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Title: | 'African churches willing to pay their own bills': the role of money in the formation of Ethiopian-type churches with particular reference to the Mzimba secession |
Author: | Duncan, Graham A.![]() |
Year: | 2013 |
Periodical: | African Historical Review (ISSN 1753-2531) |
Volume: | 45 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 52-79 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | clergy African Independent Churches finance Church history |
About person: | Pambani J. Mzimba (1850-1911) |
Abstract: | Matters related to money were fundamental to the causes of the formation of Ethiopian-type or African Initiated Churches in Africa. These included inter alia the raising of funds abroad and the subsequent need to control such funds by white ministers, delay or refusal of ordination due to cost factors and differentials in stipends, lack of or poor allowances, lack of trust in the use of funds, poor emoluments and accommodation. This was in contradiction to emerging mission policy as propounded by Henry Venn in his Three-Self formula (self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating), particularly with regard to the principle of self-support following Pauline methods. At the heart of such issues was the need for missionaries to control what they had created, and maintain and perpetuate a sense of dependency. The Mzimba Secession, i.e. the secession of South African reverend P.J. Mzimba from the Presbyterian Church to form hiw own independent church in 1898, offers substantial evidence to support the suggestion that finance was a central concern in fostering inferiority and subjection in the mission field leading to the formation of a new church movement. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |