The Church of the Lord: The Expansion of a Nigerian Independent Church in Sierra Leone and Ghana Author(s): H. W.

Turner Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1962), pp. 91-110 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/179801 . Accessed: 28/12/2012 15:23
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Journal of African History, II, I (1962), 91-I1I

THE CHURCH OF THE LORD

THE most striking religious phenomenon in the African continent today is the development of what are variously described as the separatist sects or independent churches, akin to prophet movements, largely indigenous in origin, and much more African in belief and practice than the churches founded by or in association with Christian missions. For want of a more succint and specific term we shall speak of African independent churches. Since Sundkler's pioneer study in 1948, an increasing volume of work has been done in this field,l setting forth the diverse circumstances and causes, the manifold forms and African-wide distribution of this movement for spiritual autonomy and cultural integrity that may prove in the end to be a profounder counterpart of the development of political independence that 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. This is not because prophet movements have been a feature of the traditional religions 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 the wider world on African traditional life. While there are some instances of local prophet movements due to the penetration of Islam in the north and east, it is largely in the areas where the culture of the western world and its religion of Christianity have penetrated most that we find the growth of prophets and indigenous independent churches. Indeed there is some evidence that these are an accompaniment of second and third generation Christianity. The first examples of organized independent churches, apart from less coherent prophet movements, are to be found at the end of the nineteenth century in South Africa and in Nigeria; since then, if one were hostile to these movements, one might say that they had spread like a rash across the face of Africa. We may mention the areas in which serious study of this phenomenon has been prompted since I948: South and South-West Africa, Nyasaland, the Rhodesias, Kenya and Uganda, both
1 B. G. M. Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa, 1948, and 2nd revised edition 196I; E. G. Parrinder, Religion in an African City, 1953; Katesa Schlosser, Eingeboren-

kirchen in Siud-und Siidwestafrika, 1958; E. Andersson, Messianic Popular Movements in the Lower Congo, 1958; P. Raymaekers, L'Eglise de Jesus Christ sur la terre par le prophete Simon Kimbangu, Zaire, xIII, 7 (I959), 675-756; B. A. Pauw, Religion in a Tswana Chiefdom, 1960; C. G. K. Baeta, Prophetism in Ghana, unpublished thesis for Ph.D. (London), 1959; F. B. Welbour, East African Rebels, I961; J. V. Taylor and Dorothea Lehmann, Christians of the Copperbelt, I96I. And see periodical literature given in these, the major works.

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the Congo Republics, Nigeria, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. There are other areas such as Angola where little is known of the movements that do exist. In West Africa, with which this inquiry is concerned, there are a few sample areas where it is possible to indicate the extent of such bodies: seventeen were discovered in Ibadan in I950, and seventeen in Accra in I955, while it was estimated that there were twenty thousand members of various independent churches in Lagos
in 1950.

Most of these West African churches have remained small local movements, but a few have expanded from their country of origin into other territories, more especially those Nigerian churches which have established branches in Ghana. Of these missionary-minded churches there is one which is remarkable if not for its size then certainly for the geographical range of its activities. The 'Church of the Lord (Aladura)' has spread within 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 the Republics of Togo, the Ivory Coast, and Guinea, and even among a few negro Christians in the United States of America. No other church of this kind has crossed so many barriers of distance, of language and tribe, and of political frontiers. That it has done so in such a brief span of time, by its own efforts, with limited material and intellectual resources, and has also maintained some kind of unity across the breadth of West Africa, provides a remarkable example of African initiative and endeavour. It is proposed to offer here an outline of the main phase of the expansion of this independent church from Nigeria to Sierra Leone and later to Ghana, 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 official name means prayer-group-was founded about 1930 in Western Nigeria at Ogere by a Yoruba named J. O. Ositelu, a former Church Missionary Society 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 established at 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 Anglican teacher, Adeleke Adejobi, who had already been in the ministry of this body for seven years, had considerable experience in the establishment of new 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 has something to do with the road he has built for himself into a wider world beyond Nigeria. However this may be, somewhere about the end of I946 he experienced a vision 'that he would be coming to Freetown to establish a Church Branch provided he would go to Victoria Beach, Lagos, Nigeria to struggle for seven days by prayers and fastings to arm himself for the

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journey'.2 In the course of this discipline the promise in the vision became a clear command. The founder, 'Primate J. O. Ositelu', concurred by appointing Adejobi to this mission and sending along with 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 a Liberian lawyer, the Hon. Mr Justice Barclay, who had been much impressed 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 Sierra Leone; 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 on to Liberia, where he has established the church in a number of centres and 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 his mission would develop, and arrived expecting to stay no more than a few months. In the event it was a year before the tumult of the first appearance of the Church of the Lord in Freetown had subsided sufficiently for him to return to Nigeria to be married. Public interest began immediately, when Adejobi and Oduwole in their white gowns went on business to the post office. Strangers inquired who they were and returned with them to the house 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 known in Lagos and conducted prayers there. It appears that they also visited and took part in the meetings of Mrs Jane Bloomer's 'Martha Davies Confidential Benevolent Association', a voluntary group of the kind found among the Creole Christians. As Adejobi records: 'Our spiritual activities were so much inspiring that the Lady was moved to promise to affiliate this association to the Church of the Lord'. However, when she had 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 from sundry publications and records held at the Church of the Lord headquarters in Freetown. The chief of these are The Church Record Book or Diary, from I947 to 1961; the Record 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 AdministratorGeneral, Apostle E. O. A. Adejobi, and in his absence by his wife, in providing access to this material. Besides the brief reference in Parrinder cited above, the only published material 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 an Independent West African Church', idem, II, 2 (Dec. I960), 45-57.

