CULTS
Episode “Lumpa Church”
Written by Jorge Molina
(THEME MUSIC)
VANESSA: Due to the graphic nature of this cult’s crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of graphic material that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for listeners under 13.
GREG: Hi, I’m Greg Polcyn.
VANESSA: And I’m Vanessa Richardson.
GREG: And this is Cults. Today, we are going to take a deep dive into the history, rapid ascent and violent fall of the Lumpa Church in Zambia during the mid-20th Century. Founded and led by Lenshina “Alice” Mulenga, this cultist group blended elements of Christianity with traditional African beliefs.
But even though it started as a mostly religious movement that intended to put women and peasants in the forefront and elevate them from the oppression of colonial times, it quickly became a symbol of state independence, and got entangled in the murky and deadly politics of the nation.
GREG: If you want to listen to any previous episodes of “Cults” you can find them on your favorite podcast directory, or on our website, Parcast dot com.
VANESSA: And don’t forget to subscribe while you’re there, because a new episode comes out every Tuesday. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram @Parcast, and on Twitter @parcastnetwork. If you like what you hear, please leave a five star review wherever you are listening.
GREG: For the first part of this episode, we are going to go into the early life and deeds of Lenshina Mulenga, who rose from one of the minor tribal houses of Zambia to become founder and leader of the Lumpa Church, one of the most powerful organizations in that nation.
VANESSA: We’re going to discuss the life-changing vision that turned her into a prophetess, the beliefs that became the foundation of her church, and how she turned it into a movement that on its height had over 150 thousand followers, up until the point that it became too big a political threat for the government to ignore.
GREG: Since understanding the political climate of Zambia is essential when talking about the role that Lenshina’s church play in the nation, we’re also going to lay the ground on the state of politics that Lenshina grew up around, and what she did to place herself in such a threatening position to those in power.
VANESSA: But before we get into the power struggles and political intrigues that plague this story, let’s go back to Zambia in the first decades of last century…
Part I – Growing up Bemba
(UPBEAT AFRICAN MUSIC)
(SFX: People CHANTING, a fire CRACKLES…)
VANESSA: Alice Lenshina Mulenga was born in 1920 in the African region that now makes up Northern Zambia. Her traditional African name was Mulenga Bubusha, but was later baptized and known as Alice Lenshina, which literally translates to “Alice, the Queen.”
GREG: She and her family lived in the Kasomo Village of the Chinsali District in Northern Rhodesia, a British colony that we know now as Zambia.
VANESSA: Lenshina belonged to a group of people called the Bembas, one of the largest ethnic groups in Zambia. Their culture is spread largely among central Africa. They live in small villages of a couple hundred people each, and every family belongs to a clan named after an animal or a natural organism. Lenshina’s family belonged to the Crocodile Clan.
GREG: A single chief rules over every clan. This person is called the Chitimukulu, a position named after the first Bemba chief, Chiti Mukulu, or “Chiti the Great”, who led the Bemba out of the Congo into their eventual settlements.
VANESSA: A Chitimukulu is what in regional and local politics is referred to as a “paramount chief;” the one person who holds the highest-level position of authority.
GREG: So Lenshina was born and grew up within a hierarchical system of traditional and religious beliefs where ultimate power was given to a single individual? Does that sound familiar to you, Vanessa?
VANESSA: That sounds a lot like a cult, Greg. But this is neither strange nor surprising. As psychology researchers Anthony R. Pratkins, Steven J. Breckler and Anthony G. Green point out on their studies on behavioral patterns, the longer a person engages in and repeats a certain behavior, it’s less likely that it will become a conscious decision for them to make in the future. Meaning that the more you do something, like participating in a certain societal system or hierarchy, the likelier you are to repeat it later on without even realizing it.
GREG: So the fact that Lenshina would grow up to found and imitate a system that was so intrinsically similar to the one she grew inside on makes a lot of sense.
We should note that Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show.
VANESSA: Thanks Greg.
(A SLOWER MUSIC plays; drums and tribal echoes…)
GREG: Lenshina’s mother, Musungu Chimba, and her father, Lubusha Kasaka belonged to one of the lower classes inside the Bemba tribe; a minor house named the nganda.
VANESSA: Her father was a village policeman who fought on the British side during World War I and, as tribe tradition allowed, was a polygamous man. He was known for having regular and promiscuous encounters with many women at a time, and for neglecting Lenshina’s family and leaving them in poverty.
GREG: Through her life, Lenshina would never forget her humble origins, and even though she rose to a place of tremendous power and influence in the nation, she never claimed to be of a higher rank than the one she was born in.
(SFX: Gregorian-like CHANTS echo through the walls of a church.
The sounds of men quietly PRAYING)
GREG: Lenshina was raised in the Presbyterian faith, as were most of the Bemba people.
VANESSA: Like most of the African territories during Colonial Times in the 1920s, Lenshina’s village was plagued by missionaries trying to spread the beliefs of Western religion. Her district in particular was known for housing two competing Christian missions: the Roman Catholic Missionaries of Africa, also known as the “White Fathers”, and the Presbyterian United Free Church of Scotland, under whose teachings and doctrine Lenshina was raised.
GREG: Missionaries would constantly be competing for the right to spread their doctrines with the indigenous tribes, as well as for land to establish schools in the more rural and deserted areas.
VANESSA: With the inflow of missions coming in during colonization, local tribes lost control of the education of its own people. Indigenous teachers were considered too uneducated to have positions at schools, and even early missionaries who had arrived early were dismissed with time, as more “cultured” men under the control of the British government took their places.
GREG: Lenshina grew up inside a system that selected only the best and most “qualified” people to be in charge of the education of the masses. This feeling of injustice against selectivity would never leave her, and would become a core belief in the teachings of her church.
(A BEAT)
VANESSA: At the beginning of the 1930s, not too long after hitting puberty, Lenshina married a man named Gipson Nkwale, and had a child with him. Unfortunately, Gipson died very soon after of health complications.
GREG: As it is tradition within the Bemba tribes, if a woman’s husband dies, she is then made to marry his brother or cousin through what is called “wife inheritance.” Then she is forced to have sex with him, in order to remove her dead husband’s spirit from her body.
VANESSA: This is called “sexual cleansing,” and if women don’t go through with it, they are virtually shunned from the community and considered unclean. Lenshina then, according to this custom, married her husband’s cousin Petros Chintanwka, and had five children with him.
GREG: Lenshina was a loving and present mother through the upbringing of her children. She was a devoted church-goer, and an active member of the community. She was always willing to lend a hand and help those who were in need. There was nothing particularly outstanding about her yet. Just a simple woman with a simple life.
VANESSA: However, she was prone to epileptic attacks.
(OMINOUS, tribal-like music…)
VANESSA: Epilepsy is a syndrome that is commonly associated as a consequence of poor living conditions, especially in low-income, rural communities. As Devender Bhalla, a researcher from the Institute of Neuroepidemiology and Tropical Neurology points out, some of the diseases that can show epileptic symptoms include premature births, HIV/AIDS and malaria. All of these are incredibly prevalent in African communities because of the limited access to proper health care, hygiene practices, and sexual education.
(SFX: the constant BUZZING of a single MOSQUITO…)
GREG: It is most likely that Lenshina contracted some form of malaria through the bite of a mosquito, as this particular disease is very common in Africa and other tropical regions. If malaria is left untreated, the parasite can reach the brain cells, and put the subject through intense epileptic attacks, hallucinations, coma, and even death.
(SFX: A LIFE LINE that slowly and gradually goes FLAT…)
VANESSA: And sure enough, on the night of October 24, 1953, Lenshina fell victim to a serious attack of epileptic fits. A couple of hours later, she had lost consciousness and fallen into a coma that lasted over three days. The community was ready to declare her dead.
GREG: But in that moment, Lenshina was having a vision that would change the course of her life. Turn her simple life into something extraordinary. As she miraculously woke up days later, she claimed to have received a prophecy from Jesus Christ himself…
(TRIBAL music fades into ANGELIC CHOIRS that climax, and then FADE OUT…)
AD BREAK 1
Part 2 – She Had a Vision
(The choir in a CHURCH echoes…eerie voices give an ominous feel…)
GREG: Three days after Lenshina Mulenga had fallen into a coma from an epileptic attack on October 24, 1953, her family and neighbors were ready for her burial. On all accounts, she had passed away.
VANESSA: It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what happened after, as different recollections and interpretations have come out since. Many followers believe that throughout these days, Lenshina died and resurrected twice. Lenshina herself would later recall during her sermons that she came back from the dead no less than four times.
