{"id":2356,"date":"2014-02-01T08:00:31","date_gmt":"2014-02-01T00:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=2356"},"modified":"2022-04-21T17:32:21","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T09:32:21","slug":"97-rwanda-and-the-christian-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=2356","title":{"rendered":"97. Rwanda and the Christian Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNot everyone who says to me, \u2018Lord, Lord,\u2019 will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, \u2018Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?\u2019 Then I will declare to them, \u2018I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers<\/span>.\u2019\u201d<\/strong>[Matthew 7:21-23<\/span>]<\/p>\n

\"File:Cosimo Sermon on the Mount<\/span><\/span><\/em>, by Cosimo Rosselli, 1482<\/span><\/p>\n

If, as we said at the beginning of this series of reflections, a good pilgrimage ought to be somewhat disturbing and uncomfortable inside<\/em>, our brief visit to Rwanda was all that, and a great deal more besides. Where we find ourselves thoughtful in retrospect is around the perennially troubling question of discipleship in substance, away from a self-defeating display of mere forms or statistics. By \u201csubstance\u201d, we mean Christian living – actions and lifestyles – proportionate to words by which people around us, especially people in the larger society who are not part of the faith community, can approvingly recognize as Christian<\/em> in its truly good sense. By \u201cforms\u201d, we mean variously such repetitive words and actions that superficially refer to the Christian faith but are quite vacuous of depth or real substance in relation to who Jesus was, what he wanted to achieve, and how his followers are supposed to live their lives beyond a mere \u201cyes\u201d to baptism, ordination or consecration.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a particular reason why Rwanda is so context-perfect for this kind of reflection.\u00a0Besides Rwanda, no other nation in the whole of Africa could claim boasting right as the most \u201cChristian\u201d, registering as it did no less than 94% of its citizenry embracing Christianity in the 2006 official statistics. It has rightly been the pride of the European Christian missionary \u201csuccess\u201d in the continent. That is, if numbers is the criterion. But once the horrendous details of the genocide have emerged, however, Rwanda\u2019s \u201cmost Christian African nation\u201d status came to be severely questioned and, with it, the question of “What difference does being a Christian make?<\/em>” was again topical. That the European nations and the US which could have prevented this massive human tragedy were clearly duplicitous, blinded as they were by self-interest, has been abundantly documented. The movie \u201cGhosts of Rwanda\u201d on Youtube is one convenient resource in this regard. But, on our trip, what became the most difficult to process and the most troubling, is the fact that this overwhelmingly Christian country is also the site of one of the most atrocious genocides the world has ever known.\u00a0As Christians went mad with violence, neighbours hacked neighbours, priests poisoned fellow priests in the chalice, pastors orchestrated mass<\/span> extermination of parishioners in the very churches of which they were pastors and, generally, where the ordained officers of the Christian churches were not directly complicit in mass killing, they were also inactive, negligent, and impotent in protecting the innocents. To be sure, there were few, but precious few, heroes who risked their own lives, and the lives of their loved ones, to shield, protect and, proactively as Christ would and Christians should, enter into compassionate solidarity and co-humanity with the victims by interrupting the mad violence. The world is forever in the debt of those heroes who, despite imminent threats to their own lives, would keep the light of Christ shining on the face of the earth. In a powerful way, they were the ones who helped us make earthly sense of the Johannine claim: \u201cThe light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it\u201d [John 1:5].\u00a0But, what did the rest of this \u201cmost Christian nation in Africa\u201d do for their hunted-for-annihilation \u201cbrothers and sisters\u201d during this season of mad killing and massive crime against humanity? Here is where Fr Emmanuel Katongole\u2019s simple question in Mirror to the Church: Resurrection Faith after genocide in Rwanda<\/em> piercingly strikes at the core of our Christian predicament:<\/span><\/p>\n