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Article: Troubled in spirit: the surprising direction of African Christianity.(THE WORLD)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- March 10, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Nairobi, Kenya
A WOMAN like Margaret Wanjiru, the self-anointed bishop of one of Kenya's largest churches, could not have existed even a generation ago in Africa. That she does now owes largely to the worldwide evangelical reawakening that first got its legs in the United States.
Like American megachurches, Wanjiru's Jesus Is Alive Ministries has a formidable flagship establishment: a converted warehouse in central Nairobi that comfortably seats 5,000 people, though thousands more regularly pack into her services. These services rely on free-style prayer, catchy hymns, and sermonizing to keyboard synchronization--all tropes of American evangelical ...