Abstract
Much has been written about the history of the Kimbanguist movement in Zaire, but comparatively little is known about today's Kimbanguists. Marie-Louise Martin, who is an author on Kimbanguism as well as a member of the Kimbanguist Church, Eglise de Jesus Christ sur la Terre par le Prophete Simon Kimbangu (EJCSK) (The Church ofJesus Christ on Earth through the Prophet Simon Kimbangu), confines herself in her book to the opinions of the elite of the church. Her book is therefore not only a documentation on Kimbanguism but also a Kimbanguist document. As she puts it: instead of judging the church by what individual Christians say, we must pay attention to the authoritative leaders and to the tendency revealed in the total life of the church.1 Though she states that Kimbanguist beliefs and theology are still in flux2 she does not allow for the integration of the ideas of the people within the Kimbanguist Church3 into her account of Kimbanguist beliefs. On the contrary. She goes to great pains to polish clumsy4 statements by Kimbanguists in order to maintain their theological orthodoxy and respectability. Not only simple members of the church, but intellectuals5 as well, and even one of Kimbangu's sons, Dialungana6 have to undergo this treatment. Every indication of the heretical and the syncretist is retouched and argued away. In this way, an ideal picture is drawn in which the common members' convictions are only mentioned in order to be criticized. The approach is subjectively theological in its main emphasis. This also has consequences for Martin's description of the history of the church. It is official history with the leaders of the church as the main spokesmen. It is not history from the viewpoint of the common adherents. The significance of Kimbangu's activities is reduced to that of a religious revival which the
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