Ecumenism in Question: Rwanda’s Contentious Post-Genocide Religious Landscape

Abstract

This article illuminates the precarious uncertainty in grassroots ecumenism where highly politicised, fractious Christian churches, and a strong state regime, struggle to own, interpret and re-align the public legacies of genocide. The relationship between the new Pentecostal churches, which arrived in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, and the historically dominant Catholic Church is shifting and complex. Although the new Pentecostal churches criticise the Catholic Church for its complicity in the genocide, they require it as a foil against which they can make certain kinds of claims about spiritual authenticity and authority. By examining the controversies that erupted during a supposedly unifying Christian crusade, Rwanda Thanksgiving Day or Rwanda Shima Imana, I explore the extent to which ecumenism is possible in the post-genocide period. Far from being a trivial misunderstanding between a Catholic singer and a Pentecostal pastor, at stake during the crusade were dramatically different understandings of God’s presence in the world, calling into question the very possibility of ecumenical co-operation. These competing understandings are examined in the wider context of Rwandan politics and transnational evangelical Christian networks in order to show that ecumenism is highly dependent on the relationship between various religious denominations and the state.

Keywords:

• ecumenism
• Rwanda
• Pentecostalism
• post-genocide
• media
• religion

Acknowledgements

Thanks go to David Mwambari for reading an earlier version of this article, along with the two anonymous JSAS reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

¹ This article is based on 16 months of fieldwork in Kigali, Rwanda, between 2011 and 2013. I draw on media reports, song lyrics, personal interviews with a variety of religious figures, and my own attendance at Rwanda Thanksgiving Day. All quotations not otherwise specified are from interviews or conversations conducted by the author during fieldwork.

² In recent years, however, this has changed. The fifth Rwanda Shima Imana, which took place in August 2016, was ‘expected to involve a big number of Muslims’. See A. Tashobya, ‘Rwanda Shima Imana Celebration to Be at Sector Level’, New Times, 25 July 2016, available at http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/202031/, retrieved 30 December 2016.

³ For brevity’s sake, I refer to this organisation in what follows as PEACE Plan.

⁴ A. Kubai, ‘Post-Genocide Rwanda: The Changing Religious Landscape’, Exchange, 36, 2 (2007), p. 199.

⁵ E. Katongole and J. Wilson-Hartgrove, Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith after Genocide in Rwanda (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2009), p. 19.

⁶ T. Longman, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 4. During the pogroms in the 1960s and 1973, churches had been sites of safe haven for Tutsi.

⁷ This history is sketched out only briefly here. For a more thorough recounting, see J.J. Carney, Rwanda Before the Genocide: Catholic Politics and Ethnic Discourse in the Late Colonial Era (New York, Oxford University Press, 2014); T. Gatwa, The Churches and Ethnic Ideology in the Rwandan Crises, 1900–1994 (Bletchley, Paternoster, 2005); Katongole and Wilson-Hartgrove, Mirror to the Church; I. Linden with J. Linden, Church and Revolution in Rwanda (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1977); Longman, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda; L. Mbanda and S. Wamberg, Committed to Conflict: The Destruction of the Church in Rwanda (London, SPCK, 1997); C. Rittner, J. Roth, and W. Whitworth (eds), Genocide in Rwanda: Complicity of the Churches? (St Paul, Aegis in association with Paragon House, 2004).

⁸ Yet we should also be wary of exaggerating the role of the churches in ‘creating’ ethnicity. Carney has recently argued that the Hutu–Tutsi question was not the dominant paradigm for Catholic discourse during the early colonial period. Although Catholic leaders were influenced by ‘flawed missionary anthropology’, they were not ‘brainwashed’ by it. See J. Carney, ‘Beyond Tribalism: The Hutu–Tutsi Question and Catholic Rhetoric in Colonial Rwanda’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 42, 2 (2012), p. 193; also ‘Far from Having Unity, We Are Tending towards Total Disunity: The Catholic Major Seminary in Rwanda, 1950–62’, Studies in World Christianity, 18, 1 (2012), pp. 82–102.