GREG: What seems to be the most consistent account is that Lenshina came back from a medical coma, and that she claimed to have received a vision.
(CHOIR grows louder and stronger…)
GREG: This prophecy would become the event that changed the trajectory of Lenshina’s life, and that would make up the foundations of her church.
VANESSA: Lenshina said that in this vision, she was standing across a large, seemingly endless ocean, when Jesus Christ appeared to her, and told her to cross it. As she was walking through the waves, which were building a path back to Earth, a group of angels gave her a series of divine messages on how to cleanse the earthly people of evil.
(The CRASHING of WAVES. A RAGING ocean. THUNDER in the DISTANCE)
GREG: The angels told her that she needed to preach against witchcraft and sorcery, as those were the impure and malign practices that had condemned humankind. And that the right way to spread these doctrines would be through traditional African rituals, as Western practices had become too overcome with greed and earthly temptations.
VANESSA: These two elements of her vision, the vilification of witchcraft and the blending of African tradition with Christian beliefs, became the two biggest pillars in the teachings of Lenshina and her church. Now, whereas she actually received these messages through a divine prophecy is highly debatable.
GREG: As we mentioned before, Lenshina’s days-long coma is now thought to be a consequence of a mistreated case of malaria that spread to her brain. The common symptoms for cerebral malaria include an impaired or an elevated state of consciousness, convulsion and epileptic fits, delirium and hallucinations, and a coma that may last for stretches of over three days. Even if accounts differ on the exact duration of her attack, every single one mentions Lenshina experiencing all of these symptoms.
VANESSA: But these symptoms also align with the “steps” that people undergoing a religious experience or a divine vision usually go through.
African religious scholars Dorothea Lehmann and Robert Rotberg found that across many different religions and cultist movements, prophets seem to experience the same rite of passage as they receive their seminal vision. This rite is separated into four steps: illness, separation, cure, and reintegration. Lenshina went through all of these steps in the four days that she spent in a coma.
GREG: She fell gravely ill, and experienced a separation from her community, her body and the earthly world itself. She came back to and quickly recovered, or was “cured”, and was reintegrated into society, now with a different set of beliefs.
(A CHOIR plays quietly in the background…)
VANESSA: Whether it was through divine prophecy or as a medical side effect, Lenshina had been given a new message to spread. As her health gradually improved, she began to implement these new teachings among her community in local church meetings.
She started practicing traditional healing, and implementing teachings of African and Bemba culture into the beliefs of Christianity. She showed a special interest in women, mothers, and poor rural workers; people that missionaries would usually pass over with pity or contempt.
GREG: Lenshina became an even more active member of the Presbyterian church, but local priests and missionaries became aware that she was slowly gaining recognition and influence far beyond what the church was comfortable with, or that it allowed for a woman. She made repeated attempts to carry out baptism ceremonies and preaching sermons herself.
VANESSA: Church leaders did not like the way she seemed to be desecrating their Western rituals with African tradition. Under the excuse that she lacked proper missionary training, but in reality because she was a woman that was gaining unwanted influence, Lenshina was expelled from the Presbyterian church.
GREG: This was perhaps the first moment in which Lenshina’s tremendously powerful charisma and influence became a threat to others in power around her. But it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
VANESSA: After being banned from the Presbyterian Church, Lenshina found that many of the church-members that she had engaged with her sermons and teachings had actually continued to seek her out. She had driven followers out of the church along with her. After a few months had passed by, and her appeal did not seem to die down, she and her husband Petros decided to found her own church.
(The MURMURS of a large crowd….)
VANESSA: On 1955, Lenshina “Alice” Mulenga officially began the Lumpa Church, a name that literally translates to “superior” or “better than all others” in the Bemba language. As it was foretold to her in her vision, the Church was a religious sect that combined Christian beliefs with native rituals.
GREG: One of her followers, Rosemary Radford Ruether, who was with Lenshina and the Lumpa Church from the very early origins, has observed that “she was the first Bemba woman to challenge the status quo within Bemba mission Christianity and developed her own mission paradigm from an illiterate Bemba woman’s perspective.”
VANESSA: The Lumpa Church was offering insights into religion from a familiar point of view for the natives. This wasn’t a group of white men coming from remote parts of the world telling people how to feel or what to do; it was one of their own, an ordinary woman who was not a part of the educated elite, and who claimed to have spoken directly to Jesus.
GREG: And Jesus had told her that their own ways and traditions were the correct ones. It’s easy to see why so many people were entranced and followed Lenshina’s Church by the hordes.
(The CROWD gets more rowdy and excited. Laughter and SHOUTS of support)
Part 3 – The Lumpa Church
VANESSA: The Lumpa Church’s doctrines were based on very simple rules, all of which directly stemmed from Lenshina’s vision. The Church banned sinful behaviors such as verbal insults, pride, lying, boasting, hatred, cruelty, false accusations, disobedience, deceit, and theft. It also had heavy restrictions on polygamy, smoking and alcohol.
GREG: Most importantly, and as the biggest distinction from both Christianity and African tradition, it outlawed the practice of widow inheritance, a ritual that Lenshina herself had been forced to partake in years before. This move is believed to be one of the roots of the Zambian feminist movement that is still being fought today.
VANESSA: In fact, even though Lenshina held the single position of highest authority in the Church, men and women had equal power in the ministry roles beneath her. The Lumpa Church was one of the first churches, if not worldwide then definitely in the African regions, to put women in positions of religious authority.
GREG: This female-centric hierarchy, as well as the emphasis that its teachings had on women and overlooked members of the African community, gave the Lumpa Church an almost unintentional stance against the Christian churches and colonial administration of the mid-Century mission era.
VANESSA: And as an additional appeal to the mainstream African population, unlike the very elitist Western churches, no one was banned from joining the Lumpa Church. “There should be no citizen or foreigner in the congregation,” Lenshina would decree. “Black or white, man or woman; we are all of the same family and therefore we must love each other.”
(The CROWD CHEERS and CHANTS, more people slowly joining in…)
VANESSA: The other basic foundation of the Lumpa Church besides righteous behavior was its strict and aggressive opposition to witchcraft. According to the angels in Lenshina’s vision, sorcery and devotion to cursed objects, which included everything from old pagan totems common in African religions to Catholic crucifixes and rosaries, were the main reasons humanity had fallen from fidelity into heresy.
GREG: The Lumpa Church actively opposed the adoration of any religious symbols, and encouraged members to either dispose of them, or surrender them to their ministers and preachers. One pupil at a nearby Roman Catholic mission school reported to the White Fathers after a holiday that he had seen “a whole hut full of magic implements, including rosaries and crucifixes, which the converts had given to Lenshina before their baptism.”
VANESSA: The Church itself did not carry any specific iconography, and the few symbols that were associated with it through the years, like flags and carvings on the foundation stones of the temples, carried vague and different significance with the followers.
GREG: With these two core beliefs, Lenshina and her quickly growing group of followers set out to remote communities that had either not been reached yet by missionaries, or had started to show resistance to Western ideals.
VANESSA: Preaching to crowds and one-to-one face time were the most effective ways for Lenshina to attract and convert new people. She was famous for her charismatic sermons, and the compassion and empathy that she showed to everyone she met.
GREG: If you’re a regular listener to our program, you know that a charismatic leader is one of the most important traits of a successful cult.
VANESSA: However, by far the most effective and reaching tactic that Lenshina used to spread the teachings of the Lumpa Church and attract new potential converts…was her music.
(AFRICAN HYMNS begin to play slowly and steadily…)
VANESSA: The hymns that Lenshina composed for the Lumpa Church became a seminal part of the organization’s teachings and preaching strategies. They were uplifting compositions, religious and evangelical, that were sung in the original Bemba language of the people. The Lumpa Church was the first and only congregation in the country that allowed Zambians to worship God in their own native tongue.
GREG: Lenshina claimed that Jesus Christ taught her most of the hymns she composed. Since such a vital mission of the Lumpa was to integrate African culture into Christian beliefs, Lenshina saw the composition of these hymns as a way of translating the gospel into a familiar culture that her followers would be able to relate with.
VANESSA: Of all the legacy that the Lumpa Church left behind, these hymns are by far its most lasting and transcending. Some of these hymns are still continuously sung all through mainstream churches in Africa to this day, even those that are not affiliated with the Lumpa beliefs.
