O Kimbanguismo em Angola: análises sobre as dinâmicas de formação e de atuação

Abstract

The thesis focuses on kimbanguism, a socio-religious phenomenon that emerged in Lower Congo (Central Africa) in the first half of the 20th century from the dynamics of the cultural contacts between Central African populations and Belgian, French and Portuguese colonial agents. The study reconstructs the historical processes of the formation of Kimbanguism, it approaches the configurations that the Kimbanguist strands currently demonstrate both in relation to the structuring of their doctrines and in relation to their modes of internal organization and social action; it also analyzes the presence of different cultural processes in the formation of kimbanguism. Such approaches develop around two Kimbanguist branches, the Church of Jesus Christ on Earth by His Special Envoy Simon Kimbangu (CJCSK/26=1) and the Church of the Holy Spirit in Africa (CHSA) both in Angola. Its conceptual construction is guided by the “long-term processes” proposed by Fernand Braudel (1965) to understand the formation of a phenomenon from different historical times; the concept of “African messianism” by Georges Balandier (2008) that studies the emergence of prophetic-political movements in Central Africa opposed to colonization; by the idea of “African Christianity” by John Thornton (2008) that seeks to understand the abortion of Christianity by African cultures, as well as by the logic of cultural contacts based on Marshall Sahlins (2008) that will allow to understand the transformations of central cultures African communities because of these contacts. The thesis demonstrates that after about a hundred years the Kimbanguisms remain dynamics because they constantly update their configurations in order to adapt to the different socio-historical conjunctures they face.