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African Bantu Prophets and Ethiopian Churches
Luke 5:37-39
“And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine
will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.
But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better”
B.G.M. Sundkler explained in his book, Bantu Prophets in South Africa, the formation of independent churches in Africa in the early 1900’s and their theology, with reference to the Zulu people.
"...To the main type belong most of the organizations which call themselves by some of the words "Zion", "Apostolic," "Pentecostal," "Faith" (this word sometimes misrepresented as "Five", "Fife", "Fifth"). I describe these organizations as Zionists, which word of course has nothing to do with any modern Jewish movement. The reason for the use of this term is simply that the leaders and followers of these Churches refer to themselves as "ama-Ziyoni", Zionists. Historically they have their roots in Zion City, Illinois, United States. Ideologically they claim to emanate from the Mount of Zion in Jerusalem. Theologically the Zionists are a syncretistic Bantu movement with healing, speaking with tongues, purification rites, and taboos as the main expressions of their faith. There are numerous denominational, local and individual variations... they may yet combine a general dislike of the Whites as being ritually unclean, with a high esteem of some American Zion Church leaders. John Alexander Dowie, "First Apostle", and to a lesser degree, W.G.Voliva, are on their way to becoming modern church fathers in Zululand. As far as their attitude to the Zulu heritage ...they combat the use of the inyanga's medicines and they fight against the diviner's demons of possession. But the weapons with which they fight the struggle belong to an arsenal of old Zulu religion. One strong section of the Zionists is deliberately nativistic, and Churches of this kind in the end become the bridge back to the old heathenism from whence they came" 8.
"The Ethiopian churches were tribal or nationalistic churches, with many of the founder’s being evangelists, preachers, teachers and lay members of the Wesleyan Church. The first "Ethiopian" church was founded on the "Witwatersrand in 1892." To some who embraced their theology, it meant the promise of the evangelization of Africa. To many natives, it meant the self-government of the African Church under African leaders." 9
Explaining the difference between Zionist
and Ethiopian Churches, Dr. Lanternari states:
Historian, Dr. Lanternari investigated the cults and churches, which, according to him, have formed in a militant struggle against alien rule and their often-found ‘gospel’ to be a mixture of the Christian and the pagan.
This information, confirmed by other
authors, shows that while various individuals have accepted Jesus Christ, many
do not desire what they perceive to be, not just a white man’s religion, but
oppression and removal of cultural and economic freedom. The well-documented
information provides such insights as how “the South African government favoured repression of the
autonomous long before the Union was created in 1910,” and “…the Ethiopian
preachers had a hand in the Zulu uprisings of 1906 and used the pulpit to
incite the people to rebellion.” 12.
In other words, just as a
“Christian” social gospel developed in Britain and North America that included
Unitarians, communists and others, so too Africa and many other “native” groups
globally developed a similar agenda. The difference was that for many tribal
groups, the goal was to reclaim their land and culture from the “white man.”
Many ‘preachers’ used this goal to manipulate and control the populations of
the various groups. Just as the pulpit and their form of religion were used to
manipulate the people into rebellion, we see that same scenario today, with
many “Christian leaders” agitating the people to “take back America” etc. for
God.
For many, the acceptance and assimilation of some of the teachings of Christianity was a matter of expediency, no different than with any other people ‘groups’, including North Americans, British or Europeans.
Mark Mathabane wrote in his autobiography,
“Kaffir Boy,” that this same expediency
was witnessed even within his own family, particularly his mother. Unable to
obtain a job, it became apparent that those who went to the missionary meetings
and professed acceptance of their beliefs, got jobs and other privileges. Even
after becoming ‘nominal Christians’ with the Full Gospel Church, Mark described
his mother recounting tribal folklore, “…she would
tell of chiefs, witch doctors, sages, warriors, sorcerers, magicians…These
stories were set in mythical African kingdoms ruled by black people, where no
white man had ever set foot. She would recount prodigious deeds of famous
African gods, endowed with unlimited magical powers; among them the powers of
immortality, invincibility…”13
David Lamb described what it was like for some who went to particular meetings,
“…missionaries provided schools, churches and hospitals…One African convert recalls an Anglican missionary in Uganda…who frequently descended from his pulpit during service to cane African latecomers…’ 14.
