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| {{Infobox Christian denomination | | {{Infobox organization |
| | icon = | | | name = Bank of Bahia<br>''Banque de Baïe'' |
| | icon_width = | | | logo = |
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| | name = Abidemism
| | | image = HQAFDBAbidjanPlateauMars2016.JPG |
| | native_name = | | | caption = Headquarters in Edudzi Agyeman City |
| | native_name_lang =
| | | formation = {{start date and age|1988|5|12|df=yes}} |
| | image = Nkamba 25 mai 2016.jpg | | | extinction = |
| | imagewidth = | | | type = {{wp|International financial institution}} |
| | alt = | | | abbreviation = BdB |
| | caption = Members of the Abidemist Church celebrating {{wp|Christmas|Nativity Day}}
| | | status = Treaty |
| | abbreviation = | | | purpose = Regional development<br>Providing financial bailouts to Bahian states with {{wp|balance of payments}} difficulties |
| | type = {{wp|New religious movement|New Sotirian religious movement}} | | | headquarters = [[Edudzi Agyeman City]], [[Asase Lewa]]<br>[[Kwamuimepe]], [[Kitaubani]] |
| | main_classification = {{wp|African initiated church|Bahian-initiated church}} | | | region_served = [[Bahia]] |
| | orientation = | | | membership = {{flag|Asase Lewa}}<br>{{flag|Kitaubani}}<br>Insert yourselves |
| | scripture = | | | language = {{wp|French language|Gaullican}} |
| | theology = {{wp|Pentecostalism|Pentecostal}}<ref group=Note name=Note01/>
| | | main_organ = * Board of Governors |
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| | | website = {{URL|nationstates.net|bdb.org}} |
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| | area = [[Asase Lewa]]
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| | language = {{wp|Ewe language|Asalewan}} | |
| | liturgy = | |
| | headquarters =
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| | founder = {{wp|Simon Kimbangu|Abidemi Omolayo}}
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| | founded_date = January 1913 | |
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| | members = 7 million | |
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| '''Abidemism''' is a {{wp|millennarianism|millennarian}} and {{wp|Charismatic Christianity|Charismatic}} [[Sotirianity|Sotirian]] {{wp|new religious movement}} in [[Asase Lewa]] founded by {{wp|Simon Kimbangu|Abidemi Omolayo}} in 1913. A {{wp|postmillennialism|postmillennial}} faith, Abidemism regards Abidemi as an incarnation of the {{wp|Holy Spirit}} sent to prophesy an imminent {{wp|Armageddon|apocalyptic war}} taking the form of an {{wp|war of national liberation|anti-colonial}} and {{wp|class struggle|class}} {{wp|war}} that would inaugurate the {{wp|Millennium}}, followed by the {{wp|Second Coming}} and {{wp|Last Judgment}}. Abidemism synthesizes this millenarian doctrine with {{wp|Pentecostalism|Pentecostal}} liturgical practices, most prominently {{wp|footwashing}}, {{wp|glossolalia}}, {{wp|Baptism with the Holy Spirit}}, and {{wp|faith healing}}, and with highly {{wp|Puritanism|Puritan ethics}}, including the practice of {{wp|vegetarianism}} and {{wp|community of goods}} and strict prohibitions on {{wp|alcohol}}, {{wp|tobacco}}, {{wp|polygamy}}, {{wp|magic|magic and witchcraft}}, and {{wp|dancing}}. | | The '''Bank of Bahia''' ({{wp|French language|Gaullican}}: ''Banque de Baïe'') is an {{wp|international finance institution|international finance}} and {{wp|development finance institution}} headquartered in [[Edudzi Agyeman City]], [[Asase Lewa]] and [[Kwamuimepe]], [[Kitaubani]]. The Bank was established by the governments of Asase Lewa and Kitaubani in order to provide development financing and {{wp|debt relief}} for [[Bahia|Bahian]] states. Founded with an {{wp|authorised capital}} of $10 billion in 1988, the BdB was primarily created in order to provide Bahian states with an alternative to the [[Global Institute for Fiscal Affairs]], which provided extensive debt relief with the stipulation of adopting {{wp|structural adjustment|Economic Restructuring Programs}} programs. Since its inception, however, the BdB has gradually expanded to provide funds for {{wp|infrastructure}} and {{wp|economic development}}. The BdB has also become closely associated with the [[Bank for United Development]] of the [[International Forum for Developing States]], established at a similar period as the BdB, though also seeking to provide an alternative to the GIFA among Bahian states geopolitically unaligned with the BDU's key backers, [[Shangea]] and [[Zorasan]]. |
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| Originating in the early twentieth century as an outgrowth of the {{wp|Mau Mau rebellion#Background|Oathing movement}}, Abidemism has historically suffered from intense state repression in Asase Lewa. Its revolutionary and millenarian doctrines meant Abidemism received significant suppression by [[Estmere|Estmerish]] colonial authorities soon after it became widespread; Abidemism first competed with the [[Asalewan Section of the Workers' International]] for the affections of the early twentieth-century Asalewan lower classes before Abidemists joined the Section in large numbers in the 1920s and 1930s, before being purged during the {{wp|Yan'an Rectification Movement|Lokossa Rectification Campaign}} in the late 1930s and early 1940s. After the Rectification Campaign, the Abidemist Church was intensely suppressed by the Asalewan Section and early revolutionary socialist state as part of its policy of {{wp|state atheism}}. Nevertheless, the religion survived decades of persecution; the {{wp|Army|Lokpa Spiritual Freedom Army}} adopted a variant of the faith during the [[Lokpaland insurgency]] in the late 1980s and 1990s, and the [[Pyschological-Technological Revolution]] resulted in the legalization of the pro-government {{wp|Patriotic Catholic Association|Revolutionary Abidemist Church}} in 1982. One of the largest {{wp|African-initiated church|Bahian-initiated churches}} outside the [[Brethren Church]], Abidemism is today the only growing major {{wp|religious denomination}} in Asase Lewa and its adherents in the country number approximately 7 million people, roughly one-tenth of the country's population.
