A Spirit of Revitalization: Urban Pentecostalism in Kenya

By Kyama M. Mugambi

Perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, Africa has generated unique expressions of Christianity that have, in their rapid development, overtaken older forms of Christianity represented by historic missionary efforts. Similarly, African Christianity has largely displayed its rootedness in its social and cultural context. The story of Pentecostal movements in urban Kenya captures both remarkable trends. Individual accounts of churches and their leaders shed light on rich and diverse commonalities among generations of Kenya’s Christian communities.  

Exploring the movements’ religious visions in urban Africa,  A Spirit of Revitalization: Urban Pentecostalism in Kenya highlights antecedent movements set against their historical, social, economic, and political contexts. Kyama Mugambi examines how, in their translation of the gospel, innovative leaders synthesized new expressions of faith from elements of their historical and contemporary contexts. The sum of their experiences historically charts the remarkable journey of innovation, curation, and revision that attends to the process of translation and conversion in Christian history.

While outlining a century of successive renewal movements in Kenya between 1920 and 2020, the study also delves into features of recent urban Pentecostal churches. Readers will find a thorough historical treatment of themes such as church structures, corporate vision, Christian formation, and theological education. The longitudinal and comparative analysis shows how these Pentecostal approaches to orality, kinship, and integrated spirituality inform Kenyans’ reimagination of Christianity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baylor University Press
• Release date: Mar 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781481313575

Book preview

The Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity

Calvin College

Joel A. Carpenter

Series Editor

OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES

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Christianity and Catastrophe in South Sudan

Jesse A. Zink

The Rise of Pentecostalism in Modern El Salvador

Timothy H. Wadkins

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Andrew E. Barnes

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Lida V. Nedilsky

Evangelical Christian Baptists of Georgia

Malkhaz Songulashvili

China, Christianity, and the Question of Culture

YANG Huilin

The Evangelical Movement in Ethiopia

Tibebe Eshete

A Spirit of Revitalization

Urban Pentecostalism in Kenya

Kyama M. Mugambi

Baylor University Press

© 2020 by Baylor University Press

Waco, Texas 76798

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Cover photograph by Brian Mwando

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Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4813-1355-1

ePub ISBN: 978-1-4813-1357-5

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A Spirit of Revitalization has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: NEH CARES. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this book do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Dedicated to Wambûi, Naiserian, Mûthoni and Wandîrî

Series Foreword

It used to be that those of us from the global North who study world Christianity had to work hard to make the case for its relevance. Why should thoughtful people learn more about Christianity in places far away from Europe and North America? The Christian religion, many have heard by now, has more than 60 percent of its adherents living outside of Europe and North America. It has become a hugely multicultural faith, expressed in more languages than any other religion. Even so, the implications of this major new reality have not sunk in. Studies of world Christianity might seem to be just another obscure specialty niche for which the academy is infamous, rather like an ethnic foods corner in an American grocery store.

Yet the entire social marketplace, both in North America and in Europe, is rapidly changing. The world is undergoing the greatest transregional migration in its history, as people from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific region become the neighbors down the street, across Europe and North America. The majority of these new immigrants are Christians. Within the United States, one now can find virtually every form of Christianity from around the world. Here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I live and work, we have Sudanese Anglicans, Adventists from the Dominican Republic, Vietnamese Catholics, Burmese Baptists, Mexican Pentecostals, and Lebanese Orthodox Christians—to name a few of the Christian traditions and movements now present.

Christian leaders and institutions struggle to catch up with these new realities. The selection of a Latin American pope in 2013 was in some respects the culmination of decades of readjustment in the Roman Catholic Church. Here in Grand Rapids, the receptionist for the Catholic bishop answers the telephone first in Spanish. The worldwide Anglican communion is being fractured over controversies concerning sexual morality and biblical authority. Other churches in worldwide fellowships and alliances are treading more carefully as new leaders come forward and challenge northern assumptions, both liberal and conservative.

Until very recently, however, the academic and intellectual world has paid little heed to this seismic shift in Christianity’s location, vitality, and expression. Too often, as scholars try to catch up to these changes, says the renowned historian Andrew Walls, they are still operating with pre-Columbian maps of these realities.

