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John Gachango Gatũ was one of the most important Kenyan church leaders of his generation. As a young man, he was highly active in the Mau Mau movement to resist British colonialism. He then became a minister and rose to prominence. He was the first African to serve as general secretary of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa and went on to be moderator. He held influential positions in numerous Christian organizations, including the All Africa Conference of Churches and the World Council of Churches. He is best remembered for his call – first made in 1971 – for a moratorium on Western missionaries in the developing world. Gatũ published multiple books. It is now possible to assess his thought, life, and leadership on their own terms. He emphasized three distinctives of his churchmanship: he was a revivalist who was deeply committed to the East African Revival Movement; an ecumenist who worked tirelessly for Christian cooperation and unity; and, most of all, an Africanist, who sought to inhabit and commend a truly African Christianity. This session is made possible with the financial support of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. It is jointly sponsored by the Canadian Society of Church History, the Canadian Theological Society, the Canadian Catholic Historical Association, and the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies.