Where many books have been written about New Religious Groups (often known by its derogatory term of sect, or cult) in the USA and Europe, little is written about places like Thailand, or the Sahara for example.

While established or standard religion is usually seen as conservative in its attitude to change, new religion is thought of as radical in this regard. However, in certain contexts, as in  Africa during the colonial era, it was the new religions that attempted, albeit not indiscriminately, to preserve 'cultural capital', while the so-called historic or mission churches, and mainstream Islam, attempted to transform the local religious landscape. Some of the more successfully NMRs are the African Independent Churches (AICs) - of new Islamic move­ments such as the Murid Brotherhood of Senegal, and of Neo-Traditional movements such as the Mungiki (or Muingiki) movement in Kenya.

The AICs that began to emerge in southern Africa in the 1880s have come to be known as Ethiopian and/or Zionist churches. The term 'Ethiopian' describes a desire for freedom, which included the demand for equality, and self-rule for Africans in church life. It is also a descriptive term for Africa as a chosen land. The word appears to have been used for the first time to desig­nate a church started in Losotho by Mangena Makone, a former Wesleyan minister. One of the largest and most influential of the Zionist churches, amaNazaretha (Nazareth and/or Nazerite Baptist Church) was founded in Zululand, South Africa, in 1913, by the withdrawn and soft spoken, Mdlimawafa Mloyisa Isaiah Shembe (1867-1935).

A former farm-hand with no formal education, Shembe became a well­known member of the Methodist and later the African Native Baptist Church, which had seceded from the White Baptist Church. He began to speak to fellow church members of his privileged access to God's mind through dreams and visions, in which he was commanded to leave his four wives and children and to renounce the use of Western medicine. One of Shembe's first innovations was to baptize converts in the sea, by triune emersion, a practice derived from the liturgy of the Zion Church in Illinois and adapted to the local situation. It was later adopted by many churches in South Africa and widely regarded as a means of healing. Healing is here understood in a holistic sense, covering all aspects of one's well-being, physical, spiritual, psychological, moral and social. Among other practices introduced by Shembe were the removal of shoes in worship, the wearing of long hair - a sign of resistance - abstention from pork, night communion with the washing of the feet, and the seventh day Sabbath.

Baptism became the main ritual of the amaNazaretha church and the sacred wooden drum - not used in mission churches, which regarded it as a separatist symbol - became its main ritual instrument. The import of the hymn was also radically changed. In this and other Zionist churches, and in the AIC setting generally, it changed from being primarily a statement in verse about certain religious facts into a sacred rhythm expressed chiefly through the medium of sacred dance that paralleled Zulu dances. Following a Zulu pattern, dances were also introduced as public expressions of faith and identity at the January Feast of the Tabernacles and the July festival of the amaNazaretha church itself. These festivals were held in God's earthly resi­dences, the holy mountains in Durban of Inhlangakazi and Ekuphakameni.

The AICs of South Africa however, could be as critical of traditional spiritual and cultural values and practices as they were of Western values and practices. This is evident fro the prohibitions they introduced, including the ban on the eating of pork,  the eating of the meat of an animal that had not been slaughtered, or drinking of the blood of animals, and on the use of alcohol and tobacco, practices acceptable to traditionalists.

Parallels to the amaNazaretha can be found across Africa, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where evidence exists of an eighteem century AIC, the Antonian movement of Kimpa Vita (Dona Beatrice). A more recent AIC from the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the Kimbangu Church, founded in 1921 by the prophet Simon Kimbangu (c.1887-1951) and known as the Eglise de Jesus Christ sur la Terre par Le Prophete Sim Kimbangu (henceforth EJCSK). This is the largest AIC in Africa.

Like other African prophets of the period, Kimbangu preached against the use of traditional rituals to combat evil. In contrast to other prophets 8 church leaders, Kimbangu also emphasized the importance of monogamy and spoke of the duty on all to obey the Government. Like the amaNazaretha and the Aladura churches of West Africa the EJCSK introduced the use of blessed water for healing, purification and protection. It has also become like other AICs, a major enterprise with schools, hospitals, brick-build factories and various other large companies.

