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The Church of the Lord: The Expansion of a Nigerian Independent Church in Sierra Leone andGhanaAuthor(s): H. W. TurnerReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1962), pp. 91-110Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/179801 .

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Journal of African History, II, I (1962), 91-I1I

THE CHURCH OF THE LORD

The expansion of a Nigerian Independent Church in Sierra Leone and Ghana

By H. W. TURNER

THE most striking religious phenomenon in the African continent todayis the development of what are variously described as the separatist sectsor independent churches, akin to prophet movements, largely indigenousin origin, and much more African in belief and practice than the churches

founded by or in association with Christian missions. For want of a moresuccint and specific term we shall speak of African independent churches.Since Sundkler's pioneer study in 1948, an increasing volume of workhas been done in this field,l setting forth the diverse circumstances andcauses, the manifold forms and African-wide distribution of this movementfor spiritual autonomy and cultural integrity that may prove in the end tobe a profounder counterpart of the development of political independencethat holds the public attention for the present.

Although there are similar movements in the Pacific islands and in the

Americas, it is in Africa that the greatest development has occurred. Thisis not because prophet movements have been a feature of the traditionalreligions of Africa, for they are not found before the middle of last century.They are a new phenomenon, a reaction provoked by the impact of thewider world on African traditional life. While there are some instances oflocal prophet movements due to the penetration of Islam in the north andeast, it is largely in the areas where the culture of the western world andits religion of Christianity have penetrated most that we find the growthof prophets and indigenous independent churches. Indeed there is some

evidence that these are an accompaniment of second and third generationChristianity. The first examples of organized independent churches, apartfrom less coherent prophet movements, are to be found at the end of thenineteenth century in South Africa and in Nigeria; since then, if one werehostile to these movements, one might say that they had spread like arash across the face of Africa. We may mention the areas in which seriousstudy of this phenomenon has been prompted since I948: South andSouth-West Africa, Nyasaland, the Rhodesias, Kenya and Uganda, both

1 B. G. M. Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa, 1948, and 2nd revised edition196I; E. G. Parrinder, Religion in an African City, 1953; Katesa Schlosser, Eingeboren-kirchen in Siud-und Siidwestafrika, 1958; E. Andersson, Messianic Popular Movementsin the Lower Congo, 1958; P. Raymaekers, L'Eglise de Jesus Christ sur la terre par leprophete Simon Kimbangu, Zaire, xIII, 7 (I959), 675-756; B. A. Pauw, Religion in aTswana Chiefdom, 1960; C. G. K. Baeta, Prophetism in Ghana, unpublished thesis forPh.D. (London), 1959; F. B. Welbour, East African Rebels, I961; J. V. Taylor andDorothea Lehmann, Christians of the Copperbelt, I96I. And see periodical literaturegiven in these, the major works.








the Congo Republics, Nigeria, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Liberia, and SierraLeone. There are other areas such as Angola where little is known of themovements that do exist. In West

Africa,with which this

inquiryis con-

cerned, there are a few sample areas where it is possible to indicate theextent of such bodies: seventeen were discovered in Ibadan in I950,and seventeen in Accra in I955, while it was estimated that there weretwenty thousand members of various independent churches in Lagosin 1950.

Most of these West African churches have remained small local move-ments, but a few have expanded from their country of origin into otherterritories, more especially those Nigerian churches which have establishedbranches in Ghana. Of these

missionary-mindedchurches there is one

which is remarkable if not for its size then certainly for the geographicalrange of its activities. The 'Church of the Lord (Aladura)' has spreadwithin the thirty years of its existence into each of the three regions of

Nigeria, then to Sierra Leone and Liberia, and subsequently to Ghana;more recently it has established some contacts in the Gambia, in theRepublics of Togo, the Ivory Coast, and Guinea, and even among a fewnegro Christians in the United States of America. No other church of thiskind has crossed so many barriers of distance, of language and tribe, and ofpolitical frontiers. That it has done so in such a brief span of time, by itsown efforts, with limited material and intellectual resources, and has alsomaintained some kind of unity across the breadth of West Africa, providesa remarkable example of African initiative and endeavour.

It is proposed to offer here an outline of the main phase of the expansionof this independent church from Nigeria to Sierra Leone and later toGhana, as found in the activities of the main architect of this growth,Apostle Emmanuel Owoade Adeleke Adejobi.

