DR CONGO: JESUS "CHANGED HIS ADDRESS", HE SETTLED IN THE CONGO

Adam and Eve were black and were created in Nkamba: for the kimbanguists, it is indisputable. A hundred kilometers from Kinshasa, this city is the cradle of kimbanguism, a religion born in the nineteenth century in a then Belgian Congo and which today claims 22 million faithful.

Mario Swalezi Nlandu explains to the foreign visitor the doctrinal foundations of this religion in a small voice in his small office near the huge temple atop the sacred hill of Nkamba.

"You are a researcher," and one does not come to Nkamba by chance, "one day you will remember your passage here and you will understand," predicted the evangelizing official of the Kimbanguist Church.

Sitting at his desk, he exposes the message of universal vocation revealed by the preaching of Simon Kimbangu, "special envoy of Jesus Christ on Earth", who had a brief public ministry in 1921 before spending 30 years in prison and To end his days there as an incitement to revolt.

"On April 5, 1921, at midnight, Jesus Christ said:" Now Nkamba will no longer be called Nkamba, it is now New Jerusalem. "It is Jesus' message to Simon Kimbangu," said Mr. Swalezi.

The holy book of the kimbanguists is the Bible, but it occupies a secondary role in the Magisterium, where the teachings of the prophet and his descendants who succeeded him at the head of the Church prevail.

Their words are "sacred," says the Reverend: Simon Kimbangu is the first incarnation of the Holy Spirit of the Christian Trinity; And his grandson, Simon Kimbangu Kiangani, also a reincarnation of the Holy Spirit, is the current "spiritual leader and legal representative" of the Kimbanguist Church.

In Nkamba, the faithful gathered in front of the mausoleums of Simon Kimbangu and his relatives, as well as the white and green temple with two bell towers built in the 1970s, with imposing dimensions (100 meters by 50 meters).

Green carpet 

The regulation forces them, like visitors, to wander around the city barefoot or in socks. He also applies to the "spiritual leader" of the Church, but he does not tread the ground: he walks on a green carpet unrolled in his path and quickly folded behind him. The believers turn to him on his knees.

Kimbanguism takes up many elements of Christianity imported by the missionaries, but with the addition of local specificities. At the foot of the hillock, a pool of "blessed" muddy water serves for purification, such as "the pool of Siloë" in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. Reported miraculously, the water that flows from the natural source "is ordinary" as soon as it leaves the sacred enclosure, explains a person in charge.

The temple, the mausoleums, the swimming pool: the Reverend Swalezi sees so many "symbols of sovereignty" testifying that "Christ transferred his kingdom" from Jerusalem to Nkamba, that "he changed his address."

In 1921, Simon Kimbangu's short preaching quickly seduced the colonized population, ready to hear a message of emancipation from the Black Man. But that the Belgian colonial authorities prohibited: the first kimbanguists were persecuted and their worship was only authorized in 1959, the year preceding the independence of the Congo.

Today, about 10% of the population in the DRC is kimbanguist, and religion has spread elsewhere in Africa and through Europe to the Congolese diaspora.

Benjamin Bena, interior architect for the monuments of the holy city, told AFP, "and no sacrifice is too great to hasten the enlargement of the city. city.

Usually, Mr. Bena divides his time between Nkamba and Kinshasa, where he oversees a few construction sites and where his wife and six children await him. "But now Papa [the spiritual leader] does not want me to come back [to Kinshasa] because there are more important works here," he said of the museum to be inaugurated in March 2018.

Donations Competition

In his speeches broadcast by Ratelki, Kimbanguist Radio Television, Simon Kimbangu Kiangani, calls on his flock to come and participate in the "Nkamba works" and to be generous to finance them.

Constantly, the faithful are encouraged to give. In Nkamba, "nsinsani" (donation contest) is organized every day, during which pilgrims and inhabitants - largely destitute like almost the entire Congolese population - come to put their offerings in basins by dancing to the rhythm removed from a fanfare.

As Mr. Bena, Fils Kimani, 47, a farm worker, stayed longer than expected: "I came for a year ... and it's been 17 years since I was here," he says, Without complaint.

These cases are far from being isolated. "When you are chosen [...] you assume," testifies a journalist of the Ratelki. "In the beginning, it can be frightening and it takes sacrifices, but little by little, we get accustomed."

It floats on Nkamba an unusual sweetness in the Congo. Not a cry (it is forbidden within the walls of the "holy city"), but music and polyphonic songs - music of particular importance in this religion. Foreign journalists are welcomed with open arms, care is taken to ensure that they do not lack anything. Always with the hope that the visits will lead to conversions.