Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control of the movement and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as Rastafari, Rastafarians, or Rastas.
The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a civil war in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted for 14 years, from its outbreak in 1850 until the fall of Taiping-controlled Nanjing—which they had renamed Tianjing "heavenly capital"—in 1864. However, the last rebel forces were not defeated until August 1871. Estimates of the conflict's death toll range between 20 and 30 million people, representing 5–10% of China's population at that time. While the Qing ultimately defeated the rebellion, the victory came at a great cost to the state's economic and political viability.
Messianism is the belief in the advent of a messiah who acts as the savior of a group of people. Messianism originated as a Zoroastrian religious belief and followed to Abrahamic religions, but other religions also have messianism-related concepts. Religions with a messiah concept include Hinduism (Kalki) Judaism (Mashiach), Christianity (Christ), Islam, Druze faith, Zoroastrianism (Saoshyant), Buddhism (Maitreya), Taoism, and Bábism.
The Maji Maji Rebellion, was an armed rebellion of Africans against German colonial rule in German East Africa. The war was triggered by German colonial policies designed to force the indigenous population to grow cotton for export. The war lasted from 1905 to 1907, during which 75,000 to 300,000 died, overwhelmingly from famine. The end of the war was followed by a period of famine, known as the Great Hunger (ukame), caused in large part by the scorched-earth policies used by governor von Götzen to suppress the rebellion. These tactics have been described by scholars as genocidal.
Religion in Africa is multifaceted and has been a major influence on art, culture and philosophy. Today, the continent's various populations and individuals are mostly adherents of Christianity, Islam, and to a lesser extent several traditional African religions. In Christian or Islamic communities, religious beliefs are also sometimes characterized with syncretism with the beliefs and practices of traditional religions.
John Nkologo Chilembwe was a Baptist pastor, educator and revolutionary who trained as a minister in the United States, returning to Nyasaland in 1901. He was an early figure in the resistance to colonialism in Nyasaland (Malawi), opposing both the treatment of Africans working in agriculture on European-owned plantations and the colonial government's failure to promote the social and political advancement of Africans. Soon after the outbreak of the First World War, Chilembwe organised an unsuccessful armed uprising against colonial rule. Today, Chilembwe is celebrated as a hero of independence in some African countries, and John Chilembwe Day is observed annually on 15 January in Malawi.
The Chilembwe uprising was a rebellion against British colonial rule in Nyasaland which took place in January 1915. It was led by John Chilembwe, an American-educated Baptist minister. Based around his church in the village of Mbombwe in the south-east of the colony, the leaders of the revolt were mainly from an emerging black middle class. They were motivated by grievances against the British colonial system, which included forced labour, racial discrimination and new demands imposed on the African population following the outbreak of World War I.
Religious socialism is a type of socialism based on religious values. Members of several major religions have found that their beliefs about human society fit with socialist principles and ideas. As a result, religious socialist movements have developed within these religions. Those movements include Buddhist socialism, Christian socialism, Islamic socialism, and Jewish socialism. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Online, socialism is a "social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore, everything that people produce is in some sense a social product, and everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a share in it. Society as a whole, therefore, should own or at least control property for the benefit of all its members. [...] Early Christian communities also practiced the sharing of goods and labour, a simple form of socialism subsequently followed in certain forms of monasticism. Several monastic orders continue these practices today".
The White Lotus is a syncretic religious and political movement which forecasts the imminent advent of the "King of Light" (明王), i.e., the future Buddha Maitreya. As White Lotus sects developed, they appealed to many Han Chinese who found solace in the worship of the Queen Mother of the West.
The White Lotus Rebellion was a rebellion initiated by followers of the White Lotus movement during the Qing dynasty of China. Motivated by millenarian Buddhists who promised the immediate return of the Buddha, it erupted out of social and economic discontent in the impoverished provinces of Hubei, Shaanxi, and Sichuan. The rebellion began in 1794, when large groups of rebels claiming White Lotus affiliations rose up within the mountainous region that separated Sichuan province from Hubei and Shaanxi provinces. A smaller precursor to the main rebellion broke out in 1774, under the leadership of the martial-arts and herbal-healing expert Wang Lun in Shandong province of northern China.
Stephen John Hunt is a British professor of sociology at the University of the West of England. Prior to his appointment at the University of West England in 2001, Hunt had taught at the Sociology Department at the University of Reading for thirteen years, as well as in the Religious Studies Department at the University of Surrey, Roehampton.
In religious studies and folkloristics, folk religion, traditional religion, or vernacular religion comprises various forms and expressions of religion that are distinct from the official doctrines and practices of organized religion. The precise definition of folk religion varies among scholars. Sometimes also termed popular belief, it consists of ethnic or regional religious customs under the umbrella of a religion; but outside official doctrine and practices.
Black nationalism is a nationalist movement which seeks representation for black people as a distinct national identity, especially in racialized, colonial and postcolonial societies. Its earliest proponents saw it as a way to advocate for democratic representation in culturally plural societies or to establish self-governing independent nation-states for black people. Modern black nationalism often aims for the social, political, and economic empowerment of black communities within white majority societies, either as an alternative to assimilation or as a way to ensure greater representation and equality within predominantly Eurocentric or white cultures.
Religious communism is a form of communism that incorporates religious principles. Scholars have used the term to describe a variety of social or religious movements throughout history that have favored the common ownership of property. There are many historical and ideological similarities between Religious communism and Liberation Theology.
Religious syncretism is the blending of religious belief systems into a new system, or the incorporation of other beliefs into an existing religious tradition.
The Yellow Sand Society, also known as Yellow Way Society, and Yellow Gate Society, was a rural secret society and folk religious sect in northern China during the 19th and 20th century.
The ideas, people and events that contributed to John Chilembwe's motivation and influenced him to undertake the uprising in 1915 were considered by the Commission of Inquiry shortly after the rising was defeated, and have exercised historians of Malawi during much of the period since his death. Whether the dominant ideas were political, social, economic or religious and how these combined is unclear, because Chilembwe did not leave a detailed record of the reasons for his armed revolt. As he was an ordained Baptist minister, much attention has focussed on his religious ideas, whether these were orthodox or related to millennialism, the extent to which such potentially conflicting religious ideas existed, particularly in the period shortly before the rising, and the part that such beliefs played in the decision to revolt and the course of the uprising.
The Rastafari movement developed out of the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade, in which over ten million Africans were enslaved and transported to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries. Once there, they were sold to European planters and forced to work on the plantations. Around a third of these transported Africans were relocated in the Caribbean, with under 700,000 being settled in Jamaica. In 1834, slavery in Jamaica was abolished after the British government passed the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Racial prejudice nevertheless remained prevalent across Jamaican society. The overwhelming majority of Jamaica's legislative council was white throughout the 19th century, and those of African descent were treated as second-class citizens.