This series is designed to respond to that problem by making available some of the coordinates needed for a new intellectual cartography. Broad-scope narratives about world Christianity are being published, and they help to revise the more massive misconceptions. Yet much of the most exciting work in this field is going on closer to the action. Dozens of dissertations and journal articles are appearing every year, but their stories are too good and their implications are too important to be reserved for specialists only. So we offer this series to make some of the most interesting and seminal studies more accessible, both to academics and to the thoughtful general reader. World Christianity is fascinating for its own sake, but it also helps to deepen our understanding of how faith and life interact in more familiar settings.

So we are eager for you to read, ponder, and enjoy these Baylor Studies in World Christianity. There are many new things to learn, and many old things to see in a new light.

Joel A. Carpenter

Series Editor

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. The Spirit-Roho Christians

Conflict and Continuity in Early Kenyan Christianity

2. Revivalists and Student Movements

Early Cosmopolitan Renewal in Kenya

3. Self-Determination, Evangelicalism, and Renewal

Newer Pentecostal Charismatic Churches, 1970–1990

4. A New Pentecostal Response to Political and Economic Turmoil

Progressive Pentecostal Churches, 1990–2005

5. Go Ye and Make Disciples

Discipleship in Urban Kenyan Pentecostalism

6. Leadership Development and Renewal in Kenya

Relevance, Priorities, and Shifts in Theological Education

7. Spirit-Led and Structured

The Case of Christ Is the Answer Ministries

8. Without a Vision My People Perish

Reconceptualizing the Future at the Nairobi Chapel

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Preface and Acknowledgments

My paternal grandfather, Kanyua Mugambi, loved telling ng’ano cia kîembu (Embu tales) and maûndû ma tene (narratives about the past). I thoroughly enjoyed these stories as a child. I didn’t realize, though, that he was doing more in me than just passing on history and morals. He was cementing orality as intrinsic to my identity. Indeed, orality is an integral component of Christian life in Africa. Over time I became more convinced of the need for additional in-depth research and writing about orality and other aspects of Christianity on the continent. Two occasions in the space of a few years heightened the urgency for me to start the project.

One of those events, which I recall with gratitude, was a spirited conversation in July 2013 between Wanjiru Gitau, Paul Gifford, and me. The exchange occurred in between sittings of a consultation on emerging patterns of Christian identity in urban East Africa in Nairobi. I am grateful to Jim Miller from Asbury Seminary for the invitation to that meeting and for the fruitful reflection it triggered. The other catalyst for this project came about a year later during my PhD studies at the Africa International University (AIU). Here, my curiosity was stirred as Mark Shaw subjected me to the rigors of researching Christianity in Africa. His formal and informal curricula at the Centre for World Christianity (CWC) sharpened the skills I needed as my resolve stiffened to pen the story. It is my hope that readers will find in the pages of this book replies to questions that have gone unanswered on a subject about which much still needs to be written.

We often say here in Kenya that it takes a village to raise a child. Like that village-raised child, the task of putting together this project is a community effort. The relational networks that came together in this journey emphasize again for me the importance of the extended village kinship that helps one accomplish much. In this village are the wazee wa kijiji (village elders) like John Mbiti, Lamin Sanneh, Andrew Walls, Laurenti Magesa, Steve Garber, and Douglas Carew. Warm, encouraging words from each of them at different times left their indelible mark on me as I labored in this undertaking. Reading such distinguished authors as Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, Nimi Wariboko, Ogbu Kalu, Philomena Mwaura, Kevin Ward, and Diane Stinton opened lines of inquiry that I found intriguing and useful for this project. I consider it a privilege to have met many of these academics and listened to their lectures in person.

I relished chats in English, Kiswahili, and even Kikuyu with one among these scholars, Derek Peterson. Those moments during his research excursions to East Africa exposed key gaps that this work seeks to fill. Ûrorathimwo. Inspiration also came from thoughtful, honest discussions with observant friends like Joe Kobuthi, Darius Okolla, Michael Glerup, and Jay Thomas. Vibrant lecture sessions with graduate students at Africa International University and Pan Africa Christian University (PACU), and with pastoral trainees at Mavuno Church, also played a part in highlighting the pertinent issues.