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too drastic to satisfy the conditions and felt it also a difficulty for her adherents to bow under the ruling of the Church of the Lord'. This is an enlightening example of the way in which Freetown Creoles have retained an ultimate loyalty to their existing Christian churches. Some of these could be called independent churches of another kind, fairly orthodox Methodist and Baptist churches brought with the first negro settlers from Nova Scotia in I792. The subsequent Creole Christian community had never developed prophet movements or indigenous independent churches of the African kind that we are examining. While some of the more exuberant practices of the Church of the Lord had long been common in certain of the Creole churches, the advent of this thoroughly Africanized church with no western affiliations at all was a new phenomenon in Sierra Leone. There were points of affinity and appeal, coupled with deep-seated differences, and from the first the Creole attitude to this new church has remained somewhat ambivalent. Oduwole had already departed when Adejobi inaugurated the Church of the Lord at special services at the Queen St house on Easter Day, 6 April, I947, with 40 present in the morning and 58 in the evening. These attendances rapidly swelled, but he had prepared for more spacious accommodation even before the inauguration. It appears that his fame as a man of religious power had reached Mrs Laura Dove Savage, and she had offered him large premises at her well-known residence, Dove Cot, on one condition: that he drive away the epilepsy from which a young man of her household suffered. Adejobi had accepted the challenge and moved to a room at Dove Cot on 2 April, eleven days after landing. During the first night the young man had a fit on the floor, Adejobi was called and bathed him and no doubt prayed over him. Apparently he recovered sufficiently for the church to be established at Dove Cot on 7 April with free accommodation for the prophet himself, a large room for meetings, and the use of a tennis court for the crowds, which reached 600 within a month of his arrival. We have commented on the ultimate church loyalty of the Creole community; we must also note this instance, matched by others before long, of an old and respected family identifying itself publicly with the ministry of a strange Nigerian prophet who was already the centre of considerable opposition and much public controversy. What the Apostle himself calls 'the battle of the press' had already begun. Within two months of his arrival writers in the local Creole press were referring to the mumbo-jumbo of this so-called prophet, and to the idiots, the men and women without heads, who were following him.3 But Adejobi would quote II Timothy iii. 7-10 in reply and his followers comfort themselves with the chorus, 'I don't hear what they say', as they did again on the occasion when we heard a public narration of these early persecutions. Other writers in the press were more tolerant and suggested that here was a new John the Baptist come to try all the old forms of religion,
3 The Daily Guardian, 7.5.47, and 8.5.47.

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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.4 A more sober account in a Freetown paper5 probably reflects the general conception of the activities of the church in this initial period. It is described as an interim report on the gentleman from Nigeria claiming divine inspiration 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 charges no fees but a bag is hung up for voluntary contributions. Holy water is dispensed in bottles labelled with clients' names, the hours of attendance being 5 a.m., 9 a.m., and 3 p.m., but on some days he 'merely holds a service'. Amid all this excitement plans for the permanent establishment of the church 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 building in Wilkinson Rd. This was rejected as being too far out of the city, and in June the present main church site off O'Neil St and reasonably near the centre of the city was purchased for ?60, but it was five years before a church was ready for worship here. In the meantime activities had outgrown the Dove Cot facilities and after less than three months in these premises Dr Reffell again came to their aid with the offer of the free use of the downstairs portion of the present premises used as a minister's residence and students' college at 37 Williams St. The upstairs portion was to cost ?2 a month in rent. This provided accommodation for the Apostle, while the services were transferred to No. I62 Circular Rd, formerly the boarding department of the Albert Academy. Again the premises were loaned to the church. The move took place on the 28 June and the press6 described how a crowd, mostly of women, children, and 'aboriginal indigenes' led 'this phenomenal gentleman' home, singing 'Ride on, ride on 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 a positive note: 'We only hope that those who have elected to follow his simple lead will do so with all sincerity. For after all, it is unfailingly true that "all roads lead to Rome", provided we follow such road truely and sincerely.' Two weeks later a report of the church tells us that the 'Faith Home' in Williams St already housed sick members of the church who had been invited to go into residence for spiritual treatment by the Apostle 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 only
4 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.