⁹ Longman, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, p. 64.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 66.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Ibid., p. 89.

¹³ Ibid., Chapter 5.

¹⁴ A. Des Forges, ‘Leave None to Tell the Story’: Genocide in Rwanda (New York, Human Rights Watch, 1999), p. 246. It is also worth pointing out here that some church leaders, such as Thadée Nsengiyumva, president of the Catholic conference of bishops, did speak out against ethnic violence in the early 1990s. They were, however, the exceptions. See Longman, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, p. 8.

¹⁵ Longman, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, pp. 6–7.

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 10.

¹⁷ T. Ndahiro, ‘The Church’s Blind Eye to Genocide in Rwanda’, in Rittner et al. (eds), Genocide in Rwanda, p. 230.

¹⁸ To name but one example, Father Athanase Seromba, the first Catholic priest to be tried at the ICTR, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2006 (extended in 2008 to life in prison). He ordered the bulldozing of his Nyange parish, resulting in the deaths of more than 2,000 Tutsi who had sought refuge at the church.

¹⁹ G. van’t Spijker, ‘La Rivalité des Alliances: Les Eglises Après Le Génocide Rwandais’, in S. Eyezo’o and J. Zorn (eds), Concurrences en Mission: Propagandes, Conflits, Coexistences (XVIe–XXIe Siècle) (Paris, Karthala, 2011), p. 11, available at http://gerardvantspijker.nl/index.php?id=23, retrieved 4 January 2017.

²⁰ T. Longman, ‘Limitations to Political Reform: The Undemocratic Nature of Transition in Rwanda’, in S. Straus and L. Waldorf (eds), Remaking Rwanda: State Building and Human Rights after Mass Atrocity (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 2011), p. 28.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Van’t Spijker, ‘La Rivalité des Alliances’, p. 11.

²³ A. Corten, ‘Rwanda: Du Réveil Est-Africain Au Pentecôtisme’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 37, 1 (2003), p. 36.

²⁴ G. van’t Spijker, ‘The Churches and Genocide in Rwanda’, Exchange, 26, 3 (1997), p. 252.

²⁵ Longman makes this point more broadly, noting that the RPF allows civic groups run by Tutsi returnees to operate ‘relatively freely’ as it sees them as its ‘core constituency’; Longman, ‘Limitations to Political Reform’, pp. 27–28.

²⁶ J. Sundqvist, ‘Reconciliation as a Societal Process: A Case Study on the Role of the Pentecostal Movement (ADEPR) as an Actor in the Reconciliation Process in Post-Genocide Rwanda’, Svensk Missionstidsskrift, 99, 2 (2011), p. 177.

²⁷ Although ADEPR and the new abarokore churches espouse similar theologies, they differ quite markedly in terms of practice. Abarokore routinely criticise ADEPR for being too ‘legalistic’ and old-fashioned. Not only are their services much more sombre affairs with less exuberant singing and dancing, women in ADEPR must cover their hair, wear skirts that extend below the knee, and cannot wear make-up, nail polish or jewellery.

²⁸ D. Peterson, Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival: A History of Dissent, c.1935–1972 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012); K. Ward and E. Wild-Wood (eds), The East African Revival: History and Legacies (Farnham, Ashgate, 2012). For a discussion of the Revival within the post-genocide Anglican Church, see P. Cantrell, ‘“We Were a Chosen People”: The East African Revival and Its Return to Post-Genocide Rwanda’, Church History, 83, 2 (2014), pp. 422–45.

²⁹ Longman, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, pp. 113–14.

³⁰ Ibid., pp. 92–3. In 1986, 300 members of several Christian sects, including the abarokore, were brought to trial by the government for refusing to join the MRND and participate in state activities. Save two individuals who recanted, all were found guilty and received prison sentences of between 5 and 15 years.

³¹ A. Corten and R. Marshall-Fratani (eds), Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America (London, Hurst, 2001); P. Gifford, Ghana’s New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a Globalising African Economy (London, Hurst, 2004); D. Martin, Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish (Oxford, Blackwell, 2002); D. Maxwell, African Gifts of the Spirit: Pentecostalism and the Rise of a Zimbabwean Transnational Religious Movement (Oxford, James Currey, 2006); B. Meyer, Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1999).

³² Longman, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, p. 7.

³³ E. Kagire, ‘President Kagame Weighs In on Catholic Church’s Apology for Role in Genocide’, The East African, 16 December 2016, available at http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/President-Kagame-Catholic-Church-apology-role-in-genocide/2558-3489322-38x8r2z/index.html, retrieved 4 January 2017.

³⁴ H. Sherwood, ‘Pope Francis Asks for Forgiveness for Church’s Role in Rwanda Genocide’, Guardian, London, 20 March 2017, available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/20/pope-francis-asks-for-forgiveness-for-churchs-role-in-rwanda-genocide, retrieved 1 September 2017.

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ Ibid. See also C. McGreal, ‘Hiding in Plain Sight in France: The Priests Accused in Rwandan Genocide’, Guardian, 7 April 2014, available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/07/rwanda-genocide-20-years-priests-catholic-church, retrieved 1 September 2017.

³⁷ Kubai, ‘Post-Genocide Rwanda’, pp. 204–5; Being Church in Post-Genocide Rwanda: The Challenges of Forgiveness and Reconciliation (Uppsala, Life & Peace Institute, 2005), p. 26.

³⁸ This is not to imply that Pentecostal churches were the only ones concerned with healing. For a discussion of a community-based sociotherapy programme in Byumba led by the Anglican Church of Rwanda, see A. Richters, ‘Suffering and Healing in the Aftermath of War and Genocide in Rwanda: Mediations through Community-Based Sociotherapy’, in L. Kapteijns and A. Richters (eds), Mediations of Violence in Africa: Fashioning New Futures from Contested Pasts (Leiden, Brill, 2010), pp. 173–210.

³⁹ V. Das, Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2007), p. 8.

⁴⁰ Kubai, ‘Being Church in Post-Genocide Rwanda’, p. 26.

⁴¹ E. Umurerwa, ‘Imiryango Ishingiye Ku Idini 405 Imaze Gusaba Kwemererwa Gukorera Mu Rwanda’, Igihe, 22 October 2013, available at http://igihe.com/amakuru/u-rwanda/article/amadini-405-amaze-gusaba-ko, retrieved 6 September 2014; A. Dusabemungu and E. Marie, ‘Rwanda – Number of Religious Institutions Increasing since the Creation of RGB’, Igihe, 22 October 2013, available at http://en.igihe.com/news/rwanda-number-of-religious-institutions-increased.html, retrieved 6 September 2014. In February 2012, a new law was passed (no. 06/2012) requiring all ‘religious-based organisations’ (RBOs) to register with the government. In order to do so, each RBO now must have its own ‘statutes’ that include, among a long list of others, its mission, activities and beneficiaries; organisational structure and duties of each unit; administration and financial audit organs; mechanisms for conflict resolution. The law has been interpreted as an attempt to curtail the growth of new churches and to monitor more closely their teachings and operations.

⁴² NISR and MINECOFIN, 2012 Population and Housing Census: Provisional Results (Republic of Rwanda, 2012).

⁴³ It should also be noted that although Islam had historically been a marginal presence in the country, accounting for 1.2 per cent of the population before the genocide, it attracted new converts after 1994, as many Muslims did not participate in the killings and the Mufti of Rwanda even issued a fatwa forbidding Muslims from participating in the genocide. While Kubai has argued that there was an ‘emerging positive attitude’ towards Muslims in the post-genocide period, the census did not in fact reveal much movement in official statistics, with the growth of the Muslim community increasing by only 0.8 per cent. See A. Kubai, ‘Walking a Tightrope: Christians and Muslims in Post-Genocide Rwanda’, Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, 18, 2 (2007), p. 229.

⁴⁴ S. van Hoyweghen, ‘The Disintegration of the Catholic Church of Rwanda: A Study of the Fragmentation of Political and Religious Authority’, African Affairs, 95, 380 (1996), p. 379.

