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Heart and Soul: Congo’s Jerusalem: Congo's Jerusalem

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03/07/2015 GMT

Congo's Jerusalem

Congo’s Jerusalem

BBC World Service - Heart and Soul, Congo’s Jerusalem, Congo's Jerusalem

William Edmundson looks at how the people of the DRC have turned to the Catholic Church.

William Edmundson visits the revivalist churches of the DR Congo to assess how the country's religious landscape is changing

Take a trip through the streets of Kinshasa and there is a good chance you will walk past or into a church, blaring out music enticing you in to worship in its colourful, noisy congregation 

In the second part of his religious snapshot of Democratic Republic of Congo William Edmundson examines the revivalist churches that have sprung up around the capital Kinshasa.  The starting point of William’s journey is an 2013 attempted coup, one of the many coups attempted in this country over its bumpy history.  But what sets this apart is that it was not led by revolutionaries or a disgruntled military, but by a pastor, Paul Joseph Mukungubila and his followers. 
 
As William explored in the first programme, the DRC has a complicated religious past linked to its colonial history and the Catholic church has long been the main faith of choice, but now a new, vibrant revival church is capturing the faithful of the country by focusing on the word of the gospel. William visits the revivalist churches to find out their appeal and whether the established Protestant Catholic and Kimbanguist faiths we heard about in the first programme can maintain their influence in the face of this new power

Producer/Presenter William Edmundson

If you would like to hear the first part of Williams journey through the DRC to explore its religious past then please visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p002vsn4

Heart and Soul: Congo’s Jerusalem

BBC World Service

William Edmundson looks at how the people of the DRC have turned to the Catholic Church for a sense of hope.

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