GREG: But the hymns also acquired a political dimension. On an academic retrospective done around Lenshina’s movement, religious scholars Mutale. M Kaunda and Sarojini Nadar believe that singing these hymns, in which they were praising the power of God in their native language when most of the missionaries insisted on worshipping in Latin, empowered her followers to gradually start to resist Western colonization.
VANESSA: This would be a recurring element with Lenshina and the Lumpa Church. Her teachings and actions would always acquire a bigger political dimension that resonated tremendously with the people of Africa.
GREG: This is not a complete surprise. One of the core beliefs of the church, after all, was its rejection of any earthly authority. Lenshina believed that all humanity had been corrupted, and authorities like government and other religious institutions were infected with pride, dishonesty, and banality, so obeying their orders would be an endorsement of their behavior.
VANESSA: As the number of followers inside the Church grew, Lenshina established a great number of ministers and preachers that operated beneath her, and they set up what was essentially their own tribunals of justice. They decided what behavior was acceptable within its members, and what punishments will they receive if they disobeyed the beliefs of the Church, regardless of local laws. It was all relatively tame, but the self-reliance and governance that the Church seemed to be displaying would soon become a big problem.
(OMINOUS TRIBAL music plays in the background…)
GREG: By the end of 1955, less than a year before Lenshina started the Lumpa Church, her first temple had been erected. Pilgrims from all over the continent came to surrender harmful objects and to get baptized by her.
VANESSA: Her popularity grew at an alarming rate. Word spread like wildfire about her spiritual and healing abilities, and the powerful teachings that welcomed and embraced African culture. Soon everyone in Zambia had heard the stories about how Lenshina was able to heal the sick and would shelter people in need, and people would come in hordes to experience it for themselves.
GREG: People started referring to Lenshina as Maayo, which means “mother”, or Lubuto Iwa Chalo, “the light of the world.”
VANESSA: Or simply as the “Queen”. She seemed to have been living up to the literal interpretation of her Christian name.
(UBPEAT, UPLIFTING music)
Part 4 – A Growing Power
VANESSA: On 1957, the Lumpa Church was registered under the Societies of Ordinance in Africa. The number of followers then is estimated at somewhere between 50 and 150 thousand, more than what both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Scotland had at the time.
GREG: Whereas these two had been struggling to gain new converts for years, Lenshina would perform dozens of new baptisms every day, a ceremony that she needed to perform herself, and that was considered the only Lumpa act of observance.
VANESSA: Just two years after its founding, the Lumpa Church had effectively become the fastest-growing religious movement in Africa.
(The LARGE CROWD CHANTS along to the AFRICAN HYMNS in gospel-like fashion. EXCITEMENT and ADORATION)
GREG: By the end of 1957, branches for the Lumpa Church had been inaugurated in the districts of Chinsali, Kasama, Mpika, Lundazi, Isoka, and Kawambwa. All together, they numbered over 150 churches. Lenshina had constructed a network of congregations that spread across the most remote and neglected parts of the country. She had done what the Catholic missionaries, the British colonial government, and the local tribes had failed to do for hundreds of years. She had united Zambia.
(CHANTING of the crowd climaxes…)
(MUSIC slowly fades out…)
VANESSA: In just over two years, the Lumpa Church had managed to become one of the farthest reaching and most influential organizations in Zambia. By the winter of 1957, Lenshina and her closest associates, which included her husband Petros and friends that had been around her for pretty much all her life, decided to build one giant central cathedral for the Church with the contributions that the followers had been making. She chose her home district of Chinsali as the place for it.
GREG: It took several months to build, but the year after, in 1958, a large cathedral had been erected. The Church referred to it as the Sione, alluding to the name commonly used for the city of Jerusalem, or the land of Israel as a whole, in the Jewish and Catholic scriptures. This is because Lenshina believed that this temple would be where Jesus Christ would have his second coming, and it was intended to be the place that would inaugurate Heaven on Earth.
VANESSA: This cathedral was specifically designed to look like the Catholic and Presbyterian churches that had been established all over the country through colonization. However, they made the walls exactly one foot larger in every direction, thus making the Lumpa Church Sione the biggest, most imposing religious building in the country.
Many people saw this as a political act in which the Lumpa Church was trying to make a statement of superiority against other religions in the area. Which, in the when it comes to the number of followers it had and its influence across the country, was not necessarily untrue.
