from 1929

The East African Revival (balokole): Nsibambi, Church, Nagenda, Kivengere

Shelley: the Great Awakening in East Africa began with the friendship of the Ugandan Simeon Nsibambi and the English doctor Joseph Church (their meeting in 1929), and in September 1935 a group assembled whose thinking was shaped by the motifs of the Keswick movement. Its participants called themselves abaka (“on fire”) and balokole (“the saved”); the revival spread from Uganda to Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania, remaining within the Anglican church yet reaching beyond denominational bounds

Key points

• Shelley: in 1929 Simeon Nsibambi and Joseph Church prayed and studied the Bible for two days; Church recalled it as being granted “the power of Pentecost.”
• September 1935: a group shaped by Keswick motifs (full surrender to Christ, then breakthrough) began meetings; it included Church and Nsibambi, later Nagenda.
• The movement called itself abaka (‘on fire’) and balokole (‘the saved’); its leaders organized missionary teams that included laypeople.
• The revival passed from northern Uganda to Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania (Tanganyika); William Nagenda played the most prominent part.
• 1941: twenty-nine students, including Nagenda, were expelled from Bishop Tucker Theological College, alarmed by the zeal of the balokole
• Anglican schools reinstated almost all of them: the students expressed their fervor yet stayed loyal to the denomination – a flexibility that proved important
• The movement reached beyond the denomination: Latter-day Saints, Adventists, Mennonites, Baptists and Methodists take part in it
• Festo Kivengere (born into a ruling family, converted at an evangelical meeting, Anglican bishop, Billy Graham’s interpreter) boldly spoke against Idi Amin
• Kivengere: after Archbishop Janani Luwum’s murder he lived in exile until the tyrant fell and became the “voice of all Africa” against social injustice
• Kivengere believed that Christ had called him to love Amin
• Outcome: the share of Christians at the end of the twentieth century – Uganda 89 %, Kenya 79 %, Rwanda 81 %, Burundi 90 %, Tanzania 51 %.
• In the author’s assessment, as in China and Korea, a vivid and distinctive Christian culture arose here, though owing its origin to missionary efforts.
• Noll: the revival was authentically African, yet American models shaped it (Church took Finney as a model and used Keswick theology and the Scofield Bible).

People

• Simeon Nsibambi
• Joseph Church
• William Nagenda
• Festo Kivengere
• Idi Amin
• Janani Luwum

Place

Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania