We are told that the Lord is a jealous God. Just as it would be appropriate for a man to be jealous if another man took his wife, it is right that God should be jealous for his people when they follow other gods. Once a person has entered the kingdom of God and has wholeheartedly accepted the lordship of Christ, no other culture or tradition may legitimately lay claim to our lives, but most believers during the East African Revival combined their traditions with the Word of God.
When we become Born Again, it causes great conflict to combine our traditions and culture with the Kingdom of God. They will always be in conflict with one another. As Brian Stanley’s book on Christian Missions and Enlightenment says:
A theological tradition whose constant goal was holiness and victorious Christian living proved enormously attractive to African Christians who knew that beneath much of the appearance of so called conversion lay an undiminished commitment to traditional beliefs and practices. Doctrinal teaching which came close to advocating the necessity of a ‘second blessing’ seemed to offer the answer to those dissatisfied with the results of conversion. But once they had been revived, the emphasis on a second blessing was in practice obliterated by the new distinction between those in the revival fellowship-the ‘balokole’ or ‘saved ones’-and those outside. To be revived and to be saved became virtually synonymous.
Writing in 1937, Joe Church posed the question:
As one looks at these two or three hundred changed lives in Rwanda and Uganda what is one to say? Were they saved before, and were now just revived; or were they never really born again? Almost every one of them would answer you himself that the latter was his experience. All seem to state unmistakably that they only had a nominal Christianity before.
Then why couldn’t they change? They had been exposed to the gospel but still turned to their pagan practices instead of continuing their relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. And they were humiliated. No greater humiliation can come upon a people than to have their power, prestige, possessions, privileges, and beauty taken from them.
Instead of repenting of the idolatry and witchcraft practices connected to their traditional practices, they desperately wanted to restore their kingdom to its original prominence. From that time the Baganda have paid a heavy price for their pride. The refusal to repent from idolatry and witchcraft, which is the core challenge of the man of colour, underpins the reason why God allowed the Baganda to be a prey for the Western Uganda ruling class to dominate them to this very day.
Their great pride in one of the richest areas in the country with great quality of land for agriculture and other resources have been used to consolidate the regime’s power. The remaining resources in the form of land, has been sold and sacrificed to the god of instant gratification and self-indulgences. It is a clear principle of Scripture that idolatry leads to immorality and loss of respect for God, which in turn leads to loss of respect for people.
The people whom the Lord had first entrusted with the Revival and those who had great potential with skill and ability are now mainly consumers rather than producers. Worse still, the immigration to Western nations has fractured the Baganda family image. Those in Diaspora still want to maintain their pride by organising communities, but instead they are caught between their previous culture and that of the West. The Baganda were truly confounded, and since the restoration of the kingdom in 1993, there have been relational, social, ethical and economic problems, particularly in Buganda.
Anglican Church in Rwanda
Regrettably, just like in Uganda, through division and dissipation, the Anglican Church in Rwanda contributed to ethnic divisions in the past. And, it is doing so again in the post-genocide state. In Rwanda, the people shared a common language and citizenship but it wasn’t enough for the warring tribes—the Tutsi and Hutu—to live peacefully together.
In the course of responding to questions of what happened during the East African Revival, Kevin Ward takes a historical look at the Revival and the role of the Anglican Church of Rwanda in the genocide of 1994. Ward writes:
By 1990, the Anglican church was deeply involved in internal wrangling and divisions. They were focused on jealousies and bitterness between Adoniya Sebununguri, bishop of Kigali, and John Ndandali, bishop of the second diocese of Butare, created in 1978. The conflict was focused on who would become the first Archbishop of the new Anglican province of Rwanda created in 1992. Although personal factors were paramount in this conflict, it did strangely parallel political divisions between the ‘north,’ where the deeply unpopular president came from, and a ‘south,’ which felt excluded.
A series of other conflicts among the leadership of the churches began to disfigure the Anglican Church: based on personal and family rivalries, regional differences, political disputes (as a multi-party system was introduced). Hutu-Tutsi divisions were only one of many factors fueling and sustaining these disputes. Often the rhetoric of the Revival was introduced into the disputes. At high-profile meetings of reconciliation, church leaders confessed and sang Tukutendereza in the old spirit of the Revival fellowship, but these occasions did not seem to have the power to transform the faction-riven nature of the church. The form of Revival had replaced its genuine spirit.
Division From Colonialists
The Hutu were mainly agricultural people while the Tutsi were predominantly cattle herders. In fact, by 1900 much ethnic blending occurred and the two tribes became quite similar—speaking the same language, living in the same areas, and following the same traditions.
However, when the Belgian colonists arrived in 1916 they immediately showed favor to the Tutsi, who were taller and thinner than the Hutu and thus looked more “European.” The ruling colonists made a formal division between the two tribes and began classifying them according to their ethnicity. As a result, the Tutsi enjoyed better jobs and educational opportunities, and they also held the most powerful government positions, creating a tremendous amount of animosity between the two tribes. In 1969 Rwanda gained independence from European rule, but the damage had already been done.
The rift created between the two tribes was irreversible. The growing resentment and hostility turned to violence several times in the 1960s and the 1970s leading up to the tragedy just 25 years ago. From April 7 to July 15 1994, Hutu extremists systematically killed nearly 85 percent of the Tutsi population. In total, the genocide claimed the lives of more than one million people.
