The Scriptures of the AmaNazaretha of EKuphaKameni

The Scriptures of the AmaNazaretha of EKuphaKameni
Author: Isaiah Shembe
Publisher: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
Total Pages: 202
Release: 1993
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

Considerable controversy has been generated about the exact nature of the movements known as African Independent Churches. Are they, as some writers suggest, simply African adaptations of Christianity, or are they new religions in their own right? To date, most of the people arguing about these issues have lacked access to the sacred scriptures of the movements they claim to study. This translation presents for the first time in English the major scriptures of the best-known of all African Independent Churches, the amaNazaretha of South Africa. The translation of the Zulu prophet Isaiah Shembe's work was made by his grandson Londa Shembe, who succeeded his father as the 'third Shembe' & prophet of the church at the holy city of EKuphaKameni. Now, the key scriptures of the amaNazaretha of EKuphaKameni are available in English.

Shembe, Ancestors, and Christ

Shembe, Ancestors, and Christ
Author: Edley J. Moodley
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2008-08-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1556358806

The Christian axis has shifted dramatically southward to Africa, Asia, and Latin America, so much so that today there are more Christians living in these southern regions than among their northern counterparts. In the case of Africa, the African Initiated Churches-founded by Africans and primarily for Africans-has largely contributed to the exponential growth and proliferation of the Christian faith in the continent. Yet, even more profoundly, these churches espouse a brand of Christianity that is indigenized and thoroughly contextual. Further, the power and popularity of the AICs, beyond the unprecedented numbers joining these churches, are attributed to their relevance to the existential everyday needs and concerns of their adherents in the context of a postcolonial Africa. At the heart of Christian theology is Christology-the confessed uniqueness of Christ in history and among world religions. Yet this key feature of Christianity, as with other important elements of the Christian faith, may be variously understood and re-interpreted in these indigenous churches. The focus of this study is the amaNazaretha Church, an influential religious group founded by the African charismatic prophet Isaiah Shembe in 1911 in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The movement today claims a following of some two million adherents and has proliferated beyond the borders of South Africa to neighboring countries in Southern Africa. The book addresses the complex and at times ambivalent understanding of the person and work of Christ in the amaNazaretha Church, presenting the genesis, history, beliefs, and practices of this significant religious movement in South Africa, with broader implications for similar movements across the continent of Africa and beyond.

The Oxford Handbook of Christmas

The Oxford Handbook of Christmas
Author: Timothy Larsen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 640
Release: 2020-10-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0192567128

The Oxford Handbook of Christmas provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary account of all aspects of Christmas across the globe, from the specifically religious to the purely cultural. The contributions are drawn from a distinguished group of international experts from across numerous disciplines, including literary scholars, theologians, historians, biblical scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, art historians, and legal experts. The volume provides authoritative treatments of a range of topics, from the origins of Christmas to the present; decorating trees to eating plum pudding; from the Bible to contemporary worship; from carols to cinema; from the Nativity Story to Santa Claus; from Bethlehem to Japan; from Catholics to Baptists; from secularism to consumerism. Christmas is the biggest celebration on the planet. Every year, a significant percentage of the world's population is draw to this holiday—from Cape Cod to Cape Town, from South America to South Korea, and on and on across the globe. The Christmas season takes up a significant part of the entire year. For many countries, the holiday is a major force in their national economy. Moreover, Christmas is not just a modern holiday, but has been an important feast for most Christians since the fourth century and a dominant event in many cultures and countries for over a millennium. The Oxford Handbook of Christmas provides an invaluable reference point for anyone interested in this global phenomenon.

IziHlabelelo ZamaNazaretha

IziHlabelelo ZamaNazaretha
Author: Isaiah Shembe
Publisher: University of Natal Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781869141363

The texts comprise the original isiZulu hymns as well as English translations, and are brought to life with an accompanying compact disc of song, story and interview excerpts. These include detail about the seminal moment of change and controversy in the 1990s, when the organ was introduced by church member and ethnomusicologist, Bongani Mthethwa, to accompany the Shembe hymnal repertory. The initiative gave birth to dozens of youth choirs who sang the hymns in a new style, and began to compose their own repertory about Shembe in a more `gospel-inflected' musical version of their faith. --

The Man of Heaven and the Beautiful Ones of God

The Man of Heaven and the Beautiful Ones of God
Author: Elizabeth Gunner
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2021-11-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004496688

The role of Africans in the growth and process of Christianity in South Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In particular the book provides an insight into the role of writing and literacy in the church founded by the South African prophet, Isaiah Shembe, in 1910. The book provides a substantial, contextualising introduction which includes discussion of the church’s history and its position in contemporary South Africa, and weaves in discussion of the topics of literacy and modernity. The book then moves to the three documents, presented in their language of composition, Zulu and in an English translation. The three ‘books’, each from Shembe’s Nazareth Baptist Church, provide the reader with a fascinating insight into the growth and organisation of one of southern Africa’s most influential African Churches, and into the use and interpretation of the Bible by the church’s founder, Isaiah Shembe, and by church members. Central to the writings is the complex presence of Shembe, present both through his own words in the first book and, in the second book, through the memory of Meshack Hadebe, a member of the church in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The extracts in the third book provide a glimpse of the church’s hymnal and the unique religious poetry of the hymns, authored by Shembe.

Missionalia

Missionalia
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 592
Release: 2004
Genre: Christianity
ISBN:

Contains abstracts of missiological contributions, book reviews, and articles.

Christianity in South Africa

Christianity in South Africa
Author: Richard Elphick
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 512
Release: 1997-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780520209404

"At a strategic time in South Africa's history, the Christian history which is absolutely basic to all developments, is presented in a comprehensive and objective way. Too little attention is given to the influence of religion in socio-political accounts. This is a creative and much-needed contribution to scholarship and general knowledge. . . . An outstanding work."--Dean S. Gilliland, Fuller Theological Seminary

The Stolen Bible

The Stolen Bible
Author: Gerald O. West
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 636
Release: 2016-08-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004322787

The Stolen Bible tells the story of how Southern Africans have interacted with the Bible from its arrival in Dutch imperial ships in the mid-1600s through to contemporary post-apartheid South Africa. The Stolen Bible emphasises African agency and distinguishes between African receptions of the Bible and African receptions of missionary-colonial Christianity. Through a series of detailed historical, geographical, and hermeneutical case-studies the book analyses Southern African receptions of the Bible, including the earliest African encounters with the Bible, the translation of the Bible into an African language, the appropriation of the Bible by African Independent Churches, the use of the Bible in the Black liberation struggle, and the ways in which the Bible is embodied in the lives of ordinary Africans.