Religion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

[5] According to the 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom, an estimated 48.1% of the population are Protestant, including evangelical Christians and the Church of Jesus Christ on Earth through the Prophet Simon Kimbangu (Kimbanguist), and 47.3% Catholic.

[8][full citation needed] Traditional religions embody such concepts as pantheism, animism, vitalism, spirit and ancestor worship, witchcraft, and sorcery and vary widely among ethnic groups.

For example, Christian students may employ sorcery with the objective of improving their individual exam scores or of helping their school's soccer team win in competition against their opponents.

The church owns and manages an extensive network of hospitals, schools, and clinics, as well as many diocesan economic enterprises, including farms, ranches, stores, and artisans' shops.

State subsidies for hospitals and schools, for example, were (with two individual exceptions) reserved exclusively for Catholic institutions until after World War II.

Protestant churches are valued, as are their Catholic counterparts, not only for the medical and educational services they provide, but also for serving as islands of integrity in a sea of corruption.

Explicit recognition of this role came in 1983 when Mobutu sent emissaries to Europe and the United States to encourage increased involvement by foreign mission boards in Zairian institution-building; a conference in Kinshasa with local and international Protestant officials followed.

The government's requirement that religious groups register with the state and post a Z100,000 deposit in a bank in order to be legally recognized helped limit their development; so too did the lingering effects of the colonial franchise system.

The governing body prevented the Kivu church from accepting the rebellious preacher and his congregation, leaving him with no outside allies or resources and effectively localizing his potential impact.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints arrived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1986 and has been growing rapidly, though it remains minor.

Kimbangu was already a member of the English Baptist Mission Church when he reportedly first received his visions and divine call to preach the word and heal the sick.

Touring the lower Congo, he gained a large following drawn both from members of Protestant churches and adherents of indigenous religious practice.

Healing by the laying on of hands; strict observance of the law of Moses; the destruction of fetishes; the repudiation of sorcery, magic, charms, and witches; and the prohibition of polygyny were all part of his original message.

And European interests were affected when African personnel abandoned their posts for long periods in order to follow Kimbangu and participate in his services.

It flourished and spread "in exile" in the form of clandestine meetings, often held in remote areas by widely scattered groups of congregants.

The church's head, Simon Kimbangu's son, regularly exchanges public praise with Mobutu and has become one of the state's main ideological supports.

The Kimbanguist Church deliberately rotates its officials outside their areas of origin in order to depoliticize ethnicity and centralize power, a policy taken directly from the state.

In spite of state prohibitions, new churches outside the three officially recognized in the DRC have sprung up and, so long as they remain small and nonthreatening, have usually been left alone by authorities.

Some have been founded by figures known as prophets, individuals who respond to situations of popular dissatisfaction with existing spiritual agents and organizations by creating new religious movements.

The British missionary Joseph Booth and his African associate Elliott Kamwana became members of the Watch Tower Society in South Africa in 1906 and 1907 respectively.

[17][18] Kamwana remained its leader and promoted daughter churches in Tanganyika and the Belgian Congo in addition to those in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia before his death in 1956.

Kitawala denounced all forms of authority as the work of Satan, including taxes, forced labour, and most other coercive elements of colonial rule.

Entire communities have moved into deep forest in areas such as Équateur Province in order to escape any contact with civil authorities.

A typical practice involving a nature spirit in much of northern Zaire is the commonplace tossing of a red item (palm nut, cloth, matches, etc.)

A sorcerer might be consulted and paid to provide a medicine or object that strengthens the client in the hunt (or, in contemporary life, in taking an exam) or that brings misfortune on an enemy.

In the event of illness, or of crop failure, or of misfortune in some other sphere of life, the stricken party may consult a diviner in order to identify the agent responsible for his or her affliction.

By obtaining details of the afflicted person's life and social situation, the diviner will diagnose the misfortune by citing the agency of angry ancestors, nature spirits, sorcerers, or witches.

From an outsider's perspective, the most striking aspect of indigenous belief and practice is its determinism; accidents are virtually unheard of, and there is always a cause behind any misfortune.

Islam has been present in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since the 18th century, when Arab traders from East Africa pushed into the interior for ivory-trading purposes.

The Baháʼí Faith in Democratic Republic of the Congo began after `Abdu'l-Bahá wrote letters encouraging taking the religion to Africa in 1916.