Terence Ranger

Terence Osborn Ranger is a prominent African historian, focusing much of his work on the colonial History of Zimbabwe. Much of his work was conducted in the 1960s and '70s, as part of the post-colonial generation of historians.

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• Churches which emphasise ecstatic possession by the spirit, which foster prophecy and spiritual healing and exorcism have been seen as continuations of African belief and practice. Yet these very features, which are taken as being most African, are in reality the most Christian aspect of such churches. They spring directly from increasingly strong tendencies in world Christianity in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They spring in fact either from anti-establishment Christian Pentecostalism, as it developed in Europe and North America, or from evangelical revivalist tendencies within the major mission churches themselves. Few independent church leaders have claimed to be continuing African traditions.
  • Religion, Development and African Christian Identity, page 31