The Belgian Colonial Government feared the growth of this kind of movement, and, despite Kimbangu's protestations of loyalty, it had him court-martialled without any defense on charges that included sedition and hostility to whites. He was found guilty, sentence 120 lashes and then to death. The latter sentence was commuted to life in solitary confinement, in Lumumbashi, 2,000 kilometres from his home in the village of Nkamba in the western region of what was then known as Belgian Congo and is presently the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Throughout the colonial era Kimbangu's followers were persecuted and deported, and by this means and through forced migration caused by war and poverty the movement began to internationalize. A clandestine movement also began operating underground until 1959 when EJCSK, six months before independence in 1960, received official recognition. By this considerable fragmentation had occurred and Kimbangu had little time and opportunity to reunite his Church before his death in 1951. His remains re-interred in his home village of Nkamba, which was given the name Nkamba-Jerusalem, a place of pilgrimage.

East Africa has seen the emergence of several new religions some of which have completely lost their way and ended in violence, the notable being the Lord's Resistance Army and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God.

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), started in Acholi in northern Uganda in the 1980s when self-proclaimed prophets announced as their mission the overthrow of the National Resistance Army (NRA), which at the time was under the command of Yoweri Museveni who later became President of Uganda. Among the prophets of resistance was Alice Auma from Gulu in Acholi, who claimed to be possessed by a previously unknown Christian spirit named Lakwena, meaning 'messenger' or 'apostle' in Acholi. In pre-colonial and pre-Christian times possession by jok (spirit) of humans, animals and material objects could endow them with the power to heal or make the land fertile and turn an immoral, decadent society into a moral and upright one. Such possession could also result in harm in the form of moral, social and natural catastrophes. In Alice Lakwena's case - she came to be called after the name of her possessing spirit - she declared that her possession had endowed her with the powers to heal society.

This kind of mission made a fit with the Christian notion of spirits, which had begun to be spread in the region from the early years of the twentieth century. According to this understanding, spirits were thought to heal and purify from witchcraft without harming the one who was responsible for bringing it about, thus breaking the cycle of retaliatory bewitching. This came to be contrasted with the traditional spirits or joki (plural of jok) who were believed not only to heal and release from witchcraft but also to kill the one who had perpetrated the affliction.

It was this new, Christian understanding that, under Lakwena's guidance, Alice tried to advance by working as a healer and diviner. She soon resorted, however, to the traditional interpretation and in August 1986 she organized the 'Holy Spirit Mobile Forces' (HSMF), a movement that was joined by many regular soldiers for the purpose of waging war on the Government, witches and 'impure' soldiers. Initial successes against the NRA were attributed by Alice Lakwena to 'Holy Spirit Tactics' - a method of warfare that combined modern techniques with magical practices - and led to further support from among the Acholi population at large for her armed resistance.

In 1987 Lakwena's army of around 10,000 soldiers, who in theory were under the command of spirits, reached within 30 miles of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, before being defeated by government forces. While many of the rebel soldiers were killed, Lakwena escaped to nearby Kenya where she continues to reside.

The ‘spirit’ Lakwena then allegedly took ‘possession’ of Alice's father Severino Lukoya, who for a short time led the various remaining HSMF forces - these were never fully united into one movement - until the one time soldier in another of Acholi's rebel groups, Joseph Kony, took over. Kony was also from Gulu and claims to be a cousin of Alice. Sometime after Kony took control from Severino he renamed the movement the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

The emphasis was placed on the renunciation of material possessions, that were to be handed over to the leadership, abstinence from sexual unions and the importance of silence. Sign language was the main means of everyday communication between the members. All of this was rationalized by reference to visions that told of the imminent end of the world (1999 was late given for this). Usually when such a prediction is not fulfilled devotees react in different ways. If free to do so, some move on quietly and by putting the whole episode attempt to put together again their fragmented lives. Others accept the explanation that the End did not come about not because the prediction was wrong but on account of their own lack of faith, and so on.

In the case of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Command­, when the prediction of the End failed to come to pass strong differences surfaced between the members, some deciding to leave but not before their possessions were returned to them. Some of these members were put to death before a fire on March 17, 2000 in which others also tragically died. Others reportedly committed suicide or were eliminated later. Kibwetere and Mwerinde both escaped, along with an unspecified number of members, with those who died at an estimated number of about 780.

Since the early 20th century thus, fully 40 percent of Africa's population moved from traditional religions to ‘different shades of Christianity.’ During the 1970s a new wave of Charismatic Christianity that started from within existing churches began to sweep across Africa. But also revitalization movements grounded in the indigenous religious tradition have continued, not infrequent in Africa among people who are persuaded that Western­ization and modernization have brought them little but suffering and cultural degradation. While some of these movements have a local or regional vision of revitalization of indigenous culture, that of others is pan-African.

In the 1930s a movement of Nigerian (Yoruba) Christians formed the neo­traditional church of the Ijo Orunmila to ensure that core elements of their religious culture were not destroyed. Again in Nigeria, in the 1960s the Arousa movement composed mainly of Bini beliefs and practices merged with the neo-traditional National Church of Nigeria, to form Godianism, which focused on belief in a single God of Africa as understood in ancient Egyptian sources.

The Mungiki, or Muingiki, is another revitalization movement to have emerged in recent times, also in East Africa. Like a number of other move­ments in Uganda and elsewhere, not all of them religious, Mungiki was started by two schoolboys Ndura Waruinge, grandson of a Mau Mau warrior, General Waruinge, with whose spirit he often communicates, and Maina Njenga, the recipient of a vision from the God Ngai, who called him to lead his people out of bondage to Western ideologies and ways of living. The movement began as the Tent of the Living God movement and has appealed in the main to impoverished youth and young men and women, who lacking the resources to enter secondary education, are clearly inspired by the Mau Mau struggle for their land, freedom and indigenous culture.

Following the practice of the Mau Mau, whom they aspire to imitate not only in their thinking but also in their lifestyle, the Mungiki wear dreadlocks and undergo initiation by means of which they are purified or cleansed of the impure, contaminating influences of the West. The genitals are cut and an oath is taken that binds them to secrecy. In their prayers they ask the God Ngai, who dwells on Mount Kenya, for mercy. The Mungiki disciplinary code shows its rejection of Western values, including the use of tobacco and alcohol, and the movement will often employ extremely harsh methods to enforce this code. In what it forbids the Mungiki movement resembles Evangelical Christianity. Although hostile to the type of Christianity brought by the missionaries, the Mungiki are not opposed to Christianity in principle or to Islam or to other religions.

This brings us to the recent debates about whether Christianity or Islam is spreading faster in Africa- clearly however they're both on the rise - and sometimes are the source of tension. Thus enter our most current example, the "True Message" missions, allegedly unifying the two theologies. Also engaged in traditional healing, for example a women with menstruation problems might be prescribed 91 laps of "running deliverance" each day. Others say they've been cured of barrenness, mental illness, and other troubles.

One of their Pastors explains that his father was an herbalist and that both Muslims and Christians would come to him for healing. Although he grew up Muslim, and has been to Mecca on pilgrimage several times, he couldn't comprehend Nigeria's sectarian strife. He now considers himself a Christian, "but that doesn't mean Islam is bad."
Quite the opposite. Next to his mosque is a televangelist's dream - an auditorium with 1,500 seats, banks of speakers, a live band, and klieg lights. On Sundays the choir switches easily between Muslim and Christian songs, and the Pastor preaches from both the Bible and the Koran. His sermons are often broadcast on local TV.

In Nigeria's religious city of Jos (short for "Jesus Our Savior") the government says 50,000 people died between 1999 and 2004 in sectarian clashes. Until a peace deal last year, Sudan's northern Muslims and southern Christians were at war for two decades. Thus clearly, the religious revolution is still shaking out. And hundreds of church-sponsored banners scream out, "It's your day of RECOVERY @ LAST where life's pains are healed" or "Jesus Christ: A friend indeed. Even in times of need!"

Clearly, the religious revolution is still shaking out. "People are converting rapidly, but they don't necessarily have instruction" in the details of their faiths, says Boston University's Professor Robert. Nor have they had "time for their belief system to solidify." It is, she says, "still shifting." She argues that eventually the faithful will choose one religion or another, and the hybrids will fade away.

But the ferment is quite evident on the chaotic streets of Lagos, which is home to some 10 million people. Hundreds of church-sponsored banners scream out, "It's your day of RECOVERY @ LAST where life's pains are healed" or "Jesus Christ: A friend indeed! Even in times of need!!"

Finally, sitting in a wrought-iron throne, swathed in silky white fabric, there is the  founder of "Chrislam" who explains that : "The same sun that dries the clothes of Muslims also dries the clothes of Christians." Stroking his beard, the man named Tela Tella says, "I don't believe God loves Christians any more than Muslims."

His followers calls him His Royal Holiness, The Messenger, Ifeoluwa or "The Will of God." Since the religion's founding two decades ago, this small band has been gathering almost daily to hear his message of inclusiveness - that Christians and Muslims, "who are sons of Abraham, can be one." One the left, Tela Tella, on the right, one of his acolyte’s:

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