Skip to main content

Pentecostals, Conflict, and Peace in Africa

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: African Histories and Modernities ((AHAM))

Abstract

Yacob-Haliso and Iyanda explore the question of the location, role, and dynamics of Pentecostalism in the complicated context of postcolonial Africa’s many conflicts and peace initiatives. This chapter pulls together the international forces that shape conflict in postcolonial Africa, proposing a schema for organizing the data. Based on two case studies, from Uganda and South Africa, it analyzes the national context for Pentecostal involvement in causing and prolonging conflict, as well as how the national context intersects with individual factors in shaping Pentecostal involvement in peace initiatives. In the chapter, Yacob-Haliso and Iyanda deploy an approach that is multiplex, simultaneously fetching movements located at global, international, regional, national, and individual levels of analysis to paint a holistic picture of the paths and possibilities of Pentecostal engagement in matters of peace and conflict.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Jeffrey Haynes, ed. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), 5, emphasis added.

  2. 2.

    Mark Gopin, “Religion, Violence and Conflict Resolution” Peace and Change, 22 no 1 (1997): 1–31; John D. Brewer, Gareth I. Higgins and Francis Teeney, “Religion and Peacemaking: A Conceptualization” Sociology, 44 no 6 (2010): 1019–1037; Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall, Contemporary Conflict Resolution. (Cambridge: Polity, 2005); Mary Ann Cejka and Thomas Bamat. Eds. Artisans of Peace: Grassroots Peacemaking Among Christian Communities (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2003); Jeffrey Haynes, “Conflict, Conflict Resolution and Peace-Building: The Role of Religion in Mozambique, Nigeria and Cambodia,” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 47 no 1 (2009): 52–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/14662040802659033.

  3. 3.

    Alex Thomson, An Introduction to African Politics. 3rd edn (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 65.

  4. 4.

    Ogbu Kalu, African Pentecostalism: An Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

  5. 5.

    Allan Anderson similarly groups classical Pentecostals together with African Independent Churches (AICs). See Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 103–104.

  6. 6.

    Stephen Ellis and Gerrie Ter Haar, “Taking African Epistemologies Seriously,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, 45 no 3, September (2007): 385–401, 390; cf Ruth Marshall, Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 17–19.

  7. 7.

    Zachary Michael Tackett, “As Citizens of Heaven: Peace, War and Patriotism among Pentecostals in the United States During World War I,” Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity, 4 (2013): 27–43.

  8. 8.

    See Jay Beaman, Pentecostal Pacifism: The Origin, Development, and Rejection of Pacific Belief among the Pentecostals (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009). Paul Alexander, Peace to War: Shifting Allegiances in the Assemblies of God (Telford, PA: Cascadia Publishing House, 2009).

  9. 9.

    Tackett, As Citizens of Heaven, 27.

  10. 10.

    Tackett, As Citizens of Heaven, 31; Paul Alexander, Peace to War.

  11. 11.

    Paul Gifford, African Christianity: Its Public Role (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998).

  12. 12.

    Lawrence Cline, “Spirits and the Cross: Religiously Based Violent Movements in Uganda,” Small Wars & Insurgencies, 14 no 2 (2003): 113–130, 114–115. https://doi.org/10.1080/09592310412331300706; See especially Paul Gifford, African Christianity: Its Public Role; Jeff Haynes, Religion and Politics in Africa (London: Zed Books, 1996).

  13. 13.

    Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 187.

  14. 14.

    Kalu, 187.

  15. 15.

    Kalu, 188.

  16. 16.

    Joshua S. Goldstein and Jon C. Pevehouse, International Relations, 9th edn (New York: Pearson Longman, 2010).

  17. 17.

    John T. Rourke, International Politics on the World Stage, 12th edn (New York: McGrawHill, 2008).

  18. 18.

    See J. David Singer, “The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations,” The International System: Theoretical Essays, Klaus Knorr and Sidney Verba, eds, 77–92 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961).

  19. 19.

    It is pertinent to note here that states such as Ethiopia and Liberia, which were not formally colonized by the Europeans in the first half of the twentieth century, did not escape any of the dynamics discussed in this section, as they equally had to grapple with similar problems and exhibited similar features to the rest of the continent.

