Job Yenge Chiliza: A Pentecostal Church Founder and Trailblazer (Published)
This article analyses the theological views and ministry of Job Yenge Chiliza. He was educated at the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missons’ school and later became preacher in the church and later experienced baptism in the Holy Spirit through contact with members of the Apostolic Faith Mission. He later associated with the Zionists, led by Ezra Mbonambi, two other Pentecostal churches, the Full Gospel Church of God and the International Pentecostal Holiness Church before he founded an independent Pentecostal church, the African Gospel Church. The article applies the Lekgotla practical theology research method to understand this phenomenon and ask: What theological views did Job Chiliza hold as he moved from one Christian tradition to the other and how these manifested in his ministry? The article argues that he embraced three different theological views, Protestantism, Zionism, and Pentecostalism, that ultimately manifested as Ubuntu Pentecostalism in his ministry.
Keywords: Pentecostalism, Protestantism, Ubuntu Pentecostalism, Zionism, fusion., theological views
THE PLACE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PENTECOSTALISM IN IGBOLAND (Review Completed - Accepted)
The Anglican mission came into Igboland in the last half of the nineteenth century being the first Christian mission to come into Igboland, precisely in 1857, with Onitsha as the first spot of missionary propagation. From Onitsha the mission spread to other parts of Igboland. The process of the spread was no doubt, marked with the demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit; hence the early CMS missionaries saw the task of evangelizing Igboland as something that could not have been possible without the victory of the Holy Spirit over the demonic forces that occupied Igboland by then. The objective of this paper is to historically investigate the claim that the presence of the Anglican Church in Igboland marked the origin of Pentecostalism among the Igbo. The method employed in this investigation was both analytical and descriptive. It was discovered that the Anglican mission introduced Pentecostalism into Igboland through their charismatic activities long before the churches that claim exclusive Pentecostalism came, about a century later. The only difference is that the original Anglican Pentecostalism was imbued in their Evangelical tradition as opposed to the modern Pentecostalism which is characterized by seemingly excessive emotional and ecstatic tendencies without much biblical anchorage
Keywords: Anglicanism, Evangelicalism, Missionaries, Pentecostalism, Traditions