| | Though the area the BdB seeks to cover is coterminous with that of the [[Congress of Bahian States]], the BdB is unaffiliated with the CBS. Though its internal structure differes from that of the GIFA—in that voting power does not entirely correspond to shareholders—the BdB also lacks the CBS's one-member, one-vote structure, with additional votes allotted to the BdB's founding states of Asase Lewa and Kitaubani and to creditor states. An influential organization in furthering economic development on the Bahian subcontinent, the BdB is a controversial organization in the region, with supporters lauding the Bank as a powerful opponent of [[Euclea|Euclean]] {{wp|neocolonialism}} and proponent of {{wp|anti-imperialism|anti-imperialist}} {{wp|South-South cooperation}} and critics arguing that the BdB's member states of Asase Lewa and Kitaubani have mantained a {{wp|paternalism|paternalistic}} towards other Bahian states and favored those states' economic interests at the expense of other Bahian states. |
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| ==History== | | ==History== |
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| ===Origins and colonial period===
| | [[File:Kenneth_David_Kaunda.jpg|250px|thumb|left|[[Kayode Temidare]], the General Secretary of the [[Asalewan Section of the Workers' International]] from 1973 to 1988, played an instrumental role in pursuing a less interventionist and more realist foreign policy, helping enable Asase Lewa's rapprochement with Kitaubani and the formation of the Bank of Bahia.]] |
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| [[File:Simon Kibangu.jpg|thumb|left|250px|{{wp|Simon Kimbangu|Abidemi Omolayo}}, the sect's namesake, founded Abidemism in January 1913.]] | | During the 1980s, the {{wp|foreign policies}} of two of Bahia's wealthiest states—Asase Lewa and Kitaubani, whose relationship had been highly adversarial in the initial decades after independence—moderated significantly. With the collapse of the [[Mabifian Democratic Republic]] in 1979, a decline in most {{wp|Council communism|Councilist}} {{wp|guerrilla warfare|guerilla}} movements that Asase Lewa traditionally suported, and the [[Psychological-Technological Revolution]] of 1981, Asalewan foreign policy became significantly less {{wp|interventionism|interventionist}} and {{wp|realism|realist}}, willing to forge geopolitical alliances with ideological adversaries for economic reasons. A similar political shift occurred in Kitaubani, where the end of the {{wp|Dirty War}} and liberalization of the country's {{wp|constitutional monarchy}} enabled the ascension of {{wp|social democracy|social-democratic}} and {{wp|left-wing populism|left-wing populist}} elements to political power that pursued a far less adversial relationship with Asase Lewa and far less cordial relationship with [[Werania]], Kitaubani's primary ally after independence. The result of these shifts in Asalewan and Kitauban foreign policy was an inaguration of widespread {{wp|détente}} and strategic cooperation on mutual interests by the mid-1980s. |
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| Abidemism traces its origins to the global spread of {{wp|Pentecostalism}} in the early twentieth century. Soon after the birth of Pentecostalism at the {{wp|Azusa Street Revival|Not! Azusa Street Revival}} in [Insert Country Here], some of the earliest {{wp|African Pentecostalism|Pentecostal missionaries}} in [[Bahia]] arrived in the [[Estmere|Estmerish]] colony of [[Asase Lewa#Colonial_History|Odo]], contemporary [[Asase Lewa]], in 1909. Primarily thanks to its predictions that the {{wp|Christian eschatology|end times}} were imminent—resonating with the local attitude in a society that had witnessed considerable social disruption thanks to {{wp|colonialism}}—Pentecostalism spread quickly in Odo, and {{wp|Simon Kimbangu|Abidemi Omolayo}}, a {{wp|Yoruba people|Gundaya}} peasant and the son of a traditional religious leader, became one of the earliest Pentecostal converts and one of the first natively-ordained Pentecostal preachers and missionaries in the colony.
| | Simultaneous to this growing détente in Asalewan-Kitauban relations, following the [[Recession of 1980]], numerous {{wp|developing countries}}, including the states of [[Bahia]], suffered from an escalating {{wp|third world debt|debt crisis}}, forcing numerous states to pursue {{wp|debt relief}}. In previous generations many left-wing {{wp|Global South}} states, including in Bahia, secured substantial financial assistance through the [[Association of Emerging Socialist Economies]]; however, the collapse of the AESE, and substantial crisis within one of its main {{wp|Global North}} sponsors, [[Valduvia]], severely reduced Global South states' outlets for debt relief outside the [[Global Institute for Fiscal Affairs]], which only granted debt relief in response to {{wp|structural adjustment|Economic Restructuring Programs}}, entailing, among other things, the mass {{wp|privatization}} of state assets, layoff of {{wp|public sector}} employees, and substantial {{wp|austerity}} measures. |
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| Simultaenous to the growth of Pentecostalism, native Odonian society witnessed rising social discontentment and political agitation in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Amongst native elites—particularly the {{wp|intelligentsia}} and an embryonic {{wp|bourgeoisie|national-bourgeoisie}}—{{wp|anti-colonialism|anti-colonial}} [[Pan-Bahianism]] took root, particularly after the [[Alààyè Massacre]] of nationalist protestors and market women in 1912 led to the mass radicalization of Odonian opinion. Simultaneously, increasing {{wp|enclosure|dispossession}} of the peasantry to establish {{wp|plantations}} worked on by wage laborers generated intense social discontentment amongst the peasant majority of Odonian society. The largely disorganized peasant {{wp|Mau Mau rebellion#Background|Oathing movement}} drew upon and radicalized the traditional practice of oathing to protest peasant dispossession. Like Pentecostal missionaries and preachers, most adherents of the Oathing movement expected that some sort of apocalyptic, millennarian event was imminent.
| | In this environment, a number of Global South states and activists sought to establish alternative financial institutions to the GIFA. Globally, this most prominently entailed Shangea and Zorasan's establishment for the International Forum for Developing States and its associated Bank for Unified Development in 1985. During the 1980s, however, the success and substantial growth of the IFDS and BDU that would occur in later decades was not necessarily guaranteed, nor was the BDU's involvement in member states traditionally unaligned to Shangea and Zorasan. Though Asase Lewa and Kitaubani experienced substantial economic and political crisis, like their Bahian neighbors, this crisis was far less profound than in other Bahian states, such as [[Tiwura]]; then as new, both states were comparatively wealthy and by the late 1980s began to witness a long-term period, continuing to this day, of {{wp|economic growth}} and prosperity, in Asase Lewa thanks to the intensified exploitation of the country's {{wp|petroleum}} resources and in Kitaubani thanks to {{wp|export-oriented industrialization}}, that resulted in a substantial growth in the countries' {{wp|foreign exchange reserves}}. |
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| It was in this incendiary social context that in January 1913 Abidemi received {{wp|vision (spirituality)|spiritual visions}}, both sober and while under the influence of {{wp|ibogaine}}, a drug commonly used in Odonian religious ceremonies, that led him to launch Abidemism. According to Abidemi, these visions led him to believe that he had become filled with, and become an incarnation of, the {{wp|Holy Spirit}} sent to prophesy an imminent {{wp|Armageddon|apocalyptic war}} that would lead to the {{wp|Millennium}} and {{wp|Second Coming}}. Abidemi connected these visions, and his emerging spirituality, to Odonian tradition and contemporary Odonian social issues; he identified oathing, including its politicization, with {{wp|Baptism in the Holy Spirit}}, the prophesied {{wp|Armageddon}} with a violent {{wp|war of national liberation}} and {{wp|class struggle}}, and the Millennium with liberation of {{wp|African people|Bahians}} and the establishment of a {{wp|utopia|utopian}} [[Sotirianity|Sotirian]] {{wp|socialism|socialist}} society. His message swiftly led to his excommunication from the mainstream Pentecostal church in Odo; nevertheless, his popularity grew with stories of various {{wp|miracles}} attributed to him, most notably the {{wp|faith healing|healing}} of a prostitute with end-stage {{wp|syphilis}}. More broadly, Abidemi's {{wp|millennarianism|millennarian}} and militant political message aligned well with Odonian opinion at the time, and scholars usually consider early Abidemism a classic example of {{wp|millenarianism in colonial societies}}.
| | In this environment, the Asalewan and Kitauban states consequently sought to also create their own international financial institution for Bahian states, seeking first and foremost to prevent the increasing assumption of Economic Restructuring Policies that had been substantially adopted by other Bahian states. Though designed in large part as a way for Asase Lewa and Kitaubani to aid one another, the Bank of Bahia became joined by other member states; Asase Lewa's long-term ally [[Nahrun]] quickly joined the Bank of Bahia, as did other Bahian states such as [X]. |
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| In subsequent years, Abidemism expanded rapidly and became articulated much more extensively, resulting in {{wp|Puritanism|Puritan}} campaigns against elements of traditional Odonian society considered sinful, an articulated {{wp|postmillennialism|postmillennial}} doctrine, and members' practices of {{wp|teetotalism}} and {{wp|vegetarianism}}. By 1916, colonial authorities estimated that Abidemi's followers numbered perhaps 250,000 people, almost all of whom belonged to the rural poor. Though during his lifetime Abidemi did not actively set in motion a revolutionary {{wp|uprising}}, his public predictions of, and rhetoric supporting, such an uprising alarmed colonial authorities, which criminalized the public recognition of the religion and arrested and executed Abidemi in August 1916.
| | Though debt relief remained the chief focus of the Bank of Bahia throughout the 1990s, increasing economic and political stability throughout Bahia in the late 1990s and 2000s meant that the Bank of Bahia's emphasis gradually shifted to broader economic development, especially financing {{wp|infrastructure}} projects, as a broad-based {{wp|development finance institution}}. Furthermore, the IFDS's expansion throughout this period—and the rise of Shangea and Zorasan globally—meant that the BDU emerged as the Bank of Bahia's key partner, with both banks frequently co-financing various development projects throughout the continent. This increasing partnership culminated in procedural changes to the BdB's governance in 2008, granting a small amount of voting power to non-Bahian financing nations—primarily, though not exclusively, Shangea, Zorasan, [[Valduvia]], and [[Dezevau]]—while still investing most decision-making power in the founding states of Asase Lewa and Kitaubani. In the modern period, the BdB remains extensively involved in debt relief and development financing in collaboration with the BDU, though is sometimes criticized for allegedly benefitting Asase Lewa and Kitaubani at the expense of other, poorer Bahian states. |
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| Though Abidemi's execution led to much of the Odonian public seeing Abidemi as a {{wp|martyr}}, and precipitated mass rioting and upheaval in rural areas in the already-combustile atmosphere, Abidemism—which had only a minimal level of organization thanks to its rapid growth—declined soon after the colonial crackdown, thanks to the crackdown itself and the disorganization in the wake of Abidemi's death, as he had no issue or anointed successors to assume leadership of the faith after his death. By 1919, however, a council of elders made up of Abidemi's extended family and close friends assumed leadership of the remnant Abidemist movement. By 1919, the [[Asalewan Section of the Workers' International]]—which in the mid-1910s had competed with Abidemism for the affections of the rural poor, but during the mid-1910s was primarily supported by the intelligentsia, urban {{wp|proletariat}}, and seasonal {{wp|farmworker|agricultural workers}} who worked on plantations during peak season but worked most of the year in urban areas—gained widespread support in rural areas as well as urban ones, and had begun actively fomenting {{wp|people's war}} by proclaiming the [[Asalewan Revolution]] and forming the {{wp|military|People's Revoutionary Army}} in 1918.
| | ==Organization== |
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| Based upon this growing popularity and militancy, Abidemist elders identified the Section and its attempts at fomenting revolution with Abidemi's prophecies of, and support for, an apocalyptic {{wp|war of national liberation|anti-colonial revolution}} and {{wp|class struggle}} and consequently encouraged Abidemists to join the Section ''en masse''. Subsequent to this reorganization, Abidemists played a major role in the Section's revolutionary efforts throughout the 1920s and 1930s, in turn receiving relative toleration and the ability to reestablish clerical organization in Sectoin-controlled rural {{wp|revolutionary base area}}. Subsequent to the end of the [[Great War (Kylaris)|Great War]], however, the re-entry of [[Estmere#Military|Estmerish forces]] to the country—though considerably weakening all Section and PRA forces—caused special devastation to Abidemist forces in particular, with People's Revolutionary Army divisions predominantly comprised of Abidemists routed at the Battles of Ikirun and Bohicon in 1936 and 1937, respectively.
| | The Bank of Bahia is formally governed by a twelve-member Board of Governors. Its internal structure diverges sharply from institutions like the Global Institute for Fiscal Affairs; rather than being based primarily on {{wp|special drawing rights}} or the financial contributions of each member state, the BdB's structure is fixed and unchanging; as the founding members, Asase Lewa and Kitaubani both retain the right to appoint three members each to the Board of Governors. Other member states of the Bank of Bahia retain the right to collectively elect three members to tee Board of Governors according to a one-member, one-vote system. The remaining quarter of seats of the Board of Governors are elected based on states' financial contributions. Though historically Asase Lewa and Kitaubani have been the primary contributors and creditors of the Bank of Bahia, in modern times—especially after the BdB allowed non-Bahian creditor states to exercise voting power in 2008—other states have emerged as major creditors, primarily Shangea, Zorasan, Valduvia, and Dezevau. |
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| This devastation to Abidemist forces substantially strengthened the position of orthodox {{wp|Marxism|Nemtsovist}} and {{wp|Council communism|Councilist}} leaders in the Section relative to their Abidemist counterparts, as did the influx of aid from new revolutionary Councilist states such as [[Chistovodia]] and [[Dezevau]]. Furthermore, the Abidemist doctrine of {{wp|vegetarianism}} conflicted with the Section's attempt to appeal to {{wp|Pygmies|Pygmy}} groups in the Highlands; while plants traditionally comprised the vast majority of agrarian Lowlander communities' caloric intake even before Abidemist vegetarianism, Pygmies' traditional {{wp|hunter-gatherer}} lifestyle meant that meat was a far substantial part of Pygmies' caloric intake during this period. It was in this context that secular Nemtsovists [[Edudzi Agyeman]] and [[Adelaja Ifedapo]] launched the {{wp|Yan'an Rectification Movement|Lokossa Rectification Campaign}} from 1938 to 1943, enforcing {{wp|state atheism}} in Section {{wp|revolutionary base area}} and systematically {{wp|Purge|purging}} or {{wp|reeducation|re-educating}} Abidemist members of the Section and People's Revolutionary Army.
