Faith & Community
Landmark
Alice Lenshina
1920 – 1978
Founded the Lumpa Church, the largest independent religious movement Zambia produced
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Zambia Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
A woman from Chinsali who said she had died and been sent back, and built a church that drew in a hundred thousand followers — the largest indigenous religious movement in Zambian history. Its confrontation with the new state killed some seven hundred people.
Alice Mulenga Lenshina was born around 1920 near Chinsali in Northern Rhodesia. After an experience she described as dying and being returned with a commission, she began preaching in 1953 and founded the Lumpa Church.
It grew into the largest independent church Zambia has produced, drawing a hundred thousand or more members with a message against witchcraft and a liturgy in Bemba, led by a woman in a religious landscape run by European missionaries and male elders. It is a landmark in African independent Christianity and in the history of Zambian women.
It grew into the largest independent church Zambia has produced, drawing a hundred thousand or more members with a message against witchcraft and a liturgy in Bemba, led by a woman in a religious landscape run by European missionaries and male elders. It is a landmark in African independent Christianity and in the history of Zambian women.
- Wikipedia — Alice Lenshina
- Dictionary of African Christian Biography — Lenshina Mulenga Mubisha, Alice
- Wikipedia — Lumpa Church
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