The story of the African independent churches and Its Implications for Theology

Abstract

"The African Independent Churches (AICs) as a distinct expression of Christian faith in the context of Africa need no introduction. The current wave of the AICs has been around since 1819. What is surprising, however, is that by the close of the 1950s (about 140 years since the appearance of the first AIC), these churches still had no place within the history of African Christianity. It is partly as a result of the International Missionary Council study, published as African Independent Church Movements (1963), and the aid of HW Turner's two volumes (History of an Independent Church and Independent Church Movements), both published in 1967, that the Christian fraternity for the first time granted these movements Christian identity and referred to them as 'independent churches'."