| | ==Criticism== |
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| ===Early socialist period===
| | Though in the late 1980s and early 1990s the Bank of Bahia was much-praised for its {{wp|anti-imperialism|anti-imperialist}} credentials and furthering {{wp|South-South cooperation}}, in modern times the Bank has come under substantial criticism for allegedly favoring the interests of its founders, Asase Lewa and Kitaubani, at the expense of other, poorer Bahian states. Detractors of the BdB especially criticize its internal governance, which disproportionately empowers Asase Lewa and Kitaubani and to a lesser extent other creditor states, though the Asalewan and Kitauban states themselves claim this is necessary because these states' historical role in staunchly opposing [[Euclea|Euclean]] {{wp|neocolonialism}} means they are better advocates of Bahian interests than other Bahian states. |
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| Though the intensity of Section repression of Abidemism decreased following the Lokossa Rectification Campaign's conclusion, the Section's policies of state atheism and {{wp|Dechristianization|Desotirianization}} continued after it seized state power in 1953, with Abidemism remaining outlawed. Nevertheless, the religion survived the socialist state's repression just as it survived the colonial state's, with Abidemists adopting a highly decentralized, {{wp|Congregationalist polity|Congregationalist}}, {{wp|clandestine cell system|cell-based}} form of organization. While greater {{wp||state capacity}} in {{wp|city|urban areas}} meant the state was largely able to successfully the faith in urban aress during this period, its reduced state capacity in rural areas—and, especially, officials' greater interest in more immediate concerns, such as {{wp|land reform}}, {{wp|collective farming|collectivization}}, and {{wp|thought reform}} and ensuring citizens' loyalty to the new government—meant the suppression of Abidemism was a low priority. Furthermore, by the 1950s and 1960s the experience of the Lokossa Rectification Campaign meant that Abidemism had become largely {{wp|depoliticization|depoliticized}}, and thus did not ideologically compete with Nemtsovism in the way it did in the 1930s.
| | In addition to this perceived {{wp|paternalism|paternalistic}} attitude, the BdB's detractors also allege that it has become a tool for furthering Asalewan and Kitauban interests more broadly. These critics argue that the BdB's infrastructure projects in non-founder member states have been primarily focused on intensifying the extraction of primary commodities in these states and the shipment of these primary commodities, at relatively low prices consistent with international market values, to Asase Lewa and Kitaubani for refining , industrial processing, and export at the higher prices industrial goods reach on the international market. Rather than enabling the industrialization of other Bahian countries, therefore, these critics argue that the BdB's development projects primarily enable the founder states' ascension to {{wp|semi-periphery countries|semi-periphery}} status while leaving most Bahian states languishing in a primarily {{wp|periphery countries|peripheral}} role. For example, these critics especially criticize Asase Lewa's longstanding relationship with its much poorer neighbor and ally in Nahrun, arguing that the BdB has intensified a longstanding exploitative relationship between the two states. |
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| Following the outbreak of the [[Protective-Corrective Revolution]] in 1965, however, popular persecution of Abidemists intensified drastically; large numbers of {{wp|Red Guards|Edudzist rebels}} engaged in mass {{wp|communal violence}} and {{wp|pogrom|attacks}} on Abidemists, and other organized religious groups, during this period. However, reduced state capacity and greater political decentralization during this period also temporarily reduced the state's capacity to repress Abidemists, and the largely popular-initiated persecutions of the late 1960s had far fewer resources at their disposal than the state in repression of Abidemists. Furthermore, the Protective-Corrective Revolution also witnessed the birth of Edudzist Abidemism, an extreme outgrowth of [[Edudzi Agyeman]]'s {{wp|cult of personality}} that synthesized Abidemism with this cult of personality and viewed Edudzi as an incarnation of the {{wp|Holy Spirit}}, or in some cases as the {{wp|Second Coming}}; members of this sect remain a prominent minority of Abidemists to this day.
| | These critics also argue, though to a somewhat lesser extent, that the Bank of Bahia has served Asase Lewa and Kitaubani's larger {{wp|geopolitics|geopolitical}} objectives; during the 1990s, for example, the BdB encouraged member states to pair development financing with military cooperation on {{wp|counterterrorism}} issues, an act widely interpreted as an Asalewan attempt to encourage the Nahrune and Tiwuran governments to cooperate with it in stemming the flow of arms to the [[Lokpa Spiritual Freedom Army]] during the [[Lokpaland insurgency]] and capturing LSFA soldiers fleeing Asase Lewa for those bordering states. |
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| Following the cessation of mass {{wp|political violence}} with the Protective-Corrective Revolution's conclusion and Asase Lewa's transition to a [[council republic]] in 1969, popular persecutions of Abidemists decreased considerably; Edudzist Abidemism, also, became ''de facto'' legal during this period, its secular politics dovetailing closely with the political consensus in Asase Lewa at the time. Throughout the 1970s, the traditional form of Abidemism—commonly referred to as Mainline Abidemism—remained strictly illegal and repressed; however, the faith also grew considerably amongst dissident factions in Asalewan society; in particular the faith's combination of {{wp|communism|communistic}} economics and strong support for strict family structures meant it substantially grew in popularity amongst rural Asalewans who fundamentally supported Asase Lewa's {{wp|socialism|socialist}} and {{wp|Council communism|Councilist}} economics and politics, but fiercely opposed the {{wp|Family#Criticism|family abolitionist}} and {{wp|Kibbutz communal child rearing and collective education|communal sleeping}} measures championed by the radical political organizations that dominated Asalewan politics during this period.
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| [[File:Okotie press conference 2011.jpg|thumb|left|250px|[[Abiola Ifedayo]], a prominent Mainline Abidemist preacher in Gundayaland, speaking at a sermon in 2006.]]
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| The Asalewan Section General Secretary and prominent former general [[Kayode Temidare]]'s proclamation of the [[Psychological-Technological Revolution]] amidst the economic and political crisis facing Asase Lewa in the aftermath of the [[Second Mabifian Civil War]], [[Amathian Revolution]], and [[Recession of 1980]] led to the widespread, if limited, {{wp|liberalization}} of Asalewan society, including the relaxation of the policy of state atheism and legalization of religious groups so long as they remained subordinate to the Asalewan state. This resulted in the legalization of the pro-government, Mainline Abidemist Revolutionary Abidemist Church in 1982, and the Edudzist Abidemist Church in that same year. Simultaenous to the incorporation of Mainline and Edudzist Abidemism into mainstream society, however, this same prolonged crisis facing Asase Lewa—and local issues in Lokpaland, notably escalating conflicts between historically quasi-{{wp|hunter-gatherer}} {{wp|Pygmies}} and {{wp|agriculture|agrarian}} {{wp|Kabye people|Lokpa}} related to government initiatives of {{wp|reforestation}}—resulted in the birth of Lokpa Abidemism, and that sect's widespread growth in Lokpaland, following {{wp|vision (spirituality)|spiritual visions}} by the Abidemist preacher and Lokpa farmer {{wp|Alice Auma|Mawuena Amoussou}}. Much like Abidemists in the early twentieth, and unlike Mainline and Edudzist Abidemists in the 1980s, Amoussou stridently criticized the existing government and predicted a violent revolution to overthrow it, in this case a {{wp|secessionism|secessionist}} and {{wp|sectarianism|sectarian}} war by the Lokpa, as an essential precondition for the {{wp|Millennium}}.
