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[German Version] I. History – II. Missiology I. History Independent local forms of Christianity and the aspiration to be emancipated from the control of European missionaries appeared early on in the history of the emerging churches of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Examples include the movement initiated by the female African prophet D.B. Kimpa Vita in the Congo during the early 18th century, which temporarily threatened Portuguese rule in the region. Independent church movements became a widespread…

[German Version] I. Social Sciences – II. History – III. Migration and Christianization – IV. Practical Theology I. Social Sciences The term migration refers to the movements of individuals and groups. It is a universal phenomenon, historically and geographically. International migration increased substantially during the 19th and 20th centuries, thanks to the worldwide expansion of colonialism as well as improved transportation systems and information technologies, but also as a result of war and persecution (see II below). The direction of migration has changed over time. In the 19th century, streams of migration ran primarily from Europe t…

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[German Version] I. Religious Studies Racism is a political ideology that traces cultural and social differences back to racial causes, thus making them seem natural and unchangeable. In racism’s hierarchical ordering, racists always occupy the highest rank. Everything they declare to be of lesser value is subjected to their rightful rule. Since racism has no scientific bas…

[German Version] (Feb 6, 1814, Wörlitz – Nov 10, 1864, Erlangen). Graul studied in Leipzig (1834–1838), then taught in Italy and Dessau, before he assumed the leadership of the Evangelical-Lutheran Missionary Society in Saxony (after 1847, the Leipzig Mission). Graul journeyed to India (1849–1853, …

[German Version] A group of Indian theologians that attracted attention with Rethinking Christianity in India (1939), a collection of essays edited by D.M. Devasahayam and A.N. Sudarisanam in the context of the 1938 World Missionary Conference in Tambaram. G.V. Job, S. Jesudasen, D.M. Devasahayam, E. Asirvatham and A.N. Sudarisanam each contributed an essay; most of the contributions were written by the lay theologians Pandippedi Chenchiah (five) and V. Chakkarai ¶ Chetty (three), who were related by marriage. Both were converts to Christianity from the Brahmin ca…

[German Version] (Jan 17, 1880, Madras – Jun 14, 1958, Madras) came from a respected Chettiar family and was raised as a Hindu. He graduated from Madras…

[German Version] (Ger. Freimissionar), a person carrying out missionary work without ecclesial mandate. Since a comparable mission authority was lacking in German Protestantism until the founding of the Danish-Halle Mission, individually operating missionaries played an important role, as for instance J. v. Welz, who, after an unsuccessful call for mission, traveled to Surinam, and P. Heyling, who was active in Ethiopia. During the 19th century, independent Evangelical missionaries such as K.A.F. G…

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[German Version] (27,834 km2) is situated in what is known as the interlake area of the central African Great Rift Valley just south of the equator. The name derives from the kingdom of Urundi, whos…

[German Version] I. General Nigeria’s population of some 115 to 120 million makes it the most populous country in Africa. Its present boundaries date from 1914, when the two protectorates of…

[German Version] I. General The word slavery denotes a social structure (including its normative legal and ethical standards) in which certain individuals are considered and treated as objects. A slave owner has the right to decide what the slaves do, as well as where and how they live; the owner also has an absolute right of disposition over their bodies and lives and the right to sell them like any other property. The far-reaching implications of this definition distinguish slavery from other forms of unfreedom such as debt servitude, serfdom, and bondage. Slavery was widespread in antiquity. There were many ways for a person to be enslaved: being taken as a prisoner of war, being captured (often by pirates at sea), over-indebtedness (although debt servitude was not at all points identical with slavery), as punishment for a crime, or by birth. Poverty and dependence as such – widespread in Late Antiquity – were not the same as slavery, although de facto…

[German Version] Founded in the year in which India gained political independence (1947), the Church of South India (CSI) attracted considerable international attention as the first worldwide union of episcopal and non-episcopal churches. The preliminary steps were initiated in May 1919 at an Indian pastors' conference chaired by Bishop V.S. Azariah in Tranquebar, during which representatives of the Anglican Church and of the South Indian United Church (a union of presbyterian and congregationalist churches) drafted the “Tranquebar Manifesto.” It maintained, among other things, that the division into various denominations, for which the Western mission churches were responsible, hampered the spreading of Christianity in India. The Indian pastors agreed that congregational, presbyterian and episcopal elements were to be included in a future organization. The so-called Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888 (Lambeth Conferences) was recognized as the basis of negotiations. During the sixth Lambeth Conference (1920), Azariah advocated the notion of church union, which, for him, was associated with the independence of the Indian Church. Significant progress, though soon confined to South India, was achieved with the “disestablishment” of the Anglican Church in 1927, when the Church of England in India became the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon. The critical point in the negotiations, in which the Wesleyan Methodist Church also became involved from 1925 on, proved to be the question whether the pastors from non-episcopal churches should be re-ordained by bishops of the apostolic succession when entering the union. A “Scheme of Union” published in 1929 determined that all pastors should be recognized without re-ordination at the inauguration of the new Church, though in the long term, i.e. after a transition period of 30 years, every pastor was to be ordained by a bishop. In the 1930s, when the congregations of the Basel Mission were inivited to take part in the debates, the conflict over the equivalence of episcopally ordained and other pastors erupted again in conjunction with the administration of the sacraments; at the same time, Indian Christians suc…