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one responded and he soon resigned and went to England for further studies. However, there was a daily average of 300 at the 6 p.m. service, and on I August a large crowd contributed ?40 at the laying of the foundations of the new church off O'Neil St, with ceremonies incorporating African and biblical rites. The date had been chosen seven weeks beforehand, despite all warnings about the wet season. The Apostle comments in the Church Records: To the serious minded person there was more in events than met the eye. The fairness of the weather, although in mid-rains, the orderlinessin the members of the congregation,the reverentialway in and the enthusiasmwith which the programmewas gone through coupled with the thought that so soon after the establishmentof this New Church in Freetown which is only three months and 25 days old today, the foundation of a permanent house of worship has been laid, created certain indelible impressions. It is hoped that this New Church founded by an African in Africa . . . will continue to shine under the light of God and to scatterits great spiritualbenefits .... May the Churchof the Lord in Sierra Leone live eternallyand 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 Tabborrar when 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 whole church to the sacred 'high place' on the last night for a service during which those becoming full members receive their wooden crosses. Let the Apostle describe the final night: Before setting out for the mountain(on Dr Reffell'sfarm at Wilberforcein these early years, and now behind the church) not less than 500 members . . . men, women and children,assembledat Williams St... for prayersat 6 p.m. prompt. At 7 p.m. they began to board severalmotor lorrieswhich were to convey them to the foot of the mountain. By 7.45 p.m. God raineddown showers of blessing in the form of violent storm and heavy down-pour of rain which thrashed and drove away the mockerswho had gatheredto exhibit their blindness and twenty minutes later, when the rain abated,there was a great calm (not a single mocker was about) the lorriesmoved 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 interruptedby no mocker-climbed to the mountaintop and arrivedat 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 Harvest Thanksgiving service of eight hours, when Oduwole returned from Monrovia to preach to a crowd of IIoo, and there were gifts in kind and I 14 in 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' in the Freetown town hall made a profit of ?64. Amid all these successes of

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the first year Adejobi and his members were beset by constant tribulations which they describe as a series of persecutions or battles. There had been the 'battle of the witches' at the start of the church, when Adejobi had felt himself attacked by the traditional forces of witchcraft, 'but none had harmed him', for he was 'still feeling strong'. This had been followed by the 'battle of the press' to which we have already referred. Then the 'battle of public mockery' reached its height, with popular 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 prayermats. The Freetown Creoles, says Adejobi, laughed at him and advised him to be content with a packing-case church when he talked about building a decent church, and warned him of how the Salvation Army years before had been attacked and driven out. There were some attacks on members of the Church of the Lord in the streets, and on one occasion when a woman who had taken refuge from domestic troubles in the Faith Home died there after delivering her child an angry crowd stoned the building. Some threatened to have Adejobi deported as an undesirable immigrant. The next phase of the opposition is described as the 'battle of the other denominations', when it seems that attempts were made to counteract the Wednesday vigil services at Williams St by ringing rival bells at service time and organizing rival vigil services slightly earlier than those at the Church of the Lord. But this could not have been at all serious for it is described as lasting one week. To this there succeeded a more serious warfare, the 'battles of the police court', in the very month of August when we have seen so much had been happening in the life of the church. Between 26 and 30 August three summonses were served, two on Adejobi (one being delivered in the middle of 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 being warned to desist, did play musical instrument and sing to the disturbance of residents in the Brookfield area' at Io.20 p.m. Although an assistant commissioner of police and other Europeans were awakened, to anyone who has lived in Freetown this seems a strange charge to engage the might of the law. The other charges were for 'taking part in a procession in a public street without permission of the Commissioner of Police'. This too is an unimpressive charge in a West African community. Adejobi records that he 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 is good reason to believe that there was some selective vigilance on the part of the law, especially when we discover that right in the middle of this police action Acting-prophet Felix Akanbi arrived on the 30 August from Nigeria 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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declaration by calling himself a trader when he is a prophet or a Minister in the Church of the Lord'. In this case the passport was returned next day without further question. In comment on this engagement with the police it is only fair to record that seven years later the church tells how 'Assistant Superintendent of Police, Mr Wales, was instrumental in carrying them to and back home in his car' from Lumley beach, where devotions are held at certain times; and that another Assistant Superintendent chaired a church concert! The infant congregation having survived such tribulations Adejobi took leave of the church on Io March to go to Nigeria for four months and while there to be married. The Freetown congregation was left in charge of Acting-prophet Akanbi. At the farewell there was 'a fairly large congregation, and he exhorted the members to be steadfast'. On this sober note Apostle Adejobi ended these exciting and eventful twelve months in Sierra Leone.
CONSOLIDATING THE CHURCH IN THE COLONY