This project would not have been possible without archives, libraries, and quiet places to study availed by generous friends along the way. For my stay at Ripon College Oxford in the Fall of 2017, I thank Cathy Ross and Humphrey Southern. It is here that the structure of this book came together. Colin Smith and Ken Osborne ushered me into the quiet desks of the Bishop Ajayi Crowther Library at Church Mission Society, also in Oxford. During my time in Oxford and afterwards, Angus Crichton became a most profound supporter in many ways, not the least of which was his guidance in accessing a vast array of archival resources previously unknown and otherwise unavailable to me. Asante. I am grateful to Harvey Kwiyani who opened the Andrew Walls Collection for me at Liverpool-Hope University in Liverpool. His helpful advice as I sought a publisher for my work remains etched in my mind.

I have been very fortunate to have wonderful colleagues along the way from CWC, AIU, PACU, Tangaza University College, the University of Nairobi, African Theological Network Press (ATNP), and the Jesuit Historical Institute in Africa (JHIA) at Hekima University College. They include James Nkansah-Obrempong, George Atido, Michael Wambua, Kitawi Mwandagina, Linda Adolwa, Nathan Chiroma, Joshua Rutere, Sahaya Selvam, Edith Kayeli, Miriam Wambui, Jean-Luc Enyegue, Peter Knox, and Festo Mkenda. I treasure their companionship in our quest to faithfully serve our community.

The research part of this project revealed Becky Suchi’s hidden gift of transcription, from which I greatly benefited. Asandi muno, Ero Kamano Ahinya! Credit is due to Lawrence Oseje, Martin Munyao, and Peter Maribei who, together with others mentioned here, read portions of the book to check the facts and make sure my telling of the story was accurate. Conveyed over cups of good Kenyan coffee, Mwenda Ntarangwi’s insights on the mechanics of manuscript preparation were invaluable. This story will reach far beyond our circles here in Kenya largely because Joel Carpenter believed in the project. I am appreciative of his commitment to plow through the prose in its raw state before it was anything a publisher would enjoy looking at. I am also grateful to David Aycock, Cade Jarrell, and the dedicated team at Baylor University Press who made this a pleasant learning experience as they expertly guided me through the process.

I remain thankful to the Mavuno Family, and the pastors across the movement. This community provided spiritual nurture without which this work would have been an insurmountable challenge. This project made me gain a new appreciation for Mavuno Downtown, our home community where we serve as we grow in our faith. I remain grateful to Muriithi Wanjau for granting me time off from the Executive team to pursue God’s calling into academia, during a very busy ministry season. I am indebted to the next-generation leaders like Benson BX Otieno, Kevin Lemeria, Kevin Kilonzi, together with their families. With my leave, their calling, gifts, and passion shone forth as they bore heavier ministry responsibilities.

The village behind this book also includes friends so close they are practically my extended family. Among these are the group of men that once answered to the name Holi Sako, as well as the Starehe C90 brothers and their energetic Steerco. Others are QEUW, Ken Muciri, the Werus, the MaqC’s, the Gachuis, the Macharias, the Wamais, and the Webis. They shared the burden and encouraged my family in all the areas that mattered. Among these I point out Patrick Mbugua and Matt Seadore who regularly called in to offer godly counsel and accountability, helping us keep first things first.

Our parents, siblings, nephews, and nieces, from Kiamumbi and from Gakundu, offered their fervent, effectual prayers, delightfully mingling their constant encouragement with frequent moments of laughter. I cannot thank my parents enough for blazing the trail ahead of me in so many ways to make it easier for me to thrive. Ndwîga and Nyathira Mugambi modeled how to maintain lifelong intellectual curiosity while nurturing and celebrating the gift of family.

I dedicate this book to the ladies in my life. Our children, Naiserian Wawîra, Mûthoni Nashepai, and Wandîrî Namayana, made this one of the most meaningful, memorable experiences in my life as they actively participated as much as they could at every stage. Mûtumia ngatha tîke Wambûi wa Kyama, my dear wife, prayerfully, graciously, and joyfully supported me throughout this endeavor. Nî Ngatho, Mwathani akurathime Mûno.

