Abstract
Christianity as a new religion imposed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by missionaries is predicated on the destruction of traditional African religions, worldviews, and ethical systems that were the cornerstones of traditional peace among tribes and nations. This imposition of a new and foreign worldview was made at the same time that Africa fell to European colonial powers. The new worldview that takes no inspiration from African tradition thrives only by ridiculing and belittling traditional systems now reduced to being the work of the devil, magical, fetishists, and so on. This reduction creates trauma in the African cut off from his or her ancestors and his or her ancestral imagination. The new religion is not yet internalized or endogenized to become a new locus of creative imagination and ethical harmony. Thus, in the new context, violence erupts because of the lack of social, ethical, and religious cohesion in response to political marginalization and economic exploitation. In the absence of competent political leadership and in the presence of rampant corruption, only Christianity as a social institution remains standing. It is this institution that tries to build peace through education, charitable work, and peace and justice commissions. The success of the Church’s efforts is limited given the widespread endemic violence in the country since it gained its independence from Belgium in 1960, and that true and lasting peace can only come from political choices and settlements.
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Notes
- 1.
Missionaries are agents of the political agenda of conquering new lands for European sovereigns. In doing so, as Oscar Bimwenyi showed in a brilliant dissertation, they were obeying the sacred instructions of Pope Alexander VI in his bull, Inter Caetera (1493), “to overthrow paganism and establish the Christian faith in all barbarous nations.” Dum Diversas (1452) and Romanus Pontifex (1455) of Nicholas V “had indeed already given the kings of Portugal the right to dispossess and externally enslave Mahometans, pagans, and black people in general.” “Dum Diversas clearly stipulates the right to invade, conquer, expel, and fight (invadendi, conquirendi, expugnandi, debellandi) Muslims, pagans, and other enemies of Christ (Saracenos ac paganos, aliosque Christi inimicos) wherever they may be. Christian kings, following the Pope’s decisions, could occupy pagan kingdoms, principalities, lordships, possessions (regna, principatus, Domina, possessions) and dispossess them of their personal property, land, and whatever they might have (et mobilia et immobilia bona quaecumque per eos detenta ac possessa). The king and his successors have the power and right to put these peoples into perpetual slavery (subjugandi illorumque personas in perpetuam servitutem)” (Ibid.). See also Oscar Bimwenyi Kweshi, Discours théologique négro-Africain: Problèmes de fondements (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1981).
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Cicura, D.M. (2023). Religion and Peacebuilding in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In: Kilonzo, S.M., Chitando, E., Tarusarira, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Religion, Peacebuilding, and Development in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36829-5_15
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