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| Though Amoussou's anti-government rhetoric resulted in her execution in 1985, Lokpa Abidemism only continued to gain popularity after her death, and the flow of arms from the [[Tiwura#Chipo's Rule|Second Tiwuran Civil War]] resulted in the [[Lokpaland insurgency]] in the early 1990s, with the Abidemist Lokpa Spiritual Freedom Army fighting for the region's independence. The LSFA initially posed a serious threat to the reigon's independe, capturing control of most rural areas and some smaller cities in Southern Lokpaland and maintaining high levels of insurgent activity elsewhere in the region. However, the cessation of arms after the war in Tiwura's conclusion in 1995, the state's successful organization of Pygmies and moderate Lokpa into {{wp|counterinsurgency|counterinsturgent}} {{wp|Militias}}, and the LSFA's tactics increasing alienating it from popular support resulted in the LSFA losing momentum and the bulk of the LSFA laying down arms in a {{wp|Treaty|Peace Agreement}} with the Asalewan state in 2000, though a radical minority remains active, albeit on a much-reduced scale and in a much-smaller area, to this day. In addition to a blanket {{wp|amnesty}} for soldiers ceasing to fight, the Peace Agreement entailed substantial {{wp|autonomy}} for Lokpaland and, prominently, the legalization of Abidemist political clubs, both regionally and nationally. Nationally, these political clubs became consolidated under the label of the [[Revolutionary Democratic Alliance (Asase Lewa)|Revolutionary Democratic Alliance]], representing the interests of both Mainline and Lokpa Abidemists but organizationally dominated by the former.
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| ==Doctrine==
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| ===Charismatic practices===
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| [[File:AbidemistWorshippers.jpeg|thumb|right|250px|Abidemist worshippres {{wp|glossolalia|speaking in tongues}} in Edudzi Agyeman City.]]
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| Abidemism traces its historic religious roots to the early {{wp|Pentecostalism|Pentecostal}} movement, as some of the earliest {{wp|African Pentecostalism|Pentecostal missionaries}} in [[Bahia]] converted Abidemi Omolayo to Sotirianity in 1909 and Abidemi subsequently worked as a Pentecostal preacher and missionary until founding Abidemism in 1913. Based upon that Pentecostal, Ebidemi subsequently incorporated Pentecostal and {{wp|Charismatic Christianity|Charismatic}} practices into Abidemist liturgy that remain until this day; practices such as {{wp|footwashing}}, {{wp|laying on of hands}} {{wp|glossolalia}}, {{wp|Baptism with the Holy Spirit}}, and {{wp|faith healing}} all figure prominently in the Abidemist spiritual experience. Abidemists view these practices as {{wp|spiritual gifts}} that reveal the divine in everyday believers' lives, revive what Abidemists believe to be the practices of {{wp|Early Christianity|Early Sotirianity}}, and imbue believers with spiritual power so that they might use such power during {{wp|Christian eschatology|the end times}} and {{wp|Armageddon}}, which Abidemi believed to be imminent, literal, and {{wp|Postmillennialism|necessary for inaugurating}} the {{wp|Millennium}} and {{wp|Second Coming}}.
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| ===Role of the Holy Spirit===
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| Consistent with Abidemism's Pentecostal origins, the sect attaches extensive importance to the role of the {{wp|Holy Spirit}}. Like mainstream Pentecostals, Abidemists ascribe to the Holy Spirit an essential role in allowing individuals to be {{wp|born again}} and to be endowed with spiritual gifts through {{wp|Baptism with the Holy Spirit}}. However, Abidemists go further in arguing that the Holy Spirit itself has {{wp|spirit possession|possessed}} specific individuals for lengthy periods of time, particularly during periods of strife and being led astray from true [[Sotirianity]], with these {{wp|avatar|avatars}} of the Holy Spirit then becoming prominent Sotirian {{wp|prophets}}. While Abidemism most famously and prominently ascribes this role to Abidemi Omolayo himself, Abidemi is not the only human held to be possessed by the Holy Spirit in this way; rather, Abidemism holds that numerous other famous Sotirian prophets and religious leaders, including [[Amendist Reaction|Johanne Stearn]], {{wp|Paul the Apostle}}, and {{wp|Saint Peter|Simon Peter}} all became avatars of the Holy Spirit at different points in their lives.
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| ===Puritanism and lifestyle===
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| In accordance with classical Pentecostal and {{wp|Methodism|Westmarckian}} ethics, Abidemism instructs its believers to maintain {{wp|outward holiness}}, or modesty in dress, appearance, and speech, and to abstain from {{wp|dancing ban|dancing}}, {{wp|teetotalism|alcohol}}, and {{wp|Religion and drugs#Christianity|other drugs}}, including {{wp|tobacco}} and {{wp|khat}}, both of which are commonly used in Asase Lewa. Furthermore, Abidemism places an emphasize an emphasis—at least theoretically—on {{wp|Puritanism|Puritan ethics}} aimed at purifying Asalewan life of [[Bahian Fetishism|Fetishist]] and, more broadly, worldly and material practices. As such, the sect prohibits traditional practices such as {{wp|polygamy}} and {{wp|magic and witchcraft}}, and its clerics have frequently been much harsher in denunciations of {{wp|syncretism}} of Sotirianity with Bahian Fetishism—a common practice in Asalewan {{wp|Folk Christianity|Folk Sotirianity}}—than many {{wp|Mainline Protestantism|Mainline}} [[Amendist Reaction|Amendist]] clerics.
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| In addition to classical Pentecostal and Puritan ethics, Abidemism's {{wp|Biblical literalism|literal interpretation of the Bible}}, including passages heralding universal vegetarianism among all species, has led the sect to mandate {{wp|vegetarianism}}. Though {{wp|Christian vegetarianism|other Sotirian sects have strongly discouraged the consumption of meat}}, encouraged {{wp|pescetarianism}}, or mandated vegetarianism on special occassions such as {{wp|fast days}} or {{wp|Lent}}, Abidemism is distinct in that its prohibition on meat consumption is both absolute and moralistic; though the perceived health benefits and self-sacrifice associated with vegetarianism that motivated other Sotirian sects to encourage the practice are not disregarded by Abidemism, Abidemists argue that vegetarianism is an absolute moral necessity, and Abidemist preachers, including Abidemi himself, have identified non-human animals as part of the larger category of the poor and oppressed. Consequently, Abidemists in modern-day Asase Lewa have become early and notable advocates of {{wp|animal rights}} and to a lesser extent {{wp|environmentalism}} in the country.
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| In addition to its promotion of vegetarianism, Abidemism is distinguished from other Sotirian sects in its promotion of {{wp|community of goods}}. In accordance with its call to live according to the perceived uncorrupted ways of Early Sotirianity, and passages in {{wp|Acts of the Apostles|Acts}} that spoke of early Sotirians holding possessions in common, Abidemism promotes—at least nominally—{{wp|common ownership}} of {{wp|property}}, and Abidemi prophesied that the {{wp|Millennium}} would be basically {{wp|Christian communism|communistic}}.
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| However, Abidemism differs from other Sotirian sects promoting community of goods in that it historically has not emphasized the voluntary organization of its members into autonomous, self-reliant {{wp|communes}} for practical reasons; because its followers primarily came from the lower classes, during the [[Toubacterie]] Abidemists' landlessness and indigence, combined with colonial practices of {{wp|forced labor}} and severe restrictions on Bahian ownership of land, meant that founding self-reliant communes was virtually impossible. Instead, Abidemi encouraged his followers to struggle towards a society based on communal ownership, leading Abidemists to join [[Asalewan Section of the Workers' International]] in large numbers before their purge from the Section in the late 1930s. Because such a society has been constructed in modern Asase Lewa—but by the secular Asalewan Section rather than by Abidemists— contemporary Abidemists have debated the legitimacy of communal Asalewan society.
