African Initiated Churches were founded by Africans themselves, with prophecy, healing and African worship at their heart.
Pentecostal & evangelical1890s-1920sarose within Evangelical revivals
Churches founded by Africans, independent of the mission societies that had planted Christianity: the Ethiopian churches of South Africa from 1892, the Aladura (praying) churches of Nigeria such as the Cherubim and Seraphim (1925) and Christ Apostolic Church, the Zion Christian Church (1924), and the Kimbanguist Church that grew from Simon Kimbangu's healing ministry in the Congo in 1921 and now counts several million members. Tens of millions of Christians in all, with prophecy, healing and African worship at their centre, and largely missing from Western charts.
African Initiated Churches are not one church. The phrase covers thousands of separate churches, founded by Africans rather than by the mission societies that brought Christianity to most of sub-Saharan Africa, and there are more than ten thousand of them in South Africa alone 4. They are called African Initiated, African Independent, African Instituted or African Indigenous churches depending on who is writing, and the same three letters serve for all four. This page uses the family name because the churches in it have almost nothing else in common except the fact that Africans started them.
That fact is larger than it sounds. The World Council of Churches puts it plainly: most of the expansion of Christianity in Africa across the twentieth century, and especially its second half, came from the missionary work of these churches rather than from Western missions 2. They are missing from most Western charts of Christianity, and the charts are the poorer for it.
The first of them came out of a grievance about who was allowed to lead. In 1888 an evangelist named Joseph Mathunye Kanyane Napo left the Anglican Church and founded the African Church at Marabastad in Pretoria, keeping Anglican worship and doctrine unchanged, in order to show that an entirely African church could be built without a missionary's help; it was the first intertribal church formed and led by Africans in South Africa 5. In 1892 Mangena Maake Mokone founded the Ethiopian Church over racial segregation in the church and the absence of fellowship between Black and white ministers, and preached a theme he put as Africa for the Africans 5. The name came from Psalm 68 as the King James Version renders it, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God, a verse in which people of African descent in the Americas had already found a picture of a future they would govern themselves 5. In 1896 the Ethiopian Church joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church, after Mokone's relatives Kate and Charlotte Maneye wrote home about it from Wilberforce University in Ohio, and Mokone travelled to the United States with James Mata Dwane and J G Xaba to negotiate the union 5.
In West Africa the movement began with prophets rather than committees. William Wade Harris, a Grebo from Liberia, set out on 27 July 1913 in a white robe and turban and walked through Cote d'Ivoire and the Gold Coast preaching; in eighteen months he baptised more than a hundred thousand people 8. Many of them joined Catholic and Protestant congregations, and hundreds of Harris churches remained behind him 8.
Nigeria's Aladura churches began in 1918 at Ijebu Ode, when Sophia Odunlami and Joseph Sadare, both of St Saviour's Anglican Church, formed a prayer band, the Egbe Aladura, and rejected infant baptism and all medicine, Western or traditional 4. Aladura means praying people, and it cost them to be called it: Sadare had to give up his position in the synod, others resigned their jobs and withdrew their children from the Anglican school 4. The influenza pandemic of that year consolidated the group, which became the Precious Stone and then the Diamond Society and spread across western Nigeria 4. Out of that stream came the church that took the name Christ Apostolic Church in 1942, the Cherubim and Seraphim, founded by Moses Orimolade Tunolase in 1925 after the healing of a young woman named Christina Abiodun Akinsowon, and the Church of the Lord (Aladura), begun by Josiah Ositelu in 1930 4,7.
Simon Kimbangu preached for six months and was punished for thirty years. Born at Nkamba in the Congo Free State in 1887, he began a ministry of preaching and healing in April 1921 that drew enormous crowds and alarmed both the Protestant and the Catholic establishments, who appealed to the Belgian colonial authorities 6. He and his followers were arrested on 6 June 1921. He escaped into the bush with some disciples and his son, was taken again, and on 3 October 1921 was sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted, and he died in prison at Elisabethville on 12 October 1951, having spent the last three decades of his life there 6. The church that grew from those six months was not formally recognised by the colonial authorities until 1959 3. It is generally reckoned the largest African Initiated Church there is 4.
