CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

• Background

From the first part of the twentieth century onwards many Independent Churches and Prophetic Movements began to emerge as they broke away or seceded from the established mission churches in West Africa.¹ They did so with different reasons including “doctrines, forms of worship, organization and the response they give to the problem of ‘evil’ in all as its manifestations are concerned.”² These Independent Churches were, according to Thomas Oduro, “dissatisfied with some of the dominance of western culture and life style in African Christianity, some policies and liturgies of the western mission-founded denominations.”³ Consequently they desired to free African Christianity of western structures, ideologies and practices.⁴ This perception of dissatisfaction of the Independent Churches as indicated by Oduro, leads credence to Clarke’s view when he indicated that “while missionaries saw it as part of the functions of Christianity to bring about a fundamental change in the thinking, attitudes, customs and tradition of Africans, some of the latter responded by claiming that in doing this the missionaries were using religion to preserve and extend their own foreign culture and traditions at the expense of those of Africa.”⁵

¹ Peter B. Clarke, West Africa and Christianity, (London: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd, 1986), 160.

² Clarke, West Africa and Christianity, 157.

³ Thomas Oduro, Church of The Lord (Brotherhood), (Ghana: SonLife Printing Press, 2016), 2.

⁴ Oduro, Church of The Lord (Brotherhood), 2.

⁵ Clarke, West Africa and Christianity, 158.

Clearly there was a clash between colonialism and its related modernization and the meaning and purpose of religion. It is precisely one of the many reasons why some African Christian preachers and writers constantly were in contention against what they perceived as an attempt by the Europeans to control and dominate Africa.⁶ Thus, Africans Christians saw a supposed imposition of another nation’s version of Christianity or any other religion on them.

In this regard, Africans with likeminded perception strongly advocated for a Christianity which was purely African and not a Western-cultural influenced Christianity. It is this desire for Africanizing Christianity that gave birth to the Ethiopian Church. According to Hildebrandt, a South African Pastor Mokone who “did not think the Methodist church was Africanizing fast enough, decided to break away from that church. He then established his own independent church, which he called the Ethiopian Church. This event is important for us to note because it marks the establishment of one of the first African Separatist or African Independent Churches in modern times.”⁷ Thus, it can be asserted that many African Independent Churches broke away from the established churches due to differences in doctrinal presuppositions. These groups according to Clarke came to be known as the ‘Ethiopian’ or African Churches. They were also sometimes called ‘Zionist’, ‘Prayer’, ‘Spiritual’, or ‘Prophet’ churches in Nigeria. In Nigeria, they are referred to as ‘Aladura’ (Praying) churches emphasizing revelation from the Holy Spirit, prayer and faith healing.⁸ Ogbu U Kalu affirmed that the “Ethiopians’ were ahead of their times and had started a process of reflection that perceived Christianity as a non-

⁶ Clarke, West Africa and Christianity, 157.

⁷ Jonathan Hildebrandt, History of the Church in Africa (Ghana: African Christian Press, 1996), 175.

⁸ Clarke, West Africa and Christianity, 159.

Western religion, asserted Africans contribution in the Jesus movement and sought to fashion an authentic African response to the gospel’s good news.”⁹ Furthermore, according to Ogbu U Kalu, “Ethiopianism was a daring voice of new confidence that was manifested in the Native Pastorate experiment by the CMS in Sierra Leone; it breathed with the hope that Africans would bear the responsibility to evangelize Africa, build an autonomous church devoid of denominations and shirk European cultural domination and control of decision – making in the Church.”¹⁰ Indeed the following assertion of Clarke, in my view summaries the position of the ‘Ethiopian’ or African Churches agenda that is, “A religion was universal only in so far as it reflected and respected the character, perspectives, thinking and traditions of each and every society in which it was found.”¹¹ The upsurge of the phenomenon of establishing African Independent Churches (AICs) emanated from the concept of “Ethiopianism” or Independent Churches. They are commonly called so because most of the leaders of these churches were excommunicated from the historical churches for the reason of non-compliance to the churches regulations or in my view a claim of a new direction from God. According to Oduro “the chief objective of their struggle for religious independence was to worship God and formulate theology in the context of their worldview, culture, environment and pre-Christian religious experience.”¹²