1936 East African Revival

 1936 East African Revival: It is a tremendous challenge to write about a revival which lasted about 50 years. Such a move of God will have multiple locations, individuals, and stories, all intermingled. The revival in the East African nations of Uganda, Sudan, Rwanda, Congo, Burundi, Tanzania and Kenya started in the Anglican Church of Uganda.

Before East African spiritual awakening started, African converts in the 1930s were faced with a stagnant, dry, and ritualistic church. This was also the condition of church leaders and missionaries, as many of them had embraced liberal theology that denied operations of the Holy Spirit in the modern church. In addition, many of those who attended church services worshipped evil spirits, were involved in witchcraft, and had polygamous marriages.

People were allowed to live in sin and at the same time partake of the communion at the Lord’s table. Christianity became nothing but a gloss to cover it up. About this condition, the British Medical Missionary, Joe Church said, “The only difference between pagans and Christians was that pagans sin openly and Christians hide it.”

Africans and Europeans Unite

         Church, like many who worked in the Rwanda Mission, had deep roots in the “Higher Life Movement” teaching of the British Keswick Covention, and was openly critical of the spirtitual state of the church in Uganda. In 1929, he visited Kampala, Uganda and stayed with some missionaries at Namirembe Hill. On a Sunday, he engaged in a conversation with a young Christian leader, Simeoni Nsibambi at Namirembe Catheral.

Both of them discussed about total surrender to Christ and why this was lacking in the church. Joe Church explained to him that the core issue is the rejection of operations of the Holy Spirit by liberal theologians who also have strong influence on the church. Seeing the young man’s desire for an encounter with the Holy Spirit, Church prayed with him and he was filled with the Spirit.

         After this encounter, Nsinambi gave up his public health job to devote all his time to preaching. Upon Church’s next visit to Kampala, an irate missionary there demanded, “What have you done to Nsibambi?”. When Church enquired what the problem was, the missionary replied, “Oh, he’s gone mad and is going around everywhere asking people if they are saved.” The missionary insisted that Africans were not ready for this new teaching about sanctification and the Holy Spirit.

          The revival that began in the heart of Joe Church and Simeoni Nsibambi spread through the entire staff of Gahini hospital, culminating in the conversion of Yosiya Kinuka, who along with Nsibambi’s brother, Blasio Kigozi, formed one of the first evangelistic teams of the awakening. With the formation of evangelistic teams, the revival spread from personal to evangelistic zeal. From the beginning of 1936, the Kigezi region of southwestern Uganda began seeing revival spread from village to village.

Extraordinary Prayer

          Seeing the enormity of the task of keeping the revival alive, spreading it further, and tending to the harvest, Joe Church wrote  pamphlet in April 1936 titled, Call to Prayer. He wrote another one later in the year titled Victorious Praying. These documents were sent to many parts of the world, generating power through the prayer of God’s people.

From that time forward, the fires of revival began spreading faster, resulting in the conviction of sin at Gahini, Kabale, Shyira, Kigeme, Buhiga, and Matana, all in Uganda. The fires of revival also leaped to the surrounding nations of Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania. As revivalists preached, many repented, and this gave birth to a new kind of African Christian – the abaka (those on fire).

Struggle to Maintain Unity

 The revival had an ongoing struggle to maintain unity. Challenges were observed in the following areas:

• Cooperation between liberal/progressive missionaries and church leaders, and the evangelical arm of the church, with the latter wanting revival, and the former seeing the movement as mass hysteria and emotionalism
• Feud between Europeans and Africans, especially in colonial Kenya, where both groups hated each other
• Strife between men and women
• Friction between ethnic groups in the respective countries

Manifestations During the Revival

         These were similar to those that occured in other revivals throughout history. Accounts of this revival, written by the more liberal arm of the church, especially those who espoused the unscriptural cessationist theology, documented the manifestations as being “excessive” or outright demonic. However, the account given by Joe Church is considered authentic.

He wrote, “Many had gathered (at a church in Mbarara, Uganda) to meet us by five o’clock. We all spoke and we made an appeal, when a thing happened that I had never experienced before. A man began to cry out and howl at the top of his voice. I was alarmed and made people sit down.

