New religious movements in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

INTRODUCTION There is no single interpretation of the purpose and objectives of African new religious movements (NRMs), some of which have been have interpreted as resistance movements, others as revivalist movements, others as embryonic forms of feminism, and yet others as essentially healing movements. Despite the diversity of these movements Turner attempted to provide a typology of African NRMs. This chapter suggests that one way of understanding many of the NRMs discussed below is to see them as defenders of cultural capital. While established or standard religion is usually seen as conservative in its response to the world and in its attitude to change, so called “new” religion is thought of as radical in these respects. However, in certain contexts, as in modern Africa during the colonial era, it was the new religions that attempted, albeit not indiscriminately, to preserve cultural capital, a term that includes religious culture, while the so-called historical or mission churches, and mainstream Islam, attempted to transform the local religious landscape. The adoption of the role of defenders of cultural capital accounts in great measure, as Stark's theory of religious success and failure would expect it to do, for the success of many African NRMs, including African Independent Churches (AICs), new Islamic movements such as the Murid brotherhood of Senegal, and neo-traditional movements, such as the Mungiki movement in present-day Kenya.