Holy Hustlers (review)

In Holy Hustlers (2009), the fourth of the “The Well Being Quest in Botswana” film series, the anthropologist/ethnographer Richard Werbner examines how a family feud divides Eloyi, an independent Apostolic church in Eastern Botswana, and then escalates into a schism. Werbner bases his analysis of the schism on Gregory Bateson’s idea of schismogenesis, which theorizes “schism as a process within a much longer term and continually changing process of Christian reformation” (81). In addition, Werbner investigates the inner workings of the group of street-wise, charismatic, young male prophets of Eloyi’s city-based church outside Botswana’s capital of Gabarone, whose incorporation into the church’s mission triggered the family dispute. In the companion monograph, Holy Hustlers, Schism, and Prophecy: Apostolic Reformation in Botswana (University of California Press, 2011), Werbner argues that shifts of rhetorical language in present-day Africa necessitate a better understanding of the power of the Word and “the new words of Power” (15). In the film, he utilizes Eloyi as a case study in the proliferation of schisms within the Christian reformation in Africa. Eloyi’s struggles for power are contextualized within the framework of the “value in spiritual authority,” as represented by the Archbishop Jakoba, and the “innovation . . . [in] recast cosmology,” as embodied by his eldest son, Bishop Boitshepelo (82).

Eloyi is a syncretic, apostolic, charismatic faith-healing church that was founded in 1955 in the village of Tsetsebjwe in the former British protectorate of Bechuanaland. Eloyi’s founder, Archbishop Jakoba, fled the village because of religious persecution and built city-based churches, returning to the rural area only after independence in 1966 brought religious freedom. Unlike the more orthodox village-based church, today’s city-based Eloyi combines the search for God with the rescue of street-wise prophets who are viewed as called by the Holy Spirit to relieve the suffering of the Apostolics. The film’s central character, arguably, is the Eloyi city-based church near Gaborone, where the central action involving the church schism and the prophets’ healing takes place.

The film’s plot is reminiscent of King Lear, except that the father is not the main focus and the children are men; women figure only on the periphery. The tragic quality of Lear is found in the angst of the eldest son, Boitshepelo, who has been passed over by his father, despite his hard work and loyalty, in favor of the younger son, Sekai. The father appointed Sekai in 1985 as assistant bishop and Boitshepelo years later as church administrator. Due to his bureaucratic skills, Boitshepelo is eventually put in charge of the Eloyi city-branch in Gaborone and he takes the title of bishop. Through innovations, such as sponsoring street kids turned prophets, Boitshepelo’s urban church thrives, but his honor is questioned by authorities. His father forbids Boistheplo to use these unsanctified prophets, but Boitshepelo does not obey.

The family quarrel over church control escalates, drawing congregation members into a moral crisis of faith. The need to choose sides in a litigious battle for ownership of Eloyi and its Apostolics ensues and highlights the tension between the archbishop’s spiritual authority and Boitshepelo’s iconoclastic innovations. Accused by his brother of being a false bishop who misuses the church, Boitshepelo calls a meeting of congregants to assess their level of support. The bishop, meanwhile, announces his decision to leave Eloyi. Joshua, one of the street prophets, articulates the moral crisis of faith when he envisions an elephant, the family totem, with one broken tusk and one missing tusk. The day after Sekai gives a sermon about the dispute, a gale topples the church, leaving both sides to level blame on the other. Boitshepelo subsequently opens Conollius Apostolic Church, in a return to the original name and spirit of his father’s church, and calls himself Archbishop Boitshepelo in a not-so-final split with Eloyi.

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