In Adejobi's absence a vigorous development of congregational life continued. Easter 1948 was celebrated with due Lenten preparation, full Holy Week services, a vigil on Easter Eve, and on Easter Day a service from Io a.m. till 4.30 p.m. We read that 'there was no evening service' on that day. A longer service is recorded in the August, at the Mt Tabborrar Thanksgiving Sunday, when 309 'members rejoiced for their having been privileged to spend the day in the House of God singing and dancing in praise to their Maker', from 9 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. Naming services shortly after the birth of children, followed by the later services for the churching of both mother and child, became frequent. The Apostle returned with a charming young Yoruba wife who had received a good secondary education and had worked in a Government office in Lagos, and who became recognized as the 'Spiritual Mother' in the church, in complementary office to that of her husband as 'Spiritual Father'. The most important immediate development was a more successful start on the training of a ministry. On I8 July, the first four 'followers' or 'disciples' began their training with somewhat more promising results. The sole Creole disciple has remained with the church and was a prominent minister in charge of the cause in Bo in I960. The Mende dropped out subsequently; the Ijaw from Nigeria 'absconded and retreated' just over two years after commencing; the Ghanaian remained in service for over three years, and although by 1960 he had become acting-minister in charge of the Episcopal cathedral in Monrovia, with respectable degrees in arts and theology, we have heard him speak with affection and respect of the training he received in matters spiritual. Later in the year they were joined by three others, a Creole, a Kru, and a Sherbro, of whom the lastnamed remained in service till 'retrenched' in I957. This was the first

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time that men had been trained outside the headquarters in Nigeria, and this automatically made Freetown a sub-headquarters of the Church of the Lord. Apparently there were no fewer than '12 men and 7 ladies as would-be prophets and prophetesses' at this stage, but they could not all be taken through lack of means for their support. Besides this establishment of a ministry we read of many other developments in this second year of the life of the church. A delegate was sent to the annual conference of the mother church in Nigeria, open-air preaching had begun at Lumley and Kissy, a strenuous week had been spent in visiting all the members to bless their houses, and forty had been prepared for their baptism in a Freetown stream on Christmas night. At the second Harvest Service in December held at the site of the new church, there had been dancing before the altar, and the 730 present had contributed in kind and 364 in cash. There was a quarterly magazine of eight pages, and about thirteen organizations in the congregation, though some of these had an uncertain existence. Amid these successes there were undercurrents of discontent among leading Creole members of the congregation, and Adejobi found that he had to face trouble that was potentially more serious than any that had arisen in the first year, what he calls the 'inward battles' of the church itself. In the same December as this successful harvest service, the elders drew up a memorandum containing their complaints and their suggestions for adaptation of the ways of the Church to accord with Creole custom, and a mass resignation was threatened. The complaints included requests for shorter services within fixed hours; for less strenuous elders' duties than conducting 5.30 a.m. services, preaching impromptu, and being asked to interpret revelations; for a share in the discipline of members and for less favouritism towards some; and for the financial contributions sent to Nigerian headquarters to cease (or be annually accounted for from Nigeria), and to be replaced by help from Nigeria for the new Freetown church building. The ways of the new church seem to have been altogether too demanding as compared with the church life that had long obtained among the Creoles. During January three withdrew their signatures and apologized, but on 28 January five other elders resigned. In February after six hours' discussion 'the unfortunate misunderstandings were settled' and all resignations withdrawn. A reconciliation service on io March suggests that a full settlement had occurred, but in June the church leader finally resigned, followed shortly afterwards by three others. However, the constitution and essential ways of the Church of the Lord remained intact. Adejobi comments sturdily: '. . . we refuse to bow our heads to their request, or for us to change the constitution of the Church of the Lord to suit local conditions'. It is not only Western missions which may be described as refusing to accommodate to the ways of Africa. At other times also there have been signs of a continuing tension between Creoles and this Yoruba-founded church. The Creoles have wanted such things

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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 great deal to Creole Christians. Objection has 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 Sundays with a bottle for consecrated water projecting from the small plastic bags commonly carried by Freetown women. The same women prefer going less conspicuously during the week to the Williams St Chapel for their holy water. In 1958 a junior Creole minister pleaded not guilty to a charge of calling ministers who attended the Mt Tabborrar festival 'bush-men'. Many of these would be Yorubas, who with their large Yoruba towns bigger than Freetown resent the Creole superiority that calls them 'coast men '. The only echo of these initial 'battles' occurs over a year later, in I949 in 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 for which it had been granted in I947 received replies commencing with 'We regret ...' This opposition was not sustained and there was no difficulty in later years. When all these early trials were surveyed by Adejobi in an address in recent years we can appreciate his reading during the address 'the seventy qualities needed by a missionary of this church' and his triumphant conviction that the stars in their courses had fought against Sisera. 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 at Williams St, 'to the utter discomforture of our enemies, mockers, and attackers'. The dedication rites included marching round the building seven times; one would have thought this a highly dangerous procedure for biblical literalists, and while there is no mention of trumpets we can be sure there were drums. This chapel is now used as a subsidiary to the main 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 'pentecostal 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 might be called the establishment phase, the first five years in Sierra Leone. This substantial concrete building of about three thousand square feet was built with the help of a member of the congregation who was a small contractor and 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

