Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 April 2026
This chapter ties together the arguments of the book and sketches out their broader implications. It addresses, in particular, three issues. The first is what Messianic claims regarding divine indexicality and authority may tell us about political culture and local perceptions of secular government authority in the South Sudan-Ethiopia borderlands. The second is whether the Messianic preoccupation with truth and self-awareness is a distinctively ‘modern’ disposition or an attitude that is historically and culturally informed and therefore also speaks to local notions of spiritual mediation. Finally, the chapter returns to Christian Zionism and Africa’s Messianic frontier and sketches out some of the ways in which the case of Gambella’s Messianic Jews may be indicative of processes and trends evident among African born-again Christians more broadly.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.