The Church of the Lord (Aladura)-the Yoruba word in its officialname means prayer-group-was founded about 1930 in Western Nigeria at

Ogere by a Yoruba named J. O. Ositelu, a former Church MissionarySociety teacher, who is still the head of the church. In the next decade it

spread over much of the western region and by 1943 had become establishedat Lagos on the Coast. In 1947 the main branch in Lagos, at Elegbata,was in charge of a twenty-seven year old Yoruba, also a former Anglicanteacher, Adeleke Adejobi, who had already been in the ministry of thisbody for seven years, had considerable experience in the establishment ofnew branches in Nigeria, and had reached the high rank of 'Apostle'.Schoolboy ambitions to be able to join those of his fellows who secured

further education in Great Britain were never realized; perhaps this hassomething to do with the road he has built for himself into a wider worldbeyond Nigeria. However this may be, somewhere about the end of I946he experienced a vision 'that he would be coming to Freetown to establisha Church Branch provided he would go to Victoria Beach, Lagos, Nigeriato struggle for seven days by prayers and fastings to arm himself for the

H. W. TURNER2









journey'.2 In the course of this discipline the promise in the vision becamea clear command. The founder, 'Primate J. O. Ositelu', concurred by

appointing Adejobito this mission and

sending alongwith him another

of his Yoruba ministers, S. O. Oduwole, to establish the church in Liberia.The Liberian venture was made in response to an invitation from aLiberian lawyer, the Hon. Mr Justice Barclay, who had been much im-

pressed by the church when he met it while on a visit to Nigeria in 1946.There does not seem to have been such a definite invitation to SierraLeone; but there was some preparation through a Creole couple in Lagos,a Mr and Mrs Nathaniel Bell who attended Adejobi's church at Elegbata.Bell was on leave from the Post and Telegraph Department early in I947,and he and his wife travelled with the two Yoruba missionaries by sea,and provided accommodation for the whole party at No. 8 Queen St when

they landed in Freetown on 2I March. Nine days later Oduwole went onto Liberia, where he has established the church in a number of centresand remains in charge of its activities, with the rank of 'Apostle'.

FOUNDING AN INDEPENDENT CHURCH IN CREOLEDOM

In spite of the circumstances of his call, Adejobi was not sure how hismission would

develop,and arrived

expectingto

stayno more than a few

months. In the event it was a year before the tumult of the first appearanceof the Church of the Lord in Freetown had subsided sufficiently for him toreturn to Nigeria to be married. Public interest began immediately, whenAdejobi and Oduwole in their white gowns went on business to the postoffice. Strangers inquired who they were and returned with them to thehouse in Queen St where the daily routine of prayers was at once begun.Others met them when they went to the house of a woman they had knownin Lagos and conducted prayers there. It appears that they also visitedand took part in the meetings of Mrs Jane Bloomer's 'Martha DaviesConfidential Benevolent Association', a voluntary group of the kindfound among the Creole Christians. As Adejobi records: 'Our spiritualactivities were so much inspiring that the Lady was moved to promise toaffiliate this association to the Church of the Lord'. However, when shehad studied the constitution of this church we are told that 'she found it

2 This and subsequent quotations from Church of the Lord sources are taken fromsundry publications and records held at the Church of the Lord headquarters in Free-town. The chief of these are The Church Record Book or Diary, from I947 to 1961; theRecord Book I950 for the church at Bonthe; and the Minutes of the annual conferences from

1952 onwards. Acknowledgement is made of the assistance given by the Administrator-General, Apostle E. O. A. Adejobi, and in his absence by his wife, in providing accessto this material. Besides the brief reference in Parrinder cited above, the only publishedmaterial on the Church of the Lord (apart from its own publications) is as follows:M. Banton, 'An Independent African Church in Sierra Leone', Hibbert Journal, LV(Oct. 1956), 57-63; H. W. Turner, 'The Litany of an Independent West African Church',Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion, I, 2 (Dec. 1959), 48-55, and 'The Catechism of anIndependent West African Church', idem, II, 2 (Dec. I960), 45-57.

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for the churches had been too foreign, too alien to African ideas, and their

hypocrisies demanded a revision of religions and churches.4A more sober account in a Freetown

paper5 probablyreflects the

generalconception of the activities of the church in this initial period. It is des-cribed as an interim report on the gentleman from Nigeria claiming divineinspiration and established at Dove Cot. He asserts that he can tell the

past, present and future of any individual, and has collected many clients,especially women, almost all of whom testify to his veracity. He chargesno fees but a bag is hung up for voluntary contributions. Holy water isdispensed in bottles labelled with clients' names, the hours of attendancebeing 5 a.m., 9 a.m., and 3 p.m., but on some days he 'merely holds aservice'.

Amid all this excitement plans for the permanent establishment of thechurch were being made. A local medical man, the Hon. Dr G. C. E.Reffell, who had long been a prominent member of the Legislative Council,gave his support to the extent of offering a free site for a church buildingin Wilkinson Rd. This was rejected as being too far out of the city, andin June the present main church site off O'Neil St and reasonably near thecentre of the city was purchased for ?60, but it was five years before achurch was ready for worship here. In the meantime activities had out-grown the Dove Cot facilities and after less than three months in thesepremises Dr Reffell again came to their aid with the offer of the free useof the downstairs portion of the present premises used as a minister'sresidence and students' college at 37 Williams St. The upstairs portion wasto cost ?2 a month in rent. This provided accommodation for the Apostle,while the services were transferred to No. I62 Circular Rd, formerly theboarding department of the Albert Academy. Again the premises wereloaned to the church. The move took place on the 28 June and the press6described how a crowd, mostly of women, children, and 'aboriginalindigenes' led 'this phenomenal gentleman' home, singing 'Ride on, rideon in majesty' to music provided by a Mr Callendar and his orchestra.In spite of the Creole reference to the tribesmen, the report finished on apositive note: 'We only hope that those who have elected to follow hissimple lead will do so with all sincerity. For after all, it is unfailinglytrue that "all roads lead to Rome", provided we follow such road truelyand sincerely.' Two weeks later a report of the church tells us that the'Faith Home' in Williams St already housed sick members of the churchwho had been invited to go into residence for spiritual treatment by theApostle and other leaders. The church was now ready to proceed to a