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opening festivities, which lasted ten days from the 24 October 1952. The church was dedicated on that day before two thousand people with the seven circuits, and all its parts and furnishings separately consecrated, and was opened on the 26th. There were two special concerts in public halls in the city, a love-feast at Williams St, an open-air service with a thousand people at the Queen Elizabeth playing field, a 'prediction day' that lasted from 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 the Creoles about a packing-case church, and that the church was now visibly established. In spite of the magnitude of the labours that had been necessary to reach this point of achievement, there is yet a further reach of his endeavours during these years to which we now turn, the missionary efforts towards the peoples of the Protectorate. These began early in 1950, and in spite of the difficulties that had been experienced with the Creoles in Freetown it was to the other centre of Creoledom at Bonthe on Sherbro Island that the first move was made. A prominent member of the Freetown congregation, Mrs Constance Solomon, was now settled at Bonthe with her husband, a Roman Catholic, and this Creole couple provided hospitality 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 individuals. The Apostle himself arrived two weeks later, assisted by a special donation of I4s. 8d. from the Freetown church, ?2 sent by the faithful Dr Reffell on the morning of his departure, and 2s. brought to the railway station by a woman member. A house was rented for use as a church and dwelling and the Church of the Lord in Bonthe inaugurated at a special service where the rituals and ways of the church were expounded. A month later the lady owning the house ordered workmen to remove the roof; Creole opposition it seems was not peculiar to Freetown. After 'much discomfort' another house was secured; Easter was observed as thoroughly as in Freetown, and missionary visits began to outlying villages and to York Island. Adejobi had returned to Freetown after a month supervising the foundation of this first major extension of his work, but his followers had continued in the whole area and recorded their activities in the Bonthe church Record Book, from which we select the following picture of their visit to Yoni on I8 April. When we got there we went straight to the chief's compound. We were told there that he had gone to the courthouse,then we followed. When we reached there we greeted them. After that we explain what we have gone for or our mission; 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 we are ready to preach to them. Having considered for a while, the chief was

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moved to say, carry on. Then we started. We preach lengthily; after the preaching we gave them messages, starting from the chief down to the least person that was in the court. They appreciatedall that was done through the power of the Holy Spirit. They collected for us the sum of (Io/7d) ten shillings and sevenpence. The journey from Bonthe to that place and back is four hours in all. On their next visit to Yoni ten days later the reception was more hesitant. The chief gave them three shillings, but said that the tribal authorities would have to give permission for their preaching, after first being informed about their ways of worship. This is probably typical of their experience -curiosity, some initial response, but much caution, a willingness to receive prayers and predictions and to have water consecrated but avoidance of any new commitments. At first the prospect in Bonthe itself was more hopeful. Mrs Solomon gave steady assistance with food and furnishings, a church site was donated, and various articles of church furnishings presented. Towards the end of the year there are signs of trouble; argument in the church committee over its membership, and the discovery that the site had not really been given and that some of the furnishings for the church were only on loan and not presented. In spite of a further visit from the Apostle in October, the church at Bonthe never reached its first birthday. The pattern of events at Bonthe was to be repeated at other centres during the next decade, as the church attempted to establish branches in many parts of the Protectorate. The disciples were sent to initiate the work in new towns as part of their training, and there was not always a friend of the church waiting to welcome them. Junior ministers were encouraged in this pioneer work by the rule that further promotion depended on having founded two new churches. Adejobi himself travelled widely on 'missionary speculations', making three tours in I950 and five in the next three years. By the end of I950 some kind of foothold had been gained in about nine centres, ranging as far as Segbwema 250 miles inland, and there were five ministers at work in the Protectorate. Six months later, in his annual report, Adejobi reported with frankness that two of these new causes were feeble or faint, and were already defunct. In searching for the reasons for these failures he mentioned the ignorance of the languages of the natives on the part of his ministers (a few, however, were Mende-speaking), the 'Nicodemus-like' caution of the people, and their shallow interest in securing predictions but nothing else from the church. As further reasons he declared that: The Roman Catholic Churches seduced the hearts of villagers and people by giving their children free schooling and education and the interested converts in most places were so poor that they looked to receive from Ministers posted to them [rather]than giving to them. He concludedthat 'Apartfrom Freetown, all other fields or towns in SierraLeone appearvery hardsoil for the propagation of the Church of the Lord's Dogma, Doctrine, and Teachings. ... I have definitely found out and experimentedon the propagationof the Churchof the

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Lord into the hinterlandof Sierra Leone to be "an anathema"for at least the present time.... Because not the Seeds or Sower that matters but the land or Soil on which they are sown.' Notwithstanding these convictions the Protectorate work was continued on the same lines, with periodic journeys by Adejobi for revivals, for baptizing as many as fifty converts in one place, and for the distribution of members' crosses. At the end of 1960 there were seven centres manned by a full-time leader, no more than one or two church sites secured, two stick-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 prominent man in the Protectorate whose allegiance had been secured, Paramount Chief William Quee II. It would seem that this, the first mission of an African independent church into the Sierra Leone hinterland, in the last decade had met with an experience similar to that of most Western missions in the previous century and a half. While this is true as far as the establishment of organized congregations is concerned, it must be recognized that the Church of the Lord has very extensive contacts of a more informal nature. The I959 'plan' for harvest festival services throughout Sierra Leone lists no fewer than fifty-five places each with its date, time, named 'harvest organizer', and named preacher; of these thirty-nine were in the Protectorate, extending to Koindu on the eastern border, where the pattern is being repeated-the most prominent woman trader in the town, a Creole, is giving hospitality to a disciple and lending him a building in her compound for use as a church. The second phase in the story of the Church of the Lord in Sierra Leone, the mission to the hinterland, is by no means ended.
AN OVERSEAS MISSION: SIERRA LEONE TO GHANA

