NJILA YA KALUNGA: THE ATLANTIC WORLD, NJINGA, WESLEY AND TAYLOR AND THE FORMATION OF THE METHODIST KWANZA [Abstract of a Doctoral Thesis submitted and defended within the Postgraduate Programme in Religious Studies and Theology at the Methodist University of Angola, 2025]

Abstract

This study examines the emergence and development of the Methodist narrative in Angola, with particular emphasis on the Kwanza River corridor, through the lens of historical and symbolic entanglements among cultures, religions, and systems of enslavement — as framed by the concepts of the Atlantic World, the Black Atlantic, and the Great Kalunga. The investigation begins from the hypothesis that the institutionalization of a religious expression attuned to the Angolan people's legacy of resistance is a vital element in reconfiguring the Atlantic space as a territory of emancipation. Accordingly, the research proposes a reading of the "Kwanza Methodist" as a space of synthesis and tension between culture, religion, and slavery, interpreted through the historical testimonies and perspectives of three emblematic figures: Queen Njinga, rooted in the spiritual universe of the Great Kalunga; John Wesley, the Anglican priest whose critical religious consciousness led him to join the abolitionist movement; and William Taylor, the Methodist bishop whose abolitionist militancy shaped his missionary work in Ango-la. To that end, the study seeks to establish interpretative bridges between the European Atlantic world and the African Kalunga cosmology, in order to understand the historical articulations that bound cultures, religions, and systems of servitude. It analyzes Queen Njinga’s political and spiritual agency as an Afrocentric response to imperial dynamics, reinterprets Wesley as a transatlantic thinker critical of the entanglement between Christianity and slavery, and highlights Taylor’s ethical and strategic commitment to con-structing a missionary model rooted in liberation and cultural integrity. Ultimately, the thesis reconstructs the Kwanza Methodist as a liminal space of convergence—between spirituality, cultural identity, and liberation—envisioning a utopian horizon of community autonomy, egalitarian coexistence, and the valorization of Angolan linguistic heritage. Drawing on Gerhard von Rad’s narrative hermeneutics, particularly his notion of re-actualization of foundational narratives as sources of meaning and resistance, the study explores how hope functions as an active force in constructing ethical and spiritual alternatives to colonial logics. Moreover, von Rad’s framework serves as structural inspiration for the organization of the thesis.