http://www.dci.dk/index.php?

view=article&catid=157&id=551%3Aa-new-typology-for-africaas-new-religious-
movements&tmpl= component&print=1&page=&option=com_content&Itemid=36

Accessed 06 Feb. 2010.

VIII 3/4
Skrevet af Friday M. Mbon
Lørdag, 15 December 1984 00:00

A New Typology for Africa’s New Religious

Movements

This brief essay is concerned mainly with Christian new religious movements in sub-Saharan
Africa. Broadly speaking, two kinds of religious movements may be found in that area of the
continent. First, those movements that have, for various reasons, tergiversated from the existing
historic mission-oriented churches. Such movements have been called, often pejoratively,
schismatic or separatist movements because they seceded or separated from the older churches.
But despite intensive changes, adaptations, and particular emphases within themselves, that
category of movements generally tends to reflect some of the ideologies of the mother churches.

Second, there are those new religious movements which have been founded by charismatic
individuals independent of any mother church. They are commonly referred to as spiritual or
spiritualist (sometimes spiritist) movements or churches because of their emphasis on
pneumatology and spiritual healing. It is mainly that group that we have in mind here.

Incidentally, the new Christian religious movements in Africa (and perhaps elsewhere) are also
popularly referred to as Independent Churches, with emphasis on the word independent to
signify the fact that such movements, as most of them claim, are independent of foreign origin or
control in organization, administration, liturgy, and doctrine. But we prefer the nomenclature
new religious movements, because the word movement, for all practical purposes, is more
comprehensive and more appropriately underscores the dynamic nature of these agents of social
change.1 Moreover, some of the movements refuse to be called churches, because they don’t
wish to be associated or confused with the historic Western-style, mission-oriented churches.
Neither do the historic churches wish to be identified with the new movements, whose claim to
be Christian they question. In addition, many elements in the movements make it inappropriate
to refer to them as churches in the Western conception of a church. For instance, the practice of
spiritual and physical healing (and the modes thereof) that is central in the movements does not
receive the same degree of, or sometimes any, emphasis in traditional Western-style churches.

Several years ago Harold Turner, one of the foremost contemporary authorities on the study of
African new religious movements, defined the category of movements with which we are
concerned here as those »founded in Africa, by Africans, and primarily for Africans.«2 More

Page 1 of 7
recently, Kofi Appiah-Kubi has reiterated Turner’s definition, adding that those movements
»have all African membership as well as all African leadership.«3 But we cannot accept
Turner’s suggestion that African new religious movements are or, for that matter, were ever
intended to be primarily for Africans. Nor do we agree with Appiah-Kubi’s incautious claim that
those movements »have all African membership.« This writer happens to know that quite a few
of the new movements would seriously object to being associated with such a narrow sense of
mission. For instance, the Nigerian-based Aladura group of movements and the fast growing
Brotherhood of the Cross and Star see the whole world as their mission field; in fact, they’ve
already started to penetrate many parts of the non-African world, like Great Britain, Germany,
the United States, and India. As some movements advance beyond African territories, they
assert, with a sense of accomplishment and pride, that it is now Africa’s turn to evangelize the
world, especially the White world! Indeed, that self-imposed goal of worldwide operation is
characteristic of most new religious movements in the so-called primal societies today. No one
knows the exact number of new religious movements in contemporary Africa, nor the number of
their votaries. It would be impossible (as well as frivolous and a waste of time and energy) for
anyone to try to keep up-to-date statistics since the birth of new movements in different corners
of the continent seems to be a daily occurrence. Thus, one would have to be everywhere,
everyday in Africa to accurately record the proliferation of those movements. Even David
Barrett’s educated prediction that by 1985 there will be close to 33,000,000 professing adherents
in those movements4 seems to be far too conservative. Our own calculated guess is that the
number will be much higher. But even available statistics are of limited value since many of the
movements do not keep records of their numbers, often because they believe that it is
theologically and spiritually improper or sinful to do so. The God’s Kingdom Society of
Nigeria, for example, insists that it is wrong to count God’s people, pointing to 2 Samuel 24 to
show how God punished King David for taking a census of his people.

