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Heart and Soul: Congo's Jerusalem: Congos Jerusalem

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15/01/2016 GMT

Congo's Jerusalem

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

How the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo have turned to the Catholic Church

William Edmundson looks at how people in the Democratic Republic of Congo have turned to the Catholic Church for a sense of hope

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/p03dhcxr

(Photo: An elderly woman prays during the early morning mass at the Catholic Church of Zongo, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: Federico Scoppa/AFP/Getty Images)

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