comprehensive organization of its life.This began in disheartening fashion. Adejobi claimed divine guidance in

naming four men to become the first to train for the ministry, but only4 The Evening Despatch, 10.5.47, 20.5.47, and 21.5.47.

The Sierra Leone Weekly News, 26.4.47.6 Ibid. 5.7-47.

95








one responded and he soon resigned and went to England for furtherstudies. However, there was a daily average of 300 at the 6 p.m. service,and on I

Augusta

largecrowd contributed ?40 at the

layingof the foun-

dations of the new church off O'Neil St, with ceremonies incorporatingAfrican and biblical rites. The date had been chosen seven weeks before-hand, despite all warnings about the wet season. The Apostle comments inthe Church Records:

To the serious minded person there was more in events than met the eye. Thefairness of the weather, although in mid-rains, the orderliness n the membersof the congregation, he reverential way in and the enthusiasm with which theprogramme was gone through coupled with the thought that so soon after the

establishment of this New Church in Freetown which is only three months and25 days old today, the foundation of a permanent house of worship has beenlaid, created certain indelible impressions. It is hoped that this New Churchfounded by an African in Africa . . . will continue to shine under the light ofGod and to scatter ts great spiritual benefits .... May the Church of the Lordin Sierra Leone live eternally and grow from elevation to elevation.

The next impressive event followed immediately in the same month.This was the first of the annual celebrations of the Festival of Mt Tabborrarwhen the ministers fast and pray on a local hilltop for thirteen days while

the members also fast at home, concluding with a pilgrimage by the wholechurch to the sacred 'high place' on the last night for a service duringwhich those becoming full members receive their wooden crosses. Letthe Apostle describe the final night:

Before setting out for the mountain (on Dr Reffell's farm at Wilberforce n theseearly years, and now behind the church) not less than 500 members . . . men,women and children, assembled at Williams St... for prayers at 6 p.m. prompt.At 7 p.m. they began to board several motor lorries which were to convey themto the foot of the mountain. By 7.45 p.m. God rained down showers of blessing

in the form of violent storm and heavy down-pour of rain which thrashed anddrove away the mockers who had gathered to exhibit their blindness and twentyminutes later, when the rain abated, there was a great calm (not a single mockerwas about) the lorries moved on to the foot of the mountain ... in a procession. . . they proceeded with lighted candles and palms of victory in their hands,singing 'Onward Christian Soldiers' and interrupted by no mocker-climbedto the mountain top and arrived at the Holy Spot.

Later in the night they returned to Williams St and finally dispersed at

4 a.m.

The climax of the first year must have been the December HarvestThanksgiving service of eight hours, when Oduwole returned from Mon-rovia to preach to a crowd of IIoo, and there were gifts in kind and I 14in cash. Special efforts were being made to raise money for the new church

buildings; Dr Reffell gave ?Ioo and a concert by 'the Creole elites' inthe Freetown town hall made a profit of ?64. Amid all these successes of

96 H. W. TURNER









the first year Adejobi and his members were beset by constant tribulationswhich they describe as a series of persecutions or battles.

There had been the 'battle of the witches' at the start of thechurch,when Adejobi had felt himself attacked by the traditional forces of witch-

craft, 'but none had harmed him', for he was 'still feeling strong'. Thishad been followed by the 'battle of the press' to which we have alreadyreferred. Then the 'battle of public mockery' reached its height, withpopular songs to be heard in the town, such as the parody of Psalm 23:

Adejobi's my shepherd, I shall not want.He makes me to lie down on prayer mats.

The Freetown Creoles, says Adejobi, laughed at him and advised him tobe content with a packing-case church when he talked about building adecent church, and warned him of how the Salvation Army years beforehad been attacked and driven out. There were some attacks on members ofthe Church of the Lord in the streets, and on one occasion when a womanwho had taken refuge from domestic troubles in the Faith Home diedthere after delivering her child an angry crowd stoned the building. Somethreatened to have Adejobi deported as an undesirable immigrant. Thenext phase of the opposition is described as the 'battle of the other de-nominations', when it seems that attempts were made to counteract theWednesday vigil services at Williams St by ringing rival bells at servicetime and organizing rival vigil services slightly earlier than those at theChurch of the Lord. But this could not have been at all serious for it isdescribed as lasting one week.