  20. 20.

    Georges Balandier, “La Situation Coloniale: Approche Theorique” Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie. 11 (1951): 44–79.

  21. 21.

    See also Jean-Francois Bayart, “Finishing with the Idea of the Third World: The Concept of the Political Trajectory,” in Rethinking Third World Politics, ed. J. Manor, 51–71. London: Longman, 1991.

  22. 22.

    Clifford Geertz, ed. Old Societies and New States: The Quest for Modernity in Asia and Africa, New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963.

  23. 23.

    Peter P. Ekeh, “Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Statement” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 17 no 1 (1975): 91–112, 96, 100.

  24. 24.

    Ekeh, Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa, 106.

  25. 25.

    Crawford Young, “The Third Wave of Democratisation in Africa: Ambiguities and Contradictions,” In State, Conflict and Democracy in Africa, edited by Richard Joseph, 15–38 (Boulder and London: Lynne Reinner, 1999). See also Adebayo Olukoshi, Democratic Governance and Accountability in Africa: In Search of a Workable Framework, Discussion Paper 64 (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2011).

  26. 26.

    A term seemingly originating with Christopher Clapham; see Christopher Clapham, “Introduction: Analysing African Insurgencies,” in African Guerillas, ed. Christopher Clapham, 1–18 (Oxford: James Currey, 1998); also used by Crawford Young, see note 27.

  27. 27.

    Crawford Young, The Postcolonial State in Africa: Fifty Years of Independence, 1960–2010, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012, 228–244.

  28. 28.

    Classic interstate wars have been rare in Africa, relative to the proliferate intra-state wars outlined in this chapter. William Reno provides a summary of these in one short table. See William Reno, Warfare in Independent Africa, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011, 23.

  29. 29.

    List of wars in Africa compiled from numerous sources.

  30. 30.

    See Crawford Young, “The Third Wave of Democratisation in Africa”; Olukoshi, Democratic Governance and Accountability in Africa.

  31. 31.

    Yoweri Museveni, Sowing the Mustard Seed (London: Macmillan, 1997); Yoweri Museveni, “Fanon’s Theory on Violence: Its Verification in Liberated Mozambique,” in Essays on the Liberation of Southern Africa, ed. Nathan Shamuyarira (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1971), 1–24; Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1963).

  32. 32.

    William Reno, Warfare in Independent Africa, 7.

  33. 33.

    Larry Diamond, “The Second Liberation,” Africa Report, 37 no 6 (1992): 38–41; Reno, ibid., 119.

  34. 34.

    See Amii Omara-Otunnu, “The Struggle for Democracy in Uganda,” Journal of Modern African Studies 30 no 3 (1992): 443–463; Robert Gersony, “The Anguish of Northern Uganda: Results of a Field- Based Assessment of the Civil Conflicts in Northern Uganda,” Kampala: Report Submitted to the United States Embassy and USAID Mission, Kampala, 1997.

  35. 35.

    Finnstrom explicates cen thus: “Cen, for example, is the spiritual power of people who have died violently. p’Bitek translates cen as ‘vengeance ghost’ or sometimes ‘ghostly vengeance’ … Odoki uses the term ‘troublesome spirit’ … and Behrend describes it as spirits of people who ‘had died by violence or abroad and received no decent burial and thus, thirsting for vengeance, sought to afflict their relatives with disease and misfortune.’” Sverker Finnstrom, “Wars of the Past and War in the Present: The Lord’s Resistance Movement/Army in Uganda,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 76, no 2 (2006): 200–220, 204; cf. Okot p’Bitek, Religion of the Central Luo. (Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau, 1971); Sabino Ocan Odoki, Death Rituals among the Lwos: Their Significance for the Theology of Death (Gulu: Gulu Catholic Press, 1997); Heike Behrend, Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits: War in Northern Uganda 1986–1997 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999).

  36. 36.

    Kevin C. Dunn, “The Lord’s Resistance Army and African International Relations,” African Security, 3 no 1 (2010): 46–63.

