Lumpa Church
Christian new religious movement in Zambia
The Lumpa Church, an independent Christian church, was established in 1953 by "Alice" Lenshina Mulenga in the village of Kasama, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). The church promoted a blend of Christian and traditional religious values and practices, including a belief in the role of women as spiritual mediums. Conflict between the church and the emerging, United National Independence Party, led to an uprising from July-October 1964.
Origin
The group began with the ideals of Alice Mulenga Lubusha who rechristened herself Alice Lenshina or essentially "Alice Regina." She claimed to have undergone a temporary death, during which angels brought her before Jesus, who instructed her to return to earth as his witness and to be the bearer of a purifying message. This formation reflected a wider movement where African Indigenous churches were established by people who were unhappy with features of Christianity preached by missionaries. Lenshina's criticism of witchcraft, sorcery, polygamy, and alcohol made the Lumpa church popular. The group was what could be deemed the "eradication movement" in African religion. 'Lumpa' comes from the Bemba word, meaning 'excelling all others, most important.'
By 1955, Lenshina was leading a clear separatist movement, which spread from the Northern province into the Copperbelt, Broken Hill, and Lusaka. Members of the church contributed significant amounts of time and money. In 1958, cathedral was built in Kasomo, Lenshina's home village.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Lumpa Church” is christian new religious movement in Zambia. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Lumpa, Church and Christian, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q627441. VIAF identifies the subject as 127997129. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1964, 1955 and 1958.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lumpa Church” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.