OLATUNDE ALLEN TIMILEHIN
APRIL 2010
INTRODUCTION
Indigenous Christianity came into being in Africa through the initiatives of the concerned indigenous Africans who felt that Christianity should better be expressed in the African perception and worldview. This initiative was deployed to wipe off factionalism and bring together African Christians with their African feelings and passions towards generating African thoughts in Christianity. This strategy was necessary to connect the gulf created by the “foreign evangelists” who came to “pioneer” a Christianity that was incompatible with the socio-cultural and political worldview of the continent. The Africa that western Christianity came to influence was the type which gave much attention to the existence of spirits, and their invading powers in the human world. As a result of this, Africans found solace in the indigenous African means of solving existential problems like sickness, bareness, spiritual afflictions, “accident" and sudden death. These were effective system of maintaining stability and health. They were used to consulting traditional healers such as herbalists, and making divinations for problem solving. Dreams could be interpreted through divination. Witchcraft, sorcery and conjuration were popular. Among the Yoruba, deities and gods like Obatala, Orunmila, Sango, Ogun, Osun, and Ela and so on were normally consulted and these methods were helpful. When mission Christianity came, this means of problem solving was discouraged, even though mission Christianity was unable to offer any potent alternative. As African Christians continued to wallow in abject depravation of an alternative, some of them were forced to go back to the old method while others were subscribing to this means secretly. Some African Christians were however inspired to challenge the dominance of mission Christianity over African thoughts and values (Ogunrinade, cyberjournal.com).
An African Initiated Church is any of a number of Christian churches independently started in Africa, by Africans, and not by missionaries from another continent, sometimes holding to one or more African tribal belief systems sycretised with Christianity. A variety of overlapping terms exist for these forms of Christianity: AfricanInitiatedChurches, AfricanIndependentChurches, AfricanIndigenousChurches and AfricanInstitutedChurches. The abbreviation AIC covers them all. The differences in names correspond to the aspect that a researcher wishes to emphasize (Wikipedia.com - the free encyclopedia).
African Initiated Churches are found across Africa; they are particularly well-documented in southern Africa and West Africa, that at least 36% of the population of Africa belongs to an AfricanInitiatedChurch. During the colonial period, many black converts to Christianity were unable fully to reconcile their beliefs with the teachings of their church leaders, and split from their parent churches. The reasons for these splits were usually either: Political - an effort to escape white control; Historical - many of the parent churches, particularly those from a Protestant tradition, had themselves emerged from a process of schism and synthesis; Cultural - the result of trying to accommodate Christian belief within an African world view. Many AICs share traditions with Christians from other parts of the Christian world, and these can also be used in classifying them. So there are AICs which share some beliefs or practices with Anglican, Methodist, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal and Orthodox traditions (Wikipedia.com - the free encyclopedia).
IN THE BEGINNING OF AFRICAN INDIGENOUS CHURCHES
IN NIGERIA – ALADURA PENTECOSTAL CHURCHES
The Aladura phenomenon forms a significant segment of the new indigenous religious movements that first emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, mainly in western Nigeria. This includes the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), Cherubim and Seraphim (C&S), Church of the Lord (CLA), Celestial Church of Christ (CCC), Evangelical Church of Yahweh (ECY) and their various appendages and splinter formations (Adogame, 2004. 493). The Aladura Pentecostal Churches emanated from Nigeria. They rely on the power of prayer and in all effects of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The first Aladura Movement started at Ijebu-Ode, Nigeria in 1918 by Sophia Odunlami, a school teacher, and Joseph Sadare, a goldsmith. They both attended St. Saviour's Anglican Church. They rejected infant baptism and all forms of medicine, whether western or traditional. In consequence, they initiated the "Prayer Band", popularly called "Egbe Aladura". Mr Joseph Sadare was compelled to give up his post in the Synod and others were forced to resign their jobs and to withdraw their children from the Anglican School. The Aladura began as a renewal movement in search of true spirituality. They emphasize the power in praying and believe in faith healing and various elements associated with Pentecostalism (Wikipedia.com - the free encyclopedia).
HISTORY OF CHURCH OF THE LORD (ALADURA)
The Church of the Lord (Aladura) is an African Initiated Church founded by the first Primate and Late Prophet Dr. Josiah Olunowo Ositelu in 1930 in Ogere, Shagamu, Ogun State, Nigeria. "Aladura" in Yoruba means "owners of prayer", "Prayer Fellowship" or "The Praying People". Also known as Aladura churches, they emphasize the power in praying and believe in faith healing and various elements associated with Pentecostalism. Most of the founders of the churches were associated with Anglicanism, though some Methodists joined the movement as well. The churches despise the power of traditional African religion, because they deem that power to be basically malign. Therefore they sometimes burn cult images as "idols" and oppose both polygamy and witchcraft (Wikipedia.com - the free encyclopedia).
