I spotted this interesting article and follow up letter in the Church Times when exploring its coverage of the 1968 Lambeth Conference. The article notes that the number of Anglicans in “the western part of Nigeria” was declining in favour of Pentecostals. Nigerian Anglicanism had gone through phases of shedding both sects and adherents towards Independency since at least the 1920s. But this was possibly the first report in the press of a new phenomenon which would have significant impacts on Anglicanism across the world.
There was a major Third Wave of new Pentecostal Churches emergent in Africa from the mid-1970s; in Nigeria, the continent’s most populous country, Jesse Zink locates this surge as beginning a little earlier, with an evangelical revival during the civil war of 1967-70. It would be incubated and then enormously multiplied in student groups meeting in the margins of the expanding Nigerian university system of the 1970s. Matthews Ojo understands these African movements as originating in the 1960s Pentecostalist revivals in North America and Britain; but Nigerian Independency long had links with the Anglo-Saxon north, and the influence wasn’t always unidirectional either.
Also of note here is some indirect evidence of Muslim-to-Christian conversion in Nigeria, which is far from unknown but somehow seems to escape everyone’s notice.
Anglicans facing competition from the burgeoning Pentecostal scene in Africa was one of a complex cluster of reasons why the issue of homosexuality became so toxic within world Anglicanism from the mid-1990s onwards.
From the Church Times, 9 August 1968
Fewer Anglicans in W. Nigeria
The number of Anglicans in the western part of Nigeria, West Africa, is declining, to the benefit of other denominations.
This is revealed in the report published giving the results of a research project into the “Role of Religion in Yoruba Society,” conducted by the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ife, Nigeria.
The report revealed that the number of Muslims also showed a decline. The fastest growing religious bodies in Western Nigeria are the local Nigerian denominations, the Apostolic/Christ Apostolic Church and the Cherubim and Seraphim movement. These churches, which are called aladura (Yoruba for “those who are praying”) churches, are mainly Pentecostal in form.
On the question of polygamy, half the Anglicans interviewed said they approved of it, and some admitted to having 30, 25, 24 and 15 wives. One Anglican in Communion had 10 wives.
Surprisingly, fewer members of the indigenous Christian religions interviewed approved of polygamy, and the Apostolic Church is confessedly monogamous, although monogamy is not observed by all its adherents.
By 1968, Charismatic renewal was really starting to catch on in the mainstream churches, including the RC Church. What was Charismatic renewal, at the end of the day, other than Pentecostalism contained within traditional churches? Frank Berry of pretty little Chipping near the scenic Forest of Bowland certainly thought Anglicans should get with the programme and embrace the gifts of the Holy Spirit as set out in the New Testament. Here too, a sharp observer has already noted a trend that redefine the Christian world in the decades to come, the increasing rate of conversion from Catholicism to Pentecostalism in Latin America.
From the Church Times, 16 August 1968
LETTERS: PENTECOSTAL ZEAL
The Church Times of August 9, records a decline in the number of Anglicans in the western part of Nigeria to the benefit of indigenous Pentecostal denominations, and registers surprise that adherents of the latter exhibit a less polygamous tendency than the Anglicans.
Church Times Letters, 16 August 1968 – Pentecostal Zeal
“What have the Pentecostalists to teach us? ” This, we gather from the same issue of your paper, was among the questions a Lambeth Conference committee asked itself – a wise enquiry in view of the growth of Pentecostalism throughout the world.
A high standard of general morality has been noted by observers among Pentecostalists, whether West Indians in England or former nominal RCs in South America. One thing they could teach the bishops is the value of making a decision and having the waters close overhead in a symbolic burial with Christ, as distinct from hearsay that they may have been sprinkled willy-nilly in oblivious infancy.
They are, moreover, encouraged to seek such a baptism in the Holy Spirit, as is recorded of the disciples and their converts in “Acts.” with the resultant scriptural phenomenon of speaking with tongues, ensuring that their Christianity is vital and more than an effete attempt to follow tenets.
Going on, they are to covet gifts of the Spirit such as are listed in Cross’s Dictionary (following 1 Corinthians xii) under charismata, and which characterised the ministry of the Cure d’Ars.
In the church the exact needs of individuals are commonly met by the omniscient Spirit speaking through prophecy and interpretation of tongues. Worship is truly corporate and never stereotyped. All are encouraged to contribute and St. James’s instructions for dealing with sickness are readily and efficaciously followed. Tithing obviates the need for jumble sales and bingo. In the light of obvious apostolic marks in the ministry now, historic succession, with all its contemporary debate, pales into irrelevance.
The happy Pentecostal experience of an increasing number of Anglicans may have brought them within the sound of a powerful and majestic utterance from an inspired believer who, though not laureate, has received the gift of prophecy.
Doubtless the printed words of the Bible and of hymns can be supplemented with the ordered form of printed settings to provide modes for approaching God and interpreting Christ’s sacramental commands. There is much current Anglican thought about the renewal of such services, but o that space were afforded in Anglicanism, as in the early Church, for the charismata – presupposing the humility, faith and doctrine that welcome them. But then it would not be Anglicanism as we have known it.
FRANK BERRY.
Grove House. Chipping. Lancs.
