Dr be lekganyane biography of martin

Engenas Lekganyane

Founder of the Zion Christian Church (–)

Engenas Barnabas Lekganyane (c.

Engenas Barnabas Lekganyane c. He first formed the ZCC inand by the time of his death the church had at least 50, members. Under the leadership of his descendants the ZCC has gone on to have more than a million members primarily located in southern Africa. Engenas Lekganyane was born at Mphome Mission in the Haenertsburg region of the Transvaal in the mids.

&#;) was the founder of the Zion Christian Church (ZCC). He first formed the ZCC in , and by the time of his death the church had at least 50, members. Under the leadership of his descendants the ZCC has gone on to have more than a million members primarily located in southern Africa.[1] It is now by far the biggest of the various Zionist Christian sects that account for roughly half of all Christians in southern Africa.

Early life and education

Engenas Lekganyane was born at Mphome Mission in the Haenertsburg region of the Transvaal in the mids. His parents, Barnabas Lekganyane and Sefora Raphela, were members of the Mamabolo ethnic team of Balobedu tribe.

Chairperson, the ZION CHRISTIAN Church was born after the Anglo Boer War just before union in The founder of the Church, Bishop Engenas Barnabas Lekoanyane had by then become acutely aware of the attempt by missionaries to erode African value systems and cultural beliefs.

The Raphela family were the first Christian converts among the Mamabolo and had been instrumental in getting a Lutheran mission established by the Berlin Missionary Society in [2]

Drought, disruptions, and the violence related with the South African War in , led the Mamabolo chiefs to abandon their homelands for some years.

The Lekganyanes appear to have left with them, but then returned dwelling when the Chief purchased Syferkuil Farm in next to the original reserve.

Soon after the move back, an Anglican missionary built a mission and university called St.

Andrews adjacent to Syferkuil.[3] This was the institution where Lekganyane received three years of education, which had been disrupted in the previous decade. During this time Lekganyane spent considerable amounts of time active on construction projects, including the building of a church, a school, and a dam.

He did not choose to obtain baptism or confirmation as an Anglican, although many members of his family, his future wife, and many residents of Syferkuil did.


Then he met the tshoma's family in Botswana during the South African war.

The tshoma's family brought him to safety, after the war there was no more contact with them .

After leaving school, Lekganyane began functional around the Transvaal—"he had to go to work and form a living, like many of his era, on the farms and in public works schemes."[4] In his early adulthood Lekganyane joined a new Presbyterian church in the Mamabolo reserve—according to his earliest known statements he had been "a member of the Free Church of Scotland in training as (or actually being) an evangelist under the missionary in that Church."[5]

Conversion to Zionism

Engenas Lekganyane thus had a diverse Protestant background, with Lutheran, Anglican, and Presbyterian experiences.

He is also said to contain been close with his grandfather and uncle on his mother's side, both of whom were pagans and renowned traditional doctors.[6]

Around , though, Lekganyane split from Protestantism with the arrival of the Apostolic Faith Mission in his home area.

At this time the AFM reported that some of its members traveled on foot from Louis Trichardt to Pietersburg, during which “the most remarkable manifestations of healing” occurred. The blind, deaf, and crippled were healed, and in Pietersburg “the natives came in vast numbers to be prayed for.”[7] According to ZCC lore, Lekganyane began to suffer from a serious eye ailment at this time and nearly went blind.

He then had a vision and was instructed to travel to the Lesotho, where he was told that he would be cured by "triple immersion".[8] Lekganyane claims to possess followed this vision, and went to Lesotho and met two Zionist preachers in They then baptized him using the Zionist method of "triple immersion", and curing his eyesight ailment in the process.

From until Lekganyane was a member of the Mahlangu's organization, the Zion Apostolic Church (which itself was a part of the Apostolic Faith Mission). Around he returned residence to Thabakgone where he was the deputy of the ZAC congregation. In he became the official leader of this congregation, although he fell out with Mahlangus quickly over issues that are not clear.[9]

Not long afterwards, Lekganyane seceded with his congregation and went with his modern bride, Salfina Rabodiba, to Basutoland in to join Edward Lion's utopian community under the auspices of the newly formed fresh Zion Apostolic Faith Mission (ZAFM).

Lekganyane and his wife stayed in Basutoland for a concise time before he was appointed ZAFM's Transvaal leader. By Lekganyane had a sizable membership in the Transvaal with some seventeen congregations. Tensions between the two arose and came to a head over the name on the ZAFM's Transvaal membership card.

After a tension-filled trip to Basutoland, Lekganyane returned home, and soon had a vision on the top of Mt. Thabakgone that instructed him to shape his own church. He then split with ZAFM to shape the ZCC in , taking most of the Transvaal ZAFM members with him.[10]

Lekganyane and the ZCC, &#;48

Although Lekganyane had belonged to two Zionist organizations before starting his own church, the ZCC was noticeably different from its predecessors due to innovations that he brought.

Lekganyane's ZCC was similar to other Zionist churches in that it emphasized faith healing to win converts. Lekganyane himself is known to have healed a large number of people. During the prior years of the ZCC he allowed his followers to employ in faith healing as good.

In , however, he took sole control of all faith healing as the church expanded. Items such as water and paper were “blessed” at his home base, and then sent out to distant congregations where they were ingested or touched by the afflicted.

Lekganyane also sanctioned traditional practices such as polygamy and ancestor worship.[11] The latter practice, in particular, was to prove effective in turning the ZCC into a dynamic fund-raising machine.

Throughout Lekganyane's lifetime the church was primarily oral in nature. The ZCC did not generate sacred writings, and Lekganyane's sermons and pronouncements were not written down. Faith healing, testimony, singing, and dancing were instead the focus of worship services.