Mark Mathabane, whose story related apartheid in South Africa, shared that when extremely ill later in his life, his mother took him to a witch doctor for healing. The reality is, that no matter what our background, Biblical truths remain the same for each of us. We cannot have other gods, nor can we be involved in the occult or witchcraft. We cannot serve two masters.
Matthew 6:24
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
Dr. Lanternari suggests that
there is a reason for changes in culture after a people is oppressed. The
result is that their religious beliefs become a reflection of the desire for
deliverance from the oppressor. Unfortunately, that is a need that has been
reflected world wide. Many cults also result in varied forms of messianism.
“…premonitory religious movements of revival and transformation
usually lie at the origin of every political and military uprising among the
native peoples and take the form of messianic cults promising liberation….When
a people us unable to repel the intruders who have seized its land, as in the
case of the Plains Indians in North America or the Maoris in New Zealand,
almost invariably a new religious cult springs into being which inspires the
natives to express opposition to foreign rule. Thus, by making a display of
their religious independence, the people strive to fight the racial
segregation, forced acculturation, or destruction of tribal life imposed both
by missionaries and by the colonial administrators.” 15
"One example in the Congo in 1921 was Kimbangie who was called “God
of the Black Man,” in contrast to the God of the White Missionaries; and
although his evangelism was Christian in essence and baptism and confession
were regularly adopted…his preaching was unmistakably nationalistic…[he]
prophesied the imminent ousting of the foreign rulers, a new way of life of the
Africans, the return of the dead, and the coming of a Golden Age to be awaited
in the arms of the native church….the Christian doctrine of the dignity of the
individual, learned from the missionaries, was interpreted as God’s promise
that the natives would soon be delivered from the presence of the white man.
The one God of the Judeo-Christian faith was grafted onto the traditional
figure of the Supreme Being of the native cults; the Bible, recognized as
religious authority, was used to stimulate popular demand for freedom…” 16
“…The attribution of magical powers to religious healing is a
feature of nearly every new messianic cult rising among people subjected to
foreign rule…” 17
One cult whose gospel that patterned after Jehovah Witnesses was
called the Israelite Church by their prophet/leader Enoch Mgijima. Many groups
end up rejecting the New Testament and identifying themselves with the Jews of
the Old Testament. They either align their beliefs with the Jews or believe
they are part of the Lost Tribes and their Jewish brothers will save them from
the oppression they are in.
“…he proclaimed himself
it’s “bishop, prophet and guardian.” Rejecting the New Testament as a hoax
perpetrated by the missionaries, the Israelites adhered to the Old; they
celebrated the Sabbath and other Jewish feasts and regarded themselves as the
chosen people of Jehovah, who would not fail to come to their aid when the time
was ripe for throwing off the foreign yoke…”
“The Israelites of Bullboek were not the only natives attracted to
a cult which, centering upon a single God and rejecting the New Testament,
identified themselves with the Jews. This same phenomenon occurs in such
distant and disparate places as among the Maoris in New Zealand, the aborigines
in Polynesia, and the Kikuyas in Kenya…In all of them the impact of the West
has awakened an urge to modernize the ancient heritage of myths and rituals
without also having to accept the rigid antipagan code of the Christians. It
also aroused them to the need for self-determination and liberation from the
oppressive presence of their foreign masters. The Judaic pattern meets these
requirements because it’s doctrine and rituals are sufficiently progressive and
yet sufficiently attached to tradition to be comprehensible to the African
natives, and also because, down through the ages, the Jews have established
themselves as the unparalleled example of a people able to survive all manner
of persecution, an image of anguish and successful survival with which the
natives wish to be identified.” 18
“This identification is strongly shown in South Africa by the
religious pattern of Zionist churches rising alongside the Ethiopian movement,
differing from it in ritual and doctrine while sharing its messianic motivation
and the expectation of the millennium destined to bring freedom from foreign
rule.” 19
As stated
above, just as messianic groups are
forming today, many were grasped in South Africa, because of a belief that the
natives along with many other group’s world-wide, could be likened to the Jews,
who also faced oppression.
