The East African Revival

The East African Revival emerged in the 1930s as a populist movement seeking the spiritual and moral reform of the mission churches of East Africa. It became a contentious and formative cultural and religious force within and outside the churches across the twentieth and now into the twenty-first centuries. The revival has left a distinct and lasting impression on the life of East African societies. Since the 1990s, scholarship on the revival has moved beyond its earlier focus upon whether it was—in the view of missionaries, converts, and opponents—a movement of God. Scholars have increasingly contextualized the movement with respect to East Africa’s cultural history and complex political life.