HISTORY OF CHRIST APOSTOLIC CHURCH
The largest product of the Aladura Movement emerged as a result of praying group in Anglican. A revival took place in 1918 during the outbreak of influenza epidemic. The group filled with the Holy Ghost used prayer to save many lives affected by the Influenza epidemic. This consolidated the formation of the prayer group and the group was properly named Precious Stone and later to Diamond Society. By 1920, the Diamond Society had grown tremendously and had started to form branches around the Western region of Nigeria. In particular, David Odubanjo went to start the Lagos branch. The group emphasized divine healing, Holiness, and All Sufficiency of God, which form the three cardinal beliefs of the Church today. For this reason, the group had association with Faith Tabernacle of Philadelphia and changed its name to Faith Tabernacle of Nigeria. A great revival started in July 1930 by the raising of a dead body by Apostle Joseph Ayo Babalola at Oke-Oye in Ilesa. People trooped from neighbouring cities and countries to receive healing at Ilesa. Several people were healed through the power of prayer and there were evidences of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The revival lasted about 60 days and it's still regarded as the greatest revival ever in Nigeria. Faith Tabernacle of Nigeria later invited the Apostolic Church of England in 1931 to form an Association which lasted till 1939. The Revival group went through several name changes until, after 24 years of its formation; it finally adopted the name Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) in 1942. Today, CAC has spread worldwide and definitely is the precursor of Aladura Pentecostal Churches in Nigeria (Wikipedia.com - the free encyclopedia).
HISTORY OF CELESTIAL CHURCH OF GOD
Samuel Bilewu Joseph Oshoffa was a carpenter born in French Dahomey, now called Benin, in 1909. A traumatic experience led to a spiritual awakening, Oshoffa believed that he received a call from God; this occurred in a forest during a solar eclipse, Oshoffa then became lost in the forest for three months. Oshoffa felt called to preach, heal and raise the dead, this led him to found the church in 1947. By divine ordinance he is called Prophet and he is also called Reverend, Pastor, and Founder, as he was the supreme head of the church and was responsible for the church coming into being. As "The Pastor" he had ultimate and unchallengeable authority in doctrinal and disciplinary matters. This made his death in 1985, after a vehicular accident, problematic. The movement has continued to grow since Oshoffa's death, but has also suffered setbacks—the most immediate being severe difficulties related to the matter of succession.
Although the church takes elements from Yoruba thought, it also has strong similarities to the "purification movements" against paganism that are relatively common in African Christianity and Islam. Oshoffa believed he had a mission to combat "'Satan', 'fetish priests' and other 'powers of darkness'. The name of the group comes from the Bible: Deuteronomy 26:15 "Look down from thy Holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy people Celestial and the land which thou hast given us, as thou didst swear to our father, a land flowing with milk and honey". The name signifies that they deem themselves as celestial or a representative of the heavenly on Earth (Wikipedia.com - the free encyclopedia).
HISTORY OF CHERUBIM AND SERAPHIM SOCIETY
Cherubim and Seraphim Society developed around two Christianity figures, Moses Orimolade Tunolase and Christiana Abiodun Akinsoun in 1925. It was funded primarily for Africans and “its fundamental objectives being to revitalize through prayers and through the dispensation of Holy Spirit, the spiritual life of the Christian in this land.” Omoyajawo (1970, 125)
Moses Orimolade Tunolase, an illiterate middle-aged lame mans visited several towns and villages in Yoruba land, in the mid-western states and in the provinces of Northern Nigeria preaching the Christian gospel and assisted in establishing churches. He was popularly known as “Baba Aladura.” Omoyajawo (1970, 127). The young society was initially on interdenominational society preaching faith in prayers, renunciation of the devil and all its works, but later became a separate church where that could not be tolerated by the orthodox churches. Omoyajawo (1970, 129). The chosen of the Archangel Michael as the captain of the society and Jah Jehovah as its founder attracted severe press criticisms. They believe in prophecies, visions and dreams, while many members practice speaking in tongues. Solution offered by the society to the fear of the power of witches and the devils spirit through the message of the Holy Spirit given through the prophets and visions contextualized. The society replaced uninspiring set worship of orthodoxy with worship characterized by originality that is closer to African own colourful and emotional religion.