Smoking, drinking, adultery, western medicine, and engaging in witchcraft were all forbidden. In addition, the ZCC took strong measures to protect all its members against the effects of witchcraft by planting charms around their residences.

Lekganyane was seen as having strong powers to guard his flock from external malevolence.[12] Lekganyane introduced the distinctive Actor badge to his members in , and all his members were required to wear it in public thereafter.[13] The ZCC's distinctive khaki uniforms were not introduced until the s, however.

The ZCC grew rapidly after its establishment. It had a strong base in the northern Transvaal, but spread due to its members' involvement in migrant labour. Lekganyane's reputation as a "prophet" and a man of immense "spiritual power" began to spread far and wide, and a wide variety of people from across southern Africa began to journey to his headquarters to consult him.

By the s he had congregations in most parts of South Africa, as well as in Lesotho, Botswana, and Rhodesia.[14]

Lekganyane sought to obtain land and in the late s and early s purchased three farms situated fairly close to his base in Thabakgone.

One of these, Maclean farm, would eventually be turned into “Zion City Moria” by Lekganyane's successor, Edward, in the s, and would become Africa's biggest pilgrimage site, attracting millions of visitors every Easter.

Lekganyane and his senior wife Salfina had several sons, all of whom were well-educated and who vied for the leadership of the ZCC after his death.

Salfina tried to contact the Tshoma's family after finding out that he related with them [15]

References

  1. ^R. Muller. African Pilgrimage: Ritual Travel in South Africa's Christianity of Zion. Farnham: Ashgate,
  2. ^Barry Morton () ‘The Rebellion From Below’ and the Origins of Early Zionist Christianity, African Historical Review, ,
  3. ^Fuller, Latimer ().

    There are two branches of the church. Engenas ZCC is headed by his namesake and great-grandson. Both of these competing branches are headquartered at Moria, two kilometres apart on the same farm on which Engenas died and was buried. They hold separate pilgrimages and other events.

    The Romance of a South African Mission, being an account of the Native Mission of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, in the Transvaal. Leeds: R. Jackson. p.&#;

  4. ^Morton, Barry. "Engenas Lekganyane and the Initial ZCC: Oral Texts and Documents".
  5. ^Morton, Barry.

    "Engenas Lekganyane and the Early ZCC: Oral Texts and Documents".

  6. ^H. Haselbarth, "The Zion Christian Church of Edward Lekganyane," in Our Approach to the Independent Church Movement in South Africa (Johannesburg: Christian Institute, ), 79, 91
  7. ^R.H.

    Van De Wall, “The Mission Field Zoutpansberg,” Comforter 1, 8 (July–Aug )

  8. ^Lukhaimane, E K (). The Zion Christian Church of Ignatius Engenas Lekganyane, to An African Experiment with Christianity. University of the North: M.A.

    Dissertation.

    A new biography sheds light on Engenas Lekganyane, founder of the Zion Christian Church.

    pp.&#;13–

  9. ^Lukhaimane, E K (). The Zion Christian Church of Ignatius Engenas Lekganyane, to An African Experiment with Christianity. University of the North: M A Dissertation. pp.&#;16–
  10. ^E.K.

    During this time he used his charisma and organizational abilities to expand the ZCC from about 50, to[ 1 ] members, while also reshaping numerous facets of the church. During his tenure as bishop, the ZCC emerged as South Africa 's largest independent church, while Lekganyane became arguably the wealthiest and most powerful African in apartheid-era South Africa. Edward was the second-born son of Engenas Lekganyane and his senior wife, Salfina Rabodiba, and was born in Thabakgone in the Mamabolo Reserve east of Polokwane. Although his exact birth meeting is unknown, he is famous to have been born during a smallpox epidemic that led his father to quarantine his household for some time.

    Lukhaimane, “The Zion Christian Church of Ignatius Engenas Lekganyane, to An African Experiment with Christianity (MA Dissertation, University of the North, ), 9–14; E.J. Vervey, ed, New Dictionary of South African Biography. Vol 1 (Pretoria: HSRC, ): –32

  11. ^Lukhaimane, E K ().

    The Zion Christian Church of Ignatius Engenas Lekganyane, to An African Experiment with Christianity. University of the North: M A Dissertation. pp.&#;62–

  12. ^Martin, M-L (). The Biblical Concept of Messianism in Southern Africa.

    The Kganya Organization celebrated its 31 st anniversary in March of Zion Christian Church has celebrated over years of existence, and this is indeed a remarkable era for both organisations. I have appear to the realisation that much has been achieved from very humble beginnings and both the Kganya Group and Church Officials must be commended for the manner in which they endure to be of service to you the individual member and loyal follower of Zion Christian Church. I exhort the Kganya Group to continue to complete its mandate for the profit of the congregation.

    Morija: Sesuto Book Depot. p.&#;

  13. ^Vervey, E J (). New Dictionary of South African Biography. Pretoria: HSBC. pp.&#;– ISBN&#;.
  14. ^Morton, Barry. "Engenas Lekganyane and the Early ZCC: Oral Texts and Documents".
  15. ^Lukhaimane, E K ().

    The story of the enigmatic man who founded southern Africa’s ...: Engenas Barnabas Lekganyane (c. –) was the founder of the Zion Christian Church (ZCC). He first formed the ZCC in , and by the time of his death the church had at least 50, members. Under the leadership of his descendants the ZCC has gone on to have more than a million members primarily located in southern Africa. [1].

    The Zion Christian Church of Ignatius Engenas Lekganyane, to An African Experiment with Christianity. University of the North: M A Dissertation. pp.&#;86–