⁴⁵ Van’t Spijker, ‘The Churches and Genocide in Rwanda’, p. 253.

⁴⁶ Ibid.

⁴⁷ T. Morgan, ‘Purpose Driven in Rwanda’, Christianity Today, Carol Stream, 23 September 2005, available at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/october/17.32.html, retrieved 9 September 2014; PEACE Plan, ‘Church Community Country: 2013 Rwanda PEACE Plan Report’, 2013, available at http://rwandaupdate.wordpress.com, retrieved 9 September 2014.

⁴⁸ Ibid.

⁴⁹ PEACE Plan, ‘Church Community Country: 2013 Rwanda PEACE Plan Report’.

⁵⁰ The other two were the then mufti of Rwanda, Swaleh Habimana, and the Catholic leader, Bishop Smaragde Mbonyintege.

⁵¹ ‘Rick Warren’s Prayer: Kagame Swearing-In for New Term’, YouTube, 7 September 2010, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVCOdSwFYAY, retrieved 20 November 2017.

⁵² F. Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda, Ten Years On: From Genocide to Dictatorship’, African Affairs, 103, 411 (2004), pp. 177–210.

⁵³ One memorable example of this was Kagame’s ‘twitterspat’ with British journalist Ian Birrell in May 2011. Referring to an interview with Kagame in the Financial Times published that morning, Birrell tweeted, ‘No-one in media, UN or human rights groups has the moral right to criticise me, says despotic & deluded [Kagame]’. Much to Birrell’s surprise, Kagame responded to him directly in two consecutive tweets: ‘Not you either … no moral right! You give yourself the right to abuse pple and judge them like you r the one to decide … and determine universally what s right or wrong and what shd be believed or not!!! Wrong u r … u have no such right’. See I. Birrell, ‘My Twitterspat with Paul Kagame’, Guardian, 16 May 2011, available at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/may/16/my-twitterspat-with-paul-kagame, retrieved 26 July 2013.

⁵⁴ W. Wallis, ‘Lunch with the FT: Paul Kagame’, Financial Times, London, 13 May 2011, available at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6888f8ea-7ce5-11e0-a7c7-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3CkCc9fq5, retrieved 26 July 2013.

⁵⁵ J. Gettleman, ‘The Global Elite’s Favorite Strongman’, New York Times, 4 September 2013, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/magazine/paul-kagame-rwanda.html, retrieved 26 July 2013.

⁵⁶ The event involved the participation of a number of the country’s umbrella Protestant organisations: the Protestant Council in Rwanda (CPR), the Evangelical Alliance of Rwanda, the Province of the Anglican Church of Rwanda (PEAR) and the Forum of Born Again Churches and Christian Organisations in Rwanda (FOBACOR).

⁵⁷ J. Asamoah-Gyadu, ‘“‘Christ Is the Answer’, What Is the Question?”: A Ghana Airways Prayer Vigil and Its Implications for Religion, Evil and Public Space’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 35, 1 (2005), pp. 93–117.

⁵⁸ Indeed, in a Kinyarwanda song released to coincide with the event – ‘Rwanda Shima Imana’ by All Rwandan Gospel Super Stars – this phrase is incorporated into the lyrics.

⁵⁹ Gitwaza was born and raised in the Eastern DRC and returned to Rwanda after the genocide to minister to traumatised and wounded Rwandans. In 1999, he started a church in Kigali and, 13 years later, it boasted more than 20,000 members, with branches all over the country. The Zion Temple has since planted churches internationally, including in Europe, North America, Asia and in other parts of Africa. Van’t Spijker classifies it as a ‘church for the rich’, as evidenced by the fact that a number of prominent businessmen, politicians and entertainers are members. See van’t Spijker, ‘La Rivalité Des Alliances’, p. 9.

⁶⁰ It should be noted that in April 2013, Gitwaza replaced the retiring Kolini as the new head of the PEACE Plan.

⁶¹ M. Kaitesi, ‘Thousands Celebrate Thanksgiving’, New Times, 28 August 2012, available at http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/56689/, retrieved 26 July 2013.

