The warrior prophetism of the Reverend Pastor Ntumi: The origin and development of the Nsilulu movement in the Republic of the Congo (1998–2019)

The complex figure of the Reverend Pastor Ntumi, often dismissed as a ‘visionary’ or a ‘puppet of power’, is not easy to pin down. Without claiming to provide an exhaustive analysis, this article offers a detailed interpretation of the prophet and his movement in the light of other Congolese prophetic movements, the spiritual geography of the department of Pool, and recent events that have influenced the development of Ntumi’s ‘warrior prophetism’. This study also reveals several little-known aspects of the Nsilulu movement (including its ritual dimension, its healing and divinatory practices, and its symbolic representations) and discusses its ambiguous relationship with the Nsikumusu Protestant prophetic movement, at the intersection of violent and non-violent prophetisms.