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| Though during its prohiition most Abidemists were either passive or moderately opposed to common ownership at the hands of the state and, later, {{wp|Workers' Councils}}, the majority position of most Abidemists following legalization has been supportive of secular common ownership, as an economic system equivalent to that prophesied to exist in the Millennium. Because its practical position on common ownership has changed radically in its accordance with the political situation of the time—from incorporating it as part of a broader anti-colonial millennarian program in the early twentieth century, to embracing secular common ownership as part of an increasing friendliness with the Asalewan state in the modern day—some scholars have argued that its commitment to common ownership has been more theoretical than practical, and a far less important element of its ethics than classical Pentecostal ethics and vegetarianism.
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| ===Eschatology===
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| |quote = The Lord says: "The time is coming when the poor will be oppressed and the Sotirians can neither buy nor sell, unless they have 'the mark of the beast'... The time will come when the poor man will say that he has nothing to eat and work will be shut down... That is going to cause the poor man to go to these places and break in to get food. This will cause the rich man to come out with his gun to make war with the laboring man... blood [will] be in the streets like an outpouring rain from heaven."
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| |author = [http://articles.ochristian.com/article3481.shtml Early Pentecostal prophecy]
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| [[File:ASC Leiden - Coutinho Collection - 7 26 - Portuguese plane shot down in Guinea-Bissau - 1974.tif|thumb|left|300px|Many Abidemists believed the [[Asalewan Revolution]], a violent anti-colonial class war along the lines Abidemi prophesied, to be a sign of the end times.]]
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| Abidemism is distinguished from other {{wp|Pentecostalism|Pentecostal}} churches in that it rejects {{wp|dispensationalism}} and instead adopts a {{wp|postmillennialism|postmillennial}} {{wp|eschatalogy}}. While it regards the Millennium and end times as divinely preordained—and that the divine indeed sent Abidemi Omolayo, an incarnation of the Holy Spirit, to prophesy and hasten these events—it believes that the Millennium must ultimately be achieved by human action through the establishment of a society founded on {{wp|Christian ethics|Sotirian ethics}} and {{wp|social justice}}.
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| However, as a {{wp|millennarianism|millennarian}} sect, Abidemists differ from traditional postmillennialists and agree with the Pentecostal and dispensationalist notion that the {{wp|Great Tribulation}}, {{wp|Armageddon}}, and the end times more broadly, are both literal and imminent, though it believes that the Great Tribulation, Armageddon, and the Millennium are all prerequisites to the Second Coming. Abidemists also agree with traditional dispensationalists and Pentecostals, and disagree with many postmillennialists, in viewing the Great Tribulation and Armageddon as literal and the Millennium as something not established through gradual, peaceful means, but as necessarily established through violent struggle at Armageddon.
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| In addition to its postmillennial view, Abidemism's interpretation of eschatology and Armageddon is basically {{wp|Historicist interpretations of the Book of Revelation|historicist}} and {{wp|humanism|humanistic}} in nature. In its early-twentieth century form—and in the interpretation of most mainstream and Edudzist Abidemists today—Abidemism equated the Great Tribulation with {{wp|colonization}}, and the {{wp|Antichrist|Antisotirias}} with [[Estmere|Estmerish]] colonists and missionaries who advanced an interpretation of Sotirianity congruent with colonialism. Consequently, Abidemism argued that Armageddon would specifically take the form of an {{wp|war of national liberation|anti-colonial}} and {{wp|class struggle|class}} {{wp|war}}—first as a war against colonialism in Asase Lewa, and second as a war of the global {{wp|Subaltern (postcolonialism)|Subaltern}} and {{wp|proletariat|working class}} against [[Euclea|Euclean]] elites–that would lead to the establishment of a {{wp|utopia|utopian}} {{wp|Christian socialism|Sotirian socialist}} society in the {{wp|Millennium}}, followed by the {{wp|Second Coming}} and {{wp|Last Judgment}}.
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| ===Status of women===
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| Consistent with Pentecostalism's outgrowth from the {{wp|Methodism|Westmarckian}} tradition, the faith has consistently permitted the {{wp|ordination of women}} without restrictions since its foundation. Women were essential to the early spread of Abidemism, and many took on key leadership roles in the movement at a time when ordination of women was uncommon outside of churches that did not have roots in the Westmarckian or [[Witterites|Witterite]] traditions. Many women became attracted to early Abidemism, especially, thanks to its emphasis on female participation and ethical mores that preached against {{wp|polygamy}} and against {{wp|female genital mutilation}}, alongside opposition to {{wp|circumcision}} and a broader opposition to {{wp|body modifications}}, ranging from these modifications to modifications such as {{wp|piercings}} and {{wp|tattoos}}. Early Abidemism, therefore, is generally considered to have had a relatively progressive attitude towards gender and the status of women relative to Odonian society more broadly.
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| However, contemporary Abidemism is frequently considered to have highly conservative views on gender relative to the broader Asalewan population. Though early Abidemism's emphasis on female participation has not changed since the early twentieth century, this emphasis on female participation and empowerment has become generally accepted by most of Asalewan society and is no longer distinctive. Furthermore, most Abidemists have maintained their historic opposition to {{wp|abortion}} and {{wp|divorce}} at a time when such things have long been legalized and uncontroversial amongst Asase Lewa's majority. Furthermore, though the mainstream and Edudizt Abidemist sects have maintained their historic opposition to body modification, including female genital mutilation, many Lokpa Abidemists are unopposed to body modifications; indeed, opposition to the strict government prohibition of female genital mutilation was one of the key grievances driving the [[Lokpaland insurgency]].
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| ==Sects==
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| ===Mainline Abidemism===
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| Mainline Abidemism is the line of the Abidemist Church that traces its lineage to the original doctrines of Abidemi's teachings in the early twentieth century before becoming conslidated as the state-supervised Revolutionary Abidemist Church following Abidemism's legalizatoin in 1982. Consistent with its historic association with the state as a precondition for its legalization,, Mainline Abidemists view Abidemi's prophesied violent revolutionary struggle as coming partially true in the violent struggles of the Asalewan Revolution and other [[Council republic|Councilist]] revolutions in the early twentieth century. However, Mainline Abidemists view these struggles as incomplete because they were not {{wp|world revolution|global}} and thus did not result in {{wp|world communism}} and were {{wp|atheism|atheistic}}; furthermore, Mainline Abidemists do not necessarily attach spiritual significance to non-Abidemist revolutionaries themselves, arguing that Abidemi prophesied these revolutionaries' actions, and that these actions did help lay the foundation for the {{wp|Millennium}}, but that the revolutionaries' atheism meant they were mere {{wp|virtuous pagans}} and thus their actions were not {{wp|divine inspiration|divinely inspired}}.
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| The largest variant of Abidemism, approximately half of all Asalewan Abidemists, approximately 3.5 million people, belong to the Mainline tradition, with the tradition particularly popular in the rural Lowland areas—particularly in rural Ashanaland—in which Abidemism originated. In addition to this number, a large number of Lokpa Abidemists also informally associated with Mainline Abidemism following the 2000 Peace Agreement between the Asalewan state and the Lokpa Spiritual Freedom Army's moderate factions. At the national level, the bulk of Mainline Abidemist clerical leadership has historically been comprised of the descendants of Abidemi's relatives and close friends; however, the Revolutionary Abidemist Church's {{wp|Presbyterian polity|presybterian form of organization}} means that decision-making power is relatively devolved to local levels.
