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Medical Science and Pentecost: The Dilemma of Anglicanism in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Terence Ranger
Terence Ranger*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Extract

I begin this paper with some broad generalisations about the history of anglicanism in relation to healing. I shall contend that in East and Central Africa over the last hundred years there were simultaneously present and interacting with each other a number of tendencies which in Europe had developed over a much longer period. Thus in some ways the religious history of colonial Africa is an intensification and telescoping of the religious history of Europe.

I am assuming, then, that in England by the end of the 17th century anglicanism had come to repudiate ‘enthusiasm’ and the visible manifestations of the Holy Spirit, partly for reasons of social control. I am assuming that this more or less closed the door on spiritual healing within 18th century anglicanism and produced the characteristically ‘cool’ anglican tone. Wesley brought back into the Church of England a universe of spirits and spiritual healings and exorcisms but all this went off into early methodism and out of the 19th-century Anglican church. In this 19th-century church, before it reached out into Central African mission, a number of superficially contradictory developments took place. There was an interaction of church and medical ‘establishments’ which led to anglican involvement in public health programmes and to an intellectual commitment to the ‘divine’ origins of modern medical science. At the same time there was a revival, particularly in the countryside, of communal rituals designed to create feelings of solidarity despite the realities of class division.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 19: The Church and Healing , 1982 , pp. 333 - 365
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1982

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References

1 For statements of the historicity of African religions see, Ranger, T. O. and Kimambo, Isaria, The Historical Study of African Religion (London 1972)Google Scholar; Ranger, T. O. and Weiler, John, Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa (London 1975)Google Scholar; van Binsbergen, W.M.J., [Religious Change in Zambia, Exploratory Studies] (London 1981)Google Scholar. For a historical study with special reference to African religio-medical change, see Janzen, John, ‘Ideologies and Institutions in the precolonial medical history of equatorial African therapeutic systems’, Social Science and Medicine volume 13B, number 4 (December 1979).Google Scholar

2 For developments of this argument see Feierman, Steven, ‘Change in African Therapeutic Systems’, Social Science and Medicine, 13B, 4 (December 1979)Google Scholar; Ranger, T.O., Witchcraft Belief in the History of Three Continents. An Africanist Perspective on the Interactions of History and Anthropology (Cambridge)Google Scholar forthcoming.

3 For discussion of prophetic movements of this kind see W.M.J. van Binsbergen, ‘Introduction’, ‘Religious Change and the Problem of Evil in Western Zambia’.

4 Ranger, T.O., ‘Missionary adaptation of African religious institutions: the Masasi case’, in Ranger, and Kimambo, , The Historical Study of African Religion (London 1972)Google Scholar; ‘Europeanw realities; the rise and fall of the Matola Chiefs of South East Tanzania’, Journal of African History, 20 (1979); ‘Rituals of Recession; Anglicanism in Masasi and the Great Depression’, Past and Present, (forthcoming).

5 Ranger, T.O., ‘Godly Medicine: [the Ambiguity of Medical Mission in South East Tanzania, 1900-1945’, Social Science and Medicine, 15B, 3] (July 1981)Google Scholar.

6 The papers of the Cambridge conference were published as a special issue of Social Science and Medicine on ‘Classification and Causality in African Medicine and Health’ in July 1981.

7 For Mchape see Ranger, T.O., ‘Mchape’, Conference on the History of Central African Religious Systems (Lusaka 1972).Google Scholar

8 Van Binsbergen, chapter 4.

9 For Southern Rhodesian Pentecostalism see Daneel, Martinus, Old and New in Southern Shona Independent Churches, vols 1 and 2 (The Hague 1971 and 1974)Google Scholar; Jules-Rosette, B., African Apostles (Ithaca 1975)Google Scholar. For connections with American Pentecostalism see Sundkler, Bengt, Zulu Zion (Uppsala 1976).Google Scholar

10 T.O.Ranger, ‘Godly Medicine’.

11 Entry for 20 October 1934, Masasi Cathedral parish log, August 1924 to July 1938, University of Dar es Salaam library.