Much has been written lately about Africa’s numerous new religious movements, so we will not
reiterate popular discussions or chose jugée here. We merely want to suggest a new typology or
terminology which will, we believe, best characterize all, or at least most, of the new Christian
groups in sub-Saharan Africa.

The reader is perhaps well aware of the various typologies or terminologies that have been used,
quite often rather loosely, to characterize new religious movements in general (and those in
Africa in particular) and the consequent intense debates about their appropriateness.5 Such labels
include separatist, messianic, millenarian or chiliastic, nativistic or perpetuative, prophetic, neo-
Pentecostal, syncretic, revitalistic, revivalistic, sectarian, therapeutic, manipulationist,
charismatic, ecstatic, neo-Christian, post-Christian, schismatic, etc. Some of those labels are
obvious attempts to locate the causal factors for those new religious movements they are
intended to describe. But, as many students of those movements know only too well, there are
infinite difficulties in trying to explain the emergence of a given religious movement in Africa,
or anywhere else, by appeal to monocausality. Other such labels attempt to stress the main
features of the movements. Even in those cases, however, some of the labels grossly miss the
mark.

We do not intend to rehash popular stock arguments pro or con the usage of any of those
terminologies. One thing seems certain, however: whatever merit each of the above terms may

Page 2 of 7
have as a descriptive idiom for some new religious movements in Africa, such merit is at best
limited in its usefulness, because each of the terms can only describe an isolated aspect and not
the complex totality of a given new religious movement. In other words, some movements may
have, say, millenarian or nativistic dimensions, but it would be wrong to categorize them in those
terms only.

We wish to suggest here a term which is more comprehensive and methodologically more
empirical than the ones referred to above. The term we propose is protectionist. It is our strong
belief that the theme of protection is one that runs across all new religious movements in Africa
south of the Sahara. That is to say, protection is the common, ultimate goal of those movements
in spite of any dissimilarities in their methods of attempting to achieve that goal. Protectionism,
we contend, most appropriately qualifies for what Turner refers to as »a typology of tendencies
and emphases rather than of individual religious bodies or movements.«6

We submit, then, that the members of Africa’s new religious movements are in the movements
first and foremost because they feel a need to be protected against life’s undesirable
circumstances and believe with all their hearts that they will find such protection in the new
movements. The protection sought may be individual or communal and may include physical
protection, spiritual protection, political protection, economic protection, and sociocultural
protection.

Individual members may go into movements in order to seek refuge or protection from, for
instance, the sad consequences of unemployment, barrenness, sickness, loneliness, anonymity, or
the evil eye of enemies--physical or spiritual. Indeed, the fear of falling victim to witchcraft
through the machinations of evil men and women and the need for healing are the two strongest
motives for most Africans who join new religious movements. Olumba Olumba Obu, the
founder and leader of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star in Nigeria, clearly assents to that
fact when he asserts,

many people are rushing into the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star with the
intentions of being healed of their sicknesses or to have an improved condition
of life.7

One of his members similarly points out why people join the movement.

In the whole Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, the world over, there is no single
man who goes there on his own simply because he has love for a church as it is in
many other cases of one attaching himself to a church, but must be there after all
available measures to free himself from the entanglement and ordeals of
persecution of evil spirits had failed. Sometimes he is brought unconscious.
Some [come] through sickness of wife, husband, brother, sister, child and what-
have-you. And in less than no time all these evil devices get cleared.8

Nathaniel Ndiokwere expresses much the same opinion when he says:

Page 3 of 7
 the sense of insecurity is perpetuated in the African milieu by fears of evil spirits,
the phenomenon of ‘poisoning’…the unlimited anxiety over fruitfulness in
marriage… It is the urge to have these problems solved which drives people to the
doors of the Aladura prophets.9

We also agree with Ndiokwere when he goes on to say that

if there were no healing mission there would be no meaningful Independent

Churches; if there were no sick people or individuals craving for security, there
would be no followers.10