Kyama M. Mugambi

Nairobi, July 2020

Abbreviations

Africa Inland Church (AIC)

Africa Inland Mission (AIM)

Africa Israel Church Nineveh (AICN)

African Brotherhood Church (ABC)

African Christian Churches and Schools (ACC&S)

The Apostolic Church Lagos, Western and Northern Areas (LAWNA)

African Independent Pentecostal Church (AIPCA)

African Initiatives in Christianity (AIC)

African Primal Religion (APR)

African Traditional Religion (ATR)

All Nations for Christ Bible Institute (ANCBI)

Assemblies of God (AG)

Christ is the Answer Ministry (CITAM)

Christians for a Just Society (CFJS)

Church Missionary Society (CMS)

Church of God Mission International (CGMI)

East African School of Theology (EAST)

Fellowship of Christian Unions (FOCUS)

Friends Africa Mission (FAM)

The International Christian Centre (ICC)

International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES)

International Standards Organization (ISO)

Jesus Is Alive Ministries (JIAM)

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT)

Jubilee Christian Church (JCC)

Kenya African National Union (KANU)

Kenya Assemblies of God (KAG)

Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC)

Kenya Students Christian Fellowship (KSCF)

Kenya Television Network (KTN)

The Kikuyu Independent Schools Association (KISA)

Kikuyu Karinga Education Association (KKEA)

Main Campus Christian Union (MCCU)

The Nairobi Chapel-Ongata Rongai (NCOR)

Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST)

Nairobi Pentecostal Church (NPC)

National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK)

National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) Party

Newer Pentecostal Charismatic Church (NPCC)

The Organization of African Initiated Churches (OAIC)

Pan African Christian Leadership Assembly (PACLA)

Pan African Fellowship of Evangelical Students (PAFES)

Pentecostal Assemblies of East Africa (PAEA)

Pentecostal Assembly of Canada (PAOC)

Pentecostal Assemblies of God (PAG)

Pentecostal Evangelistic Center (PEC)

Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA)

Progressive Pentecostal Churches (PPC)

Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG)

Redeemed Gospel Church (RGC)

Structural Adjustment Program (SAP)

United Kikuyu Language Committee (UKLC)

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

University of Nairobi (UON)

Black and White Map of East Africa. Countries pictured are Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi.

Map by author.

Black and White Map of Central Nairobi Area, highlighting various administrative divisions.

Map by author.

Introduction

At 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, it is hard to ignore the sound of eight bands with singers and instrumentalists of varying competencies all playing Kiswahili songs over loud public address systems. Congregation members clap and dance to the distinctive, lively Benga beat that stresses the syncopating rhythms of the drums, bass, and electric guitar.¹ Each of the eight bands plays in its own church, all within a radius of five hundred meters. This is a densely populated residential area. Blocks of flats six floors high line the neighborhood’s treeless streets, stretching as far as the eye can see. Four of the churches, in fact, are within twenty meters of each other. They are young churches both in the age of their membership and the length of their history. All except one of these congregations has been in its present location for less than ten years. After an hour of singing and loud ecstatic prayer comes an hour and a half of preaching. The sermons belted through the public address systems sound like a passionate, intense shouting match among eight people, several with their own translators. The preacher communicates in English with a heavy Kenyan accent while a translator speaks in Kiswahili. To the unaccustomed ear, all this is a grating cacophony.

Eaglerise Christian Church and Overcomers Truth Church sit next to each other in small rectangular buildings of corrugated iron sheets built on reserve land next to the road. They are both seven-year-old Pentecostal churches, packed to capacity with fifty adults on plastic chairs and benches without backrests. Members’ children play outside near these shacks. Their public address system was made to cater to two hundred, but the fifty seem at ease with the loud volume. Across the road, situated between blocks of flats, is a half-finished concrete auditorium that belongs to the New Hope Church. When it is completed, it will hold five hundred. Members of this church, however, will not wait until the building is finished. All two hundred of them are already meeting there. There is no car parking for the congregation. They do not need it, since most members walk or take matatus to church.² The twenty-year-old Cathedral of Praise International meets on a one-acre piece of land whose rear fence borders Eaglerise and Overcomers Truth. Its members meet in a large dome tent that can fit a thousand people. The church is home to King Solomon primary school. On Sunday the classes host the children’s Sunday school. The adult Sunday school class meets in a separate tent on the compound, a hundred meters away from the main tent. It has its own public address system where the teacher howls out his lesson while the singing goes on in the main dome tent.

