Kinshasa not only wakes up to the sound of church steeples and cathedrals of the country’s Catholic Church, but also to the songs of the first services of 6,000 of its so-called revival churches. The DRC is now a major center of the evangelical world on the African continent. More than 35% of Congolese, according to the Pew Research Forum, an American think tank, attend evangelical, Pentecostal or neo-Protestant churches.
Evangelical pastors are present everywhere in the daily life of people in the DRC.
Jean-François Dozon, anthropologist and researcher emeritus at EHESS
Jean-François Dozon, anthropologist and researcher emeritus at the EHESS works on the African religious landscape. “Evangelicals are everywhere in people’s daily lives. They are present in the morning in buses, collective taxis to preach the word of God. They canvass people. They make people pray in the street. And these pastors have a strength whether they are at the head of a small church of about twenty members or at the head of what we would call a megachurch with several thousand people, that of being in the daily lives of people “describes the anthropologist.
Faithful Catholics do not hesitate to go see pastors to heal from this or that disease. This will not prevent them from going to Sunday mass.
Jean-François Dozon, anthropologist and researcher emeritus at EHESS
“We see the evangelical pastor to solve his problems whether they are material, health, heart, couple. We believe that the pastor of these so-called revival churches has a capacity to take charge that many priests do not have. not”, explains the emeritus researcher. In a few decades the Catholic Church has lost a significant part of the country’s religious market to the benefit of evangelicals according to the researcher.
But belonging to a particular religious movement is extremely porous in the DRC. “Catholic faithful do not hesitate to go see pastors to heal from such and such an illness. This will not prevent them from going to Sunday mass. This is why it remains very complicated to count, to really have reliable figures on the place of such and such a religion in the Congolese religious country”explains the researcher.
A promise of a better life
“Pastors, reverends, bishops, archbishops, prophets and apostles more or less self-proclaimed, empathetic, well-spoken, dressed as “sappers” and owning television channels, make promises of a better life”explains to AFP Gauthier Musenge Mwanza, research professor in the sociology department of the University of Kinshasa.
Read: DR Congo, how far does the influence of the Catholic Church go in the political game?
For a while, the all-powerful Catholic Church in the DRC has been jostled by these newcomers to the religious landscape for a little over thirty years. How to explain such a breakthrough? “The Catholic Church remains very institutional. There are of course Catholic schools and universities. But the feeling that predominates among many Congolese is that of a Church that still remains quite distant from people in their daily concerns”, explains Jean-François Dozon. “So-called charismatic Catholic priests have taken up in their sermons the very direct discourse of evangelicals in sermons. But they were quite quickly marginalized by the Church”explains the researcher.
In the 1990s, the DRC but also other African countries were victims of what were called ‘structural adjustments’ by major international institutions such as the IMF or the World Bank. The Congolese State had to reduce its spending on health and education. Evangelicals then took over.
Jean-François Dozon, anthropologist and researcher emeritus at EHESS.
The example of Simon Kimbangu
The success of this or that charismatic pastor is not foreign to the religious culture of the DRC according to Jean-François Dozon. The figure of the almost prophetic religious leader is present in the DRC. “The best-known case in the country is that of Simon Kimbangu. In 1921, the latter declared having had a vision of Jesus Christ which would have enabled him to achieve a miraculous healing. He founded what would become the Kibanguist Church. This movement religion that still exists in the DRC will be recognized by the colonizing country Belgium”, describes Jean-François Dozon. Some evangelical pastors seek to reproduce the charismatic figure of Simon Kimbangu.
The absence of the Congolese state in the social and economic life of the country also explains the breakthrough of evangelicals in the country. “In the 90s, the DRC but also other African countries were victims on the part of major international institutions such as the IMF or the World Bank of what was called ‘structural adjustments’. The Congolese State had to reduce its spending on health, education for example. Evangelicals then took over from this absent public power”, describes Jean-François Dozon. The number of these churches of revival exploded from the 1990s, with enormous popularity among poor, unemployed populations with no future prospects.
prosperity theology
A theology will break through in the African world, the so-called theology of prosperity. One must seek the favors of God to become rich. Very present in Latin America in the 80s, it will cross the Atlantic carried by Brazilian evangelical pastors. Nigeria will then be the first great African land of evangelization of these neo-Protestant movements.
Make money, get married, travel to Europe? Just pray to Jesus, dance and sing, and give preachers dollars.Gauthier Musenge, sociologist at the University of Kinshasa.
“Brazilian and American pastors trained pastors in Nigeria who founded their spiritual enterprise and these Nigerian pastors set out to conquer Africa”describes Jean-François Dozon. “The 90s correspond to a time when economic liberalism is on the rise and the evangelical movement corresponds to this moment. The pastors are entrepreneurs and intend to enrich themselves by the payment of the tithe of the faithful (10% of income) They embody a material success, a success of economic liberalism”, explains the researcher.
“Earn money, get married, travel to Europe? Just pray to Jesus, dance and sing, and give dollars to preachers,” ironically sociologist Gauthier Musenge told AFP.
Religious movements less politically influential than the Catholic Church
For the moment the evangelical movements do not arrive as in the DRC and in other countries of the region to weigh on the national political life. “The Catholic Church in the DRC remains a State within the State, capable of contesting or supporting this or that power. A cardinal has more institutional power than any evangelical pastor in the country. A cardinal can be close to the pope. He is also trained as a diplomat. He meets chancelleries. This strength still allows the Catholic Church to supplant the Evangelicals politically.”says Jean François Dozon, researcher at the EHESS.
In the 80s, the 90s this institutional power of the Church was also one of the causes of its decline. The dictator Mobutu Sese Seko (president of the DRC then named Zaire) had supported the evangelical churches against the power of the Catholic Church.
Some faithful who had deserted the Catholic Church for these more attractive chapels have since returned to its bosom, having noticed that miracles were slow in coming.
Despite everything, revivalist churches continue to draw crowds. Their number is difficult to establish, but last year, a Congolese deputy wanted the authorities to close 10,000, criticizing according to him in terms of business, deception and swindle.
Evangelicals in Africa: how many divisions?
According to the Pew Forum, American think tank working on religious data in the world, sub-Saharan Africa today has 63% Christians, including 21% Catholics, 5% Orthodox and 36% Protestants. Among the latter, the Pentecostal and evangelical movements are growing very strongly, without it being possible to have precise figures to measure it, according to the Pew Forum. Sebastien Fath, researcher at the CNRS, puts forward the figure of 170 million evangelicals in Africa. They would be a little over 55 million in Nigeria and 20 million in Kenya.