These years of disappointment have been offset by other developments in this period, and to these we must now turn. At the very same time as Adejobi was attempting to extend into the Protectorate, in I950, invitations had come from Calabar, Ghana, the Gambia, and London to found a Church of the Lord in these places, but he had 'bid them hold on till further notice'. In 1953, 'now that the New Temple in Freetown was opened' he felt able to respond to the most urgent and promising of these calls, and on 21 March he set off for Ghana (then the Gold Coast) accompanied by two of his ministers, a young and able Yoruba and a woman minister from Sierra Leone. The details of the escort to the ship by his congregation, the farewells with prayers and 'many eyes bathed with tears' at the wharf, is strongly reminiscent of the records of the Pauline missionary journeys in the Acts of the Apostles. Adejobi was away for eight months, travelled widely in Ghana, and brought back for training three young men who are still active in the ministry-two Ghanaians and a Yoruba trader from Kumasi who had disappointed the American Baptists in Nigeria by not entering their ministry. In the ensuing seven years he

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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 along the coast eastwards from Takoradi, and up into the far corners of Ashanti country, so that the 1959 Harvest Roster for Ghana reveals fifty-nine places where a service was organized. While some of these implied no more than the similar roster for Sierra Leone, at many of these centres there is at least a temporary church, and at Kumasi a new LIo,ooo Temple had been consecrated by the Primate only the month before. In the previous year, I958, twenty full-time workers were reported in Ghana, and eleven 'agents' in smaller centres. A substantial delegation from Ghana has travelled each year to the annual conference of the whole see in Freetown; as early as I954 the Kumasi delegates included a member of the Kumasi Town Council and an officer of the Town Planning Department. It seems that it was not in vain that in February of that year Adejobi together with three prophets and four disciples 'struggled with fastings and prayers for firmness of all ministers and churches already founded, and particularly for the Gold Coast Mission'. The only shadow in this happier picture of the Ghana development derives from a conflict with the smaller mission that the neighbouring see of Liberia under Apostle Oduwole established in Ghana in the very same year, I953. The centre of this work was Accra and from here branches had been established westwards, and recently eastwards into the Republic of Togo. The Sierra Leone mission had no branch in Accra until a semiindependent congregation became affiliated in I958, and since its main centre was at Sekondi in the West there was no competition for some years. The Liberian mission had established itself at Asamankese, between Accra 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. A clash was now unavoidable. The leaders of both missions in Ghana met to discuss the problem, 'but the meeting ended in a flop' with the Liberian mission demanding withdrawal, and writing in uncompromising terms to the next conference of the rival see in Freetown, in December of the same year. The conference was equally immovable. It does not appear that the two Apostles concerned came into direct conflict on the issue but appeals were made to the Primate in Nigeria. When he visited Ghana a year later to open the Kumasi church, and both Adejobi and Oduwole were present, he resolved the problem by the bold move of constituting one administrative area for all the work of the church outside Nigeria, with a single annual conference, under Adejobi as 'Administrator-General' and Oduwole as 'Administrator' or second in command, but with considerable relative autonomy within his Liberian area. From I96I the annual conference of the Church of the Lord Overseas, as all work outside Nigeria is called, was to be held in rotation in Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Liberia,

