A Living Text

Category: Rwanda

  • Bishop Nathan Gasatura: “Kagame honors the Lord” 

    On February 23, 2011 Rwandan Anglican Bishop Nathan Gasatura spoke during the chapel message at Wheaton College. During his message, he mentioned that he went to high school with Rwanda’s dictator, Paul Kagame: I have been in the presence of the Presidents, about four, in our region, and every time I ask the Lord, “Lord give…

  • Rucyahana and Bosco: The Bagogwe Connection

    The Bagogwe If the West knows about ethnicity in Rwanda at all, it is in the familiar form of the Hutu and Tutsi. However, there are further sub-groups and clans within these broader configurations. One clan that features prominently in the story of Bishop John Rucyahana and his support for M23 is the Bagogwe clan.…

  • Gerald Gahima on the Rwandan Anglican Church

    Gerald Gahima was “central to the rebuilding of Rwanda’s justice system in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, first as the chief of staff to the Rwandan Minister of Justice from 1996-1999, and subsequently as the country’s Attorney General from 1999-2003.” He has just written a book called Transitional Justice in Rwanda: Accountability for Atrocity and was interviewed…

  • The 1994 Genocide from an Anglican Perspective

    Roger W. Bowen has an essay called “Genocide in Rwanda 1994 – An Anglican Perspective” in the book “Genocide in Rwanda Complicity of the Churches.” Bowen served in Rwanda at the time leading up to the genocide as the representative “of the main Anglican mission society relating to the Anglican Church in Rwanda.”  He traces…

  • The Anglican Church of Rwanda Prior to the Genocide

    Reading about the Anglican Church prior to the genocide shows how the church was totally co-opted by the one party (MRND) state and the Hutu majority. The heterodox Rev. Roger W. Bowen wrote “Genocide in Rwanda 1994 – An Anglican Perspective.” He said of the Anglicans: Within the Anglican Church it was hard for Tutsis…

  • Ethnicity in Rwanda – Who Governs the Country?

    One of the Wikileaks cables from 2008 that came out of the US embassy in Kigali addressed the subject of who governs Rwanda; you can view it here. It says in part: An analysis of the ethnic breakdown of the current Rwandan government shows Tutsis hold a preponderant percentage of senior positions.  Hutus in very…

  • The Rwandan Surveillance State

    I just came across a paper by Dr. Andrea Purdekova called  Even if I am not here, there are so many eyes’: surveillance and state reach in Rwanda.’ You can read the paper here. In it she describes the information gathering apparatus of the Rwandan state, for example: Informers are indeed believed to be everywhere, and…

  • Playing an Away Game

    Ties to the African Anglican churches have by and large been positive for American Anglicans. Their orthodoxy, fervency for Jesus, and love of Scripture have been a glass of water in a thirsty land of apostasy. With that in mind, it seems to me that we are aligning ourselves with political situations we have little…