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The East African Revival of the Twentieth Century: the Search for an Evangelical African Christianity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
African Christian history in the twentieth century furnishes many examples of what can justifiably be described as revival or renewal. To the extent that Christian evangelization in sub-Saharan Africa was propelled by the European missionary movement, it is not surprising that an important element in revival should be a concern to ground the Gospel in an African milieu, expressive of African cultures and sensibilities, and driven by an autonomous African agency. The missionary forms in which Christianity was expressed came under critical scrutiny. This essay is an examination of the East African Revival, a movement which originated in the Protestant mission churches in the 1930s and which continues to be a major element in the contemporary religious life of Christian churches throughout the region. There has been considerable scholarly debate about whether the East African Revival should best be seen as an ‘importation’ and ‘imposition’ of a western Evangelical revival culture in an African setting, or as marking the emergence of a distinctive ‘African’ religious sensibility expressed within Christian forms. In endeavouring to avoid the implicit essentialism which such polarities often convey, the essay aims to show how the East African Revival can fruitfully be understood as belonging both to the larger Protestant revivalist tradition, while springing out of the distinctive responses of East Africans to the Christian message as they experienced it from within African cultures which were themselves being transformed by colonialism and modernity.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History , Volume 44: Revival and Resurgence in Christian History , 2008 , pp. 365 - 387
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2008
References
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