A Full Gospel Churches of Kenya congregation and the Deliverance Church are located on the next road. They belong to older Pentecostal church denominations from the 1970s. They gather in large corrugated iron buildings that resemble low warehouses. Here between two hundred and three hundred adults gather. Their bands are more sophisticated than those of the churches housed in the shacks, each having a full complement of instruments and a dozen singers. They each have children’s Sunday school with about five dozen children. St. Bakhita Catholic Church meets around the corner and is also full on Sunday. Together these churches’ growth mirrors the population growth in this small area, as it does the growth in most of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city.³ These images and sounds of multiple, simultaneous expressions of Christianity are a part of my daily life in the Embakasi area where I live in Nairobi. I encounter these sights and sounds every Sunday morning as my family and I commute from the southern part of Nairobi to my own church, Mavuno Downtown, another Charismatic church, 2 kilometers west of Nairobi’s central business district. The vibrant music, loud preaching, and ecstatic prayers of evening evangelistic meetings and overnight prayer vigils form a soundtrack that my children learned to sleep through early in their lives. This is a scenario that replicates itself in many African cities and to a lesser extent in rural areas. This prolific Christianity, known for its exuberant nature, now forms a significant part of African cultural and religious expression.

As the son of a theologian from the Kenyan academy, I grew up in an environment that exposed me to academic inquiry and reflection from a wide variety of sources. I am the grandson of a Kenyan World War II veteran who converted to the Christian faith in the late 1940s during the East African Revival. From my grandfather I inherited a devotion to Christian faith which he modeled with fervency and sincerity. Born and raised in Nairobi, my five siblings and I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood not far from Kibra, a sprawling informal settlement. On Sundays in the 1980s as we prepared to go to church, several dozen members of Africa Israel Church Nineveh (AICN) marched from Kibra past our gate to Eastlands, wearing robes, playing hand-held drums, and singing songs in Luhyia.⁴ Our parents took us to St. Paul’s Anglican Church nearby, where I gained an appreciation for the depth and structure of historic mission church liturgy. As was customary for first-generation Nairobi residents in the 1970s and 1980s, my parents hosted many relatives and friends. When the opportunity presented itself, these transitional members of our nuclear family took us to a variety of Pentecostal churches in the area. There I learned to be at home with the loud preaching, ecstatic prayer, and glossolalia. My life as a Christian since then has involved constantly and introspectively navigating the tension between my spiritual heritage as an Anglican and my present reality as a charismatic. That also means reflecting on what made my fellow Kenyan Pentecostals and me at home in these disparate expressions of Christianity.⁵

This is a book about this distinctly African Christianity. It urges an investigation beyond the captious strand of scholarship directed at this phenomenon. Analyzing Pentecostal Christianity in Kenya, scholars like Paul Gifford have argued that this Christianity is too self-absorbed to promote progress on a national scale. They see it as a Christianity that is only about success, status, victory, achievement.⁶ It is not original, but a conscious opting into modernity and the world beyond.⁷ Beyond this, the dominant voices in the discussion trace the ancestry of African Pentecostalism and its features to North America.⁸ While one cannot write off the reality of Western contributions, this theory about the provenance of the churches fails to appreciate the deep relationship that this Christianity has with previous indigenous initiatives in Christianity. Theirs is a story that emerges from within its own context and must be told as such. Some cast African Pentecostalism as an unhelpfully enchanted Christianity that militates against any form of community or social capital; it breeds fear and distrust.⁹ While a casual look seems to support this thesis, a more involved perspective points to a multigenerational faith engagement that stubbornly offers hope and security in the incessantly volatile, dynamic context on the continent. Eaglerise and Overcomers churches are not simply imitations of foreign church models but are, rather, relevant 2019 iterations of an indigenous Christianity whose history stretches back a century. The churches are historically connected to their predecessors by orality, kinship, and African cosmology, three strands which I use to probe this continuity. This study offers a perspective that challenges the notion that authentic African independent churches are rural, eccentric, monocultural relics of the past. These early churches are antecedents to a much broader, cosmopolitan, and increasingly urban Christianity with varied expressions. The book explores a phenomenon which will benefit from a more current emic examination than earlier descriptive studies.¹⁰ For the purposes of this kind of study, an emic perspective offers crucial insight into the meanings and values of this particular Christianity within its host culture. This is particularly important when investigating the inner workings of a religion as it permeates its social, economic, political, and cultural contexts.¹¹