12 May, Alston, ‘Sacraments not Charms’, Central Africa 39, 464, (August 1921) p 157.Google Scholar

13 Smythies, C.A., ‘Medical Missionaries’, Central Africa, 11 (1892) p 51.Google Scholar

14 Stradling, L.E., [A Bishop on Safari] (London 1960) pp 84–85.Google Scholar

15 Hine, J.E., Days Gone By (London 1924) p 172.Google Scholar

16 Stradling pp 91-92.

17 Gusmer, C.W., [The Ministry of Healing in the Church of England] (Great Wakering 1974) pp 78–85.Google Scholar

18 Duncan Travers to Bishop Richardson, 7 January 1897, USPG Al V111, USPG Archives, Westminster.

19 T.O.Ranger, ‘Godly Medicine’.

20 Elaine Loyd to the Bishop of Mashonaland, 20 March 1914, H 2/4/19, National Archives, Salisbury, Zimbabwe.

21 See files H 2/10/6 and H 2/4/19, National Archives, Salisbury, Zimbabwe.

22 Entry for 8 December 1911, Chronicle of Triashill, Triashill, Makoni district; see also entries for 5 October 1935 and 30 April 1936; entry for 30 April 1935, Historia Domus, Triashill, Box 195, Jesuit Archives, Salisbury.

23 Entries for 11 and 13 August 1950, Historia Domus, St. Barbara’s, Makoni district.

24 Entry for 22 April 1934, Historia Domus, St. Barbara’s; entry for 1936, Chronicle of Triashill.

25 Father Isidore to outschool superintendents, 17 October 1962, file ‘Old Letters’, Triashill, Makoni district.

26 Fr. Schmitz from Triashill to Fr. Johanny, 27 March 1934, Box 300, file 3, Jesuit Archives, Salisbury. ‘A witch doctor is at work’, wrote Schmitz, ‘he sells for one shilling mushonga which has the marvellous power to those who keep it a home, perpetual youth, immortality, protection against witches, etc, etc … plenty of our Christians have bought the dirty stuff.

27 Entry for 1 November 1968, Carmelite diary, Triashill, Makoni; interview with Father Pat Turner, The Priory, Umtali, 14 March 1981; interviews by Sister Emilia Chiteka with Triashill Christians, January and February 1981.

28 For Patrick Kwesha see Ranger, T.O., ‘Poverty and Prophetism. Religious Movements in the Makoni district, 1929-1940’, University of Zimbabwe, History Department, Henderson seminar, no.51 (April 1981) pp 12–19.Google Scholar

29 Notebook of Patrick Kwesha containing spiritual reflections and dedication to the imitation of the life of Christ, in the possession of Augustine Kwesha, St. Xavier’s, Manyika, translated by Emilia Chiteka.

30 Red note-book, ‘Written by Patrick Kwesha, 1943, Johannesburg’, in the possession of Augustine Kwesha.

31 R. Wodehouse to Brother Scott, 28 July 1903, Letter Book, April 1902 to April 1904, Old Umtali Archives, Zimbabwe.

32 R. Wodehouse to Thomas Kennion, 26 April 1904, Letter Book, April 1904 to March 1906, Old Umtali Archives.

33 Wengatz, Susan, ‘Back to Pentecost’, South African Missionary Advocate, VI, 6 (November/December 1927).Google Scholar

34 ‘Revival’, file compiled by Shepherd Machuma, Old Umtali Archives.

35 Native Commissioner, Rusape, to Superintendent of Natives, Umtali, 6 August 1918, N 3/1/3, National Archives, Salisbury, Zimbabwe.

36 ‘The Healing of Dorcas Muredzwa’, Machuma file, Old Umtali Archives; see also story of Muredzwa, The African Advance, 2, 2 (July/September 1918).Google ScholarPubMed

37 ‘Life History of Rev. Silas Kasambira’, Machuma file, Old Umtali Archives.

38 Cripps, A.S., Africans All (London 1928) p 31.Google Scholar

39 ‘Letter from the Archdeacon of Mashonaland’, [31 December 1922, Southern Rhodesián Quarterly Paper, CXX111 (February 1923)] pp 5-6.

40 ‘Extract from letter from Archdeacon Upcher’, 20 October 1922, ibid, pp 6-7. For Hickson’s career generally see C.W.Gusmer p 12, and Stuart Mews’ paper in this volume. An enthusiastic account of the Rhodesian mission was sent to the SPG by the Bishop of Southern Rhodesia on 31 January 1923, SPG Reports, 1920.