“The messianic cults rose and multiplied in South Africa long
before they developed elsewhere on the African continent. The Ethiopian Church
founded in 1892…the founder had been an active member of the Methodist Church…
Christian doctrine was re-interpreted to express the yearnings of the natives
for liberty. Among the outstanding leaders of the Ethiopian Church was another
Wesleyan preacher, M. Dwane, who played a major role in the movement by
bringing about it’s affiliation with the African Methodist Episcopal Church of
the United States, founded by American Negroes in 1816…” 20
“…The hold of the tribal patterns coupled with the strong
personalities of most of the church [Pan-African] founders caused the Ethiopian
Churches to take on a hierarchial structure of Bantu society, in which
political and religious authority is vested in a single leader, who could well
have claimed the title King. Although the local churches operate independently,
they are bound by a common purpose, part messianic and part nationalistic: the
expulsion of the white man and the elimination of his social order…” 21
“In judging the messianic movements…one finds in every cult such
phenomena as a prophet or guide who founds his movement on traditional myths
which coincide with the substance of the revelations he had received.
Revelations may come from the Supreme Being…the Great Spirit…or from national
heroes who inspired such cults…Messianic cults all involve a belief in
society’s return to its source…a belief in the rising of the dead, in the
reversal of the existing social order, in the ejection of the white man, in the
end of the world, and in its regeneration in an age of abundance and
happiness…myth of the millenium, involves the coming of a Messiah in human
form, whose redemptive action is to be the fulfillment of society’s hope that
the traditional way of life can be restored. The Messiah, regarded as the
re-creator of the world, is usually the personification of some national hero
whose return has been long awaited, or the ancestor who founded the cultural
lineage, that is, either Adam or Jesus Christ…” 22
What many people are waiting
for is not the return of Christ, but the anti-christ. The mixture of truth and error
in their teachings is evident. With the various groups believing they are part
of the Lost Tribes, they readily embrace the concept that they are also God’s
Chosen People.
“…Jehovah represents the Maoris’ belief that they are descended
from the Tribes of Judah…the Maoris were the new “Chosen People of God,” that
New Zealand was the land of Canaan…The day will come…when the paheka [British]
will be cast out of New Zealand, thereby putting an end to the present world
and ushering in the millennium…the Maori dead will rise again and the Jews will
come to New Zealand to form with us a single people and to build a new life for
all mankind…The connection was made even clearer when a missionary, the
Reverend Thomas West, stated that certain somatic traits justified the
assumption that Polynesians and Jews were of the same racial stock. [Footnote:..The idea was widespread among the Maoris that they represented one
of the Lost Tribes of Israel; the Mormons contributed to this notion…] 23
Due to a desire to connect with racial roots and traditions, many native groups
worldwide are embracing what they believe to be the source of their traditions,
those being found in Africa.
”…although the Jamaican Negroes are almost universally Christian,
there is an intense revival of pagan-type religions, linked to old African
traditions. Among these derived from Euro-American Christian inspiration are
the Church of the Brethren, Christian Science, the Salvation Army, the
Seventh-Adventists, the Society of Friends, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the
Pentecostal Church, the Mission Church of God, and the Bible Students. Their
following proves through that the natives are everywhere in quest of new
religious ideas…in opposition of the strict orthodoxy…” 24 [Note: In Africa the Salvation Army was welcomed
because they didn’t proselytize and the natives reportedly liked the drums.]
Many under the guise of ‘Christianity’ are encouraging the hanging on to the various traditions, which, throughout the world, are steeped in paganism. No particular group has any more or less embracement of the occult; it is merely adjusted to the social atmosphere. While some cultures are openly pagan and go after other gods, North America, Britain and Europe, etc., are no different with their idols, witchcraft, paganism, lust of the flesh, rebellion to God and rejection or acceptance of Jesus Christ and obedience to His Word. [See also: Taking the Mark]
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Footnotes
8. op.cit
Sundkler, p.54-55
9.
op.cit., Lanternari, p. 40
10. Ibid., p. 41
11. Ibid., p. 42
12. p. 78 , Kaffir Boy, An Autobiography by
Mark Mathabane; Plume, 1986
13.
op.cit, Lamb, p. 12
14.
op.cit, Lanternari, p. 19-20
15. Ibid., p. 26
16. Ibid. p. 36
17. Ibid. p. 42
18. Ibid., p. 43-44
19. Ibid., p. 43
20. Ibid., p. 41
21. Ibid. p. 41-42
22. Ibid. p. 240
23. Ibid. p. 203
24. Ibid. p. 137
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