those afflictions seriously is a large part of why these churches grew.

Source Zion and Pentecost: The Spirituality and Experience of Pentecostal and Zionist/Apostolic Churches in South AfricaAllan H. Anderson

Funeral Rites

The funeral in these churches addresses the dead and the ancestors rather than passing over them, which is one of the things that drew people out of the mission churches in the first place.

Source Bantu Prophets in South AfricaBengt G. M. Sundkler

Missionary

These churches were founded in Africa by Africans without the agency of a European or American mission, and they send missionaries of their own. The office runs outward from Africa rather than into it.

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Religious Habit

The white robes, coloured sashes, staves and head coverings of the Zionist and Aladura churches are their own vesture, worn by the whole congregation rather than by clergy alone, and they identify a church on sight.

Source Bantu Prophets in South AfricaBengt G. M. Sundkler

Rite of Exorcism

Deliverance is prayed by prophets and by the congregation, and it addresses witchcraft and ancestral affliction, which the mission churches would not name and could not treat.

Source Zion and Pentecost: The Spirituality and Experience of Pentecostal and Zionist/Apostolic Churches in South AfricaAllan H. Anderson

The Mass / Eucharist

Communion is celebrated rarely and in the churches' own forms rather than on the mission pattern. The Kimbanguists keep it three times a year with elements of their own choosing, a departure they made deliberately and defend.

Source Kimbangu: An African Prophet and His ChurchMarie-Louise Martin

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Ancestor Veneration

Why this is disputed. Whether African Initiated Churches formally hold this doctrine is not uniform across the movement. Ethiopian type churches that separated from mission bodies over African leadership have generally been more open to framing respect for ancestors within a Christian idiom, while prophet healing and Zionist bodies, whose founding emphasis fell on the direct power of the Holy Spirit, have more often treated ancestor veneration as a rival source of spiritual power to be renounced rather than absorbed. The doctrines connection to the movement as a whole is a live question within it rather than a settled shared teaching.

Source Bantu Prophets in South AfricaBengt G. M. Sundkler

Divine Healing Without Medicine

Why this is disputed. The doctrine is not held uniformly across the churches it names. Bengt Sundklers survey found the Christ Apostolic Church holding the position firmly, refusing both mission hospitals and older indigenous remedies as drawing on the wrong power. Many Zionist and other Aladura bodies, by contrast, came over time to accept medical treatment alongside prayer without abandoning the underlying claim that an illnesss real cause is spiritual. African Initiated Churches holds this doctrine is therefore true of some member bodies and only partly true of others.

Source Bantu Prophets in South AfricaBengt G. M. Sundkler

Inculturation

Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson

Prophecy

Source Aladura: A Religious Movement Among the YorubaJ. D. Y. Peel

Uses Liturgical Language

Vernacular Language

Sources

1. Encyclopedia of Religion

Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source

2. African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth Century

Allan H. Anderson, Africa World Press, 2001African initiated Christianity as a category and the inculturation that defines itView the Source

3. Kimbangu: An African Prophet and His Church

Marie-Louise Martin, Basil Blackwell, Oxford (translated by D. M. Moore), 1975Kimbangu and the Congolese prophet churchView the Source

4. Bantu Prophets in South Africa

Bengt G. M. Sundkler, Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, 1948

the Ethiopian and Zionist types in southern Africa
Associated With: Zulu

View the Source

The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001

Vinson Synan (ed.), Thomas Nelson, 2001View the Source

Schism and Renewal in Africa: An Analysis of Six Thousand Contemporary Religious Movements

David B. Barrett, Oxford University Press, Nairobi, 1968the typology of independent church movements across AfricaView the Source

Aladura: A Religious Movement Among the Yoruba

J. D. Y. Peel, Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, London, 1968the Aladura churches, healing and the rejection of both medicines

Zion and Pentecost: The Spirituality and Experience of Pentecostal and Zionist/Apostolic Churches in South Africa

Allan H. Anderson, University of South Africa Press, 2000

Comments (0)

No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.

Reader Challenges (0)

No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.

Year

Switch Atlas

The Inner World

The Civil World

The Natural World

African Initiated Churches

Associated With

Belongs to Tradition

Composed Of

Holds Element

Held Differently

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Uses Liturgical Language

View At A Past Year