To this there succeeded a more serious warfare, the 'battles of the policecourt', in the very month of August when we have seen so much had beenhappening in the life of the church. Between 26 and 30 August threesummonses were served, two on Adejobi (one being delivered in the middleof worship at Circular Rd) and the third on an assistant.7 The first summons

laid the charge that 'the congregation headed by the Apostle after beingwarned to desist, did play musical instrument and sing to the disturbanceof residents in the Brookfield area' at Io.20 p.m. Although an assistantcommissioner of police and other Europeans were awakened, to anyone whohas lived in Freetown this seems a strange charge to engage the might ofthe law. The other charges were for 'taking part in a procession in a publicstreet without permission of the Commissioner of Police'. This too is anunimpressive charge in a West African community. Adejobi records thathe prayed for three hours before facing the hearings on the ISt of September,when he pleaded guilty. He was fined ?3.I5s. and his assistant ?I. There isgood reason to believe that there was some selective vigilance on the partof the law, especially when we discover that right in the middle of thispolice action Acting-prophet Felix Akanbi arrived on the 30 August fromNigeria to assist Adejobi and had his passport seized 'for making a false

7 The Sierra Leone Daily Mail, 3.9.47.

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as a church bell rung outside, and the churching of the corpse at a funeral,a practice which the Church of the Lord has always included among its

taboos,but which means a

greatdeal to Creole Christians.

Objectionhas often been felt to the practices of removing shoes for worship and

kneeling in respect before senior ministers of the church, to wearing white

prayer gowns in the streets, or being seen going to church on Sundayswith a bottle for consecrated water projecting from the small plastic bagscommonly carried by Freetown women. The same women prefer goingless conspicuously during the week to the Williams St Chapel for their

holy water. In 1958 a junior Creole minister pleaded not guilty to a chargeof calling ministers who attended the Mt Tabborrar festival 'bush-men'.

Manyof these would be Yorubas, who with their large Yoruba towns

bigger than Freetown resent the Creole superiority that calls them 'coastmen '.

The only echo of these initial 'battles' occurs over a year later, in I949in what might be called the 'skirmishes of the city council' when letters

applying for the use of the town hall on occasions similar to those forwhich it had been granted in I947 received replies commencing with 'We

regret ...' This opposition was not sustained and there was no difficultyin later years. When all these early trials were surveyed by Adejobi in anaddress in recent years we can appreciate his reading during the address'the seventy qualities needed by a missionary of this church' and histriumphant conviction that the stars in their courses had fought againstSisera.

The second year of his work in Freetown finished on a happier note.On io March I949 the newly built 'House of Prayer' was dedicated atWilliams St, 'to the utter discomforture of our enemies, mockers, andattackers'. The dedication rites included marching round the buildingseven times; one would have thought this a highly dangerous procedurefor biblical literalists, and while there is no mention of trumpets we canbe sure there were drums. This chapel is now used as a subsidiary to themain church. The Apostle himself in April received the award of 'Hon.D.N.U.', the 'Diploma of the National Union of Spiritualists' of Nigeria-a group using the term 'spiritualist' in its West African sense of 'pente-costal Christian'.

The next three years in the life of the church in Freetown follow the

pattern established in the initial period, with consolidation of the work and

steady efforts towards the completion of the new church building. The

opening of the new 'Oke Murray Temple' was the climax of what mightbe called the establishment phase, the first five years in Sierra Leone. Thissubstantial concrete building of about three thousand square feet was builtwith the help of a member of the congregation who was a small contractorand who has since entered the ministry of the church. It cost ?7000,towards which Dr Reffell gave ?750 for the roof. The 'Most Revd Dr

J. O. Ositelu, Psy.D., Primate and Founder' came from Nigeria for the

H. W. TURNER00









opening festivities, which lasted ten days from the 24 October 1952. Thechurch was dedicated on that day before two thousand people with theseven circuits, and all its

partsand

furnishings separatelyconsecrated, and

was opened on the 26th. There were two special concerts in public hallsin the city, a love-feast at Williams St, an open-air service with a thousandpeople at the Queen Elizabeth playing field, a 'prediction day' that lastedfrom 9 a.m. till 6 p.m., and sports at Lumley beach.

EXTENSION TO THE SIERRA LEONE INTERIOR

The Apostle could well feel that he had answered the taunts of theCreoles about a packing-case church, and that the church was now visiblyestablished. In spite of the magnitude of the labours that had beennecessary to reach this point of achievement, there is yet a further reachof his endeavours during these years to which we now turn, the missionaryefforts towards the peoples of the Protectorate. These began early in 1950,and in spite of the difficulties that had been experienced with the Creolesin Freetown it was to the other centre of Creoledom at Bonthe on SherbroIsland that the first move was made. A prominent member of the Freetowncongregation, Mrs Constance Solomon, was now settled at Bonthe withher husband, a Roman Catholic, and this Creole couple provided hos-pitality for the two disciples in training sent out for their first major'field-work', on 6 February 1950. They immediately began prayer meetings,open-air services, and 'divine visitations' or revelatory messages to indi-viduals. The Apostle himself arrived two weeks later, assisted by a specialdonation of I4s. 8d. from the Freetown church, ?2 sent by the faithful DrReffell on the morning of his departure, and 2s. brought to the railwaystation by a woman member. A house was rented for use as a church anddwelling and the Church of the Lord in Bonthe inaugurated at a specialservice where the rituals and ways of the church were expounded. A monthlater the lady owning the house ordered workmen to remove the roof;Creole opposition it seems was not peculiar to Freetown. After 'muchdiscomfort' another house was secured; Easter was observed as thoroughlyas in Freetown, and missionary visits began to outlying villages and toYork Island. Adejobi had returned to Freetown after a month supervisingthe foundation of this first major extension of his work, but his followershad continued in the whole area and recorded their activities in the Bonthechurch Record Book, from which we select the following picture of theirvisit to Yoni on I8 April.When we got there we went straight to the chief's compound. We were toldthere that he had gone to the courthouse, then we followed. When we reachedthere we greeted them. After that we explain what we have gone for or ourmission; having finish, the chief clerk told us that all the people has gone out.Then we told them, that were around, if they were the only one in the town weare ready to preach to them. Having considered for a while, the chief was