  37. 37.

    See Amnesty International, Uganda: the Failure to Safeguard Human Rights (London: Amnesty International, 1992); Ogenga Otunnu, “Causes and Consequences of the War in Acholiland,” Conciliation Resources, London, available at: http://www.c-r.org/accord-article/causes-and-consequences-war-acholiland-2002, accessed 17-05-2017.

  38. 38.

    Behrend, Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits.

  39. 39.

    Finnstrom, Wars of the Past and War of the Present, 205.

  40. 40.

    Behrend, 3; In the words of Lawrence Cline, “Spirits and the Cross: Religiously Based Violent Movements in Uganda,” Small Wars and Insurgencies, 14 no 2 (2003): 113–130, 117.

  41. 41.

    These were referred to as “Holy Spirit Tactics.” See Heike Behrend, “War in Northern Uganda: The Holy Spirit Movements of Alice Lakwena, Severino Lukoya, and Joseph Kony (1986–1997),” in African Guerrillas, ed. Christopher Clapham (Oxford: James Currey, 1998).

  42. 42.

    Anthony Vinci, “The Strategic Use of Fear by the Lord’s Resistance Army,” Small Wars and Insurgencies, 16 no 3 (2005): 360–381, 363–364; Frank Van Acker, “Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army: the New Order No One Ordered,” African Affairs 103 (2004): 348.

  43. 43.

    Anthony Vinci, The Strategic Use of Fear.

  44. 44.

    Kevin C. Dunn, The Lord’s Resistance Army and African International Relations.

  45. 45.

    Kevin Ward, “‘The Armies of the Lord’: Christianity, Rebels and the State in Northern Uganda, 1986–1999,” Journal of Religion in Africa, 31 no 2 (2001): 187–221, 190, 193.

  46. 46.

    Johan Mostert, “White Cultural Identity Development in Post-Apartheid South Africa: A Personal Narrative,” Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity, 4 (2013): 44–60.

  47. 47.

    Mostert, 45.

  48. 48.

    A public apology is an important part of the toolkit of transitional justice mechanisms. It is usually coupled with compensations, truth commissions, and reparations when offered by the state to victims of widespread human rights abuses, and can constitute the difference between the satisfaction of victims and the prolonging of their psychological suffering. See: Megan Bradley, “The Conditions of Just Return: State Responsibility and Restitution for Refugees,” Refugee Studies Centre Working Paper No 21, Oxford: Refugee Studies Centre, 2005; Pablo de Greiff, “The Role of Apologies in National Reconciliation Processes” in The Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past, eds Mark Gibney, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassman, Jean-Marc Coicaud and Niklaus Steiner. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007; Mark S. Ellis and Elizabeth Hutton, “Policy Implications of World War II Reparations and Restitution as applied to Former Yugoslavia,” Berkeley Journal of International Law, 20 no 1 (2002): 342–354; Megan Hirst, “An Unfinished Truth: An Analysis of the Commission of Truth and Friendship’s Final Report on the 1999 atrocities in East Timor,” International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) Occasional Paper Series. New York: ICTJ/Komnas Perempuan/KKPK, 2009; Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso, “Presidential Apologies, Truth Commissions and Post War Reparations as Tools of Transitional Justice in Liberia,” In Critical Perspectives on Peace, Conflict and Warfare in Africa: Festschrift in Honour of Siyan Oyeweso, Eds. Olutayo Adesina, Olukoya Ogen, Noah E. Attah. (Ile-Ife: Obafemi Awolowo University Press, 2012), 353–370.

  49. 49.

    Leon Festinger, When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1956).

  50. 50.

    Derald Wing Sue and David Sue, Counselling the Culturally Diverse: Theory & Practice, 6th edn (New York: John Wiley Publishers, 2013).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Yacob-Haliso, O., Iyanda, R.O. (2018). Pentecostals, Conflict, and Peace in Africa. In: Afolayan, A., Yacob-Haliso, O., Falola, T. (eds) Pentecostalism and Politics in Africa. African Histories and Modernities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74911-2_15

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74911-2_15

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-74910-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-74911-2

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics