Divisive Matters: Aesthetic difference and authority in a Congolese spiritual movement 'from Japan'

Abstract

This is an ethnographic study of alternative spirituality in the densely populated city of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The perspective is oriented from the vantage point of the followers of a Japanese ‘spiritual movement’ (Sekai Kyûseikyô, Church of World Messianity, Église Messianique Mondiale/EMM), which has been introduced to Congo, as well as locally governed and frequented there exclusively by Africans. The thesis addresses the role and innovative ethical potential of this divergent religious minority in the diversifying religious field of the contemporary Africa city. By applying an aesthetic approach, the thesis offers insights into the role of religious things, spiritual technologies and aesthetic repertoires in the generation and politics of difference. This results in boundaries and tensions, which revolve around popular suspicions of ‘magic’, ‘occult sciences’ and witchcraft. A main argument of the thesis is that, in conjunction with religious things and artefacts, the human body and the senses are important architectures of difference, which is both an obstacle and an asset in the production of authority. Thus, the study explores religion in Africa, i.e. the quest for health, prosperity and overall fortune, of a minority of Kinois (Kinshasa’s inhabitants) from a point of view that is decisively neither Catholic nor Pentecostal. After the introduction, eight chapters present and analyse the ways in which cultural materials ‘from Japan’ are locally re-produced and validated. Chapter 1 offers a preliminary discussion of the Japanese origins and global trajectories of the EMM movement, as well as its implantation and schismatic multiplication in Kinshasa. Thus also the Temple Messianique Art de Johrei (TMAJ) is presented. The remaining chapters revolve around the various 'divisive matters' practised by EMM and TMAJ. Chapter 2 introduces the ethnographic field by discussing the degree of suspicion levelled against non-Christian spiritual movements, mostly by Born-Again Christians. Given that this condemnation follows the logic of witchcraft accusations in terms of occultism and magic, the chapter addresses the question of religious non-conformism primarily through the sociological implications of suspicion and witchcraft. In the context of the city suspicion must be understood as an infrapolitical resource, which explains why the ‘iconic boundaries’ between Christian and non-Christian movements so ardently persist. Chapters 3 to 8 subsequently single out the most important of EMM’s and TMAJ’s practices so as to contextualise them one by one in the religious history of West Central Africa and the pluralistic religious environment of contemporary Kinshasa. Each of the chapters constitutes an ethnographic essay on the basis of the same methodological framework. Chapter 3 discusses the re-/production of Ikebana flower arrangement as perhaps the most important divisive matter, or, iconic boundary. Chapters 4 and 5 address the healing energy of Johrei in the context of religious and medical pluralism, which is followed by the matter of ‘vibrating’ Japanese mantras and the power of vocal sound (Chapter 6). The ‘imported tradition’ of ‘ancestor worship’ is discussed in Chapter 7. Lastly, the matters of soil, sentiment and EMM’s ethical renewal are approached through the ritual practices of urban cleaning campaigns and organic farming (Chapter 8). Authority and difference recur as leitmotifs throughout all chapters. Persistently faithful to the aesthetic approach, all chapters reveal continuities and disjunctions between ‘spiritual movements’ and Christian ones from the actors’ point of view.