{"id":3214,"date":"2007-08-27T10:38:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-27T10:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/was-the-church-partially-respo.html"},"modified":"2007-08-27T10:38:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-27T10:38:00","slug":"was-the-church-partially-respo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/was-the-church-partially-respo.html","title":{"rendered":"Was the church partially responsible for Rwanda?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The church may have played a part in the Rwanda massacre<\/a> by remaining silent.<\/p>\n

Prior to 1994, Rwanda was described as the most Christianized country in Africa. Ninety percent of its citizens professed to be Christians. But that didn’t stop tribal violence from breaking out that resulted in the wanton murder of 800,000 people in 100 days.
\n[…]
\n“The Rwandan genocide took place in a hidden way, without any eyewitnesses from the international community,” Rusesabagina said. “When it comes to churches, all the churches kept quiet.”
\n“Silence, as we all know, is complicity,” he said.
\nDwight Jackson, a former Southern Baptist missionary to Burundi before the same strife between Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups that plagued neighboring Rwanda forced him to leave in the mid-1980s, said all missionaries knew of individuals who were put out of the country for writing less-than-complimentary items on ethnic or political issues.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Priests, nuns and pastors stood by as the Hutu and Tutsi slaughtered each other and a Baptist pastor may have lead the massacre of nearly 5,000:<\/p>\n

Instead of opposing the violence, Rusesabagina said, churches were often complicit. People fled to churches for sanctuary, as they had in earlier conflicts. This time those same churches turned into death traps, as ministers either stood by or assisted in ethnic cleansing.
\nA Belgian court convicted two Benedictine nuns in 2001 of participating in the massacre of more than 7,600 people at the Sovu convent in Butare.
\nAn Anglican bishop was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for the crime of genocide, specifically “for killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the Tutsi population with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a racial or ethnic group.”
\nAccusations were also documented against clergy of the Free Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist and Seventh-Day Adventist churches.
\nFinnish police recently took into protective custody Francois Bazaramba, a Baptist pastor suspected of having led the massacre of nearly 5,000 Tutsis. The head of a Baptist youth training camp in Nyakizu, Butare, Bazaramba is accused of helping to organize one genocide and participating in a large massacre. He has lived in Finland since 2003.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Did no one do a sermon on this passage:<\/p>\n

Galatians 3:28<\/span> There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave [1] nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or this one:<\/p>\n

1 John 4:20<\/span> If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot [1] love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The church may have played a part in the Rwanda massacre by remaining silent. Prior to 1994, Rwanda was described as the most Christianized country in Africa. Ninety percent of its citizens professed to be Christians. 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