Zionism, southern Africa’s most popular religious movement, is evolving

IN 1892 A captivating Scottish preacher arrived in Chicago. John Alexander Dowie’s church, known as the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion, proved popular. By 1900 Dowie had enough money to set up a dedicated community, known as Zion City, on the shore of Lake Michigan.Dowie wanted missionaries to go forth across the world. In most places they failed to find many converts but Zionism did take off in another newly seething metropolis: Johannesburg. In “The People’s Zion”, a book published in 2018, Joel Cabrita of Stanford University offers several explanations, such as its appeal to the poor, its disavowal of racial and ethnic differences, and its use of faith healing at a time of scepticism towards mainstream medicine. It also helped that black mine workers spread the gospel on visits home to rural areas.