Jansenism in the Modern African Church: The Indigenous Pentecostal Church Tradition in Nigeria

Abstract

Jansenism is a seventh-century religious movement within the Roman Catholic Church, named after a Dutch theologian Cornelius Jansen, whose work Augustinus (1640) reviewed the major thoughts of Augustine’s theology. Jansenist teachings were associated with harsh moral rigorism against the Jesuits’ Molinist thoughts. It was first condemned by Pope Innocent X in 1653, and finally in 1713 with many French migrants finding refuge in Holland from persecution. However, having retained traces of its teachings in the same Catholic Church that condemned them, Jansenist thoughts have found flourishing ground in the modern churches of Africa, especially among the African indigenous Pentecostal denominations in Nigeria. This indigenous Pentecostal tradition comprises the African Independent Churches, the Aladura movement, and the African Pentecostal movement, whose belief and practices are in line with the five pillars of Jansenism. This work, therefore, proposes that the reality of history lies with the future; whose interpretation of the past is proved by modern reality, and not by the ancient traditions