IOI









Lord into the hinterland of Sierra Leone to be "an anathema" or at least thepresent time.... Because not the Seeds or Sower that matters but the land orSoil on which they are sown.'

Notwithstanding these convictions the Protectorate work was continuedon the same lines, with periodic journeys by Adejobi for revivals, for

baptizing as many as fifty converts in one place, and for the distribution ofmembers' crosses. At the end of 1960 there were seven centres manned bya full-time leader, no more than one or two church sites secured, twostick-and-mud churches had been built and one of these had fallen into

decay, and one new church was being built at Njama by the only prominentman in the Protectorate whose allegiance had been secured, ParamountChief William

QueeII. It would seem that

this,the first mission of an

African independent church into the Sierra Leone hinterland, in the lastdecade had met with an experience similar to that of most Westernmissions in the previous century and a half. While this is true as far as theestablishment of organized congregations is concerned, it must be recog-nized that the Church of the Lord has very extensive contacts of a moreinformal nature. The I959 'plan' for harvest festival services throughoutSierra Leone lists no fewer than fifty-five places each with its date, time,named 'harvest organizer', and named preacher; of these thirty-nine werein the Protectorate,

extendingto Koindu on the eastern border, where the

pattern is being repeated-the most prominent woman trader in thetown, a Creole, is giving hospitality to a disciple and lending him a buildingin her compound for use as a church. The second phase in the story of theChurch of the Lord in Sierra Leone, the mission to the hinterland, is byno means ended.

AN OVERSEAS MISSION: SIERRA LEONE TO GHANA

These years of disappointment have been offset by other developmentsin this period, and to these we must now turn. At the very same time asAdejobi was attempting to extend into the Protectorate, in I950, invitationshad come from Calabar, Ghana, the Gambia, and London to found aChurch of the Lord in these places, but he had 'bid them hold on tillfurther notice'. In 1953, 'now that the New Temple in Freetown wasopened' he felt able to respond to the most urgent and promising of thesecalls, and on 21 March he set off for Ghana (then the Gold Coast) accom-panied by two of his ministers, a young and able Yoruba and a womanminister from Sierra Leone. The details of the escort to the ship by hiscongregation, the farewells with prayers and 'many eyes bathed with

tears' at the wharf, is strongly reminiscent of the records of the Paulinemissionary journeys in the Acts of the Apostles. Adejobi was away for eightmonths, travelled widely in Ghana, and brought back for training threeyoung men who are still active in the ministry-two Ghanaians and aYoruba trader from Kumasi who had disappointed the American Baptistsin Nigeria by not entering their ministry. In the ensuing seven years he

I03








has paid at least eight more visits, some for periods of up to six months,to this distant section of what soon came to be known as his 'Sierra Leone-Gold Coast see'. A chain of churches

spread alongthe coast eastwards

from Takoradi, and up into the far corners of Ashanti country, so thatthe 1959 Harvest Roster for Ghana reveals fifty-nine places where a servicewas organized. While some of these implied no more than the similarroster for Sierra Leone, at many of these centres there is at least a temporarychurch, and at Kumasi a new LIo,ooo Temple had been consecrated bythe Primate only the month before. In the previous year, I958, twentyfull-time workers were reported in Ghana, and eleven 'agents' in smallercentres. A substantial delegation from Ghana has travelled each year tothe annual conference of the whole see in Freetown; as early as I954 theKumasi delegates included a member of the Kumasi Town Council andan officer of the Town Planning Department. It seems that it was not invain that in February of that year Adejobi together with three prophetsand four disciples 'struggled with fastings and prayers for firmness of allministers and churches already founded, and particularly for the GoldCoast Mission'.

