East Africa Revival: Timeline and Key Individuals

In the 2005 movie “Hotel Rwanda”, Don Cheadle, as Paul Rusesabagina, personified heroism in light of great tragedy in a dramatic retelling of Hutu/Tutsi genocidal war in the land of Rwanda. Little do many know that eighties year prior to the release of the movie, a radically different kind of stirring began among the people of East Africa that arguably continues to this day. This stirring later became known as the East Africa Revival.

Ruanda Urundi,[1] as it was then called, became a colonial acquisition of the Germans in the 1890s as German East Africa. After the First World War, per the Treaty of Versailles, in 1921 Ruanda Urundi came under the Belgian mandate.[2] The remainder of German East Africa became Tanganyika, under the British mandate. Geopolitically, as a territory of Belgium, where Roman Catholics where an overwhelming majority, Ruanda Urundi was closed off to both the British and to Protestant missionaries. Thus, it was only by mistake that British explorers were able to scout the Belgian lands, and only by the brief annexation of eastern Ruanda by the British that the Ruandan Mission could plant medical missionaries as seeds of a coming harvest.[3] The Belgians were unaware of the exploratory trip and had denied the Ruanda Mission entry almost a year and a half earlier, prior to the annexation. Thus when Eastern Ruanda returned to Belgium, the Ruandan Mission faced opposition from both the government and the Catholic church for years afterwards. Still, the Mission persisted. Beginning through the small enclave of missionaries and several converted tribesmen, revived Christianity spread through all East Africa, starting in Ruanda, beginning in the late 1920s.

The Ruandan Mission was intimately connected to revival in East Africa, even before missionaries reached the lush valleys of Ruanda. The connection lay in the University of Cambridge and the Keswick Convention. The missionary nearest to the center of the East Africa Revival was Joe Church.[4] He had been converted while a student at Cambridge on the evening of August 29, 1920.[5] From then, he was welcomed into the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU). Thirty-eight years before Church’s conversion, D.L. Moody made his famous trip to Cambridge which culminated in the conversion of many students and the sending out of the Cambridge Seven with the China Inland Mission. Following these events, Cambridge became of hotbed of missionary enthusiasm. One person so enthused was George Lawrence Pilkington.[6] Pilkington followed the missionary call to Uganda and, in 1893, witnessed a revival among the Baganda, characterized by increased devotion to Christ, rapid increase in the number of conversions, increased involvement of the laity in evangelism, and rapid planting of churches and building of buildings by the natives.[7] The event in Pilkington’s life that sparked the revival was the filling of the Holy Spirit. On his furlough, in 1896, Pilkington spoke at the Keswick convention testifying “to the work of the Holy Spirit in his own life and in the Uganda Church.”[8] His experience was characteristic of the Keswick emphasis on the crisis event in a individual’s life leading them to seek the filling of the Holy Spirit.

Early Keswick Theology[9] emphasized the post-conversion experience of the second blessing. This second blessing corresponded to a renewed emphasis on “Spirit-filling.” In this respect, the Spirit-filling is the result of surrendering and bending one’s will to God’s; also, it is the means to a higher Christian life, a form of Christian perfectionism.

The connection of Keswick theology on the East Africa Revival is indubitable. First, Keswick theology greatly influenced the earlier Ugandan revival, as already mentioned. Second, Keswick theology flourished in the CICCU, out of which Joe Church would come to Ruanda. Ultimately, the constitution of the Ruandan Mission expressly indicated that it existed on Keswick lines.[10] The influence of Keswick theology upon many CMS missionaries and the Ruandan Mission, in particular, is not debated among scholars, there is near universal agreement.[11]

Revival—A Brief Timeline and Identification of Key Individuals

In his recount of the Revival, as it began in Ruanda, A. C. Stanley Smith identifies five “Mile-Posts” of the spread of the revival.[12] The first, 1921–26, marks the initial stirrings of revival and missionaries in Kigezi, on the Western Ugandan border, followed by the first entry into Ruanda and the arrival of Dr. Joe Church.[13] Second, 1926–1931, was the establishment of the Gahini hospital. During this period there was the great famine in Ruanda. The hospital was spread thin; during these times Joe Church felt at his lowest, which led him to seek the filling of the Holy Spirit with an African brother, Semyoni Nsibambi.[14] They were transformed. The revival, at large, began during the third “Mile-Post”, 1931–1936. The revival that began in the hearts of Church and Nsibambi spread through the entire staff of the Gahini hospital, culminating in the conversion of Yosiya Kinuka,[15] who along with Nsibambi’s brother, Blasio Kigozi, formed one of the first evangelistic teams of the revival.[16] With the formation of evangelistic teams, the revival spread from personal dedication to evangelistic zeal.