J. Akin Omoyajowo comments rather trenchantly on the same situation.

Africans generally fear the power of witches and the evil spirits, who beset them
in their dreams; they worry about their future and want to know what it has in
stock for them. In the traditional society, they consult the diviner. Orthodox
Christianity repudiated this practice and substituted abstract faith for it. The
Aladuras take the problems as genuine and offer solutions in the messages of the
Holy Spirit given through the prophets and visioners. They give candles for
prayers, incense to chase away evil powers and blessed-water for healing
purposes. Consequently, the Christian suddenly finds himself at home in the new
faith, and Christianity now has more meaning for him than before, for it takes
special concern for his personal life, his existential problems and assures his
security in an incomprehensibly hostile universe. This is what has endeared the
Cherubim and Seraphim to the hearts of the cross-section of our society,
irrespective of creed, status and class.11

The need for individual protection may be seen as essentially physical, spiritual, social, or
economic in nature. But the desire for communal protection usually expresses itself in the areas
of politics and culture, although an individual politician may sometimes seek protection against
political defeat, as is the case in Nigeria, for example, where certain prominent politicians are
known to have gone to some of the new religious movements to seek spiritual power as a
bulwark against political frustration. Or, an individual may seek protection against cultural
marginality. Just as individuals may join the new religious movements for reasons of protection,
so also entire communities may flock to those movements for the sole purpose of seeking
protection against the socio-economic, cultural, and political oppression of dominant powers that
be. Instances of that kind of communal search for protection may be found in the new religious
movements in central and southern Africa, especially those that emerged under colonialism, neo-
colonialism, and apartheid. Examples that readily come to mind are the radical movements in
the former French and Belgian Congos such as Kimbanguism, the Zionist movements, like the
Nazareth Church, and other Bantu groups in South Africa.

Contrary to the popular opinion of some writers, the number of African new religious
movements arising because of and in protest against the colonial or neo-colonial situation—the
situation of racial conflict, economic exploitation, political and cultural repression—is very small
indeed. That underscores the fact that generally, in spite of all other considerations, the motive

Page 4 of 7
for the birth of Africa’s new religious movements is primarily religious. Harold Turner reminds
us that the religious motive beneath the foundation of Africa’s new religious movements remains
»the profoundest clue« to understanding those movements: all other considerations are
»inadequate signs of their inner religious reality.«12 Lamin Sanneh is also right in that regard
when he observes that even in the »volatile political atmosphere« of the colonial and early post-
colonial days, »it is a striking fact that African Christian spokesmen were concerned with the
religious implication of the threats that confronted them. He goes on, in fact, to propose the
caveat that:

to fuse the theme of the African religious response with the political theme and
annex it as a sub-plot of the great nationalist cause is to overlook the explicit
religious concerns of those involved....an indigenous Church, for which many
strove, was to precede the nationalist state with which it was not identical.13

Sanneh stresses further that

religious dissent seems to have been the result of genuine disagreements over
religious issues, which we need to bear in mind when we make religious
movements the byproducts of social and political forces.14

Fundamental to that primary motive is the concept of protection. In fact, protectionism is first
and foremost a spiritual experience, and on it hangs all other forms of security. That is why a
closer examination of the various terms that have been popularly used to characterize new
religious movements will reveal that most of those terms could conveniently be brought under
the rubric of protectionism. Thus, the so-called separatist or schismatic movements, for
example, could be seen as separating themselves from mainstream Christian churches in order to
protect themselves against the racially discriminatory policies of White missionaries and the
consequences of the declining, watered-down spirituality of churches which are racist. That
would also appear to be the goal of the so-called revivalistic movements which seem to be
engaged in the task of reviving the spirituality of that old-time religion with its Pentecostal
flavor. Perhaps it is in that context that Turner can speak of »the spiritual superiority of their
religion in comparison with the older Christian churches or missions.«15 Indeed, it is instructive
in this connection to recall that one of the movements in Luluabourg, Zaire, has chosen to call
itself Church of the Protection of the Truth of Christ.16 In the same way, the so-called nativistic
or perpetuative or revitalistic movements could be seen as demonstrating the attempts by
Africans to protect their indigenous cultural values from being completely destroyed by the
corrosive effects of Western cultures. Even in the so-called messianic or millenarian or chiliastic
movements, undertones may be heard of a deep-seated longing for a savior who will bring an
end to this present age and thereby protect their members from pain, suffering, oppression,
injustice, and discrimination. Similarly, the so-called therapeutic movements may be seen as
attempts by those movements to protect their votaries from anything that brings pain and
dis-ease to body, mind, and spirit.

