Ng’angas – Zambian Healers-Diviners and their Relationship with Pentecostal Christianity: The Intermingling of Pre-Christian Beliefs and Christianity

Abstract

The aim of the article is to establish if pre-Christian beliefs in Zambia are influencing the Pentecostal Christianity, and to establish what the healers-diviners’ relationship with different Pentecostal churches is. During field studies undertaken by both authors, it has been established that many Bantu speaking people still believe in some aspects of their native religions, especially in the powers of the ancestral spirits. Christianity is the dominant religion in Zambia, but it is far from homogenous. Apart from world religions like Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, there is a plethora of Pentecostal, Charismatic, and grassroot churches, many of them not immune to ancient spirit veneration. People who are believed to cooperate with spirits are called healers-diviners who are believed to be called to their profession by spirits. A great majority is Christian who combines Christianity with their native beliefs. The field studies in 2021 were sponsored by the Polish National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki), Poland, project no. 2017/25/N/ HS1/02500.