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| ===Lokpa Abidemism===
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| [[File:MawuenaAmoussou2.png|thumb|right|250px|Mawuena Amoussou, the founder of Lokpa Abidemism.]]
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| The newest sect in Abidemism, the informal term Lokpa Abidemism refers to the sect of Abidemism that developed in Lokpaland in the 1980s following the legalization of Abidemism and {{wp|vision (spirituality)|spiritual visions}} by the Abidemist preacher and Lokpa farmer {{wp|Alice Auma|Mawuena Amoussou}}. Amoussou claimed to be an incarnation of the Holy Spirit in much the same way as Abidemi, and strongly rejected the pro-state and Section positions of Mainline Abidemism, instead holding that its atheistic character meant that the Asalewan Section and state were instead another sinful, worldly institution whose defeat was a necessary precondition for the Millennium. Amoussou prophesied another violent revolutionary struggle that would lead to the liberation of the {{wp|Kabye people|Lokpa people}} from Asase Lewa and would pressage {{wp|Armagedddon}} and the {{wp|Millennium}}. Amoussou also extensively synthesized Abidemism with traditional {{wp|Kabye people|Lokpa}} {{wp|African traditional religion|beliefs}}, {{wp|mysticism}}, and {{wp|superstition}}. Lokpa Abidemism also especially emphasized the religion's traditional {{wp|vegetarianism}}, and harshly criticzed traditional {{wp|hunter-gatherer}} {{wp|Pygmy}} diets for having meat as a far higher source of caloric intake than the largely {{wp|plant-based}} diet of the {{wp|agriculture|agrarian}} Lokpa.
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| Lokpa Abidemism's combination of {{wp|secessionism|secessionist}} and anti-Pygmy rhetoric proved immensely popular among the Lokpa people during the 1980s, thanks to the prolonged economic and political crisis facing Asase Lewa following the [[Second Mabifian Civil War]], [[Amathian Revolution]], and [[Recession of 1980]], and, especially, growing tensions with Pygmies owing primarily to growing {{wp|reforestation}} efforts sponsored by the central government with substantial Pygmy support that greatly decreased the amount of available arable land for Lokpa farmers in the region. Though Amoussou's advocacy for a violent {{wp|war of independence}} resulted in her {{wp|execution}} in 1985, the movement continued to spread, resulting in the [[Lokpaland insurgency]] in the early 1990s, as the Abidemist Lokpa Spiritual Freedom Army fought for the region's independence. However, the bulk of the LSFA layed down arms following the 2000 Peace Agreement, which resulted in the cessation of war in exchange for wide-ranging {{wp|amnesty}}, increased {{wp|autonomy}} for Lokpaland, and the legalization of Abidemist political factions in electoral politics. Though a minority radical faction continues fighting, the insurgency substantially decreased in intensity and became contained to remote regions of Lokpaland following the Peace Agreement, and the vast majority of Lokpa Abidemists today do not endorse secessionism or action against the Asalewan state. Today, approximately 2 million Lokpa Abidemists live in Asase Lewa, approximately one-quarter of Lokpaland's total population.
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| ===Edudzist Abidemism===
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| The smallest sect of Abidemism at approximately 1.5 million people, or slighly more than one-fifth of the total Abidemist population in Asase Lewa, Edudzist Abidemism is a militant sect of Abidemism which disagrees with Mainstream Abidemism in holding that Asalewan Revolutionaries, including secular ones, did indeed receive {{wp|divine inspiration}} and that the Revolution was not merely a secular event helping create the conditions of a {{wp|social justice}} necessary for the Millennium, but a decisive, divine event in the war between {{wp|God}} and {{wp|Satan}}. More extensively, Edudzist Abidemists also argue that after Abidemi Omolayo's death, the Holy Spirit transferred its soul directly to Edudzi Agyeman, whose body thus became a vessel of the Holy Spirit until his death more than fifty years later.
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| Edudzist Abidemism historically originated during the [[Protective-Corrective Revolution]], when Edudzi Agyeman's {{wp|cult of personality}} reached its apogee. In this political ferment, the original followers of Edudzist Abidemism preached that Armageddon was imminent and some even abandoned Abidemism's traditional {{wp|Postmillennialism}}, holding that Edudzi Agyeman was himself the {{wp|Second Coming}} and would the people to {{wp|world revolution}} and the {{wp|Millennium}}. Folowing Edudzi Agyeman's death, however, these notions declined considerably, but the original core of the sect—namely, holding that the Asalewan Revolution and [[Asalewan Section of the Workers' International|Section]] were divinely inspired and that Edudzi Agyeman was a literal incarnation of the Holy Spirit—remained. The sect thrived and grew rapidly throughout the 1970s and, despite Asase Lewa's official {{wp|state atheism}} and {{wp|anti-clericalism}} during this period, received far less repression from the state than did other sects owing to its pro-Revolutionary character. Organized according to a {{wp|Congregationalist polity}}, the sect remains today, with scholars viewing its {{wp|apotheosis}} of Edudzi Agyeman as a prominent case study of an extreme interpretation of a political cult of personality.
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| ==Abidemism Outside Asase Lewa==
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| ==Notes==
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| {{reflist|group=Note|refs=
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| <ref name=Note01>While Abidemism maintains {{wp|Pentecostalism|Pentecostal}} and {{wp|Charismatic Christianity|Charismatic}} liturgical practices, most Pentecostal churches do not consider the Abidemist Churchpart of the Pentecostal tradition, as its theology differs significantly from most Pentecostal churches.</ref>
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The Bank of Bahia (Gaullican: Banque de Baïe) is an international finance and development finance institution headquartered in Edudzi Agyeman City, Asase Lewa and Kwamuimepe, Kitaubani. The Bank was established by the governments of Asase Lewa and Kitaubani in order to provide development financing and debt relief for Bahian states. Founded with an authorised capital of $10 billion in 1988, the BdB was primarily created in order to provide Bahian states with an alternative to the Global Institute for Fiscal Affairs, which provided extensive debt relief with the stipulation of adopting Economic Restructuring Programs programs. Since its inception, however, the BdB has gradually expanded to provide funds for infrastructure and economic development. The BdB has also become closely associated with the Bank for United Development of the International Forum for Developing States, established at a similar period as the BdB, though also seeking to provide an alternative to the GIFA among Bahian states geopolitically unaligned with the BDU's key backers, Shangea and Zorasan.
Though the area the BdB seeks to cover is coterminous with that of the Congress of Bahian States, the BdB is unaffiliated with the CBS. Though its internal structure differes from that of the GIFA—in that voting power does not entirely correspond to shareholders—the BdB also lacks the CBS's one-member, one-vote structure, with additional votes allotted to the BdB's founding states of Asase Lewa and Kitaubani and to creditor states. An influential organization in furthering economic development on the Bahian subcontinent, the BdB is a controversial organization in the region, with supporters lauding the Bank as a powerful opponent of Euclean neocolonialism and proponent of anti-imperialist South-South cooperation and critics arguing that the BdB's member states of Asase Lewa and Kitaubani have mantained a paternalistic towards other Bahian states and favored those states' economic interests at the expense of other Bahian states.