GREG: The Lumpa Church had gained such a massive following not only because of Lenshina’s teachings that welcomed all kinds of people and integrated local culture into their religion. It was also because the beliefs and stances of the church aligned quite nicely with the sentiments of independence that had been simmering under the surface of British colonies in Africa for several years.
VANESSA: We will discuss more about these other independence movements on episode two, but the rise of the Lumpa Church coincided with the rise of activist groups that were fighting against the British government and the oppression of native people. Many of these ideals coincided with the ways of living and philosophies that Lenshina spread to even the most remote corners of Zambia.
GREG: The fact that the Lumpa Church integrated native culture into its teachings was considered one of the earliest forms of the nationalism that would lead to independence. It was reclaiming the country’s roots and applying them into something as big and important as religious practice.
VANESSA: Lenshina was an ordinary woman. She was never a part of the elites that came in ships spreading Western education, and that would take positions of power in their cities and communities. She was just one of them, and her appeal strongly relied on her ability to communicate with the everyday men and women of the country. She spoke them as equals, not as people that needed to be educated, like the missionaries did.
GREG: The origins of the church can be more easily traced and compared to grassroots movements of activism than to any other form of religious or political doctrine. This word of mouth tactic is a device that has been used time and time again through history among people fighting for the independence of their nation, and Lenshina not only capitalized on it, but built the entire Lumpa Church around it.
VANESSA: The Church also opposed dated and abusive colonization practices like slave riding, tribute to government, and forced labor through the culture of pure and honest living that Lenshina preached on. And, as we discussed before, they had established their own system of justice separate from any local or colonial laws.
GREG: Even if Lenshina did not necessarily start out with this particular mission, and it was the political and societal circumstances of the country that allowed it, the Lumpa Church had become a completely self-ministering, self-propagating, and self-reliant church with a rising political power.
VANESSA: And it was starting to become a big problem for other authorities…
(MUSIC climaxes and fades out…)
AD BREAK 2
Part 5 – A Growing Threat
VANESSA: By the end of the 1950s, the Lumpa Church had become not only the most followed religious organization in Zambia, but also a growing threat to the country’s political climate because of its pro-African ideology.
GREG: As Lenshina slowly gained more power and recognition among local communities, other authorities in the area did their best to try and bring down her popularity and credibility. They tried everything from fraud scandals to claims of demon possession.
(OMINOUS, slow-building tribal music…)
VANESSA: The White Fathers, who as you may remember were the Roman Catholic faction of the missionaries in Africa, saw the Lumpa Church as a hoax from the very beginning. They were convinced that this was all just an elaborate plan by Lenshina’s husband Petros, to financially benefit from the large contributions that they were getting.
(The CLINKING and CHINKING of coins…)
GREG: They had good basis to believe that though, as some years before rumors spread about a woman in the region of Tanganyika, which is present-day Tanzania, that claimed to have a vision from Jesus Christ and a small movement formed around her, but it was proved to be a scam for her to get rich.
VANESSA: But the Lumpa Church had grown too strong and their followers too faithful in Lenshina to fall for these defamation tactics, especially since the rumors were based on allegations that Lenshina had continuously proved to be false. So the White Fathers decided to shift their focus from Lenshina’s “earthly” aspirations, which they knew was an unbreakable argument for her congregation, into her spiritual life. The White Fathers held the strong suspicion that Lenshina was actually possessed by an evil spirit.
(A DEMONIC ECHO in the distance, laughing…)
GREG: It’s not known if this was a rumor started by the missionaries with the goal to defame Lenshina, or a true concern that they held among their ranks, but they constantly preached during their services about how her appeal and supposed powers were not coming from a true Christian source, but rather a demon.
VANESSA: As scholars Gerrie Terr Harr and Stephen Ellis point out in their religious studies about spirit possession and healing in Zambia, both Christianity and native African spiritual traditions hold the strong belief that the human body is always in a vulnerable state and open for demon possession. What the Christian call Lucifer, Satan, or simply the Devil, African communities, among them the Bemba tribe that Lenshina belonged to, refer to these spirits as ngulus.
GREG: Missionaries tried to convince both their own dwindling congregations, and the hestitant converts at the Lumpa Church that Lenshina was actually possessed by a demon, either calling it Satan or a ngulu, trying to appeal to the beliefs of their audience. However, their basis for this claim was very thin, and Lenshina had a stronger argument against it.