41 ‘Letter from the Archdeacon of Mashonaland’.

42 ‘Letter from the Revd. H. Buck, C.R.’, 4 January 1923, Southern Rhodesián Quarterly Paper, CXX111 (February 1923) p 9.

43 John Hallward to Elaine Lloyd, 20 February 1923, LL 2/1/1, National Archives, Salisbury, Zimbabwe.

44 ‘The Healing Mission in the Transvaal, Transvaal, vol 11, (January 1923) p 7.

45 Hallward to Elaine Lloyd.

46 Fr. H. Baker to S/N/Umtali, 10 September 1918, N 3/5/1/5, National Archives, Salisbury, Zimbabwe.

47 Sister Esther’s report, enclosed in Native Commissioner, Rusape, to Chief Native Commissioner, 6 December 1933, S 1542.M8.1933, National Archives, Salisbury.

48 Fr. L.S. Machika to Fr. Smith, 11 February 1948, ANG 16/1/1, National Archives, Salisbury.

49 Yakobo Mwela, ‘The Mission of Renewal’, 1934, USPG Archives, Series E.

50 The Comforter, 11 (2 June 1916).

51 Kgobo, Elias, December 1916, The Native Work of the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (Report no. 5, January 1917).Google Scholar

52 Hans Nilson to Chief Native Commissioner, 19 December 1926, S.138.17.1925-1928, National Archives, Salisbury.

53 Judicial Inspector, Johannesburg to Director, Native Labour, Johannesburg, 8 November 1916, N 3/5/1/4; Chief Native Commissioner to Secretary, Administrator, 19 August 1920, S.84/A/275, National Archives, Salisbury. As in 17th century England the language of madness was often applied to stigmatise enthusiastic religious groups. Thus on 8 May 1919 the Native Commissioner, Gwanda, told the Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, that Africans were saying of the Apostolic Faith Mission, ‘these people are mad. What kind of God do they serve? He must be cruel, for they lament and weep, being chastised without cause’. S.84/A/275. The American methodist revival of 1918 was also described in such terms. Matthew Zimba, founder of the first indigenous church in Zimbabwe - the Church of the White Bird - was committed to an asylum, the Chief Native Commissioner using the letters in which he announced his prophetic vocation as evidence of his insanity.

54 For Masowe see Malone, C.M. Dillon, [The Korsten Basketmakers. A Study of the Masowe Apostles] (Manchester, 1978)Google Scholar; T.O.Ranger, ‘Poverty and Prophetism’.

55 Dillon Malone, pp 21-22; see also files S.1542/M.8 and S. 138/22, National Archives, Salisbury.

56 T.O.Ranger, ‘Poverty and Prophetism’.

57 Thomas, N.E., ‘Christianity, Politics and the Manyika’, (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Boston 1968) p 101.Google Scholar

58 Ibid pp 102-3.

59 Fr. Elfric Matimba to Frs. A.C. Knights and C. Tambo, 28 July 1937, ANG 16/1/1, National Archives, Salisbury.

60 T.O.Ranger, ‘Poverty and Prophetism’. In his report for the year 1930 Canon Edgar Lloyd lamented the decline in the status of the first ‘Apostolic’ generation of teachers and catechists: they were ‘men of character, but alas lacking learning, perhaps men not so dissimilar from certain of those first disciples and apostles denominated “unlearned and ignorant men”. (They) are not easily replaced and certainly not replaced adequately for this particular class of rural work, at this particular time, by younger men though they be College bred and better trained for imparting knowledge’. SPG Reports 1929. Lloyd did all he could to keep Nyabadza in the church: the split happened only after he had retired.

61 In Masasi district since Tanzanian independence there has been a great movement of charismatic healing initiated by the Anglican layman, Edmund Anderson, John. W. B., The Church in East Africa (Dodoma 1977) p 158 Google Scholar; interviews with Brenda Stone, Rondo and Bishop Hilary Chigunda, Masasi, August 1975.

62 Bucher, H., Spirits and Power. An Analysis of Shona Cosmology (Cape Town 1980) pp 204–205 Google Scholar. For a very different assessment of the spirit churches see Ndiokwere, N.I., Prophecy and Revolution (London 1981).Google Scholar