THE story of Alice Mulenga Lenshina, the founder of the banned Lumpa Church, was feasted upon by the media within and outside the Southern African region from 1964 up to her demise in 1978
Hers was certainly a hot, selling story. A quick perusal through the newspapers of the day however brings to the fore the skewed manner in which some news articles on Lenshina and the Lumpa Church were presented by the media in certain instances.
In some cases it was more of highly opinionated commentaries than the presentation of facts as they arrayed themselves.
The colonial media in describing Lenshina and her followers coined such words as primitive, religious fanatics, uneducated, evil and uncivilised in their stories.
Reading through the compilation of stories today one cannot rule out the fact that a majority of them were sexed up and were laced with some of the social stereotypes that existed prior to Zambia’s independence.
She was born Alice Mulenga Lubusha in 1920 in Chinsali district of the northern province of Northern Rhodesia. Alice was her baptismal name, while Mulenga was her traditional African name.
The name "Lenshina" was a Bemba form of the Latin word "regina" ("queen"). She married Gibson Nkwale. After he died, she married Petros Chintankwa with whom she had five children.
It was in the late 50s that an ordinary middle-aged woman called Alice Lenshina,let it be known that she had died, gone to Heaven and been told by God to return to earth to start a church for Africans only, which came to be called the Lumpa Church. 
For good measure. God was also said to have given her power to absolve anyone from any witchcraft influence.
This gave a tremendous boost to her popularity, and it was believed that at one time she had over 60,000 followers within Northern Rhodesia but also extending to Nyasaland, Tanganyika and the Belgian Congo.
Her followers showed their loyalty to her church not only by building small churches in their own villages, but also by making a pilgrimage to her village where a huge brick building had been constructed.
At the peak of her popularity about 1,000 Africans a week would walk to the village, attend services there and hand over their charms and amulets, plus a small fee, thus absolving themselves from the influence of witchcraft.
Also about this time, political parties were coming in to existence, and one of them, UNIP , which eventually formed the government under Kaunda, was particularly strong in the Northern Province.
Not surprisingly the politicians saw the Lenshina, or ‘Lumpa’ movement, as a threat to their authority, and so accusations were made against them, often without foundation, and from this it was only a short step for clashes to occur, frequently resulting in fatal casualties
At first the Lumpa Church was close to the main Black organization fighting for independence, the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress (ANC).
However, when Kenneth Kaunda left the ANC in 1958 and formed the more militant UNIP there arose a competition for members between the new church and the new party.
The conflict between UNIP and the Lumpa Church reached a climax in July to October in 1964, just before Northern Rhodesia's independence.
On July 24, 1964, a gunbattle broke out between UNIP and Lumpa Church members. The resulting riots were only quelled by the intervention of State troops, and the proclamation of a state of emergency by the new pre-independence Prime Minister, Kenneth Kaunda.
About a thousand people died in the clashes between Lumpa Church adherents, UNIP's members and the security forces in what is now known as the Lenshina Uprising. Approximately 15,000 Lumpa Church members fled and took refuge in Congo; some of them never returned to Zambia.
The Lumpa Church was banned on 3 August 1964 and Lenshina surrendered to police a few days later. Hardly anyone faulted Lenshina for the violence that took place.
Alice Lenshina herself played no significant role in the Lumpa Church's political activities. She regretted the fact that the political actions weakened the religious impact of her message, which stressed the sanctity of marriage, opposed both polygamy and witchcraft.
In May 1970 Kaunda placed her in detention and ordered the destruction of her temple church in her home village of Kasomo. Finally she was released from detention in December 1975 but was put under house arrest in Lusaka's New Chilenje compound, Nkunda Road.
Lenshina died on 7 December 1978 while under house arrest and was eventually buried at Kasomo village where the Kamutola Church stood.
The Lumpa Church continues to exist to this day, though it is split and called by various names, the most prominent of which are Uluse Kamutola Church, under Chilemweni Nkonde (the biggest), Jerusalem Church, under Bubile (Daughter to Lenshina) and New Jerusalem Church.
Source: britishempire, maravi.blogspot, wikipedia
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