VANESSA: According to Bemba tradition, the ngulu spirits that possess a person can only fall within a very specific group of categories: a Kaluwe, or the spirit of a hunter; a Cilumbu, the spirit from a land in the East; a Luapula, a water spirit; a Baleka, the spirit of an African that is not Bemba or has been Westernized; and a Mukalai, the spirit of a white person. Lenshina never claimed to be possessed, or showed signs that she had been guided by someone else but herself after she got the vision.
GREG: This argument was solid enough for her massive group of followers that were of Bemba origins, and those who still believed she was under some sort of Christian Satanic were too few to really make an influence. This scare tactic was also a failure.
VANESSA: But the Christian leaders were not the only ones that were unhappy and worried about the growing power of the Lumpa Church.
GREG: The chiefs from all the Bemba tribes were mostly supportive of the Church’s rise in power. They appreciated the attempt that it was making to integrate their roots and traditions into their religious beliefs, and like we have discussed, feelings of national independence had been growing among the tribes, so many of them identified those beliefs inside the Lumpa.
VANESSA: However, the tribes, and in particular the Chitimukulu (which as we discussed was the sole leader that ruled above all other clans), started to grow suspicious of Lenshina once her followers began to claim that her powers and authority was bigger than theirs.
GREG: The Bemba supported Lenshina when she went against the missionaries, since they were a people that had oppressed and colonized them all as a whole. But it got them really upset that her Church was now also disregarding their own traditions, and operated outside the tribal system that had been in place for generations.
VANESSA: One by one, every one of the Bemba clans in the Zambia regions took away their support of Lenshina and the Lumpa Church. At the end, the only one that remained behind her was her own tribe, the Crocodile Clan; in no small part because most of the members of that clan had also climbed the ranks of the Lumpa Church and now held important positions of power.
GREG: This was something that had started to stand out to outsiders, as well. People close to Lenshina and the inside the ranks of the Lumpa Church noticed that there was a great disparity between the spiritual mission that she was preaching, and the display of wealth that the people around her were showing, especially her husband and the high-ranking ministers.
VANESSA: But Lenshina never let the vast amount of power and wealth pull her away from her humble beginnings and her all-encompassing preaching. She never lost sight of what her mission was, even if the Church as an organization slowly gained more power and influence than she could have ever anticipated. One of the high-ranking ministers of the church at the time, Reverend Stone, recalls that this unforeseen responsibility put Lenshina under severe stress. But she was steadfast and determined in keeping with the mission she believed she had.
GREG: By the end of the 1950s, Lumpa Church had gained more religious power than two the biggest Western faiths in the area, and more political influence than the local governments and native tribes.
As it headed into the 60s, the Church would enter the height of its power and outreach. But it also would be the period of time where the tensions with these two organizations would dramatically escalate…
VANESSA: ….and reach exploding and deadly results.
(GUNSHOTS in the distance. A CRY FOR HELP. AN EXPLOSION)
(OMINOUS, TRIBAL music starts to play…)
VANESSA: On the second part of this episode, we’re going dive into the origins of the nationalist organizations that saw the Lumpa Church as a threat for the Independence movement, as well as the years-long battle that the Church had to have for its place in the community, up until the point of its dismantling, and the arrest and final days of Lenshina as a prophet.
GREG: But before that, we’re gonna leave you with a quote from one of Lenshina’s followers. One that perfectly embodies the place that the Lumpa Church found itself in at this point in time: in higher authority than religion and government, with a congregation of thousands of people that were entirely devoted to Lenshina’s teachings…
(OMINOUS music INCREASES in TEMPO…)
VANESSA: We know no government, no chief, we only know Lenshina.”
(MUSIC climaxes and fades out…)
(THEME MUSIC)
VANESSA: Thanks again for tuning into Cults.
GREG: If you want to listen to any previous episodes of “Cults” you can find them
on ApplePodcasts, TuneIn, GooglePlay, Stitcher, and Spotify, or on our website, Parcast dot com. Spelled P-A-R-C-A-S-T dot com.
VANESSA: If you like what you hear, please leave a 5 star review or tell us what you
think on social media; we are on Facebook and Instagram as @parcast and Twitter @parcastnetwork.
GREG: It seems simple, but it really helps our show.
(THEME MUSIC fades out)