Kimbanguism

"Kimbanguism

In the first half on the 20th century, prophetic movements sprang up. Their nature was both anti-colonial and Christian, and led to a rigorous crackdown by the authorities.

Simon Kimbangu was the prophet of largest of these movements. He was born in a village near Kinshasa, raised and educated by a Protestant Christian mission and trained to become a priest. In April 1921, at the age of 39, he reportedly had a religious vision of Jesus Christ, who called on him to reconvert his people and dedicate his life to Christ. Kimbangu chose to try to ignore the vision, and fled to Kinshasa where he abandoned his life as a priest and took to menial work. More visions came, and eventually he heeded the calling and returned to his home village and started to devote his life to Christ. Soon after, he is reported to have healed a sick woman by laying his hands on her. Dozens of apparent miracles were subsequently performed by Kimbangu, and he gained followers from surrounding villages and towns. The official Catholic organizations protested to the authorities, and the Protestant church abandoned him. The economic effects of Kimbangu's ministry were being felt, with thousands of Congolese leaving their work to listen to Kimbangu speak. In June the Belgians arrested him for inciting revolution and civil disobedience. Four months later he was sentenced to death. After an international outcry, Albert I of Belgium commuted the sentence to life impisonment. He died 30 years later in prison, in 1951.

Colonial authorities assumed his movement would wither after his imprisonment and death, but the church continued to flourish underground, and was an effective weapon in the fight against colonialism. In the post-colonial era, its record has been more mixed. Instead of banning the church, Mobutu used a far more effective method of neutralizing it: namely co-opting the church and giving it an official status. Kimbanguism has now spread across the country, and now has branches in nine of the surrounding countries, making it the most popular "native" form of Christianity in Africa. Followers do not smoke, drink alcohol and abhor violence. Monogamy is practiced."

From Wikipedia article, "Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo," under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike and the GNU Free Documentation Licenses.

The Kimbanguist church is a member of the World Council of Churches  and is officially known as Eglise de Jésus Christ sur la Terre par Son Envoyé Spécial Simon Kimbangu (Church of Jesus Christ on Earth by His Special Envoy Simon Kimbangu).