The only shadow in this happier picture of the Ghana developmentderives from a conflict with the smaller mission that the neighbouring seeof Liberia under Apostle Oduwole established in Ghana in the very same

year, I953. The centre of this work was Accra and from here branches hadbeen established westwards, and recently eastwards into the Republic of

Togo. The Sierra Leone mission had no branch in Accra until a semi-

independent congregation became affiliated in I958, and since its maincentre was at Sekondi in the West there was no competition for some years.The Liberian mission had established itself at Asamankese, betweenAccra and Sekondi, in its first year but the branch had to be re-established

early in I958. Six months later a minister of the Sierra Leone church

opened work in the same town under the authority of his conference. Aclash was now unavoidable. The leaders of both missions in Ghana met todiscuss the problem, 'but the meeting ended in a flop' with the Liberianmission demanding withdrawal, and writing in uncompromising terms tothe next conference of the rival see in Freetown, in December of the same

year. The conference was equally immovable. It does not appear that thetwo Apostles concerned came into direct conflict on the issue but appealswere made to the Primate in Nigeria. When he visited Ghana a year laterto open the Kumasi church, and both Adejobi and Oduwole were present,he resolved the problem by the bold move of constituting one adminis-

trative area for all the work of the church outside Nigeria, with a singleannual conference, under Adejobi as 'Administrator-General' and Odu-wole as 'Administrator' or second in command, but with considerablerelative autonomy within his Liberian area. From I96I the annual con-ference of the Church of the Lord Overseas, as all work outside Nigeriais called, was to be held in rotation in Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Liberia,

H. W. TURNER04









with the headquarters remaining in the meantime at Freetown. By whatseemed a statesmanlike solution a remarkably extensive West Africanchurch unit was

beingcreated and the labours of both the missionaries

who set out together from Lagos in I947 appeared to reach a joint climaxin most unexpected fashion.

However, this plan met with two serious challenges when it was to comeinto effect in I96I. The Apostle in Liberia refused to take his place in thenew administration or to unite his annual conference with that of the newunit, and the Freetown conference in February therefore failed to representthe whole area, although a small secession church from the Liberian bodydid accept the invitation to rejoin the Church of the Lord fold. On thestern intervention of the Primate in Nigeria, Liberia was reconciled to therest of the church in March. About the same time the Liberian-sponsoredchurches in Ghana were combining with some of those founded fromSierra Leone, and against others which remained loyal to Adejobi, todemand a resident spiritual head for Ghana. Apparently some support wassecured from a cabinet minister of the government. Again the Primate hadto intervene by sending one of his Nigerian bishops as conciliator, andthough the situation improved towards the end of I96I the scheme ofunification of the church throughout Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghanaremains uncertain. It appears that greater recognition will have to be givento national sentiment and even to individual leaders. Amid these challengesAdejobi preserved a wise silence and remained apart from the immediateconflicts, recognizing the measure of reason in the Ghana disturbances,and leaving the Primate to assert his ultimate authority over the wholechurch. The surviving loose-knit unity remains to be strengthened by theperiod of consolidation that Adejobi feels is now required.

This conviction is one of the reasons why there has been no seriousattempt to open work in other areas where there has been interest in theChurch of the Lord. Among these the Gambia has been mentioned, fourhundred miles beyond the present span of eleven hundred miles fromNigeria to Freetown. For some years a Creole woman living in Bathursthas been named as the agent of the church, and in I958 the Apostle paida visit of some months to explore the possibilities there. A delegate fromthe Gambia at the December conference in Freetown pleaded for a ministerto be sent, but at the same conference letters were read from the govern-ment authorities in the Gambia refusing permission for a new Christianmission to enter the colony. There the matter will rest, until, as a prophetof the church has expressed it, a native Gambian minister can be found

to commence work from the inside.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHRISTIAN BODIES AND THE COMMUNITY

To this point we have been concerned with the domestic history of thechurch, and we must now examine its relations with other religious bodies.

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It is clear that it will have nothing to do with African traditional shrines,nor with the secret societies. In fact Adejobi regards the continuing

strengthof these societies in Sierra Leone as one of the reasons for the

poor response he has met. He himself had roundly condemned in printattempts to introduce a Christian veneer to such societies as in the case ofthe Reformed Ogboni Fraternity in Nigeria. With Islam, on the otherhand, relationships have been more friendly. Ministers of the church have

lodged with Muslim households in the Protectorate. We are told that in

I952 there were a number of visits to Church of the Lord services in Free-town by Muslims from the Mountain Cut area. At the Harvest FestivalService 'Our Muslim brethren were also represented fully, and they alsocontributed to the joy of the occasion when they raised one of their popularshouts: "Lahhellel Helah lah" '. It appears that these visits ceased whenthe divergent attitudes of the two groups to medicines and charms became

fully apparent. The relationship seems to have been one of both attractionand repulsion, and there have been almost no converts from Islam inSierra Leone; the one Timne candidate for the ministry failed to continueand work has not developed in Timne country.

