Case file · Apparition / miracle
Simon Kimbangu's healings at Nkamba
From 6 April 1921 crowds flocked to Nkamba in the Belgian Congo, where a Baptist catechist, Simon Kimbangu, was said to heal the sick and raise the dead by laying on hands.
1921 CE · -5.40, 14.44 · status: account
The account
Missions emptied and workers left their jobs to see him. Within months the Belgian authorities arrested him and a military court sentenced him to death, commuted to life; he died in prison in Elisabethville in 1951. The Kimbanguist Church, one of the largest African-initiated churches, calls Nkamba its 'New Jerusalem' and considers him an incarnation of the Holy Spirit.
The sceptical view
The healings are known from followers' testimony and hostile colonial reports; his ministry lasted only five months.