[German Version] New Thought is a collective term for a variety of teachings whose common element is the belief that “positive thinking” can lead to mastery of life and particularly to the healing of disease (Sickness and healing). Its genesis may be traced to Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866), who began to develop his so-called “argumentative method” of healing in Belfast, Maine, in 1849. His approach was to convince the patients that their illnesses were the result of er…

[German Version] (c. 1835/1836, Freetown, Sierra Leone – May 18, 1917, Bonny, Nigeria). Johnson was educated at Fourah Bay College and became an Anglican pastor in Freetown (1861–1874) and Lagos (1874–1891). After Bishop S.A. Crowther had been deposed (1891), Johnson did not join any of the African independent churches, but founded the Anglican Niger Delta Native Pastorate, which was independent of the mission (1892). In 1900, he was named deputy to the bishop. Johnson advocated an appreciation of traditional religion ( Yoruba Heathendom, 1899; Yoruba religion) and the accommodation of the mission to African culture (retention of African names after baptism, a moderate attitude toward polygamy). Nonetheless, he was one of the major opponents of the prophetic movement of G.S. Braide, which became particularly influential in the Niger Delta from 1915. Although he did not reject British colonialism in principle, he criticized various intrusions. He was a member of the Lagos Colony Legislative Council…

[German Version] (between 1883 and 1887, Abonnema, Niger delta – Nov 15, 1918, Bakana) was the founder of the first great prophetic movement in Nigeria. What he accomplished was a reinterpretation of the Christian faith. His ministry led to many conversions in southeast Nigeria. Braide, a fisherman and fishmonger, began his ecclesiastical career as a catechist in Bakan, a …

[German Version] I. General The name Tanzania is an artificial coinage introduced in 1964 with the formation of the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. The republic has an area of 942,000 km2, including the islands of Pemba, Zanzibar, and Mafia, with some 2,000 km2. The most important vegetation zones are savannahs, veldt, semidesert, and the fertile coastal plain on the Indian Ocean. The continental area includes 54,000 km2 of inland lakes, primarily along the Great African Rift Valley. With an altitude of 5,895 m, Kilimanjaro reaches the highest elevation in Africa (see also map). The population, which comprises more than 120 ethnic groups, increased from 10 million in 1964 to 44 million in 2009. Since the 19th century, Swahili has developed into a lingua franca; today it is Tanzania’s national language. Frieder Ludwig Bibliography Bibl.: see IV below. II. Non-Christian Religions Many African religions are represented in Tanzania; for t…

[German Version] After early beginnings in India (the “princely states”), the British developed the classic model of indirect rule in northern Nigeria. Frederick Lugard ( The Dual Mandate, 1922) sought to use the existing emirate structures for administering the territory (co-opting local legislation, administration of justice, and collection of taxes). Dependence on the British weakened the em…

[German Version] (May 12, 1875, Zedlitz – May 22, 1955, Berlin), director of the Berlin Mission and vice-chairman of the Deutscher Evangelischer Missionsrat (DEMR). Like B. Gutmann and C. Keyßer, Knak supported a conception of mission that sought to base congregational life on the people's own customs and traditions ( Zwischen Nil und Tafelbai, 1931; Erfahrungen und Grundgedanken der deutschen evangelischen Mission, 1938). In 1933 Knak called on the church to support Hitler ( NAMZ, 1933, 401–421) and integrate missions into the Reichskirche; later, however, he opposed the “Ar…

[German Version] (Aug 3, 1832, St. Thomas, Caribbean Islands – Feb 7, 1912, Freetown, Sierra Leone), politician and scholar in West Africa and prominent representative of African cultural nationalism. Barred from attending a theological college in the USA, Blyden emigrated to Liberia in 1851 and attended Alexander High School in Monrovia. In his publications, he supported the “return” of the Afro-Americans ( A Voice from Bleeding Africa on Behalf of Her Exiled Children, 1857) to Liberia (independence in 1847). In 1858, Blyden was ordained as a Presbyterian pastor and appointed as principal of Alexander High School in the same year. From 1862 to 1871, he was professor for classical languages at Liberia College, then government minister from 1864 to 1866. During t…