Reference has already been made to the abortive ideas of affiliationto the Church of the Lord by the Martha Davies Confidential BenevolentAssociation. Another independent Christian group meeting in Freetownwhen Adejobi first arrived was the 'God is Our Light Church' which hadbeen introduced from Takoradi by a Sierra Leonean returning from a

period of employment there. It was meeting in a house not far fromWilliams St where we have seen Adejobi was early established. He visitedthis group, prayed with them, and some of them began to attend his servicesalso. About 1948 it was actually described as a sub-branch but there seemsto have been no permanent connexion. Perhaps this was due to two of itsleaders having thrown in their lot with Adejobi, to whom they haveremained faithful ever since. The relation between the Church of the Lord

and other groups such as this in Freetown is probably well indicated in theplaint recorded in connexion with the 'Divine Week of Prayers', in January1953: 'Other spiritual churches were invited to attend our church and weto them, and vice versa, but it was not successful.'

A more complex and long-standing relationship has existed betweenthe Church of the Lord and an ebullient Freetown personality, the Rev.E. R. Taylor, who after a Methodist birth and a Roman Catholic period inhis youth has been successively a minister of the United MethodistChurch, the Anglican Church, and the Countess of Huntingdon Connexion.

Since 1953 he has been secretary of the Amalgamated Teachers' Organiza-tion during the week, and conducted his own independent church on

Sundays, at first on a Methodist pattern, but later more in the Church ofthe Lord fashion. His connexion with Adejobi goes back at least to 1948when they spent three days together at Mt Tabborrar. Later Taylor was'called' into the Church of the Lord ministry, entered into a personal

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covenant with Adejobi with due ritual and prayers, and was admitted tothe ministry by the Primate. His actual service in the church seems a veryintermittent and uncertain

quantity,and his

independentactivities con-

tinued. The 'Temple of Faith' which he established in Savage St onChurch of the Lord lines was formally affiliated to the latter, with a pro-cession to his church for the occasion in November 1957. At the Decemberconference in the following year there were signs of strain when it was

reported that there were differences in the ways of conducting worship,and the Temple of Faith delegate 'rose to speak in glaring tone that theyhave their own way of conducting services which is different to the parentchurch'. It was agreed to attempt conciliation, but 'to nullify the so-called affiliation' if there was no

compliancewith the church ritual and

principles. Early in I959 the short-lived affiliation was ended, but informalrelations have been maintained, for a year later Taylor preached a sermonmost eulogistic of Adejobi at the service celebrating the latter's twentyyears in the Church of the Lord ministry. Once again the Church had

proved intransigent when faced with any deviation from its convictions.On the other hand there is a great desire to be accepted by the Christian

community and to share in various ecumenical activities. For the first timein 1958 two ministers of the church attended the annual inter-denomi-national vacation school for Sierra Leone ministers at Fourah Bay College,and the following year the Apostle himself attended with some of hisdisciples. This proved quite successful, and was regarded by the Churchof the Lord as a great advance, as indeed it was from the ecclesiasticalreception accorded him in his earlier years. This of course is under-standable when we realize that most of the members of the Church of theLord are drawn from other Christian churches and not always from their

lapsed or inactive members. Some will be found maintaining a dual

membership, if only by continuing to pay their church dues to their originalchurch in order to safeguard their claim to a satisfactory funeral.

The social structure of the Freetown congregation deserves some atten-tion. Besides the Creoles the other distinct groups are the Krus, Mendes,and Yorubas, each of which has been organized in its own union. Of thesethe Krus seem to have been outstandingly faithful, for ninety per cent werein the habit of attending early morning prayers at one stage, as against'very few Creoles', and they figured prominently in 'spiritual struggles'and in open-air services and visiting. There are twice as many women asmen in the membership. Most of the male members are literate, and aredrawn from the semi-skilled workers, the clerks and artisans, with a few

independent traders or business men, some teachers, an occasional uni-versity student from Fourah Bay College, but no professional men. Theoutstanding layman is the 'General Warden' Marcus Grant, a leadingtrade union secretary in the country who has been identified with thechurch since its early years. The two prominent Freetown families thathave been connected with the church have already been mentioned. Dr

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Reffell died some years ago and his family have more recently severed theirlong association, and engaged in unsuccessful litigation seeking to regainthe

propertywhere the church was established in Williams St in

I947.In the first thirteen years 87 disciples have commenced training for theministry in Freetown. Of these 32 have since 'retreated', as the churchdescribes those who have fallen by the way. Of the total number, 33 havecome from Sierra Leone: 15 Creoles (of whom 6 remained in I960), 9Mendes or Sherbros, 7 Krus, a Bassa, and a single Timne. Of the othersthere have been 41 from Ghana and I2 from Nigeria, chiefly Yorubas, sothat nearly two-thirds of the ministry has been drawn from outside SierraLeone. The large Ghana contingent derives from the mission to Ghanain recent years. All the entrants have been literate to some

degree,and

theyhave come from occupations such as artisans, drivers, traders, and clerks;only in I960 have any come straight from school.

