He was educated in Church Missionary Society schools and baptized an Anglican (1943). During the 1940s he trained for a career with the railway, but was ‘called’ to the priesthood and attended theological college instead (1950 - 1954). He was ordained a priest in Nairobi and then posted to Eldoret in western Kenya. During the mid-1950s, when the followers of the East African revival movement provoked controversy, he remained a strong advocate of unity within the established church. Nevertheless, he clashed with his superiors and was demoted. He responded by breaking from the Anglican Church in Africa (known as Johera) with a large dissident faction. His church flourished, and by 1971 he claimed 85,000 followers and had established a network of schools.

Mark R. Lipschutz and R. Kent Rasmussen.

Bibliography

Welbourn, F. B. and B. A. Ogot. A Place To Feel At Home: A Study of Two Independent Churches In Western Kenya. London: Oxford University Press, 1966.

Barrett, David B. “Who’s Who of African Independent Church Leaders.” Risk (Geneva, W.C.C.) 7(3) (1971): 23-34.

Ogot, B. A. Historical Dictionary of Kenya. Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1981.

This article is reproduced, with permission, from Dictionary of African Historical Biography, 2nd edition, copyright © 1986, by Mark R. Lipschutz and R. Kent Rasmussen, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California. All rights reserved.