Kitawala millenarian networks in the Belgian Congo

Record summary

Kitawala networks, influenced in part by Watch Tower teachings but frequently operating independently of the Watch Tower Society, continued to circulate through the Belgian Congo after the Second World War. Reports describe expectations of an imminent transformed order, distinctive baptismal and communal practices, and resistance to colonial authority. The movement offers a comparison between imported apocalyptic texts and locally reconstructed Christian traditions. Its organization, leadership, and doctrinal relationship to official Jehovah’s Witnesses remain debated across colonial and later scholarship.