Samuel Mutendi of the Zion Christian Church: interpretations of a prophet

From the 1910s through 1940s, a wave of indigenous church leaders spread across southern and central Africa. As the white governments of South Africa and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) steadily tightened legal restrictions on African labor, and restricted land ownership, independent prophets such as Enoch Mgijima, Edward Lion, Engenas Lekganyane, and Johane Maranke launched evangelistic movements that recruited thousands of rural, displaced, and migrant Africans into what scholars later called “African Independent” or “African Initiated” Churches (AICs). Early AIC leaders had prior relationships with a range of missions including Presbyterian, Methodist, Dutch Reformed, and the pentecostal Apostolic Faith Mission. But they chafed under restrictive white control in both church and state. Inspired by dreams and visions, and certain of their own dignity and callings, they founded churches characterized by deep engagement with rural African cultures. By the mid twentieth century, the AICs were the largest and most vigorous evangelistic movements in southern and central Africa. Today in South Africa, the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) of Engenas Lekganyane remains the largest denomination.