7 - Independency in Africa and Asia

Summary

Independency has existed since the early church, but never as prominently as in the twentieth century. Although there are large independent church movements in every continent, in this chapter we concentrate on those movements that have proliferated as a deliberate reaction to the perceived hegemony of Western forms of Christianity in Africa and Asia.

Africa

African Independent churches (AICs) were a major form of Christianity by 2000, consisting of thousands of different movements all over the sub-Sahara. They are living, radical examples of an African Christianity that has consciously rejected Western ecclesiastical models and forms of being Christian. Many place the birth of the modern AIC movement in the Antonian movement founded by a twenty-year-old prophetess, Kimpa Vita, also known as Donna Beatrice, in the recently colonised Kongo kingdom (northern Angola) in 1700. She was arrested in 1706 and burnt to death by command of the Portuguese King Pedro IV and at the request of the Catholic Capuchin missionaries. Her followers were forcefully subdued, although she became a national heroine and martyr, and today is regarded as a prototype of the contemporary African phenomenon of prophecy. The significance of Kimpa Vita and her movement is that not only was it the first recorded AIC movement, but it was also a manifestation of a phenomenon that was to be repeated frequently in Africa.