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4. The Maranatha movement and autochthony in the South West Province
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4 The Maranatha movement and autochthony in the South West Province Introduction Religious revival movements of various sorts have had a profound impact on the public realm of many African countries in the last decennia (cf. Ellis & ter Haar 1998: 193). Although there is a growing body of literature on the subject, revival movements within the mainline churches, as Ranger (1996) has rightly remarked, have been understudied. In this chapter I focus on a recent revival movement within the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) in the South West Province of Anglophone Cameroon that appears to have been inspired by the expansion of Pentecostalism in the area. This movement, popularly known as the Maranatha movement, emerged in Bonjongo, a remote village located between Buea and Limbe, but it rapidly attracted a large following from outside the village and eventually almost caused a schism within the southwestern RCC. It became a particularly explosive issue when it was exploited for political ends, becoming part of the autochthonyallochthony conflict fuelled by the regional and national political elite during political liberalisation in the 1990s. Given the dramatic rise and spread of the so-called ‘Pentecostal’, ‘charismatic’ or ‘born-again’ churches among the Christian population in Africa in the last few decades, it is not surprising that they quickly became a source of inspiration for the introduction of certain innovations and the birth of revival movements within the mainline churches. Several scholars have attempted to analyse Pentecostal ideology and practices and to explain the spectacular growth of the Pentecostal churches in Africa and elsewhere (cf. Gifford 1993a, 1998; Haynes 1996; Meyer 1999; Van Dijk 2000; Corten & Marshall-Fratani 2001). Despite significant differences in their doctrine, liturgy, organisation and social base, they usually emphasise personal con- 54 CHAPTER 4 version as a distinct experience of faith (‘being born again’), the centrality of the Holy Spirit, the spiritual gifts of glossolalia and faith healing, and the efficacy of miracles. Marshall (1995: 245) has highlighted the great appeal and evangelical zeal of the born-again movement: ‘its idiom of rebirth is central not only to the individual ’s experience of his faith and the new opportunities it provides both spiritually and materially, but is a powerful metaphor for its mission within the Christian community and nation’. Pentecostalism has converted an increasing number of ‘nominal’ Christians and all mainline churches have come under pressure to adopt Pentecostal forms of religious expression in their liturgy. It is, however, noteworthy that Pentecostal expansion in Cameroon is a more recent phenomenon than in many other African countries, mainly for political reasons. The Cameroonian post-colonial state used to discourage, to put it mildly, any form of association, in its determined efforts to establish total control over civil society (Bayart 1979). Unlike the established churches, newly created sects and churches found it hard to be registered as a legal organisation by state security (Mbuy 1994). It was not until the introduction of political liberalisation in December 1990 that freedom of (religious) association was enacted. Henceforth, the growth of Pentecostalism has gathered pace and was particularly promoted by Nigerian preachers and Cameroonians who had lived in Nigeria. Pentecostalism became most popular in Anglophone Cameroon which borders Nigeria, shares a common language , and has a relatively large Nigerian immigrant population (Akoko 2007a). In the 1990s, Christians in the South West Province of Anglophone Cameroon witnessed the emergence of some born-again inspired revival movements within their principal churches, the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC) and the RCC. The founders of these movements blamed the hierarchy of these churches for being more preoccupied with material concerns than with spiritual values. They decided to create charismatic prayer groups, which appeared to adopt several Pentecostal elements . Their introduction of a more personal form of spirituality and their claims of faith healing and deliverance from ‘demon possession and evil attacks’ in particular appealed to many Christians. Although these movements rapidly became a source of controversy within the churches, the hierarchies did not immediately intervene. As in other parts of the world, mainstream churches in Cameroon are by no means uniform bodies; on the contrary, they allow considerable variety in the articulation and practices of faith and the incorporation of elements from other religions as long as they are compatible with the basic tenets of doctrine and liturgy. It was not until the hierarchies had come to the conclusion that the new revival movements deviated from orthodoxy and posed a serious threat to the unity and peace within the churches that they decided...