The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1296 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
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Kimbanguism
.
The largest independent Christian movement in Black Africa. It derives from Simon Kimbangu (1889–1951), a
Baptist
mission catechist, whose preaching and healing in the lower Congo started a mass movement in 1921. His subsequent death-sentence for alleged sedition was commuted to life imprisonment, after British Baptist missionaries had appealed to the Belgian king. The new movement continued underground, despite mass deportations by the colonial government. In 1957 it secured toleration and in 1959 legal recognition as Église de Jésus-Christ sur la Terre par le Prophète Simon Kimbangu (EJCSK, The Church of Jesus Christ through the Prophet Simon Kimbangu), under the leadership of Kimbangu's son, Joseph Diangienda (b. 1918). N'kamba, Kimbangu's birthplace and final burial place, is a pilgrimage centre. There have been secessions and other Kimbanguist groups with different emphases, but all look to Simon Kimbangu as an idealized founder and martyr figure.
Kim
i, David,
or Radak
(
c.
1160–1235).
Jewish grammarian and exegete. Kim
i was the author of the grammatical treatise
Mikhlol
(1532); he wrote commentaries on the books of Chronicles, Genesis, the prophetic books, and the Psalms. He was a strong supporter of
Maimonides
, and the correspondence between Kim
i and Judah ibn Alfakhar on Maimonides' philosophy has been preserved.
Kim
-tokaku
(Jap., ‘hair of a tortoise and horn of a hare’). Zen expression for belief in something that does not exist, especially in the existence of an independent self.
Kinah
.
Heb. mourning poem. Kinot (pl.) were traditionally spoken over the dead (e.g. Genesis 23.2) and at times of national calamity. Many anthologies have been produced over the years.
King, Martin Luther, Jr.
(1929–68).
American
Baptist
minister and leader of the civil rights movement. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and attended Moorhouse College and Crozier Theological Seminary where he was in search of a theology commensurate with his understanding of society through sociology. He gained a Ph.D. at Boston University School of Theology, where he became acquainted with the writings of
G
ndh
. In 1954 he became pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama, where he became involved in the boycott of the city's segregated buses, taking leadership of the campaign. In 1955, such segregation was declared unconstitutional. King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to draw together campaigns against discrimination, emphasizing non-violence. Somewhat disappointed at the general apathy, he wrote his
‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’
in 1963, when he was arrested during the massive demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama.
King's campaigns culminated in the Washington march in 1963 and in his address, ‘I have a dream’. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in April 1968. The USA now observes 15 Jan. (his birthday) as a federal holiday.

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