Beginning with Smith’s fourth “Mile-Post”, 1936–1941, the revival brought about the formation of Revival teams that took the gospel to the interior of Ruanda and Urundi. Out of the increased fruitfulness among Africans by Africans, the training of indigenous leadership also became a priority. Lawrence Barham became revived from the influence of his students, and in addition to wide itineration, Barham labored for the training of an ordained African clergy in South-Western Uganda.[17] This period also marked the beginning of intense opposition to the revival from missionary clergy.[18]

The opposition is best characterized by the reaction of the “missionary” clergyman serving at Bishop Tucker Theological College, in Mukone, Uganda. William Nagenda, one of the “Balokole”, or “saved ones” as they were called, and 25 other students were expelled from the College after meeting for early prayer which had been forbidden by the faculty and administration.[19] This event did not stop the movement, but invigorated the leaders, like Nagenda, to take the revival message and spread it broadly.

Smith’s final “Mile-Post,” 1941–46, marked the widespread geographic distribution of the revival. On Sunday, October 5, 1941, Festo Kivengere was revived out of a life of apostasy, antagonism to the revival, and very loose living.[20] Festo became one of the most well-known revival leaders, not just in East Africa, but across the globe. His ministry would span from North America, to Europe, to South Asia and Pacifica. In many ways, the East Africa Revival was in fact a global revival!

The timeline after 1946 is difficult to maintain because the revival was spreading internationally. Revival teams, led by Joe Church, William Nagenda, Semyoni Nsibambi, Festo Kivengere, and many others, entered Urundi, Tanganyika (later Tanzania), Kenya, Sudan, and then travelled abroad to Europe and the United States. Partial (non-black) teams entered South Africa at this time as well. Festo moved his family, along with another revival brother and his family to Tanganyika, where they would serve for several years.

These few examples demonstrate the broader principle that evangelism and missions characterized the revival from the earliest stages. As the teams spread, the revival spread to other groups. Richard K. MacMaster and Donald R. Jacobs, in A Gentle Wind of God, trace the influence of the revival on Mennonite missionaries and their churches and institutions at home. They also trace the influence on revival fellowships that meet up to this day.[21] Through these influences, especially through the wide itineration of the revived Africans and missionaries, other individuals caught the revival and continued to propagate the message elsewhere, including, Norman P. Grubb,[22] Roy and Revel Hession,[23] Erma and Herbert Maust, Wayne and Mary Lou Lawton, among many others.[24] Furthermore, the East Africa Revival intersected with the ministry of Billy Graham through Festo Kivengere. This relationship persisted allowing Festo Kivengere to hold great influence upon global evangelicalism.[25] Though Festo died in 1988 from the effects of Leukemia, the revival fellowships continue to meet and Africans continue to sing “Tukutendereza Yesu.”[26]

Tukutendereza Yesu
Yesu Omwana gw’endiga
Omusaigwo gunaziza
Nkwebaza, Omulokozi

We praise you Jesus,
Jesus Lamb of God
Your Blood cleanses me,
I praise you, Saviour.

Overall, the fact that no single work has yet to capture the totality of the East Africa Revival, though it has received much study, is evidence of the breadth and duration of the movement.

HT: Andrew Naselli

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[1] These nations are now known as Rwanda and Burundi, but the older usage will be maintained in these posts.

[2] Kenneth Ingham, “Tanganyika: The Mandate and Cameron, 1919–1931” in The History of East Africa Vincent Harlow et al, ed. Vol II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 547–50.

[3] A. C. Stanley Smith, Road to Revival: The Story of the Ruanda Mission (London: Church Missionary Society, 1946), 12–3, 19.

[4] See also note 22.

[5] H. H. Osborn, Pioneers in the East African Revival (Winchester, UK: Apologia, 2000), 55–6.

[6] Charles F. Harford-Battersby, Pilkington of Uganda (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1899), 20–40.

[7] Ibid., 221–239.

[8] Ibid., 251.

[9] For an excellent history, analysis and appraisal of Early Keswick Theology, see: Andrew David Naselli, “Keswick Theology: A Historical and Theological Survey and Analysis of the Doctrine of Sanctification in the Early Keswick Movement, 1875–1920,” PhD dissert, Bob Jones University, 2006.

