Tarusarira, Joram, Chitando, Ezra, 2017. “The Deployment of a ‘Sacred Song’ in Violence in Zimbabwe: The Case of the Song ‘Zimbabwe Ndeye Ropa Ramadzibaba’ (Zimbabwe was/is Born of the Blood of the Fathers/Ancestors) in Zimbabwean Politics”. Journal for the study of religion, 2017-01-01, Vol.30 (1), p.5-25; KwaZulu-Natal: Association for the Study of Religion in Southern Africa

The dominant narrative in the study of religion in Africa is that African indigenous religions are non-violent, peaceful and seek to promote healing and integration. In this paradigm, it is militant missionary religions such as Islam and Christianity that promote violence. Such an approach misses the key learning that no religion is violent in and of itself: only the determination of individuals and groups acting in the name of a particular religion is relevant as to whether/the extent to which a religion can be appropriated and deployed to perpetrate violence. This article explores the deployment of a song, ‘Zimbabwe Ndeye Ropa Ramadzibaba’ to justify ‘sacred violence’ to ‘defend Zimbabwe against witches/enemies’. The central research question is: How is the song, ‘Zimbabwe Ndeye Ropa…’ appropriated and deployed to sacralise violence in Zimbabwean politics? The article describes the song and analyses some of the contexts in which the song has been strategically performed. The study seeks to underscore the manipulation of indigenous spirituality in justifying violence. Theoretically, the study challenges the naïve claims that indigenous religions are ‘pure and upright’ in relation to violence.

(Source: Abstract).

Sperber, Elizabeth Sheridan. 2017. “New Religious Movements in African Politics." Order No. 10240904, Columbia University.

The majority of political science research on religion and politics examines how religious variables influence political outcomes. Either implicitly or explicitly, this literature posits a one-way causal arrow from religion to politics. This dissertation argues that in many developing countries, however, religious and political change have been endogenous (interrelated). This is particularly true in weak states, where established religious groups mobilized to promote third wave democratization. In such contexts, politicians simultaneously faced heightened political competition and established religious groups mobilized to demand accountable democratic governance after the Cold War. Under these conditions, I argue that politicians faced incentives to intervene in the religious sphere, and to actively propagate conversionary religious movements. In doing so, politicians sought to cultivate both moral authority and new constituencies that would compete with the established "watch dog" religious groups. I term this strategy "politicized propagation," and argue that it is an important mechanism undergirding the endogenous relationship between religious and political change in the region.

(Source: Excerpt from abstract from https://www.proquest.com/).

Reynolds, Jonathan T., 1997. "The Politics of History." Journal of Asian and African Studies 32, 1-2 (1997): 50-65,doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685217-90007281

The influence of religion in Nigerian politics can be traced in particular to the Islamic/political legacy of the nineteenth century Sokoto Caliphate. The legacy of this Islamic state has dramatically influenced Nigerian politics, which became particularly evident during the period of political activity in the 1950s and the subsequent events that stemmed from this activity. The Sokoto Caliphate as a model of government in northern Nigeria was in fact problematic because it only represented part of an historical tradition that was strongly affected by violence and resistance to Islamic expansion. Hence the Caliphate has been a source of tension rather than integration at the national level.

(Source: article abstract).

Ranger, O. Terence O. 1986. “Religious Movements and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa.” African Studies Review, Volume 29, Number 2 (June., 1986), pp. 1-69.

It is important to make clear from the beginning what this review will cover and what it will not. Its focus will be on “traditional” and Christian religious movements in the last hundred years. By movements are meant widespread and grassroots adherence to religious ideas, symbols and rituals, sometimes brief in duration, sometimes long-lasting; sometimes lacking and sometimes acquiring formal organizational structures. The review will deal, therefore, with questions of “popular consciousness” rather than with the development of formal theologies. It will not review the literature on African Islam nor have much to say about religious movements and politics in pre-colonial Africa. Both these, of course, are major omissions, not only leaving out topics which are of great importance in themselves but also depriving analysis of modern traditional and Christian movements of an invaluable comparative and historical context. To seek to cover them also in one review, however, would be to risk a mere listing. It seems more useful to develop an argument on the past, present, and future direction of work on the interaction of religious movements and politics by focusing on a limited, but nevertheless still huge, topic and period.

(Source: article abstract).

Premack, Laura, 2015. “Prophets, evangelists, and missionaries: Trans-Atlantic interactions in the emergence of Nigerian Pentecostalism.” Religion, 45:2, 221-238.

This article historicizes the contemporary Pentecostal movement in Nigeria by examining relationships between Nigerian prophets, British missionaries, and American evangelists in the 1930s and 1940s. First, the article challenges assumptions about the genealogy and chronology of Nigerian Pentecostalism by taking a close look at the beginnings of the Christ Apostolic Church. Then, it discusses new evidence which reveals the surprising influence of a marginal American evangelist and renegade British missionary on the church's doctrine. Making use of a wide range of evidence from Nigerian, Welsh, and American archives, the article argues that while the Aladura movement may have had indigenous origins, its development made significant use of foreign support and did so much earlier than has been appreciated by previous studies. The larger significance of this argument is that it shows the mutual constitution of American, British, and Nigerian Pentecostalism; instead of emerging first in the US and UK and then being taken to Africa, Pentecostalism's development across the Atlantic was coeval.

(Source: Article abstract).

Masondo, Sibusiso. 2015. “Prophets never die?: The story of Bishop PJ Masango of the St John’s Apostolic Faith Mission.” Alternation, 14: 231-246

Bishop Petros Masango rose to prominence at St. John’s Apostolic Faith Mission and eventually became a leader of one of the splinter groups that resulted from the split that occurred after a long-drawn-out court battle with the founder Ma Christinah Nku. This article is an exploration of his life and teachings through the lenses of his official biographer Rev. JB Mhlongo. We explore his childhood, marriage, conversion, calling, ministry and prophecy. Mhlongo, in the title of the biography calls him the famous prophet. The theme of the spirit and its influence runs through his narrative. The story of Masango represents the failure of African Christianity to break away from the dominant western Christian paradigm when it comes to the subordination of women and according them equal status.

(Source: article abstract).

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