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with the headquarters remaining in the meantime at Freetown. By what seemed a statesmanlike solution a remarkably extensive West African church unit was being created and the labours of both the missionaries who set out together from Lagos in I947 appeared to reach a joint climax in most unexpected fashion. However, this plan met with two serious challenges when it was to come into effect in I96I. The Apostle in Liberia refused to take his place in the new administration or to unite his annual conference with that of the new unit, and the Freetown conference in February therefore failed to represent the whole area, although a small secession church from the Liberian body did accept the invitation to rejoin the Church of the Lord fold. On the stern intervention of the Primate in Nigeria, Liberia was reconciled to the rest of the church in March. About the same time the Liberian-sponsored churches in Ghana were combining with some of those founded from Sierra Leone, and against others which remained loyal to Adejobi, to demand a resident spiritual head for Ghana. Apparently some support was secured from a cabinet minister of the government. Again the Primate had to intervene by sending one of his Nigerian bishops as conciliator, and though the situation improved towards the end of I96I the scheme of unification of the church throughout Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghana remains uncertain. It appears that greater recognition will have to be given to national sentiment and even to individual leaders. Amid these challenges Adejobi preserved a wise silence and remained apart from the immediate conflicts, recognizing the measure of reason in the Ghana disturbances, and leaving the Primate to assert his ultimate authority over the whole church. The surviving loose-knit unity remains to be strengthened by the period of consolidation that Adejobi feels is now required. This conviction is one of the reasons why there has been no serious attempt to open work in other areas where there has been interest in the Church of the Lord. Among these the Gambia has been mentioned, four hundred miles beyond the present span of eleven hundred miles from Nigeria to Freetown. For some years a Creole woman living in Bathurst has been named as the agent of the church, and in I958 the Apostle paid a visit of some months to explore the possibilities there. A delegate from the Gambia at the December conference in Freetown pleaded for a minister to be sent, but at the same conference letters were read from the government authorities in the Gambia refusing permission for a new Christian mission to enter the colony. There the matter will rest, until, as a prophet of 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 the church, 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 strength of these societies in Sierra Leone as one of the reasons for the poor response he has met. He himself had roundly condemned in print attempts to introduce a Christian veneer to such societies as in the case of the Reformed Ogboni Fraternity in Nigeria. With Islam, on the other hand, 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 Freetown by Muslims from the Mountain Cut area. At the Harvest Festival Service 'Our Muslim brethren were also represented fully, and they also contributed to the joy of the occasion when they raised one of their popular shouts: "Lahhellel Helah lah" '. It appears that these visits ceased when the divergent attitudes of the two groups to medicines and charms became fully apparent. The relationship seems to have been one of both attraction and repulsion, and there have been almost no converts from Islam in Sierra Leone; the one Timne candidate for the ministry failed to continue and work has not developed in Timne country. Reference has already been made to the abortive ideas of affiliation to the Church of the Lord by the Martha Davies Confidential Benevolent Association. Another independent Christian group meeting in Freetown when Adejobi first arrived was the 'God is Our Light Church' which had been introduced from Takoradi by a Sierra Leonean returning from a period of employment there. It was meeting in a house not far from Williams St where we have seen Adejobi was early established. He visited this group, prayed with them, and some of them began to attend his services also. About 1948 it was actually described as a sub-branch but there seems to have been no permanent connexion. Perhaps this was due to two of its leaders having thrown in their lot with Adejobi, to whom they have remained faithful ever since. The relation between the Church of the Lord and other groups such as this in Freetown is probably well indicated in the plaint recorded in connexion with the 'Divine Week of Prayers', in January 1953: 'Other spiritual churches were invited to attend our church and we to them, and vice versa, but it was not successful.' A more complex and long-standing relationship has existed between the Church of the Lord and an ebullient Freetown personality, the Rev. E. R. Taylor, who after a Methodist birth and a Roman Catholic period in his youth has been successively a minister of the United Methodist Church, the Anglican Church, and the Countess of Huntingdon Connexion. Since 1953 he has been secretary of the Amalgamated Teachers' Organization during the week, and conducted his own independent church on Sundays, at first on a Methodist pattern, but later more in the Church of the Lord fashion. His connexion with Adejobi goes back at least to 1948 when 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 to the ministry by the Primate. His actual service in the church seems a very intermittent and uncertain quantity, and his independent activities continued. The 'Temple of Faith' which he established in Savage St on Church of the Lord lines was formally affiliated to the latter, with a procession to his church for the occasion in November 1957. At the December conference 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 they have their own way of conducting services which is different to the parent church'. It was agreed to attempt conciliation, but 'to nullify the socalled affiliation' if there was no compliance with the church ritual and principles. Early in I959 the short-lived affiliation was ended, but informal relations have been maintained, for a year later Taylor preached a sermon most eulogistic of Adejobi at the service celebrating the latter's twenty years 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 time in 1958 two ministers of the church attended the annual inter-denominational vacation school for Sierra Leone ministers at Fourah Bay College, and the following year the Apostle himself attended with some of his disciples. This proved quite successful, and was regarded by the Church of the Lord as a great advance, as indeed it was from the ecclesiastical reception accorded him in his earlier years. This of course is understandable when we realize that most of the members of the Church of the Lord 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 original church in order to safeguard their claim to a satisfactory funeral. The social structure of the Freetown congregation deserves some attention. Besides the Creoles the other distinct groups are the Krus, Mendes, and Yorubas, each of which has been organized in its own union. Of these the Krus seem to have been outstandingly faithful, for ninety per cent were in 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 as men in the membership. Most of the male members are literate, and are drawn from the semi-skilled workers, the clerks and artisans, with a few independent traders or business men, some teachers, an occasional university student from Fourah Bay College, but no professional men. The outstanding layman is the 'General Warden' Marcus Grant, a leading trade union secretary in the country who has been identified with the church since its early years. The two prominent Freetown families that have 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 their long association, and engaged in unsuccessful litigation seeking to regain the property where the church was established in Williams St in I947. In the first thirteen years 87 disciples have commenced training for the ministry in Freetown. Of these 32 have since 'retreated', as the church describes those who have fallen by the way. Of the total number, 33 have come from Sierra Leone: 15 Creoles (of whom 6 remained in I960), 9 Mendes or Sherbros, 7 Krus, a Bassa, and a single Timne. Of the others there have been 41 from Ghana and I2 from Nigeria, chiefly Yorubas, so that nearly two-thirds of the ministry has been drawn from outside Sierra Leone. The large Ghana contingent derives from the mission to Ghana in recent years. All the entrants have been literate to some degree, and they have 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 of the church. In I954 the Ladies Prayer Union No. 2 together with some others distributed money and gifts at the Kissy mental hospital. The next visit is recorded in I958, and in I959 the Women's Christian Association visited the 'Kissy paupers'. In I960 there was a visit to the Lakka tuberculosis hospital 'as decided by the Conference some years ago'. In the wider field of public life there has been an aloofness from politics together with a criticism of the wastefulness and low standards of politicians, although signs of a more positive concern for public affairs appeared in a remarkable series of resolutions adopted by the 1959 conference and given much publicity. These included support for a possible United States of West Africa-a theme on which this West African-wide church can speak with some justification-together with messages of congratulations or good wishes sent to the heads of state in Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the regional and federal leaders in Nigeria, in each case making intelligent reference to the most recent important developments in the area. The final resolution was: That three days fast be observed and strong prayers said unto God in protest against the proposed French Atomic Test in the Saharafor it is a thing against the will of God accordingto visions. The position of the land and buildings owned in the Colony area in I96I may be briefly indicated. At Williams St there is the Faith Home where the Adejobi family lives together with the Freetown minister and a dozen disciples in training, and where their classes are held. Still further crowding the same small site is the Chapel and a more recent detached office for the headquarters. Off O'Neil St there is the main Temple, together with some preliminary building for a permanent Faith Home, and excavations and playing space that have been prepared for the later erection of a primary school for which formal permission has been secured. Out of the city 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 concrete building for the housing and teaching of disciples next door to the Reffell home at Wilberforce. The status of this property seems doubtful at present. A branch church that met in the basement of the Reffell house has recently been 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 the Colony is in rented premises at Waterloo, where the minister lives and works the smaller towns and villages in the district.
THE PROPHET-LEADER: A FATHER IN ISRAEL

