Indigenizing Christianity: Indigenous instruments in the Zimbabwean United Methodist Church

Abstract

This study examines indigenization in the Zimbabwean United Methodist Church. It utilizes historical analysis of archival data to investigate the role of indigenous instrumentations, songs, and music in the indigenization process. The premise is that traditional instruments are operative in the continual indigenization process and play a fundamental role in the 21st-century Zimbabwean United Methodist Church. It further underscores indigenous instruments as a method of theologizing, identity expression and self-imagination. The study concludes that indigenous instruments represent and express United Methodist Church congregants’ spiritual and political liberation in post-missionary Zimbabwe.