WHY DIVERSION
According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus, 2009 edition defines diversion as the act or an instance of diverting from a course, activity, or use. It is the separation from the outline course that was laid down by the mainline churches that brought gospel to Africa and the indigenization of religion in Nigeria has emerged the changes that promulgated the diversion in doctrines, tenet, beliefs and the contemporary ideas about the church especially western Nigeria. The diversion has been visible in the practice of Christianity among the westerners bring about denominational discriminations that was not in existed. The look of the church is not the first face of the mainline gospel. The blackness in the race has become the pedal of diversion when the issue of ‘founderlism’ propels the separation to stand alone and preach its different views as the protestant church did. Diversion in indigenous churches has impacted the church with effects that has consequential force on the baseless doctrine and the acceptance of the doctrine in African churches.
ENUMERATION OF DIVERSION
Some elemental effects of diversion are seen in the setup of the African indigenous churches which are cogent and rational reasons that could cause separation to develop or startup a brand new Church without regret of the pulling out of the mainline or mother church on the ground of dissatisfaction. Some scholars argue that independent churches or religious movements demonstrate syncretism or partial integration between aspects of Christian belief and African traditional religion, but the degree to which this happens varies, and has often been exaggerated. Often these churches have resulted from a process of acculturation between traditional African beliefs and Protestant Christianity, and have split from their parent churches.
Below are the researched bases that might have caused diversion in the African indigenous churches in Nigeria.
- Different approach to revelations
- Emphasis on Spirituality
- Personality against Biblical Injunctions
- Different approach to revelations
The realm of knowledge in the 20th century was basically stood on the revelation phenomenon that is always supreme over any decision or policy that was on ground. The act of expository to the other world in vision was rampart in the period when the Africa Indigenous Churches emerged on the view that the mainline line churches were dead and non-Pentecostal. The reality of this brought about the scenario of revelation that is abstract – self understood and obscure from the second party. This became a drive that really led to diversion in the churches in African, especially among the Aladura Movement whereby all issues were based on the spirit realm. An opposition is seen as apostasy to the Holy Spirit. The division was common among the Yoruba leaders. The inability to interpret the vision due to substandard literacy affected their decision in becoming denomination among many others. Practically, all the Aladura in Yorubaland encourage the use and application of charismatic gifts like vision and dreams, prophecies, and trances. These have made the Aladura prophets to engage in interpretation of dreams brought before them by their members. Vision might occur during corporate worship or private meditation. In this case, the woli (prophets) and ariran (visionary persons) in the Aladura constitute a special class of people whose ‘inner’ eyes make them more powerful than ordinary human. Men and women who would have looked elsewhere for solution to the problems of uncertainty about their future have had to consult the Aladura visioners and dreamers. These prophets and leaders generally saw their belief in these phenomena as normal and in line with scripture because numerous cases of dreams and visions as means of divine guidance occurred in the Bible (Olayiwola, 1987, 45-47).
- Emphasis on Spirituality
Most churches of Aladura Movement are spiritual in view of all things. The level of the spirituality, however, led to diversion among them. The dissatisfaction in the spiritual activities of a committed member might lead to shedding out of that church in search for opportunity to explore the spiritual things and in the process came up with the idea of setting up a better church that will do more of spiritual works. The Pentecostal churches have the idea grafting out due to lukewarm Christian character and the shallow Bible exposition of the mainline churches with the tradition of men. The Aladura prefer to be referred to as Ijo elemi (spiritual churches). By this, they mean that theirs is a church directed by the Holy Spirit. The leaders are men held to be in quest of spiritual contemplation and all of them claim spiritual motivation for the founding and the running of their organizations. They give spiritual interpretation to virtually everything, especially, misfortune and failures in life such as bareness, poverty, illnesses, unemployment, disappointment and so on. This underlying belief in spiritual causations of all events explains why spirit-induced services, faith healing and the expectations of the miraculous feature prominently in their deliverance services (Ayegboyin and Ishola, 1999, 28).
- Personality against Biblical Injunctions
Diversion is prominent on the point that most leaders coined the doctrinal character that did not obey the Bible truth. The power of enacting tradition by their discretion overruled the Christian truth of moral living. There are instances that were common among the so-called spiritual leaders such as, polygamy. Most often the AICs arose as a result of disagreements between African Christians and western missionaries over the extent to which traditional African practices were permissible. Many AICs permit polygamy following the Old Testament cultural practices which the New Testament does not reject. Very few Mission churches tolerate polygamy (Hastings, 1994, 11).