It remains to acknowledge what must be patent throughout this study -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 and practices, beyond the recognition that the body he has created may properly be regarded as a Christian church. Nor is it appropriate to discuss the limitations or failings of a figure before us in current history and who is still no more than about forty years of age, with an unknown course before him. That he is not unaware of his own humanity is vividly expressed in his own words on the church calendar for 1956: 'I am just an ordinary person whom Jehovah uses same way as the case of the ass. I thank God for riding me to most unexpected places .. .' Within the scale and setting of his background and opportunities this is a man whose leadership and labours have been truly apostolic, and the formal title of his ecclesiastical rank has been most appropriate. We have observed his beginning without resources, his journeyings oft from the Gambia to Nigeria, the range of his pioneering and the scope of his vision, the burden of constant preaching and frequent 'struggles in prayer and fasting', the efforts to secure and train a ministry, to organize and constantly re-organize an infant church, to deal with problems of property and finance, and with problems of ritual procedure and moral practice that are beyond the horizon of this study. A proper survey and analysis of the dozen or more booklets, some quite substantial, which he has written and published in these thirteen years, would be especially revealing. And all this while facing opposition and misunderstanding from without, and disappointments and desertions from within, yet never ceasing to visit, exhort, chide, discipline, and resist both the members and the ministry of the church. Looking back to an early adverse judgement by a bishop in Freetown we see how erroneous it was, 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 later at O'Neil Street, Freetown, is a diviner of this kind pure and simple.'8 Rather might we speculate on the African missionary leader the mission
8 T. S. Johnson, an African bishop of the Sierra Leone Church (Anglican), The FearFetish: Its cause and Cure, Freetown, 1949, 40.

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churches might have had; and yet how difficult it would be to imagine such a man finding adequate scope within the life of the Western-shaped churches. However, the road of the freelance may yet approach that of the main body, for late in I96I Adejobi commenced study for two years at a well-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 planting of the church throughout a good part of West Africa, albeit chiefly in the English-speaking areas. African effort alone has achieved this basic expansion. It may well be that there is need for a larger wisdom and experience as the church faces internal consolidation and fuller development, and that Apostle Adejobi is now about to pioneer a new phase in the life of his church, through voluntary and informal association with the older churches and the wider world. It is to be hoped that whatever new strength and resources are drawn from this quarter will not serve merely to westernize this African church, but will rather undergird its own genius and further the endeavour of African peoples to rediscover themselves, to find a way of life to which they can belong because they have fashioned it themselves under the inspiration of the great church they hope will yet grow on African soil and be accepted and respected by the whole Christian world. One cannot but detect something of such hopes when this church describes itself, as it does in some official statements, as 'The Church of the Lord (Aladura) Throughout the World'.

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