Shembe, Ancestors, and Christ

A Christological Inquiry with Missiological Implications

Moodley

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN: 9781630879969
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Christian axis has shifted dramatically southward to Africa, Asia, and Latin America, so much so that today there are more Christians living in these southern regions than among their northern counterparts. In the case of Africa, the African Initiated Churches-founded by Africans and primarily for Africans-has largely contributed to the exponential growth and proliferation of the Christian faith in the continent. Yet, even more profoundly, these churches espouse a brand of Christianity that is indigenized and thoroughly contextual. Further, the power and popularity of the AICs, beyond the unprecedented numbers joining these churches, are attributed to their relevance to the existential everyday needs and concerns of their adherents in the context of a postcolonial Africa. At the heart of Christian theology is Christology-the confessed uniqueness of Christ in history and among world religions. Yet this key feature of Christianity, as with other important elements of the Christian faith, may be variously understood and re-interpreted in these indigenous churches.The focus of this study is the amaNazaretha Church, an influential religious group founded by the African charismatic prophet Isaiah Shembe in 1911 in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The movement today claims a following of some two million adherents and has proliferated beyond the borders of South Africa to neighboring countries in Southern Africa. The book addresses the complex and at times ambivalent understanding of the person and work of Christ in the amaNazaretha Church, presenting the genesis, history, beliefs, and practices of this significant religious movement in South Africa, with broader implications for similar movements across the continent of Africa and beyond.

1

The Genesis of a Journey of Discovery

In my childhood days, I recall observing a woman’s group of the African Zion Church conducting their worship services in the dining room of our rented cottage in Durban, South Africa. I looked forward to Wednesday afternoons when this group of women, some thirty in number, would gather for their weekly meeting. Keen in my memory are the beating of the drums, women singing beautifully in heavenly harmony, exorcisms and healing practices, and the intense yet passionate worship to their God, Unkulunkulu. All this fascinated me, yet the meetings struck me as odd and quite different from our “Christian” way of worship. The manner in which they invoked the Spirit, Umoya, seemed rather bizarre. At the tender age of seven or eight, I thought that perhaps if they attended our church they might learn to have church the “correct” way, and the “correct” way was our way. These contextual “oddities” and other unique cultural expressions of the Christian faith have not been discerned clearly by people outside of the African Independent Churches (AICs), and there has been a rush to judgment on African Christian beliefs and practices.

My interest in and appreciation of African Christianity, though submerged in the intervening years, was to surface via my theological studies at the University of South Africa (UNISA) in an undergraduate course on the African Independent Churches, taught by M. L. Daneel, who worked among the Shona in Zimbabwe for several decades.

Following my initial exposure to African forms of worship, my studies at UNISA, further reading in my graduate and doctoral programs, and my work among Africans in South Africa and neighboring countries, I have become acutely aware of the diverse, rich, and varied expressions of the Christian faith, especially among the AICs.

In the era of apartheid, research on the AICs done by missionaries and anthropologists was not intended for reconciliation among the churches. Rather, the research focused more on the causes for dissension and secession, and it often emphasized syncretistic practices in the fledgling indigenous churches.1 Today, with the advent of democracy and the abolition of apartheid, researchers may now study, live, and work among Africans without government restrictions. In this era of a new democratic South Africa, a researcher has the opportunity to become better acquainted with the AICs and gain an insider’s perspective on their culture and religious beliefs. With segregation abolished, people are more open to each other, irrespective of their racial, cultural, and linguistic identities.

However, uninformed observers of the African Initiated Churches believe that these movements are still outside the mainstream of orthodox Christianity. Although this belief is not explicitly stated, one of the reasons for such a posture is the perception that the AIC members worship ancestors. For example, on one of my visits to South Africa, a senior official of our church inquired about my research interest. When he learned that I was studying the amaNazaretha Church, his reaction in the form of a question was “These people worship ancestors and are not Christian, are they?” These perceptions, whether implied or stated, have distanced, if not polarized, the African Independent Churches in South Africa from other white, Indian, and coloured denominations,2 and also from other African mission and historic churches in the country.

Although many evangelical Christians live in proximity to members of the amaNazaretha Church, both by design (government restrictions) and misperceptions regarding their religious beliefs, Christians have been separated and polarized for too long. Thus, my study of the amaNazaretha Church seeks to offer an informed and sympathetic understanding of the movement and, thereby, encourages evangelical Christians to study these churches as vibrant expressions of an indigenous form of Christianity and thus as fellow sojourners en route to the eschatological kingdom of God. At the same time, where my research uncovered practices and rituals that are different from and appear to be contrary to orthodox Christianity, I believe I still have the opportunity to initiate dialogue and discussion between the AICs and other churches, hopefully leading to a greater understanding of what form Christian discipleship could take among them.

The amaNazaretha Church

Isaiah Shembe (1867–1935) founded the amaNazaretha Church in 1911, when he claimed to have received visions to “preach, heal, and drive out demons.”3 According to his son, Johannes Galilee “J. G.” Shembe, Isaiah first joined a Wesleyan church where he received catechetical instruction. When denied baptism by immersion in the Wesleyan church, Isaiah found his home in a Baptist church where he felt welcomed. Shembe strictly followed the Old Testament Jewish laws and rituals, such as removing shoes during worship, leaving hair uncut, and avoiding certain foods. The Baptist pastor William Leshega could not identify with Shembe’s strict adherence of Old Testament Jewish rituals. Thus, after working with Leshega for approximately three years, Shembe seceded from the Baptist Church and began an itinerant ministry.4 He saw parallels...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Genesis of a Journey of Discovery
• Chapter 2: African and Zulu Traditional Religions: Views on God, Spirits, Ancestors, Traditional Leaders, and Healing
• Chapter 3: The African Initiated Churches: History, Beliefs, and Practices
• Chapter 4: The Religious and Cultural Worldview of the amaNazaretha Church
• Chapter 5: Recounting Stories (Research Findings)
• Chapter 6: Participant Observation in the amaNazaretha Church and an Interview with Vimbeni Shembe
• Chapter 7: Theology and Christology in the amaNazaretha Church
• Chapter 8: Conclusions, Missiological Implications, and Suggestions for Further Study
• Epilogue
• Appendix
• Bibliography