In southern Africa the Zionist churches trace back to the church John Alexander Dowie founded at Zion, Illinois, whose missionaries reached South Africa in the early 1900s teaching divine healing, abstention from pork, and white robes 4. After a split in the American movement, few missionaries came after 1908, and everything that happened afterwards happened under African leadership 4. Engenas Lekganyane founded the Zion Christian Church following a revelation he is said to have received on Mount Thabakgone in 1910; expelled from his home village after clashes with his chief, with his stone church still unfinished, he bought farms near Polokwane and built the settlement that became Zion City Moria, which is the church's headquarters still 9. Isaiah Shembe founded the Nazareth Baptist Church, the iBandla lamaNazaretha, in 1910 10.
There is no single AIC doctrine, because there is no single AIC. What recurs across the family is a set of emphases rather than a confession: prophecy, healing through prayer, the work of the Holy Spirit, and worship in the language and the manner of the people doing it.
The Organization of African Instituted Churches, which brings many of them together from Nairobi, states the underlying conviction in one sentence: theology is people making sense of God in the midst of their histories, cultures and worldviews. Its stated vision is of people who, building on their African cultures and values, are transformed by the good news of Jesus Christ and blessed by the Spirit of God 1.
The main groupings differ from each other more than any of them differs from Western Christianity. The Ethiopian churches generally kept the doctrine and the order of the mission church they had left, unchanged; their quarrel was about who governed, not about what was believed 4. Zionist churches emphasise divine healing, revelation and prophecy, keep food rules including abstention from pork, and wear white robes, and in many congregations the leader is regarded as a prophet 4. The Aladura churches rest on prayer, holiness, divine healing and the baptism of the Holy Spirit 4. The Nazareth Baptist Church reveres Isaiah Shembe as a prophet sent by God to restore the teaching of Moses, the prophets and Jesus, and its members keep the Sabbath and avoid pork 10.
One argument about these churches has run for seventy years and should be reported as an argument. Scholars have disagreed about how much traditional African religion is carried inside some of them. Bengt Sundkler, who wrote the first comprehensive study of the South African churches, began by describing them as bridges back to a pre-industrial culture and later concluded close to the opposite, that they helped their members live in a modernising world that was hostile to what those members believed 4. Outsiders have also described some of these churches as messianic, because of the standing their founders hold among them; that is a word applied from outside rather than one these churches use of themselves, and this page reports what they say about themselves and says plainly when a label came from somebody else 4.
Worship and practice
The first thing an outsider notices is that the worship is African rather than a translation of something else. Drums, dancing, call and response, robes and uniforms, and services that take as long as they take.
Dress carries meaning. White robes came into the southern African churches with the first Zionist missionaries and stayed 4. The Cherubim and Seraphim are named for the angels: the founders held that in 1925 they were directed to call the group Seraphim, and on 26 March 1926 they added Cherubim 7. Healing is not an occasional service but a normal part of the week, by prayer and by anointing with oil, and prophecy is expected to happen while people are gathered rather than only in a pulpit 4.
Pilgrimage matters here in a way it does not in most Protestant churches. The Zion Christian Church gathers at Zion City Moria in Limpopo 9. The Nazareth Baptist Church begins each year with a pilgrimage to the mountain of iNhlangakazi and holds a month-long gathering near Eshowe every October 10. Kimbanguists hold that Nkamba, the village where Simon Kimbangu was born and preached, is the New Jerusalem, and they gather there 3.
Scripture and Bible translations
These churches read the Bible in African languages, and for this family that is the whole point rather than a detail. The mission churches arrived with the Scriptures in English, French and Portuguese; the churches on this page read them in Yoruba, Igbo, Zulu, Lingala, Kikongo, Swahili and Hausa, and preach in them. This site carries the Bible in Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and Swahili, and for a great many of the Christians described here one of those is the text they actually open.