[10] Hooper, “Trans-Atlantic Evangelicalism and Its Impact,” 81; Smith, Road to Revival, 42.

[11] Hooper’s article is by far the most explicit source for this conclusion: Hooper, “Trans-Atlantic Evangelicalism and Its Impact”. However, see also major Christian histories of the era: Elizabeth Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa: From Antiquity to the Present (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 88–92; Bengt Sundkler and Christopher Steed, A History of the Church in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 863–5; J. Edwin Orr, Awakenings in Africa, 158. Gordon Hewitt does not mention Keswick by name, but the influence on the missionaries during the movement is unmistakable. Hewitt records Joe Church’s plan to build up “a true holiness movement in Uganda” through his vision of a “Uganda Seven.” The connection to Keswick and his early Cambridge days is unmistakable. Gordon Hewitt, The Problems of Success: A History of the Church Missionary Society 1910–1942, Vol. One (London: SCM Press, 1971), 235–41.

[12] The following summary is based upon Smith, The Road to Revival.

[13] John Edward Church, known as Joe, was a major lay missionary impetus in the East Africa Revival. See his edited diary of  his participation in the revival from 1927–61: J. E. Church, Quest for the Highest: An Autobiographical Account of the East African Revival (Exeter: Paternoster, 1981).  See also: Osborn, Pioneers, 53–110. For an account that integrates the ministry of Church with the revival more broadly, see: MacMaster and Jacobs, A Gentle Wind of God.

[14] Church, Quest, 66–8. Note: Nsibambi’s first name, according to Church is Simeon; it is Simeoni to Osborn. However, his son, Professor Apolo Nsibambi, Prime Minister of Uganda, informs us that the correct spelling is Semyoni. Apolo Nsibambi, Uganda: The Origins of the ‘Bulokole’ Movement, September 3, 2007, http:// allafrica.com/stories/printable/200709040123.html (accessed August 5, 2009). For an account of Nsibambi’s influence on the revival, see Osborn, Pioneers, 15–52; fittingly, Osborn begins his account with Nsibambi’s biography.

[15] See an account of Kinuka’s influence in Osborn, Pioneers, 191–226.

[16] Smith, Road to Revival, 54–64.

[17] Osborn, Pioneers, 153–90.

[18] MacMaster and Jacobs, Gentle Wind, 51–66.

[19] Ibid., 54–6; See also, Osborn, Pioneers, 111–152; cf. Church, Quest, 178, 180, 184–6.

[20] Anne Coomes, Festo Kivengere: A Biography (Eastborne, UK: Monarch, 1990), 98–103

[21] MacMaster and Jacobs, Gentle Wind of God.

[22] Norman Grubb, was Executive Secretary of the World Evangelization Crusade and was responsible for arranging visits of East African Revival Teams to Great Britain in the late 1940s and early 1950s. See MacMaster and Jacobs, Gentle Wind, 119–20. He had served with C.T. Studd in Central Africa but discovered the revival after the visit of two Ruandans to his office in London. In light of his experience and study, he authored a book explicating the message of the revival: Norman P. Grubb, Continuous Revival (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, n.d.).

[23] His most influential work is Roy and Revel Hession, The Calvary Road (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1977). In its eight printing in 1977, it is still widely available, including online: http://www. christianissues.biz/pdf-bin/sanctification/thecalvaryroad.pdf (accessed August 10, 2009).

[24] See especially the chapter of testimonies in MacMaster and Jacobs, Gentle Wind, 321–57.

[25] Festo Kivengere not only influenced Billy Graham, but also John Stott, Steven Olford, among others, having spoken before the National Association of Evangelicals in 1978, as well as serving on the committee of the 1974 Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization, giving the last plenary paper of the conference on “The Cross and World Evangelism”. And all of this, he served while his own country suffered under the harsh dictatorship of Idi Amin. Coomes, Festo, 213ff.

[26] Emmanuel Hooper traces the origin of the hymn to D.L. Moody and Ira Sankey. This connection is very interesting since it involves Moody’s ministry at Cambridge, the hotbed for sending missionaries to East Africa. Emmanuel Hooper, “The Theology of Trans-Atlantic Evangelicalism and Its Impact on The East African Revival,” Evangelical Review of Theology 31.1 (2007): 75–7.