E.C.P y Educación Personalizada

AIC scholars generally agree that the historical roots of the Spirit-type AICs (which include Zionist-, Pentecostal- and Apostolic-type churches) in South Africa can be traced back to the founding of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion (herein referred to as the CCAC) with its own Zion City in Illinois, Chicago. The CCAC was founded in 1896 by John Alexander Dowie who was known as its greatest healer and its “First Apostle and General Overseer” (Sundkler 1961:48; Turner 1968:507). The CCAC was characterised by the use of faith-healing,9 adult baptism by threefold immersion in water, the belief that the Son of God’s second coming is imminent, as well as prohibitions, among other things, on the use of medical doctors, drugs, pork, alcohol and tobacco (Hanekom 1975:38; Kiernan 1990:9; Lukhaimane 1980:14; M’Passou 1994:17, 21–22; Sundkler 1961:48, 55).

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The concept of faith-healing implies that the religious conceptions of the healer and the patient are the same (Steyn 1996:5).

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In South Africa, Pieter Louis Le Roux, a Dutch Reformed Church missionary, and his wife were both fascinated by faith-healing practices. They were sent as missionaries to Wakkerstroom in 1893. Seven years later Le Roux’s congregation had grown to more than 2 000 mostly Zulu-speaking members. During this time Le Roux befriended and was greatly influenced by Johannes Buchler, a fellow supporter of faith-healing practices. Buchler, an ex-pastor of the Congregational Church in Johannesburg and later admirer of Dowie’s CCAC, founded his own church in the old Transvaal province, currently known as Gauteng in 1895. The members of his church were mostly coloured (people of mixed race) South Africans who loved to sing hymns out of the Moravian Dutch hymn-book, Zion Liedere. As a result of their appreciation for this hymn-book they named their new church the Zion Church. In time, and as a result of Dowie’s influence, this Zion Church began to emphasise the central role of faith- healing, adult baptism by threefold immersion and taboos against the use of alcohol, drugs and tobacco (M’Passou 1994:19–22, 28; Oosthuizen 1987:19).

During their first years of friendship Buchler send Le Roux various publications on faith-healing, among others Dowie’s Leaves of Healing. These readings encouraged Le Roux, who had already become frustrated with the Dutch Reformed Church’s protest against the use of faith-healing in the church, to resign and together with 400 fellow black South African workers and converts joined the CCAC as an affiliation. By 1905 Le Roux’s CCAC congregation encompassed 5 000 black South African members (Anderson 2000:57; M’Passou 1994:21, 24; Oosthuizen 1987:13, 20). Hammond-Tooke (1989:136) explained that the central role of faith-healing in the church “found resonance in African thought” and seemed to be the reason for the significant growth in members.

Buchler, after he had become inspired reading Dowie’s monthly publication, Leaves of Healing, started practising faith-healing. He quickly became a very successful preacher and faith-healer and travelled in this capacity all over South Africa. Among the people Buchler had healed by means of prayer was Edgar Mahon, his brother-in- law and a captain in the Salvation Army, who suffered from tuberculosis. Mahon’s own miraculous healing led to him to become one of southern Africa’s earliest prominent Zionist-type preachers and faith-healers. He was especially known in the Harrismith area and later in Lesotho, which was his land of origin. At first Mahon was not

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associated with any particular church, but referred to himself as a Christian faith-healer and missionary. Only in 1905 did he and his fellow black South African co-workers and members build a church building, which became associated with the CCAC, although it was still mostly known as Mahon’s Mission and the general public referred to his members and co-workers as Mahon’s Christians. Buchler, on the other hand, over time developed a dislike for the CCAC. His influence, however, on both Le Roux and Mahon was of significant importance to the development of the Spirit-type AICs in South Africa (M’Passou 1994:19–22, 28; Oosthuizen 1987:42–43, 45–46).