The verses below are given in the King James Version, which is a deliberate choice on a page about African churches. The Ethiopian movement of the 1890s took its name from Psalm 68 as the King James renders it, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God 5. Modern translations, the Berean Standard Bible on this site among them, render the same Hebrew word as Cush, which is closer to what the text says and makes a century of African church history impossible to follow. Where a translation choice hides the history, this page uses the translation the history was made in.
What gets read most is what a prophetic and healing church would be expected to read: the prophets, the healing narratives of the gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Psalms, which supply both the music and, in the case of Psalm 68, a name.
Documented use
The Assemblies of God prescribes no version; its website presents the NIV, and its Fire Bible is published in several translations. The NIV, NLT, NKJV, ESV and KJV are encountered across Pentecostal settings, but the cited evidence does not establish representative rates of congregational use.
Worldwide
Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity has experienced substantial global growth. Its linguistic setting is predominantly non-English, so English-language translation preferences should not be generalized to the movement worldwide.
African churches
The African Initiated Churches, the Aladura, Zionist, Kimbanguist and Celestial churches among them, read the Bible in their own languages, Yoruba, Zulu, Lingala, Kikongo and Swahili, and several of those editions are here.
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the King James (Authorized) Version and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.
Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. The Ethiopian churches of southern Africa took their name from this line, and Black Christians in the Americas had read a future into it before them.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Neither bond nor free. The Ethiopian movement began in 1888 and 1892 because churches preaching this verse were run on a colour bar, and Africans left to build churches that were not.
Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
Call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil. Healing by prayer is not a sideline in these churches; this verse describes an ordinary week.
Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.
We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. Worship in Yoruba, Zulu, Kikongo and Lingala, rather than in the missionary's language, is the founding decision of most of these churches.
Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
Praise him with the timbrel and dance. Drums and dancing were the thing mission churches most often told African Christians to leave outside, and these churches brought them in.
People
Mangena Maake Mokonefounded the Ethiopian Church in 1892 The first head of African ministers in Pretoria, who left the Methodist church over racial segregation and the lack of fellowship between Black and white ministers, and founded the Ethiopian Church, taking its name from Psalm 68.5
William Wade Harrisabout 1860 to 1929 A Grebo evangelist from Liberia who walked through Cote d'Ivoire and the Gold Coast from July 1913 in a white robe and turban and baptised more than a hundred thousand people in eighteen months. Hundreds of Harris churches remained after him.8
Sophia Odunlami and Joseph Sadarefounded the Egbe Aladura in 1918 Two members of an Anglican church at Ijebu Ode who formed the first Aladura prayer band during the influenza pandemic. Sadare gave up his place in the synod, and others lost jobs and school places, rather than give it up.4
Simon Kimbangu1887 to 1951 A Congolese preacher and healer whose public ministry lasted from April to September 1921. Arrested in June, sentenced to death in October and reprieved, he died in prison thirty years later. The church that grew from those six months is reckoned the largest of its kind.6
Engenas Lekganyanefounded the Zion Christian Church in the 1920s Founder of the Zion Christian Church, after a revelation on Mount Thabakgone in 1910. Expelled from his home village with his church half built, he bought farms near Polokwane and founded Zion City Moria.9
Isaiah Shembefounded the Nazareth Baptist Church in 1910 Founder of the iBandla lamaNazaretha in KwaZulu-Natal, revered by its members as a prophet sent by God to restore the teaching of Moses, the prophets and Jesus. The church keeps the Sabbath and makes an annual pilgrimage to iNhlangakazi.10
Today
Counting these churches is genuinely hard, and the honest answer is a range. Kimbanguism is generally reckoned the largest, but published figures for it run from about six million to twenty million to thirty-two million depending on who is estimating, and no independent census settles it 3. The Zion Christian Church was counted by the South African Census at 3.87 million members in 1996 and 4.97 million in 2001, which is the firmest number on this page because a state took it 9. The Nazareth Baptist Church is the second largest African Initiated Church in South Africa 10. Beneath the large ones are thousands of small ones: more than ten thousand in South Africa alone 4.