Complicity of The Churches
Roger W. Bowen in his book, Genocide in Rwanda: Complicity of the Churches points out that the pre-genocide Anglican Church did not speak up for the Tutsi exile from the early 60’s who were never allowed to return to Rwanda. He says,
The Church in Rwanda failed to plead their cause, perhaps because, in the Anglican Church at least, the leadership was exclusively Hutu….Within the Anglican Church it was hard for Tutsis to advance in leadership while the hierarchy remained solidly Hutu. The issue, which in the past in times of revival had been addressed so powerfully, was allowed to remain unresolved. The challenge to find a deeper, more fundamental identity “in Christ” where there is no Jew nor Greek, Hutu nor Tutsi, seems to have been forgotten by many.
There were glorious exceptions to this where Christians who were also Hutu helped to protect their Tutsi neighbours from the interahamwe militias. By and large, however, the Church had allowed these ethnic tensions to continue unresolved, often below the surface, until conditions occurred where the issue exploded beyond their control in horrific violence.
What happened in Rwanda is a salutary reminder that the fear and pain of preventing the Church from addressing a painful tension within itself needs to be overcome if one is to avoid the far more horrific consequences of not facing it.
Bowen says that the Rwandan Anglicans used a canon within a canon based on the revival template:
In some cases, all Scripture in interpreted to give the same message, often interpreted through the lens of the revival experience, rather than letting the diversity within the Bible be heard. Inadequate exposure to the whole counsel of God has meant that Church leaders were often left without the theological tools to engage with the complexities of relating to newly independent African states, to issues of economics, development, justice, human rights, and ethnicity.
Acccording to Bowen, “the practice of sharing testimonies from the East African Revival led to a lack of Biblical input and instruction, with the danger that personal experience became more important than the Word of God.”
He also points to a culture of obedience that went too far, violating the Apostles’ injunction in Acts 5.29 to obey God rather than man. He says:
In Rwanda, people killed because they were told to do so by the government, local burgomasters and the radio. Obedience to authority is inculcated within African culture and we need to ask whether the Churches have adopted the same approach. Within the Catholic tradition, there has been an unquestioning submission to Papal authority. Within the Protestant tradition in Rwanda, you are wise to obey your Bishop because your livelihood depends on his goodwill.
One of many interesting takeaways from Bowe’s analysis is that reconciliation narrative was actually in place prior to the genocide of 94, and was in fact an artifact of the East African Revival Fellowship. The revival before the genocide did nothing to stop a nation of 85% Christians to slaughter one another. The church did nothing to avert the genocide or change the behaviour of those who wielded the machetes in this highly Christianized nation that had experienced a Revival prior to the Genocide.
Christian survivors of the genocide who participated in these evangelical meetings tell stories of church members and testifying Christians who, having attended the same meetings, were later seen in the uniforms and activities of Interahamwe (militia). During the killings, many were also seen at roadblocks with machetes. It is hard to believe, but it was reported by trustworthy individuals.
The killers were not faceless or nameless. They were the Tutsi’s very own neighbours. They had worked side by side with them, attended the same schools and churches, and lived right next door. There were a few remnants among the revivalists in fact who stood against the genocide and some of them were killed and others testified. So that’s a contradiction and a challenge we have to bear for not only revival but even for the church itself.
As Bowen noted, in the Rwandan context, the East African Revival produced an apolitical Church that did not confront the evils being committed by the State, with the result being that they were silent prior to the genocide. Roger Bowen wrote:
The more conservative attitude to Scripture, and the associated controversy, led to an emphasis on evangelism rather than any engagement with the public life of the nation or critique of the socio-political context. Indeed, the missionaries were dependent on the goodwill of the colonial administration and sought to be apolitical.
Bowen also turns the blame on himself and on the Churches of the West who wanted to avoid offending their African partners:
Partnership in mission is the dominant theme in Anglican relationships. But one may ask in the context of Rwanda, as perhaps elsewhere in Africa, whether the mission agencies at least have so leaned over backwards to avoid the charge of colonialism that they have failed to challenge their partner Churches? Within both Uganda and the Rwandan Church, we were aware of many of these issues and yet, as their partners, we largely failed to challenge them as equal partners and to “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). In Ezekiel 33 the prophet is challenged to be a watchman for the House of Israel to warn the people of God of impending danger. Both the national Church of Rwanda and its partners overseas had largely failed in this role of watchmen.
The Danger of Idolatry
Wherever we set up false beliefs and traditions for our own convenience and credit them with God’s authority, we move towards idolatry. The security is then seen in a belief structure, not in the risen Lord. The results of this process have brought untold suffering for millions in our generation.
The failure of both churches in Uganda and Rwanda up to 1970 and 1990, to be Christ-centred, resulted in both nations falling into idolatry, with deadly consequences. This in turn allowed full play to the demonic powers, with suffering, chaos and death of which we are only too aware. This is of course, the basic pattern in the Old Testament. God is adapted to meet the needs of His people but we have to guard ourselves from anything and everything that would occupy the place in our hearts due to God.
We are all on a journey that forces us to re-examine our hearts in our daily walk with the Lord. However, that should not stop us from learning some hard lessons from the past and repenting of what led to these great tragedies of history. Unfortunately, we might be repeating the same mistakes as we shall finally examine in Part 7.