In 1904 Daniel Bryant, the appointed American overseer of the CCAC in South Africa, arrived in the country. His message was rejected by the mission churches, but successfully accepted by the black South Africans whom he had contacted through Le Roux and Mahon. At Le Roux’s Wakkerstroom congregation Bryant baptised 141 converts, among others Le Roux and his wife. At Mahon’s congregation in Harrismith he baptised a further 60 black South African converts. Mahon and a few fellow African workers accompanied him to Lesotho where they also successfully spread the word of Zion (Anderson 2000:57; M’Passou 1994:23–25, 32-33; Oosthuizen 1987:25). According to M’Passou (1994:33), Mahon did, however, clash with some of the black African members of the already established churches in Lesotho, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church and the Paris Evangelicals, mostly as a result of his acceptance of polygamy. To be precise Mahon preached that the Lord welcomed everyone into His Kingdom including a man with all his wives. In spite of these negative repercussions, this particular conviction of Mahon on the whole increased the number of black African people who wanted to be baptised in his church.

These type of churches proliferated in Lesotho following the introduction of African Zionism by Mahon and his fellow workers. M’Passou (1994:35) noted during his research there that many Christians were members of Zionist-type churches in Lesotho. Mahon met Edward Motaung in Lesotho, a man known to have played a noteworthy role in the development of Spirit-type AICs among the southern Sotho- and Tswana-speaking communities. Motaung might have been one of Mahon’s first CCAC converts. Both men, who quickly became close friends, had healing gifts and were charismatic religious leaders (M’Passou 1994:33). However, in 1910 Motaung discovered and in 1912 joined the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) of Le Roux and Ellias

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Mahlangu (see next paragraph) in Johannesburg. In 1917 he established his own Zion City in Lesotho and named his church the Zion Apostolic Faith Mission (herein referred to as the ZAFM) (Anderson 2000:64, 66; Lukhaimane 1980:20; M’Passou 1994:33–35).

In 1908 Le Roux became involved with missionaries from the American Pentecostal church also referred to as the AFM of which a representative from the USA, John G Lake, visited South Africa (Morton 2012:100; M’Passou 1994:25). According to Anderson (2000:57, 58), Lake had a strong connection with the African-American Pentecostal Church in Azusa street, Los Angeles led by African-American William J Seymour. This interracial church spread the message of Pentecost to 50 nations within two years and had a significant influence on the development of AICs in South Africa. This church is also characterised by the central role of faith-healing. It differed, however, from the already existing Zionist-type churches in South Africa in terms of its baptism ritual. Members of this Pentecostal church referred to baptism as “Pentecost” in the Holy Spirit, which is executed by means of a single and not threefold immersion, and of which the initial evidence is the speaking in tongues. According to Anderson (2000:63) the AFM in South Africa as well as most other Zionist- and Apostolic-type AICs have retained Dowie’s original threefold immersion during baptism, but the phenomena of speaking in tongues was introduced by the African-American Pentecostal Church.

Le Roux received his Pentecost in 1908. In time some of his CCAC congregation followed in his footsteps, but many preferred to stay on or to initiate their own churches. Most probably some of the reasons for breakaways given in section 2.5 played a role in the initiation of these churches as well (see Lukhaimane 1980:15). Most of these successions created their own hybrid titles of choice, usually including different combinations of the words Zion, Pentecostal and Apostolic. Some of these new churches were characterised by Zionist- as well as Pentecostal-type traits, which according to Anderson (2000:57) made it difficult to differentiate between the early histories of the Pentecostal and Zionist-type churches. Over time, however, each developed their own dynamic traditions (Anderson 2000:63; M’Passou 1994:25–26; Oosthuizen 1987:21; Sundkler 1961:48).

