An African-initiated church (AIC) is a Christian church independently started in Africa by Africans rather than chiefly by missionaries from another continent.
Nomenclature
A variety of overlapping terms exist for these forms of Christianity: African-initiated churches, African independent churches, African indigenous churches, and African-instituted churches. The abbreviation AIC covers them all. The differences in names correspond to the aspect that a researcher wishes to emphasise. For instance, those who wish to point out that AICs exhibit African cultural forms, describe them as indigenous. These terms have largely been imposed upon such groups and may not be the way they would describe themselves.
The term African refers to the fact that these Christian groupings formed in Africa, but AICs differ from one another. Not all African cultural systems are the same. Regional variations occur among West, East, and Southern Africans, and the AICs will reflect these. AICs can now be found outside Africa.
Location
African-initiated churches are found across Africa; they are particularly well-documented in southern Africa and West Africa. Pauw suggests that at least 36 per cent of the population of Africa belong to an African-initiated church.
Origins
During the colonial era starting in the 1800s, when European powers took control of most of the African continent, black converts to Christianity were unable fully to reconcile their beliefs with the teachings of their church leaders, and split from their parent churches. The reasons for these splits were usually either: Political – an effort to escape white control Historical – many of the parent churches, particularly those from a Protestant tradition, had themselves emerged from a process of schism and synthesis Cultural – the result of trying to accommodate Christian belief within an African world view
Some scholars argue that independent churches or religious movements demonstrate syncretism or partial integration between aspects of Christian belief and African traditional religion. Often these churches have resulted from a process of acculturation between traditional African beliefs and Protestant Christianity, and have split from their parent churches. Bengt Sundkler, one of the most prominent pioneers of research on African independent churches in South Africa, initially argued that AICs were bridges back to a pre-industrial culture. Later, he recognized instead that AICs helped their affiliates to adapt to a modernizing world that was hostile to their cultural beliefs. In 1925, the Cherubim and Seraphim (Nigerian church) was established as the first African Initiated Church.
Classification and taxonomy
There are thousands of African-initiated churches (more than 10,000 in South Africa alone) and each one has its own characteristics. Ecclesiologists, missiologists, sociologists and others have tried to group them according to common characteristics, though disagreements have arisen about which characteristics are most significant, and which taxonomy is most accurate. Though it is possible to distinguish groups of denominations with common features, there is also much overlap, with some denominations sharing the characteristics of two or more groups.
Many AICs share traditions with Christians from other parts of the Christian world, and these can also be used in classifying them. So there are AICs which share some beliefs or practices with Protestant churches. Some are Sabbatarian, some are Zionist, and so on.
Ethiopian churches
Ethiopian churches generally retain the Christian doctrines of their mother church in an unreformed state. Ethiopian African-initiated churches, which are recently formed Protestant congregations, mostly in southern Africa, arose from the Ethiopian movement of the late nineteenth century, which taught that African Christian churches should be under the control of black people. They should not be confused with the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church or Coptic Orthodox Church, which have a much longer and an utterly distinct doctrinal history. Some denominations that arose from the Ethiopian movement have united with these earlier denominations.
Zionist churches
Zionist Churches such as the Zion Christian Church, trace their origins to the Christ Community Church, founded by John Alexander Dowie, with its headquarters at Zion, Illinois, in the United States. Zionist Churches are found chiefly in Southern Africa. In the early 1900s, Zionist missionaries went to South Africa from the United States and established congregations. They emphasised divine healing, abstention from pork, and the wearing of white robes.