This work is appreciative of earlier attempts to make the connection between Pentecostalism and these seemingly eccentric precursors. It goes further to present a more comprehensive picture that includes the other threads of revitalization occurring along a historical continuum in the same social, cultural, and geographical context.¹² The book’s posture rejects the use of historic missionary Christianity or twentieth-century evangelical or fundamentalist rubrics as the primary reference points for assessment. Rather we will consider the importance of African Pentecostalism as a legitimate expression that must be assessed in its own local terms. While previous discussions originated from West Africa and Southern Africa, this book provides a unique East African contribution to the discourse.¹³ Though it engages several mainly Protestant expressions, this is not a broad all-inclusive history covering the entire slate of Protestant, Catholic, and other confessional traditions. Those who seek this kind of account will need to look elsewhere.¹⁴ It is also not a denominational narrative arising from a particular theological position.¹⁵ Though the book is about a particular expression of Christianity, a denominational approach is too narrow to adequately engage the task before us. Where various works researched movements etically and in isolation, this is a work about Pentecostalism in Kenya and its antecedents taken together as a family of related expressions.¹⁶ We will examine how each expression is historically connected to the other with regard to orality, kinship, and holistic worldview.¹⁷ Further, we will trace the Charismatic impulse from its earliest expressions to piece together the trajectory of indigenous innovations that produced the diversity evident today. This is an account of how the translation of the gospel can produce a variety of results in society. Translation does not happen in a vacuum; when people become Christians they do not throw away their maps of reality.¹⁸ They enter a creative process, synthesizing new material while revising the old. Here new elements are placed on the old maps. The old maps are modified to include new information, to delete wrong or outdated information.¹⁹ More specifically, the unfolding story in this book is an investigation of how this expression of Christianity fits within the orality of its host cultures. We will interrogate the role of kinship, around which Kenyan society organizes itself, and we will probe how this Christianity reimagines kinship within the claims of the Christian faith. Finally, we will relate this faith to the cosmology of the cultures it finds itself in.

The account in this book takes seriously the themes of conversion, translation, and worldview in history. During the conversion process, the gospel message in a community holds two forces in tension. One is the impulse of the faithful to view themselves as citizens of another world, and the other is the need for this faith to find a home in the host culture.²⁰ This book brings this tension to life as successive generations of the faithful grapple with what Christian faith means for them. Through stories of people and their movements, it explores the ways in which translation is a dynamic act of revision, where one phase is never good enough; and as social life and language change, it must change as well.²¹

A Dynamic African Encounter

While this work engages themes commonly found in studies of African religion, it is not an apologia for primal religion in the guise of Pentecostalism.²² It is not a hagiographical account of a Christianity that has had a profound impact understood by few in academia, nor is it an attempt to thoroughly evaluate the orthodoxy of the churches. These things, though important for certain applications, fall outside the scope of this project. This study is informed by the important role of Pentecostalism in shaping the religious and social identity of African Christians today. The Pentecostal/Charismatic expression in Africa is so dominant that it is no longer marginal but mainstream in its numbers and appeal. Christianity in Africa has an impressive record of growth and diversity. It commands large numbers statistically, moving from under ten million at the beginning of the twentieth century to over 690 million in 2019.²³ Pentecostalism has one of the highest growth rates, with African Pentecostals accounting for over 40 percent of those in the world.²⁴ For this reason any account of Christianity in the world today must include Africa’s contribution. Similarly, any discussion of African religion cannot omit Christianity, as it is part of the African experience. Thus, in the words of Andrew Walls, the current growth and status of Christianity in Africa merits its study both as Christianity as well as African religion. It is both representative of Christianity today but also representative of African religious expression.²⁵

Pentecostalism has emerged as one of the most powerful sociocultural forces shaping the continent in the last century. This book is an attempt to tell this remarkable story in a balanced way, starting with its historical roots in Kenya and charting its course from early Protestant missionary efforts to its twenty-first century implications. The individual stories of the African Protestant churches unearth the rich diversity of Pentecostalism while unveiling the threads that braid the movement together. This book is a multigenerational exploration of Christian renewal in Kenya that seeks out instances of the creativity, curation, and revision essential to the course of Christian history.²⁶ As one whose faith took root in the pews of this Christianity, I appreciate Pentecostalism’s potential to address the quest for religious answers to the problems in African society. My two decades as a minister—during which I planted and led Charismatic churches in two different movements—thrust me into a position where I not only saw but took part in the action. As a pastor in Mavuno Church, a Charismatic movement with church-planting teams in ten African countries, I experienced firsthand the vast energy of this Christianity both within and beyond our church. I bring this experience into dialogue with the academic heritage I have received from both my upbringing and my education, a heritage that has taught me to reflect, interrogate, and seek understanding.

