A Beacon for Mankind
Modern Africa
Jessica Posner, Kennedy Odede
Their Kibera School for Girls
Another effort: pumps4life - bringing water to the thirsty
The first Christian nation was in Africa (Ethiopia);
the first Christian missions was likely in Africa (Alexandria);
the Lord Jesus spent his boyhood in Africa (probably Alexandria);
And now, it seems, Africa is on its way back.
The next Christendom
The counterpart of populist Islam in the slums of Latin America and much of sub-Saharan Africa is Pentecostalism. Christianity, of course, is now, in its majority, a non-Western religion (two-thirds of its adherents live outside Europe and North America), and Pentecostalism is its most dynamic missionary in cities of poverty. Indeed the historical specificity of Pentecostalism is that it is the first major world religion to have grown up almost entirely in the soil of the modern urban slum. With roots in early ecstatic Methodism and African-American spirituality, Pentecostalism "awoke" when the Holy Ghost gave the gift of tongues to participants in an interracial prayer marathon in a poor neighbourhood of Los Angeles (Azusa Street) in 1906. Unified around spirit baptism, miracle healing, charismata and a premillennial belief in a coming world war of capital and labour, early American Pentecostalism -- as religious historians have repeatedly noted -- originated as a ‘prophetic democracy’ whose rural and urban constituencies overlapped, respectively, with those of Populism and the IWW. Indeed, like Wobbly organizers, its early missionaries to Latin America and Africa ‘lived often in extreme poverty, going out with little or no money, seldom knowing where they would spend the night, or how they would get their next meal.’ They also yielded nothing to the IWW in their vehement denunciations of the injustices of industrial capitalism and its inevitable destruction.
Edward Blyden: his prophetic vision
The African Contribution to Humanity
Jesus of the Nile : hero of a thousand faces
Africa's Spiritual Triumph: comfort ye my people
South Africa's bumpy miracle: the journey goes on
Contact for Neddy Nanjowe Dingili (Nairobi Kenya)
Here is a Nigerian (west Africa) ministry - Evangelist Emmanuel
Here is a Uganda (east Africa) FRIENDS orphanage school
Prophet TB Joshua of Nigeria - miracle worker or charlatan?
Enoch the Ethiopian: greater than Abraham, holier than Moses
Highlands of ancient Kush, a land forgot by time (Abyssinia)
'Zion' pentecostalism: Anglo-American & African brushfire
Darfur: a genocide we can stop
China may be for the 21st century what Europe was during the 8th-11th centuries, and America has been during the past 200 years: the natural ground for mass evangelization. If this occurs, the world will change beyond our capacity to recognize it. In Europe, Islam might defeat the western Europeans, simply by replacing their diminishing numbers with immigrants, but it will crumble beneath the challenge from the East.
See this article (Asia Times Online) China turning Christian
Related: Astounding Growth: 3rd world explosion of gospel faith
Worship is to the believer what electricity is
to the light bulb. Not only will worship connect you with
God on a deeper level, it will give you the power to
overcome the darkness. -- (Linda Shepherd)
African Prophetic ChurchesJohn Ferguson throws a deeper light [not verbatim] During the twentieth century, extending back into the nineteenth, the whole of Africa has seen the emergence of independent indigenous gospel churches. Almost a brushfire movement, these evangelical "awakenings" have erupted at times almost unpredictably -- and as it were to the consternation of more establishment-style Euro-centric denominationalism, with their stuffy dignity, their scholarly rigidity. The indigenous movement cared not at all whether the white theologians approved or nit-picked. The "move of the Spirit" had a force all its own. Often, accompanying the revivalist fervor, a charismatic, eloquent prophetic leader has risen into prominence. Such was William Wade Harris of Liberia, with his white gown and turban, the great evangelist of the Ivory Coast. Such was Garrick Braid of the Niger Delta with his great healing powers, or Joseph Babalola of Ilesha in Nigeria, a visionary of genius. Such was Simon Kimbangu of Zaire (Congo), healer and pacifist, who spent thirty years in a Belgian jail. Such was Alice Lenshina of Zambia, who believed that she herself had been resurrected from the dead, and given a new bible by angels, who insisted on strict morality, and was apolitical. Such was Isaiah Shembe, visionary, healer, ascetic and exorcist, who established the new community of Ama Nazareth outside Durban. Many of these churches, and many smaller groups and sects, are marked by ecstatic worship, fostered by drumming and expressed through dancing, speaking in tongues, and the like. Dreams and visions play an important part in such groups as the Cherubim and Seraphim; it was said of Alice Lenshina's Lumpa church that 'dream and taboo were the two front doors through which Christians went back to the African past.' Prayer is important, as in the Aladura churches of west Africa; and it involves congregational participation and is sometimes itself associated with a dissociation of the conscious senses. |
The Moorish Translator, King James Iacobvs
Samuel Oshoffa - miracle worker or crafty imposterSamuel Oshoffa (or Oschoffa) was the founder of the Celestial Church of Christ after reportedly resurrecting people from the dead. He founded the church in 1947 after being lost for three months near Porto-Novo in Benin. Samuel Oshoffa was born into a Yoruba family of mixed religion. His father was a Muslim but had become a Methodist, whilst his mother followed traditional religions and objected to Christianity. His father was a carpenter and he followed his fathers trade, like Jesus himself. His family was also involved with the Cherubim and Seraphim Church. He early became distinguished by his personal leadership traits and magnetic personality, together with a kind of sharpness of spiritual insight. Known for mystical experiences which seemed to guide him as well as an almost charismatic power, he soon attracted a following that seemed only to grow. The initial calling was somewhat unusual. Samuel went by canoe to buy planks from a village. An eclipse occurred on the way, and simultaneously a peacock, a rare bird, and a deadly snake appeared. Terrified, the canoes owner fled, leaving Oshoffa with crocidiles and serpents around him. For three months he saw no man but kept hearing a voice saying, Grace to God, Grace to God. When at last he rejoined human society, he had been transformed, was able to bring people back to life, or heal sicknesses, with the mere touch of his hand.On the cusp of institutionalization - success is resulting in Western style "bureaucratization" yet the folk-impact on the followers seems still fresh and vibrant |
 This Heir of the Luo OBAMA
Obama Family : Nyang'oma KogeloObama clan of far western district of Kenya (Luo Tribe). It was Onyango Obama, born in 1895, who as a young man turned away his Christian upbringing and the faith of his family, and chose in his twenties to call himself Hussein, taking the name when he adopted Islam, perhaps attracted by the submissiveness of the neighboring Muslim women. The Obama family, who had become Seventh-Day Adventists, were scandalized. See Peter Firstbrook |
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Worship is to the believer what electricity is to
the light bulb. Not only will worship connect you
with God on a deeper level, it will give you the
power to overcome the darkness.
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