The Celestial Church of Christ, an "African Instituted" ( indigenous) church established in Nigeria after the Second World War, is one of nine churches seeking membership of the WCC, whose eighth assembly taking place in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare. Eight of the churches have been accepted as members, but a decision on whether or not to admit the Celestial Church was initially deferred, apparently because the church tolerates polygamy among clergy. According to a statement from the Celestial Church, the church admitted polygamous clergy only until 1986, the year in which the church's founder, S. B. J. Oshoffa died, although clergy who lived in polygamous unions before that date could continue to do so. The church did not condone divorce, the statement added (http://www.eni.ch). There are over 5,000 independent Christian denominations, all born in the twentieth century, all bearing familiar marks of Pentecostals spirituality, plus many distinctive qualities of their own (Adherents.com). However, Martin Luther granted the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, who, for many years, had been living "constantly in a state of adultery and fornication," a dispensation to take a second wife. The double marriage was to be done in secret however, to avoid public scandal. Some fifteen years earlier, in a letter to the Saxon Chancellor Gregor Brück, Luther stated that he could not "forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict Scripture. On February 14, 1650, the parliament at Nürnberg decreed that, because so many men were killed during the Thirty Years’ War, the churches for the following ten years could not admit any man under the age of 60 into a monastery. Priests and ministers not bound by any monastery were allowed to marry. Lastly, the decree stated that every man was allowed to marry up to ten women. The men were admonished to behave honorably, provide for their wives properly, and prevent animosity among them. This might be the ground that supported the polygamous living of Oshoffa Bileu and Josiah Olorunnowo Oshitelu.
EFFECTS OF DIVERSION
Ayegboyin and Ishola (1999) rightly state that Aladura leaders have gone to the extremes of adding extra-biblical modes to their worship and ministry. The so called resemblance between their mode of African Christianity and elements of traditional religion has led some scholars to conclude that Aladura Christianity is a sect within the traditional African Religion with a borrowed Christian veneer. Of course, as in all religious movements it will be ideal for the Aladura leaders to be wary of charlatans. However, it is important to stress that the phenomenon of healing, visioning dreaming, prophesying and so on are all spiritual experiences which are scripturally legitimate. As Osun rightly observed in spite of various misconceptions, misgivings, fears, oppositions, and or neglect, the Aladura have commendably provided examples of genuine African initiatives in Christian Missions, as well as authentic, vibrant and bold experiences of Christianity with strong African imprint.
The reflection of the diversion in the African Indigenous churches has been a lasting effect on the spread and increase in multi-type spiritual churches with different outlook and outcome in as much the foundation to setup churches was on “your vision” and the attempt is quite easy today once you are a visioner and spiritism addicted. The positive effects of diversion that are discovered during this research are listed below:
- Increase and Expansion of the Spread of Gospel News
- Commitment to Pentecostalism
- Modification and contextualization of Gospel
The negative effects of diversion that are discovered during this research are listed below:
- Increase and Expansion of the Spread of Gospel News
- Commitment to Pentecostalism
- Modification and contextualization of Gospel
Consequences of the effect
General consequences on Nigerian churches
WORKS CITED
Ogunrinade, Adewale O. Predilection for African Indigenous Practices in the Pentecostal Tradition of African Indigenous Churches with reference to Christ Apostolic Church Agbala Itura. www.cyberjournal.com. Cyberjournal for Pentecostal-Charismatic Research – 18, 2009.
Afe Adogame, Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare: the Public face of Aladura in Diaspora. University of Bayreuth, Germany, Journal of Religion in Africa. Volume 34.4, 2004. 493.
Omoyajawo. The Cherubim and Seraphim Movement - A Study on Interaction. ORITA, Vol. IV/2, 1970. 124-135.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus, 2009 edition
Olayiwola, David O. The Aladura: It’s Strategies for Mission and Conversion in Yoruba land, Nigeria, in ORITA: Ibadan Journal of Religious Studies, Vol. XIXII, June, 1987. 45-47.
Ayegboyin, Deji and Ishola, S. A. African Indigenous Churches, an Historical Perspective. Greater Heights publication, Lagos, 1999. 28.
Hastings, Adrian. The Church in Africa: 1450-1950. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994. 11.
http://www.eni.ch/assembly/0580.html This selection of ENI articles from the WCC, Ecumenical News International, 1998. It was accessed on 5th March 2010 by 3.07pm.
http://www.adherents.com/Na/Na_6.html Collection and organization of data © 23 April 2007 by
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy#cite_note-32 ^ Letter to Philip of Hesse, December 10, 1539, De Wette-Seidemann, 6:238–244
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