Graduate training in theology and in management sciences gave me the tools to carry out a multifaceted investigation of Charismatic movements in Africa. Doctoral research in world Christianity situated my inquiry within a broader conversation about the place of African contributions to a global phenomenon. As a practitioner and scholar, the perils and potential of Pentecostal Christianity are now clearer to me than ever before.

Pentecostal Christianity’s potential is evident in the commitment of African Pentecostal theology to personal transformation. Pentecostals’ understanding of the Holy Spirit goes beyond mere conversion, rather seeking to inspire experiential and continuous engagement, thus producing a changed individual.²⁷ Newer Pentecostal Charismatic Church (NPCC) theology also stresses an empowering aspect of the gospel. Healing and deliverance provide a channel for individuals to call out, come to terms with, and address obstacles to their own advancement.²⁸ This aspect of empowerment is a source of hope within a challenging economic and social context. Salvation is therefore holistic and experiential in its meaning.²⁹ Flowing out of this all-encompassing approach is the creation of plausibility structures that allow Christians in Africa to anticipate good health, success, and prosperity in life as a result of their faith.³⁰ The names of the churches bear testimony of their leaders’ desire to be agents of such hope. Names such as Eaglerise, Overcomers Truth Church, and New Hope Church are an attempt to make the churches’ very identity about this hope.³¹ Pentecostal Christianity was a catalyst among African theologians and clergy that invited a reexamination—or reconfiguration—of the relevance of historic mission churches to the African experience. This Christianity challenged the efficacy of the theology in these older denominations to address contextual questions such as suffering, poverty, disease, and uncertainty. In these ways, Pentecostalism is an agent of promise, though there is reason for concern.

Pentecostalism’s potential for error is clear on many levels. This Pentecostalism, especially for churches on the margins, tests the boundaries of orthodoxy, with many falling short of widely accepted biblical and theological standards.³² One often-cited issue of error is the prosperity gospel, which, while aiming to empower listeners, fails to adequately address pain, suffering, and the failure of institutions in society.³³ Some Pentecostal circles pay little attention to the inevitability of pain and suffering among those who faithfully apply the formula of prayer and tithing, which, coupled with hard work, allegedly promises prosperous results. Leaders in these churches do not address causal factors such as institutional breakdown and personal moral bankruptcy. The other criticism leveled against African Pentecostalism in direct relation to this theology is its apparent relationship to North American televangelist Christianity.³⁴ Its inability to distance itself from North American fundamentalist and Pentecostal forms often stands as an indictment against its value for African society today.³⁵ Some popular African Pentecostal leaders maintain close, uncritical relationships with televangelists, visiting their churches and participating in mission exchanges. The leaders are loath to hold their American counterparts accountable regarding financial or moral scandals. Many African leaders lack the moral authority to engage their counterparts because of their own failures. For all its preoccupation with personal material success and triumph over evil, this type of African Christianity draws sharp criticism for its seeming inability to position the continent for economic prosperity. Many Pentecostal preachers teach their congregations to voice their aspirations as prayers, which they then expect God to answer. Such words spoken through faith in Christ are understood to hold power through their connection with the omnipotent God. The pastor is believed to mediate God’s power as his agent. The pastor’s upako (Kiswahili for anointing) is authenticated by the miracles performed using sacred symbols.

