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Healing in ‘the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Spiritual healing has always been at the core of the religious activities of Nigerian Prophetic Churches. The idea that healing-prayer succeeds where Western medical treatment fails is common among these Churches. This paper examines the notion and nature of healing in ‘The Brotherhood of the Cross and Star’, a prophetic movement in South-Eastem Nigeria.
Christianity has been identified as both the cause and the catalyst of social change in Africa. The emergence of independent Churches founded by Africans in protest at some of the features in Mission Christianity clearly constitutes an important part of the history of the Church in Africa, particularly in Nigeria. Broadly, independent Churches in Nigeria, (which date back to the 1880s) are of two kinds. The first type are those which seceded from mission churches (but retained their liturgies and church government) in protest agains the refusal of the latter to allow Africans any significant say in church government. These are the ‘African Churches’. The second type, with which the BCS could in someways be idenified, are the ‘aladura’ (literally “those who pray” or praying) Churches. These are pentecostal and lay stress on divine healing, prediction and the acquiring of spiritual power. They are mostly founded by individuals who claim to have received a divine call to prophetic ministry and are often referred to as ‘spiritual’ or ‘prophetic’ churches by virtue of this stress on spiritual and or prophetic power.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1982
References
1 Peel, J.D.Y., [Atadura:] a Religious Movement Among the Yoruba (London 1968) p 1 Google Scholar.
2 For a detailed study of the emergence of this type of church in Yorubaland see Webster, J.B., The African Churches among the Yoruba, 1891-1922 (London 1964).Google Scholar
3 See Udo, E.A., ‘The Missionary scramble for spheres of influence in South-eastern Nigeria 1900-52’ in Kalu, O.U. (ed) The History of Christianity in West Africa (London and New York 1980) pp 173fGoogle Scholar. Also G.O.M. Tasi ‘Christian Awakening in West Africa 1914-18: a study in the significance of native agency’, ¡bid 299f. for the causes of the emergence of this movement.
4 For an excellent sociological study of aladura churches in Yorubaland see J.D.Y.Peel, Atadura.
5 The Prophet’s Hand Book (Calabar n.d.) p 3.
6 Your Word is Truth (Calabar n.d.) vol VII p 47.
7 Tumer, H.W., African Independent Church (Oxford 1967) vol 2 p 143.Google Scholar
8 Your Word is Truth vol IV p 19.
9 Ibid p 20.
10 Minutes of the BCS Spiritual Council of Churches December 1977, p 4.
11 One evidence of the rapid growth of this movement is the establishment in the seventies of branches in the United Kingdom and America. By the end of 1980, for example, there were three branches in London, one in Liverpool and one in Sunderland, and two in the U.S.A. Although there are a number of white and west Indian members in these UK branches, their membership is drawn largely from Nigerians in the country.
12 Prophet E. Udoumoren in an interview, London August 1979.
13 Report of the Lagos zone of Education, Labourand Welfare Board’s ministry tour to Kano , September 1974, p 1.
14 The Prophet’s Hand Book p 7.
15 This term which is used in the movement to refer to its branch church or place of worship is preferred to the word ‘Church’, which is never used.
16 Prophet E.Edet’s testimony (unpublished) London, December 1977 p 2.
17 Living Testimonies and Revelations (Calabar n.d.) vol 2 p 31 f.
18 Peel, Atadura, p 292. Peel’s argument however, relates to these churches, as they are found in Yorubaland. But his viewpoint also clearly holds for most of the churches in other parts of the country.