There has been little organized social or charitable work on the part ofthe church. In I954 the Ladies Prayer Union No. 2 together with someothers distributed money and gifts at the Kissy mental hospital. The nextvisit is recorded in I958, and in I959 the Women's Christian Associationvisited the 'Kissy paupers'. In I960 there was a visit to the Lakka tuber-culosis hospital 'as decided by the Conference some years ago'. In thewider field of public life there has been an aloofness from politics togetherwith a criticism of the wastefulness and low standards of politicians,although signs of a more positive concern for public affairs appeared in aremarkable series of resolutions adopted by the 1959 conference and givenmuch publicity. These included support for a possible United States ofWest Africa-a theme on which this West African-wide church can speakwith some justification-together with messages of congratulations or goodwishes sent to the heads of state in Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and theregional and federal leaders in Nigeria, in each case making intelligentreference to the most recent important developments in the area. The finalresolution was:

That three days fast be observed and strong prayers said unto God in protestagainst the proposed French Atomic Test in the Sahara or it is a thing againstthe will of God according o visions.

The position of the land and buildings owned in the Colony area in I96Imay be briefly indicated. At Williams St there is the Faith Home where theAdejobi family lives together with the Freetown minister and a dozendisciples in training, and where their classes are held. Still further crowd-

ing the same small site is the Chapel and a more recent detached office forthe headquarters. Off O'Neil St there is the main Temple, together withsome preliminary building for a permanent Faith Home, and excavationsand playing space that have been prepared for the later erection of aprimary school for which formal permission has been secured. Out of thecity towards Wellington there is a large area of open land owned against

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future needs. In the other direction there is an almost completed concretebuilding for the housing and teaching of disciples next door to the Reffellhome at Wilberforce. The status of this

propertyseems doubtful at

present.A branch church that met in the basement of the Reffell house has recentlybeen forced to move to Congo town where there are no proper premises,but the lay agent is making a fresh start. The only other branch in theColony is in rented premises at Waterloo, where the minister lives andworks the smaller towns and villages in the district.

THE PROPHET-LEADER: A FATHER IN ISRAEL

It remains toacknowledge

what must bepatent throughout

thisstudy-that the history of the Church of the Lord in Sierra Leone, and indeed

in Ghana, is almost indistinguishable from the biography of its founder.It is not our present concern to pass any judgement on his beliefs andpractices, beyond the recognition that the body he has created mayproperly be regarded as a Christian church. Nor is it appropriate to discussthe limitations or failings of a figure before us in current history and whois still no more than about forty years of age, with an unknown coursebefore him. That he is not unaware of his own humanity is vividly expressedin his own words on the church calendar for 1956: 'I am just an ordinaryperson whom Jehovah uses same way as the case of the ass. I thank Godfor riding me to most unexpected places .. .' Within the scale and settingof his background and opportunities this is a man whose leadership andlabours have been truly apostolic, and the formal title of his ecclesiasticalrank has been most appropriate. We have observed his beginning withoutresources, his journeyings oft from the Gambia to Nigeria, the range ofhis pioneering and the scope of his vision, the burden of constant preachingand frequent 'struggles in prayer and fasting', the efforts to secure andtrain a ministry, to organize and constantly re-organize an infant church,to deal with problems of property and finance, and with problems of ritualprocedure and moral practice that are beyond the horizon of this study.A proper survey and analysis of the dozen or more booklets, some quitesubstantial, which he has written and published in these thirteen years,would be especially revealing. And all this while facing opposition andmisunderstanding from without, and disappointments and desertionsfrom within, yet never ceasing to visit, exhort, chide, discipline, and resistboth the members and the ministry of the church. Looking back to anearly adverse judgement by a bishop in Freetown we see how erroneous itwas, in writing of divination by the use of magic mirrors, to assert that'The so called Prophet or Apostle lately functioning at Dove Cot and laterat O'Neil Street, Freetown, is a diviner of this kind pure and simple.'8Rather might we speculate on the African missionary leader the mission

8 T. S. Johnson, an African bishop of the Sierra Leone Church (Anglican), The Fear-Fetish: Its cause and Cure, Freetown, 1949, 40.

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churches might have had; and yet how difficult it would be to imaginesuch a man finding adequate scope within the life of the Western-shapedchurches.

However,the road of the freelance

may yet approachthat of the

main body, for late in I96I Adejobi commenced study for two years at awell-known Bible Institute in Great Britain, and hopes to improve the at

present most inadequate training of his ministers.This is the first overt move to associate the life of the Church of the Lord

with western Christian orthodoxy. It comes at the end of the plantingof the church throughout a good part of West Africa, albeit chiefly inthe English-speaking areas. African effort alone has achieved this basic

expansion. It may well be that there is need for a larger wisdom and

experienceas the church faces internal consolidation and fuller develop-

ment, and that Apostle Adejobi is now about to pioneer a new phase inthe life of his church, through voluntary and informal association with theolder churches and the wider world. It is to be hoped that whatever new

strength and resources are drawn from this quarter will not serve merelyto westernize this African church, but will rather undergird its own

genius and further the endeavour of African peoples to rediscover them-

selves, to find a way of life to which they can belong because they havefashioned it themselves under the inspiration of the great church they hopewill yet grow on African soil and be accepted and respected by the wholeChristian world. One cannot but detect something of such hopes when thischurch describes itself, as it does in some official statements, as 'TheChurch of the Lord (Aladura) Throughout the World'.

H. W. TURNERIO

hw turner- aladura essay

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