Protestant Replications: The Conversion, Ordination, and Schism of a Zulu Bishop in Colonial Natal
This article examines the story of Mbiyana Ngidi and his five-decade conversion career, leading up to his establishment of an Ethiopianist church in 1890 – the first African Initiated Church in the Colony of Natal in Southern Africa. I focus on three events in his life – conversion, ordination, schi...
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Brill
2023
|
In: |
Journal of religion in Africa
Year: 2023, Volume: 53, Issue: 2, Pages: 138-171 |
Further subjects: | B
Ethiopianism
B Ordination B Replication B Christianity B Schism B Conversion |
Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
Summary: | This article examines the story of Mbiyana Ngidi and his five-decade conversion career, leading up to his establishment of an Ethiopianist church in 1890 – the first African Initiated Church in the Colony of Natal in Southern Africa. I focus on three events in his life – conversion, ordination, schism – and suggest that one way of reading these events is as different forms of replication: conversion as identification, ordination as imitation, and schism as reproduction. I engage with the idea in the anthropology of Christianity that Protestants desire a certain type of originality and therefore shun repetition. I argue the opposite, namely that Ngidi’s story shows us how Protestants seek out replicated relations. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 1570-0666 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religion in Africa
|
Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340250 |