Photocopies of manuscript notebooks of Isiah Shembe relating to the Nazarite Church

Photocopies of three manuscript notebooks containing chronicles of the Nazarite Church, written c.1932, ranging from accounts of miraculous events to the day to day life of the Church in Inanda, letters to dissident priests and accounts of church finances.

Isaiah Shembe, the founder of the Nazarite Church, was born in the Free State, South Africa in c. 1867. His family were probably labour tenants on land near Harrismith. He appears to have attended services in a Wesleyan Church but later came under the influence of William Leshega of the African Baptist Church. He was baptised into this Church in 1906 and was ordained shortly afterwards. He rapidly built up a reputation as a preacher and healer and established his own church in Durban in 1910. This became the largest independent African church amongst the Zulu people. Many of his sayings were written down in Zulu and a number have been translated into English. Isaiah Shembe died in 1935. For further information see Elizabeth Gunner, 'The man of heaven and the beautiful ones of God' (Brill: Leiden, 2002).

"Shembe was born at Ntabamhlophe near Estcourt, Natal, South Africa, of Zulu parentage. After involvement with Wesleyans, he associated with Baptists and was baptized in July 1906. He seems to have acted as an itinerant evangelist prior to coming into contact with Nkabinde, a former Lutheran who was regarded as a prophet. Nkabinde led him to develop a healing ministry in 1910. A year later, he founded the iBandla lamaNazaretha (Nazareth Baptist Church), a controversial religious movement rooted in Zulu tradition. Shortly afterward he acquired a farm that became his holy city of Ekuphakameni and established an annual pilgrimage to the sacred mountain of Nhlangakazi. Shembe was noted for his vivid parables, dramatic healings, and uncanny insights into people's thoughts. He wrote many moving hymns, composed music, and provided his followers with a rich liturgical tradition based on modified forms of traditional Zulu dancing. Critics of the movement claim that his followers regarded Shembe as an incarnation of God. Others, led by Lutheran scholar Bengt Sundkler, argued that Shembe's theology was an Africanized form of Christianity.

After Shembe's death a succession conflict occurred before leadership passed to his third wife's son Johannes Galilee Shembe. More serious trouble erupted following J. G. Shembe's death in 1975, when the movement split between his brother, Amos Shembe, and son Londa Shembe. Amos Shembe took the title "bishop" and seems to have led his followers toward orthodox Christianity. Londa Shembe openly admitted that he was unsure whether his movement was Christian, a form of Judaism, or perhaps more closely related to some other religious tradition such as Hinduism. Today there are about one million amaNazaretha in Southern Africa". [Irving Hexham]

Bibliography:

Irving Hexham, ed., The Scriptures of the amaNazaretha of Ekuphakameni (1994); Irving Hexham and G. C. Oosthuizen, eds., The Oral History and Sacred Traditions of the Nazareth Baptist Church, 3 vols. (1996 - 1997); G. C. Oosthuizen, The Theology of a South African Messiah (1967); Bengt Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (1961) and Zulu Zion and Some Swazi Zionists (1976); Absalom Vilakazi et al., Shembe: The Revitalization of African Society (1986).

Photos [online http://www.dacb.org/stories/southafrica/shembe2_isaiah.html include]:

[1*] Isaiah Shembe wearing a black dress (all others in the church wear white) with a white collar and a necklace of Zulu beadwork, holding a European sun-helmet.

[2*] Shembe paying a visit to the women's section at Ekuphankameni, the headquarters of the Nazarite Church.

[3*] Shembe, in sun-helmet and umbrella, leading the men's section dancing through the Ekuphakameni village.

[4*] A footwashing ceremony led by Shembe.

[5*] Shembe's son and sucessor, Johannes Galilee Shembe.

All photos from Bantu Prophets in South Africa, 2nd ed., by B. G. M. Sundkler (London: Oxford University Press, 1961).

"This article is reproduced, with permission, from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, copyright © 1998, by Gerald H. Anderson, W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan. All rights reserved" [Source: Online 'Dictionary of African Christian Biography', consulted 12/12/2013, http://www.dacb.org/stories/southafrica/shembe2_isaiah.html]

Open

Presented by Dr Elizabeth Gunner in 1986.

For permission to publish, please contact Archives & Special Collections, SOAS Library in the first instance

MS 380082, MS 349203 (Southern African Materials Project)