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Le Roux became the president of the AFM in South Africa following Lake’s return to the USA in 1915 and retained this position until his death in 1943. During the latter era of his life he worked mainly among white members and had left the care of his black congregation in the hands of his black associates. During his life Le Roux influenced and inspired various outstanding leaders of the Spirit-type AICs in South Africa. According to Sundkler (1961:48, 49) Le Roux’s converts and those he had influenced became the source for the entire series of the Zionist-, Pentecostal- and Apostolic-type AICs that emerged in South Africa. He identified five main offshoots, which seceded for different reasons from Le Roux and his associates between 1917 and 1920, and to which in one way or another most Zionist-, Pentecostal- and Apostolic-type AICs can trace back their roots. These offshoots were Paulo Mbilitsa’s Christian Apostolic Church in Zion, Daniel Nkonyane’s Christian Catholic Apostolic Holy Spirit Church in Zion (CCAHS in Zion), JG Phillips’ Holy Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion, Elias Mahlangu’s Zion Apostolic Church (ZAC) and Fred Luthuli’s Seventh-Day Adventist church characterised by its strong Zionist-type tendencies (Anderson 2000:57; Hanekom 1975:39; M’Passou 1994:26).

According to Martin (1964:111, as quoted in Hanekom 1975:39), when black African leaders started to separate from Le Roux’s AFM as well as from the churches of his associates, secessions became “...more and more ‘African’ among the Africans, in the sense that elements from African traditional religions were introduced and blended with Christian teachings” (see Coplan 2008:101). Hammond-Tooke (1989:136) noted that in contrast to the Ethiopian-type AICs the main objective of the Spirit-type AICs increasingly developed into the immediate deliverance, not only of physical inflictions, but from all kinds of misfortunate happenings. Herselman (2000:3) explained that misfortune in this context could indicate any kind of trouble someone is experiencing; for example, “being involved in an accident, losing crops or having one’s livestock ravaged by disease” (see Comaroff 1980:645).

Elias Mahlangu, whose church was included by Sundkler (1961:48, 49) as one of the five offshoots from which most Spirit-type AICs originated, had a considerable influence on Engenas Lekganyane’s growth towards the initiation of the ZCC. Mahlangu, who was baptised by Le Roux in the CCAC, was an Ndebele-speaker and fluent in many other black South African languages. Le Roux, however, from all the

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African indigenous languages was only fluent in Zulu. Consequently, Mahlangu was not only Le Roux’s companion, but also acted as his interpreter (M’Passou 1994:29).

When Le Roux moved to the AFM in 1908, most of the Zulu-speaking members followed Daniel Nkonyane, who initiated the CCAHS Church in Zion. In time, with the help of Mahon, Nkonyane moved his church to Charlestown near Volksrust situated in what today is known as KwaZulu-Natal from where they spread across the whole of southern Africa. Several of the other AFM members, mostly Swazi- and Ndebele- speakers, followed Elias Mahlangu to Johannesburg where he later initiated the ZAC. According to Anderson (2000:62) and Lukhaimane (1980:17) Engenas (Ignatius) Lekganyane, founder of the ZCC, seemed to have been briefly acquainted with Le Roux, but later became a member of Mahlangu’s ZAC. It seems that Edward Motaung’s ZAFM seceded from Mahlangu’s church in 1917. Three years later Engenas Lekganyane joined Motaung who ordained him as a bishop in his ZAFM. Engenas Lekganyane seceded from Motaung’s ZAFM to initiate the ZCC. The establishment of the ZCC emerged from a range of secessions as a result of various disputes such as leadership struggles and differences concerning particular religious conceptions (Anderson 2000:61–62, 69; Lukhaimane 1980:17–20; M’Passou 1994:26, 27, 29, 34; Oosthuizen 1987:22; Sundkler 1961:48–49).

Comaroff (1985:238) explains the historical importance the CCAC and its Zion City in Illinois, Chicago plays in any study of the ZCC. She (1985: 238) concluded that of all AICs:

... [t]he Zion Christian Church represents a particular transformation of the Zionist order; one which resolves the inherent tension between charisma and routine by stressing the normative to a greater extent than any other southern African group. In so doing, it comes closest to Dowie’s original organisation. (see Nanda & Warms 2014:285)

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2.7 A historical synopsis of the Zion Christian Church