The man continued weeping, lying on the floor. I called him up to say what he had experienced. He was one of the most trusted Christians, a government interpreter. He stood beside me weeping and in halting words, gave a moving testimony. He said he had a vision of Christ in the church and he saw the awful state of the lost and he was overcome with grief for his own past. He asked his friends to help him, but he could not stop crying.” Other Christians came later that night and reported they too had seen a vision of Christ in the church.

Joe Church also narrated another incident that occurred on June 26, 1936, at Gahini, Rwanda: “In huts, in church, in the school and hospital were continual visitations of the Spirit in a way they never seen before. People went through experiences of dreams, visions, falling down in trances. In the Girls’ School the situation was more alarming: Four girls went to pray at 9.30 p.m. (Sunday); they were convicted of their sins and then began crying aloud.

Others came to see what was happening and, as soon as they entered the room, they were convicted by an invisble power and started weeping and confessing their sins. This went on until 11 p.m. and for three days, that Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, girls were seen scattered all over the compound weeping and collapsing.” It could not be expained away as being hysterical, since the girls’ lives were completely changed as a result of this experience.

Recorded Phenomena

• Prostrations
• Fainting
• Laughing
• Trembling of the body
• Dreams and Visions
• Rolling about on the floor
• Weeping
• Speaking in tongues

         These phenomena were regarded as signs of the Holy Spirit dealing with sin in a person’s heart. It was always followed by a great release, peace, and joy expressed in singing and confession of sin. There was then a desire to give testimony in praise to Jesus Christ who had set the prisoner free. These signs were happening all over the district, and when the Bishop of the Church of Uganda, Cyril Stuart, who was stationed in Kampala, made a trip to investigate, he include this in his report: “I do not think I have ever felt nearer to God than at Gahini.”

         On a Sunday in March 1939, when another pastor, William Nagenda and Joe Church were ministering at Kinyasano, Uganda, Church reported the following: “We began the service at 10:00 a.m. with a hymn, “What Can Wash Away My Sins,” and at once during the first verse, people began to weep and cry out.” When they moved to another church along the road, they saw the following scene: “About a thousand people were gathered, sitting inside and outside the church.

Many were prostate, weeping and crying, while others sat quietly waiting. There was a tremendous noise, so it was impossible to have the service. Some were besides themselves with grief. In many places the floor was wet below their faces and the bodies of many were convulsed with shaking which went on and on, apparently quite uncontrollably. They had been like this for over an hour.”

Results of the Revival

• Millions of people were touched by the revival and it was influential in raising up a new generation of leaders to carry the church forward – with African leadership
• The revival, which started in the Anglican Church of Uganda, spread to all denominations in the affected countries
• The African Rwanda Mission alone had 20,000 converts by 1942, in 700 village congregations
• The public confession of sin was one of the pillars of the revival
• Stolen goods were returned, ranging from money, hoes to even razor blades
• The revival went global in its influence. Beginning in 1946, and through the 1950s, revival teams, some of them led Joe Church, William Nagenda, and Festo Kivengere began making ministry trips to various nations. The affected countries were Angola, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Ethipia, India, Jamaica, Malawi, Pakistan, South Africa, the United States of America and many European nations
• Few observers expected the revival to last a generation, yet in the 1950s, it triggered even more awakenings in Burundi, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda
• The Holy Spirit moved upon mission schools and spread to churches and to whole communities, producing deep repentance and changed lives
• Reconciliation: As the message of the revival was shared across denominational boundaries, members of the Methodist, Presbyterian, Moravian, Lutheran and Anglican Churches were brought together in bonds of love. Denominational barriers crumbled, seemingly less significant than the unity they found in Christ. Hostility between the races also broke down. Tribal tensions were eased.

           It is difficult to understand why liberal theologians and the Cessasionist crowd still call themselves followers of Jesus Christ when they clearly depise Him. Anyone who adds to, or substracts from the written word of God in the Holy Bible calls God a liar. The Lord Jesus Christ said that anyone who rejects Him (the Word of God), rejects the Father also (Luke 10:16).

The Lord gave a blue-print of the kind of power believers will operate in Mark 16:17-18, “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will be made well.”

        At what point in history did Jesus Christ declare that the power to do all these things, was only meant for the early church as these deluded people affirm? Our consolation is that their unbelief cannot tie the hands of God, for His Son Jesus Christ trumpeted in Matthew 16:18, “On this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

          Some materials culled from 1936 East African Revival, https://romans1015.com.