Kikuyu Christianities

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Periodical article

Title:	Kikuyu Christianities
Author:	Lonsdale, John M.
Year:	1999
Periodical:	Journal of Religion in Africa
Volume:	29
Issue:	2
Pages:	206-229
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Kenya
Subjects:	African Independent Churches Kikuyu Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Religion and Witchcraft
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1581872
Abstract:	This paper shows how the Kikuyu of central Kenya used biblical and theological ideas to help fashion their own ethnic identity and history. Christianity in Kikuyuland is one century old. From the outset there have been many Kikuyu Christianities. They have differed over their theology, their spiritual, mental, marital and bodily disciplines, forms of worship and formulae of self-government, and over how far personal salvation demands social justice. The Kikuyu case confirms Adrian Hastings' general thesis (1994), that Africans have had a large hand in making their Christianities. In recent years the shortage of land and jobs has attacked the bases of self-realization and responsibility. That has only made Kikuyu Christianities more urgent in their variety. Meanwhile, Kikuyu readings of the Bible as an allegory of their own history have helped them face the morally, indeed theologically, divisive test of finding themselves to be a nationality, a people. Notes, ref.