Page 5 of 7
We see, then, that the term protectionist is certainly more comprehensive and empirically more
appropriate as a descriptive label for most African new religious movements. That, of course,
does not in any way mean that our new term is perfect in its utility: there is no such perfect label.
The special merit of the term protectionist lies in the fact that not only does it immediately
indicate the raison d’etre of most African new religious movements but also enriches the
meanings of the other terms in such a way as to include in them the idea of protection. By
expanding the meanings of the other labels, our term also helps to remove (or at least minimize)
the pejorative aura that often surrounds them. Furthermore, we perceive in the rubric
protectionist aspects of the latent intentionality of the former terms. In other words, the
composite implications of those labels are captured in the new term herein proposed.

A native Nigerian. Mr. Mbon is currently a lecturer in the sociology of religion at the University
of Calabar, Nigeria. He has published in the areas of African traditional religions and Islam and is
currently researching new religious movements in Nigeria, especially the Brotherhood of the Cross and
Star.

Notes

1. We see new religious movements, in general, as agents of social change, because we agree with F.
W. Voget that »intention to change the pattern of human relations and social institutions is the
essential characteristic of a social movements« (Man, 1959, art. 25). We recognize in new religious
movements something of that intention to change the course of human life.
2. H. W. Turner, »A Typology for African Religious Movements,» Journal of Religion in Africa, 1967,
1(1):17; essay reprinted in H. W. Turner, Religious Innovation in Africa: Collected Essays on New
Religious Movements (Boston, MA: G. K. Hall, 1979), pp. 79-108.
3. Kofi Appiah-Kubi, »Indigenous African Christian Churches: Signs of Authenticity,« in Kofi Appiah-
Kubi and Sergio Torres, eds., African Theology en Route (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979), p.
117.
4. See David B. Barrett, ed., World Christian Encyclopaedia: A Comparative Study of Churches and
Religions in the Modern World AD 1900-2000 (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 815.
5. See, for instance, Kenelm Burridge, New Heaven, New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969), pp. 102-103.
6. Turner, p. 1.
7. Olumba Olumba Obu, Those Who Will Go to Hell (Calabar: Brotherhood Press, n.d.), p. 19.
8. E. O. Bassey, »What Do We Say He Is?« in Who Is This Man Olumba Olumba Obu? (Calabar:
Brotherhood Press, n.d.), pp. 4-5.
9. Nathaniel I. Ndiokwere, Prophecy and Revolution: The Role of Prophets in the Independent African
Churches and in Biblical Tradition (London: SPCK. 1981), p. 279.
10. Ibid., p. 256.

Page 6 of 7
11. J. Akin Omoyajowo, »The Cherubim and Seraphim Movement: A Study in Interaction,« Orita:
Ibadan Journal of Religious Studies, 1970, 4(2):134.
12. Harold W. Turner, »Problems in the Study of African Independent Churches,« in Religious
Innovation in Africa, p. 38: essay reprinted from Numen, 13:1(1966), 27-42.
13. Lamin Sanneh, West African Christianity: The Religious Impact (London: C. Hurst & Co.. 1983), p.
xiii.
14. Ibid., p. 188.
15. Turner, »Problems,« p. 38.
16. The Church of the Protection of the Truth of Christ is mentioned in Haldor E. Heimer, »The Church
Suited to Home Needs,« in Windows on Africa: A Symposium, Robert T. Parsons, ed. (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1971), p. 22, note 2.

Senest opdateret ( Tirsdag, 27 November 2007 11:05 )

Page 7 of 7