They have their own institutions rather than borrowed ones. The Organization of African Instituted Churches, based in Nairobi, exists to bring these churches together in fellowship and to equip them to preach, and its published work runs from theology and youth ministry to farming, on the reasoning that entrenched poverty and ill health are things churches have to organise against 1. The Kimbanguist Church has been a member of the All Africa Conference of Churches and of the OAIC 3.
The reason to have this page at all is the sentence from the World Council of Churches near the top: most of the growth of African Christianity in the last century came from these churches' own missionaries 2. A chart of world Christianity that lists every Western denomination and leaves these out is not a chart of world Christianity.
Words to know
prophet
In the Bible, someone who speaks God's message to the people, often calling them back to justice and faithfulness. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos were prophets.
bishop
The leader of the Christians of a city or region, who ordains priests and teaches the faith. Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and some Lutheran and Methodist churches keep bishops.
liturgy
The set form of a service: its prayers, readings and actions in their usual order. The Orthodox call their main service the Divine Liturgy.
sacrament
A sacred act Christians believe carries God's grace, such as baptism and communion. Traditions count and understand them differently.
schism
A formal parting between churches. The Great Schism of 1054 divided Catholic West from Orthodox East.
synod
A church assembly that governs or advises; also the name of some Lutheran and Reformed church bodies.
new birth
Being born again: a change worked by God in which a person passes from a nominal faith to a living one. Pietists, and the evangelical movements that came out of them, hold that this is what makes a Christian, rather than baptism and correct belief on their own.
Questions people ask
What does AIC stand for, and why are there four versions of the name?
African Initiated, African Independent, African Instituted and African Indigenous churches are all in use, and all abbreviate to AIC 4,2. Each word emphasises something slightly different: that Africans started them, that they are not controlled from outside, that they are properly constituted churches, or that they belong to the soil they grew in. No single term has won, and the churches themselves use more than one.
Are these churches Protestant?
Most grew out of Protestant missions and would be placed in the Protestant part of a family tree, but the fit is loose. The Ethiopian churches kept the doctrine and order of the Anglican and Methodist churches they left almost unchanged 5,4. The Zionist and Aladura churches share a great deal with Pentecostalism, including divine healing and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and grew alongside it rather than out of it 4. Others are hard to place in Western categories at all, which is a limitation of the categories.
Why do members wear white robes and uniforms?
In southern Africa white robes came in with the first Zionist missionaries from the United States in the early 1900s and were kept when the churches became African-led 4. More broadly, dress marks who is who in the service and marks the congregation as a body in the street. It is one of the visible signs by which these churches are recognised anywhere in Africa.
Is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church an African Initiated Church?
No, and the names cause real confusion. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is an ancient church with a doctrinal history of its own going back to the fourth century, and it has its own place on this site. The Ethiopian churches on this page are recent Protestant congregations in southern Africa, named after the same verse in Psalm 68 rather than after the country's church 4.
How many African Initiated Christians are there?
Tens of millions, and nobody can give a firm figure. There is no central body counting them, the largest of them report numbers that vary by a factor of five between sources, and there are thousands of small churches that no census reaches 3,4. This page gives the figures that name their counter, such as the South African Census counts for the Zion Christian Church, and says plainly where the rest are estimates 9.
Sources
Numbered references link the account above to its sources. These include the tradition's own documents and outside reference works. The review status below distinguishes source checking from completed member and scholarly review.
BibleVerse. “African Initiated Churches: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-08, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/aic/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-08; last changed 2026-09-08. Years before the common era are written BC, and later years plainly, as the site's Christian pages do.
Found something wrong? Send it through the contact page. A correction checked against two sources is made within a week and logged in this page's change history.
Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. Read in Pretoria in 1892 by men who had been told they could not lead the church they belonged to, and taken as a promise.