Within this Word of Faith theology the concepts of the pastor’s anointing and the enchanted imagination, which are analogous to ideas from primal religion, do not bode well for socioeconomic development, according to critics.³⁶ African Pentecostalism is reportedly a Christianity in which demons or spiritual forces or Satan are deemed responsible for all occurrences.³⁷ The church leaders’ apparent departure from the rationalism that is necessary for economic progress renders them impotent in securing the continent’s future through modern economic methods.³⁸ Pentecostal Christianity has the potential to breed fear and distrust because of the multiplicity of real and imagined foes in the enchanted worldview. This perspective militates against any form of community or social capital. Take, for example, Daniel Kolawole Olukoya, the founder of Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church in Nigeria.³⁹ Olukoya has a PhD in molecular genetics from the University of Reading, but has rather turned his back on the particular rationality which underpins modern science.⁴⁰ The same is true of the biochemist David Owuor, of the Repentance and Holiness Ministry in Kenya. The possibility exists that this enchanted view of reality, with its apparent inability to take advantage of scientific rationality, may prevent these movements from serving the needs of Africa.⁴¹ It is not just Charismatic theology that can be problematic. The leadership of these movements rarely pass authority to younger generations; therefore, their leadership is not representative of the current demographic makeup of Africa. For example, in 2011 Gabriel Oladele Olutola became the president of the Apostolic Church Lagos, Western and Northern Areas.⁴² The Apostolic Church LAWNA is one of the largest Pentecostal churches in Africa. It traces its history to the classical Pentecostals under the Apostolic Church denomination from the United Kingdom. Its main congregation of forty thousand has its headquarters at the National Temple in Lagos State, Nigeria. Olutola took over leadership of the church from Eyo Edet Okon following Okon’s death in 2010. Okon died at the age of ninety-six, having served in the church since the 1940s. Olutola took over at seventy-six, an age scarcely representative of the general population of the nation, let alone the continent. This is the case in many large churches all around Africa.⁴³ Conversely, the median age of Africa is under twenty years.⁴⁴ To paraphrase David Kuwiwa, a scholar of international studies commenting on leadership in the continent: "Africa is young, why are its church leaders so old?⁴⁵ The development of leadership in Africa’s emerging Christianity remains an issue attracting condemnation. The Pentecostals’ emphasis on the spiritual world provides few avenues for the converts to engage with institutional evil at play in their realities.⁴⁶ Many Pentecostals preach about righteousness, morality, and repentance, but do not do enough to denounce the unjust societal structures or worldliness which they live in.⁴⁷ In the end, the enchanted view distracts the adherents from rationally affecting development.⁴⁸ These movements are notorious for their leader-centeredness."⁴⁹ Their congregations’ propensity to idolize and uncritically follow them threatens their longevity.⁵⁰ Leadership is stretched to its limits by the rapid growth.⁵¹ Under constant pressure to meet the demands of their churches, the pastors of the churches described in the vignettes above find it hard to meet their families’ needs. With such existential concerns looming over them, important issues, such as formal theological reflection and financial accountability training, eventually fall lower on their list of priorities. This is further complicated by spontaneous growth that is not the direct result of elaborate, well-articulated and executed plans.⁵²

In sum, it is this dynamism in the tension between its potential and its danger which makes Pentecostalism in Africa such a rich subject of study. It calls for a broader treatment examining the phenomenon within its context. We note as well that Pentecostal-Charismatic is a Christianity that represents a very diverse range of expressions for which it is impossible to give an exhaustive analysis in one book. Nevertheless, a one-volume guide can sketch the contours of this Christianity for the interested scholar, showing how these movements developed into what this Christianity is today.

Terms for the Task

The diversity of expression presents the most immediate difficulty in the study of Pentecostal churches. Some are large, others small. Some meet in tents and some meet in tin halls. Some of their leaders shout while others are conversational. They sing in English, Swahili, and a variety of other languages. Some ministry teams wear suits or a formal uniform, while others wear colorful, uncoordinated African clothing. Still others wear turbans. The task before us now is one of selecting the terms with which to frame Pentecostalism. The incredibly broad spectrum of expressions that attends this exercise calls for a terminology that describes the Charismatic movement. These terms should show how the movements not only relate but also differ from each other.

Each of the movements of this Pentecostal history engages in a deliberate effort to translate Christian truth, and, shaped by complex agencies, to transform their world through a more vibrant, missional, and spiritually satisfying expression.⁵³ We highlight the intentional nature of such movements led by their Charismatic leaders. Recognizing the complexity of revitalization agencies, we avoid oversimplifying the contribution of social, political, economic, cultural, and historical factors.⁵⁴ The translation of Christian truth is pivotal for effective transformation within the life of a community.

Translation is used in two ways in this book. The first is Bible translation, which refers to the rendering of the biblical text into local languages. This required linguists, most often early missionaries, to develop orthography for languages that were put into writing for the first time. The second use of the term translation refers to a broader concept: the dynamic entry of the gospel message into the mind and thought forms of the recipients. It goes beyond just having the text in indigenous languages. Though it begins there, translation, through the work of indigenous leaders and the lived experience of the converts, helps the message progressively permeate the world of the recipients.⁵⁵ African Traditional Religion (ATR) refers broadly to the religious, cosmological, ontological, cultural, and philosophical framework around which African primal belief systems and practices were oriented before the introduction of Christianity. African cultures and their expressions of ATR were by no means homogeneous. However, there are certain aspects of this cosmology that can be put in