Religion: the Kimbanguist church celebrates Christmas

The statement was made during the mass said by Reverend Aristide Louthes on the theme « Kimbanguist zala posed » in Lingala which means in French « Kimbanguiste be serene ». The gospel was based on the following scriptures: Luke 1:26-31; Psalms 33:10-13; Hebrews 13:8. The statement states that it has been twenty-three years since the Kimbanguist church first celebrated the nativity on May 25. This historic and highly spiritual decision had then produced a shock wave in public opinion, to such an extent that the Kimbanguist church was wrongly called a heretic. Until today, ordinary mortals have not spared their imagination to tell kimbanguists that they are drunk. So said, the question that haunts people’s minds is, without doubt, that of knowing why the kimbanguists celebrate Christmas on May 25?

To answer this question, they explain where the date of December 25 came from. Indeed, according to them, the Roman pagans were the first to introduce the feast of the Saturnalia and that of the god Mithras of a week of “society without laws”, ranging from December 17 to 25. During this period, the Roman courts were closed, and Roman law stipulated that no one could be punished for damaging someone else’s property, or for hurting or assaulting someone during this celebration. And during this period, Christians, whose faith was still wavering, deserted the churches to indulge in pagan rejoicings. This situation had become all the more worrying as these two pagan holidays put the clergy in harm’s way. Also, in a conventional way, the clergy decided to celebrate the birth of Christ on the date of December 25 in order to protect the church from heresy.

In fact, the Christians who first celebrated the “birth of Jesus” on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born that month, but rather, because the pagan festivals of Saturnalia and Mithras were at that time observed in Rome and they wanted to christianize the pagan festivals of Saturnalia in order to attract the great number of these pagans to the church, can we read in the declaration, thus explaining in a terse way some historical justifications of the date of December 25.

Jesus Christ announces the coming of the Son of Man (Matthew 24:27-28)

In 1921, the Belgians asked Simon Kimbangu the question “Where will the advent of the son of man take place?” ? His response was reported through a divinely inspired song in the Kikongo language. Thus, the date of May 25 is a revelation of Christ Dialungana himself who, at midnight on May 25, 1996, in full worship commemorating his 80th birthday, exclaimed joyfully: “Noooeeee!!! » Everyone understood that May 25 is Christmas, the Nativity, the much sought after day of the birth of Jesus Christ which coincides with the birth of Christ Dialungana Kiangani. As the Swiss theologian of the XX^and century, Karl Barth, “Man absolutely cannot discover by himself who God is, does not freely reveal himself to him. It is faith in the word that produces a knowledge of the word and manifests its truth.” states the statement.

It was finally in the year 2000 that May 25 was made official as the date of the nativity, following the solemn declaration made by himself, his eminence Salomon Dialungana Kiangani, then spiritual leader. “Christ was born on May 25. Go claim it in the media, and let the world know about it. » To support this Kimbanguist claim, namely the date of May 25, they referred to the Holy Scriptures to find the role played by the Jewish calendar in relation to the current Gregorian calendar. The first Jewish month (abib) begins in April (Exodus 12:1; 13:4). The sixth Jewish month (elul) begins in September (Luke 1:36), when the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will be pregnant and will give birth to a child called Jesus. In September, Mary was indeed pregnant (Luke 1:26). As of this month, the normal nine-month pregnancy coincides with the month of May. The son of God cannot be four months premature.

The declaration also indicates that the month of May is also that of the birth of Salomon Dialungana Kiangani, second son of the divine envoy Simon Kimbangu… Nkamba, new Jerusalem, is the marvelous city of God where resides God the father, God the son and God the Holy Spirit. It is also there that Solomon Dialungana Kiangani was born on May 25, 1916. In 1999, a vision reported that Salomon Dialungana Kiangani was escorted by angels who sang the hymn in his honor in the Lingala language.

It should be noted that well before the mass, the Kimbanguists of the city of Brazzaville all met at the roundabout of Moungali before damning the tarmac to the Center d’accueil du Plateau de 15 ans where the celebration was held.