Ethiopianism

From Sellassie Forum: Thanks for your post. Although the last paragraph The New Encyclopedia Britannica is in need of updating. Since the mid seventies Rastafarian movement uses this tern, in fact, according to Rasta philosophy our present world is divided in two -- The Babylon and Ethiopia, the land where all came from and will return if their souls are corrupted by the Babylon (West). I believe that in this broad meaning Ethiopianism today as alive as ever.
Anatoly

From exchange on EthioForum Mailing List:

April 15, 1999
[EthioForum] - the ethiopianism movement

Ethiopianism, religious movement among sub-Saharan Africans that embodied the earliest stirrings toward religious and political freedom in the modern colonial period. The movement was initiated in the 1880s when South African mission workers began forming independent all-African churches, such as the Tembu tribal church (1884) and the Church of Africa (1889). An ex-Wesleyan minister, Mangena Mokone, was the first to use the term when he founded the Ethiopian Church (1892). Among the main causes of the movement were the frustrations felt by South Africans who were denied advancement in the hierarchy of the mission churches and racial discontent encouraged by the colour bar. Other contributing factors were the desire for a more African and relevant Christianity, for the restoration of tribal life, and for political and cultural autonomy expressed in the slogan "Africa for the Africans" and also in the word Ethiopianism.
The mystique of the term Ethiopianism derived from its occurrence in the Bible (where Ethiopia is also referred to as Kush or Cush) and was enhanced when the ancient independent Christian kingdom of Ethiopia defeated the Italians at Adowa in 1896. The word therefore represented Africa's dignity and place in the divine dispensation and provided a charter for free African churches and nations of the future.
Parallel developments occurred elsewhere and for similar reasons. In Nigeria the so-called African churches - the Native Baptist Church (1888), the formerly Anglican United Native African Church (1891) and its later divisions, and the United African Methodist Church (1917) were important. Other Ethiopian-related movements were represented by the Cameroun Native Baptist Church (1887); the Native Baptist Church (1898), in Ghana; in Rhodesia, by a branch (1906) of the American Negro denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and Nemapare's African Methodist Church (1947); and the Kenyan Church of Christ in Africa (1957), formerly Anglican.
Early Ethiopianism included tribalist, nationalist, and Pan-African dimensions, which were encouraged by association with independent U.S. black churches and radical leaders with "back to Africa" ideas and an Ethiopianist ideology. This ideology was explicit in the thought of such pioneers of African cultural, religious, and political independence as E. W. Blyden (1832-1912), and J. E. Casely-Hayford of Ghana (e.g., his Ethiopia Unbound, 1911).
Ethiopian movements played some part in the Zulu rebellion of 1906 and especially in the Nyasaland rising of 1915 led by John Chilembwe, founder of the independent Providence Industrial Mission. From about 1920, political activities were channelled into secular political parties and trades unions, and the use of the term Ethiopian then narrowed to one section of African independent religious movements (see Zionist church). These Ethiopian-type churches originated by secession (and further subsecessions) from a mission-connected church, which they resemble in beliefs, polity, and worship and from which they differ in certain cultural and ethnic practices.
By the early 1970s the term Ethiopianism was not in popular use outside southern Africa and, when employed for this form of religious movement elsewhere in Africa, is used by many but not all scholars as a historical or classificatory term.
The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 4 (15th ed. 1986)

Bookstore, Jamaica and their publication:

The Third Testament: Ilect Verses Of Emperor Haile Sellassie I

Published 1997 By Headstart Printing And Publishing
693++ Pages
Paperback U.S. $40.00

The First Edition Of This Book Was Published in 1967 as a hardback publication. It was entitled "The Selected Speeches Of His Imperial Majesty Emperror Haile Sellassie I". It constituted a compilation of most of His Imperial Majesties speeches made during the period from 1918 to 1967.
The second edition, published in 1997 here in Jamaica by Headstart Printing And Publishing Company constitutes a reprint alongside a publishers introduction by Ras Miguel Lorne on the book, on Rastafari ,and on how Rastafarians interpret the speeches. The book has eighteen chapters and 208 speeches ranging from topics such as Education, in the first chapter, to International Politics and ending with a chapter on the Press.
It is particularly named as the Third Testament because we Rastafarians see Emperror Haile Sellassie I as the ALMIGHTY, and CREATOR of all things, thus his speeches are what we know constitutes the Third Testament. The Bible is made of two testament, the old which is the first and the new which is the second. This Testament which is the third, is the "fullfilment" and the "perfection" of the first two.

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This issue has a different looks for Ethiopians, since Ethiopia is multicultural country. What defines they all as Ethiopians? They have different languages... Maybe history?
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