History
During the 1980s, the foreign policies of two of Bahia's wealthiest states—Asase Lewa and Kitaubani, whose relationship had been highly adversarial in the initial decades after independence—moderated significantly. With the collapse of the Mabifian Democratic Republic in 1979, a decline in most Councilist guerilla movements that Asase Lewa traditionally suported, and the Psychological-Technological Revolution of 1981, Asalewan foreign policy became significantly less interventionist and realist, willing to forge geopolitical alliances with ideological adversaries for economic reasons. A similar political shift occurred in Kitaubani, where the end of the Dirty War and liberalization of the country's constitutional monarchy enabled the ascension of social-democratic and left-wing populist elements to political power that pursued a far less adversial relationship with Asase Lewa and far less cordial relationship with Werania, Kitaubani's primary ally after independence. The result of these shifts in Asalewan and Kitauban foreign policy was an inaguration of widespread détente and strategic cooperation on mutual interests by the mid-1980s.
Simultaneous to this growing détente in Asalewan-Kitauban relations, following the Recession of 1980, numerous developing countries, including the states of Bahia, suffered from an escalating debt crisis, forcing numerous states to pursue debt relief. In previous generations many left-wing Global South states, including in Bahia, secured substantial financial assistance through the Association of Emerging Socialist Economies; however, the collapse of the AESE, and substantial crisis within one of its main Global North sponsors, Valduvia, severely reduced Global South states' outlets for debt relief outside the Global Institute for Fiscal Affairs, which only granted debt relief in response to Economic Restructuring Programs, entailing, among other things, the mass privatization of state assets, layoff of public sector employees, and substantial austerity measures.
In this environment, a number of Global South states and activists sought to establish alternative financial institutions to the GIFA. Globally, this most prominently entailed Shangea and Zorasan's establishment for the International Forum for Developing States and its associated Bank for Unified Development in 1985. During the 1980s, however, the success and substantial growth of the IFDS and BDU that would occur in later decades was not necessarily guaranteed, nor was the BDU's involvement in member states traditionally unaligned to Shangea and Zorasan. Though Asase Lewa and Kitaubani experienced substantial economic and political crisis, like their Bahian neighbors, this crisis was far less profound than in other Bahian states, such as Tiwura; then as new, both states were comparatively wealthy and by the late 1980s began to witness a long-term period, continuing to this day, of economic growth and prosperity, in Asase Lewa thanks to the intensified exploitation of the country's petroleum resources and in Kitaubani thanks to export-oriented industrialization, that resulted in a substantial growth in the countries' foreign exchange reserves.
In this environment, the Asalewan and Kitauban states consequently sought to also create their own international financial institution for Bahian states, seeking first and foremost to prevent the increasing assumption of Economic Restructuring Policies that had been substantially adopted by other Bahian states. Though designed in large part as a way for Asase Lewa and Kitaubani to aid one another, the Bank of Bahia became joined by other member states; Asase Lewa's long-term ally Nahrun quickly joined the Bank of Bahia, as did other Bahian states such as [X].
Though debt relief remained the chief focus of the Bank of Bahia throughout the 1990s, increasing economic and political stability throughout Bahia in the late 1990s and 2000s meant that the Bank of Bahia's emphasis gradually shifted to broader economic development, especially financing infrastructure projects, as a broad-based development finance institution. Furthermore, the IFDS's expansion throughout this period—and the rise of Shangea and Zorasan globally—meant that the BDU emerged as the Bank of Bahia's key partner, with both banks frequently co-financing various development projects throughout the continent. This increasing partnership culminated in procedural changes to the BdB's governance in 2008, granting a small amount of voting power to non-Bahian financing nations—primarily, though not exclusively, Shangea, Zorasan, Valduvia, and Dezevau—while still investing most decision-making power in the founding states of Asase Lewa and Kitaubani. In the modern period, the BdB remains extensively involved in debt relief and development financing in collaboration with the BDU, though is sometimes criticized for allegedly benefitting Asase Lewa and Kitaubani at the expense of other, poorer Bahian states.
Organization
The Bank of Bahia is formally governed by a twelve-member Board of Governors. Its internal structure diverges sharply from institutions like the Global Institute for Fiscal Affairs; rather than being based primarily on special drawing rights or the financial contributions of each member state, the BdB's structure is fixed and unchanging; as the founding members, Asase Lewa and Kitaubani both retain the right to appoint three members each to the Board of Governors. Other member states of the Bank of Bahia retain the right to collectively elect three members to tee Board of Governors according to a one-member, one-vote system. The remaining quarter of seats of the Board of Governors are elected based on states' financial contributions. Though historically Asase Lewa and Kitaubani have been the primary contributors and creditors of the Bank of Bahia, in modern times—especially after the BdB allowed non-Bahian creditor states to exercise voting power in 2008—other states have emerged as major creditors, primarily Shangea, Zorasan, Valduvia, and Dezevau.
Criticism
Though in the late 1980s and early 1990s the Bank of Bahia was much-praised for its anti-imperialist credentials and furthering South-South cooperation, in modern times the Bank has come under substantial criticism for allegedly favoring the interests of its founders, Asase Lewa and Kitaubani, at the expense of other, poorer Bahian states. Detractors of the BdB especially criticize its internal governance, which disproportionately empowers Asase Lewa and Kitaubani and to a lesser extent other creditor states, though the Asalewan and Kitauban states themselves claim this is necessary because these states' historical role in staunchly opposing Euclean neocolonialism means they are better advocates of Bahian interests than other Bahian states.
In addition to this perceived paternalistic attitude, the BdB's detractors also allege that it has become a tool for furthering Asalewan and Kitauban interests more broadly. These critics argue that the BdB's infrastructure projects in non-founder member states have been primarily focused on intensifying the extraction of primary commodities in these states and the shipment of these primary commodities, at relatively low prices consistent with international market values, to Asase Lewa and Kitaubani for refining , industrial processing, and export at the higher prices industrial goods reach on the international market. Rather than enabling the industrialization of other Bahian countries, therefore, these critics argue that the BdB's development projects primarily enable the founder states' ascension to semi-periphery status while leaving most Bahian states languishing in a primarily peripheral role. For example, these critics especially criticize Asase Lewa's longstanding relationship with its much poorer neighbor and ally in Nahrun, arguing that the BdB has intensified a longstanding exploitative relationship between the two states.
These critics also argue, though to a somewhat lesser extent, that the Bank of Bahia has served Asase Lewa and Kitaubani's larger geopolitical objectives; during the 1990s, for example, the BdB encouraged member states to pair development financing with military cooperation on counterterrorism issues, an act widely interpreted as an Asalewan attempt to encourage the Nahrune and Tiwuran governments to cooperate with it in stemming the flow of arms to the Lokpa Spiritual Freedom Army during the Lokpaland insurgency and capturing LSFA soldiers fleeing Asase Lewa for those bordering states.
Asase Lewa
Kitaubani