⁶² The correct response to this is,‘Ahimbazwe’ (‘He answers’).

⁶³ This phrase was live-tweeted via the official Rwanda Thanksgiving Day Twitter account, Rwanda Thanksgiving@RwandaShima.

⁶⁴ Kaitesi, ‘Thousands Celebrate Thanksgiving’.

⁶⁵ L. Dorsey, Historical Dictionary of Rwanda (Metuchen, Scarecrow Press, 1994), p. 7.

⁶⁶ J. Webster, The Political Development of Rwanda and Burundi (Syracuse, Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 1966), p. 1.

⁶⁷ Van Hoyweghen, ‘The Disintegration of the Catholic Church of Rwanda’; C. Taylor, ‘Kings or Presidents: War and the State in Pre- and Post-Genocidal Rwanda’, Social Analysis, 48, 1 (2004), pp. 136–42.

⁶⁸ Longman, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, p. 91.

⁶⁹ Ibid.

⁷⁰ S. Straus and L. Waldorf, ‘Introduction: Seeing Like a Post-Conflict State’, in Straus and Waldorf (eds), Remaking Rwanda, p. 8. For a discussion of the continuities between the ‘benevolent leadership’ of the Habyarimana and Kagame regimes, see M. Desrosiers and S. Thomson, ‘Rhetorical Legacies of Leadership: Projections of “Benevolent Leadership” in Pre- and Post-Genocide Rwanda’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 49, 3 (2011), pp. 429–53.

⁷¹ PEACE Plan, ‘Church Community Country: 2013 Rwanda PEACE Plan Report’.

⁷² Tashobya, ‘Rwanda Shima Imana Celebration to be at Sector Level’.

⁷³ This is the title of the article about the dispute from the English version of the popular website, Igihe.com. See ‘Gitwaza, Mihigo Kizito Disagree on Gods Mercy’, Igihe, 27 August 2012, available at http://enigihecom/religion/gitwaza-mihigo-kizito-disagree-on-gods-mercyhtml, retrieved 26 July 2013.

⁷⁴ His song ‘Agaciro k’Abanyarwanda’ (‘The Dignity of Rwandans’), for example, encourages Rwandans to donate to the Agaciro Development Fund. Another example is ‘Intare Yampaye Agaciro’ (‘The Lion Gave Dignity’), a song composed for the 25th anniversary of the RPF in December 2012.

⁷⁵ O. Muhirwa, ‘Umuririmbyi Kizito Mihigo n’Intumwa Paul Gitwaza Basobanyije Imyumvire Ya Bibiliya’, Igihe, 27 August 2012, available at http://www.igihe.com/iyobokamana/umuririmbyi-kizito-mihigo-n-intumwa-paul-gitwaza-basobanyije-imyumvire-ya-bibiliya.html, retrieved 26 July 2013.

⁷⁶ For a further discussion of Rwanda’s popular media, see A.M. Grant, ‘The Making of a “Superstar”: The Politics of Playback and Live Performance in Post-Genocide Rwanda’, Africa, 87, 1 (2017), pp. 155–79.

⁷⁷ Muhirwa, ‘Umuririmbyi Kizito Mihigo’.

⁷⁸ J. Uwimana, P. Mfurankunda and P. Mbungiramihigo, Appropriate Journalistic Language in Relation to Genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda: Key Guidelines (Kigali, Media High Council, 2011), available at http://mhc.gov.rw/fileadmin/templates/pdfDocuments/Other_Reports/GUIDELINES_BOOKLET.pdf.

⁷⁹ Ibid., p. 28.

⁸⁰ Ibid.

⁸¹ Ibid.

⁸² R. Shaw, ‘Displacing Violence: Making Pentecostal Memory in Postwar Sierra Leone’, Cultural Anthropology, 22, 1 (2007), p. 89.

⁸³ M. Engelke, A Problem of Presence: Beyond Scripture in an African Church (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2007).

⁸⁴ Shaw, ‘Displacing Violence’, p. 68.