Angolan Seventh-day Adventist Splinter Group Turns Violent

A Seventh-day Adventist splinter group was involved in a shooting with police and security units in the central Angola province of Huambo, leaving nine officers and 13 members dead. The police and security officers were attempting to arrest José Kalupeteka, executing an arrest warrant issued after some of his followers attacked 10 unarmed police officers in neighboring Bié province.

The Seventh-day Light of the World sect was established by Kalupeteka in 2000 after he was disfellowshipped from the Seventh-day Adventist church on charges of practices that violate the standards of the church. Kalupeteka who has an estimated 3,000 members, has predicted that the end of the world will come on December 31, 2015 and has dictated that followers to sell everything and move with him the mountains of Huambo province. The members are scattered in several provinces around central and southern Angola.

Today the vice president for communications for the North-Eastern Angola Union Mission, Teixeira Mateus Vinte, was quoted clarifying that the group involved is not part of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Angola. Vinte said “Do not confuse the sect involved in the murder of nine police officers with the Seventh-day Adventist Church.” On April 20th, the president of the Republic of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, commented on the deteriorating relationship between the splinter group and the state. He said that the group represents a threat to “peace and national unity.” The president of the Republic stated that “this doctrine promotes the disintegration of society and the separation of families, encourages sin and is against the values, moral and civic principles, practices and customs of the Angolan people.”

Meanwhile, in the southern city of Lubango, the provincial government of Huila has made a commitment to provide aid to 58 people who were displaced after they followed the dictates of Kalupetaka to sell all their property and belonging and move north to the mountains of Huambo province and await the predicted end of the world.

Carolyn Parsons was born at Bongo Mission in the central highlands of Angola and writes from Albany, Oregon.