Pastor Rutaisire: Over 90 per cent were Christians during the genocide. Where was the Church?

By Chantal Bashal

Statistics suggest that in 1994, over 90 per cent of Rwandans were Christians.

Despite this, the genocide against the Tutsi went on to happen, and some of the perpetrators were “so-called Christians.”

In a recently preached sermon, Pastor Antoine Rutayisire of Remera Anglican Church wondered where the true church was during all these atrocities which claimed over a million lives.

While addressing youths from Christian Life Assembly Church during a virtual event organized to commemorate the Genocide, the preacher talked about why we should remember the failures of the church during the Genocide.

During the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, people fled to places of worship, hoping that they would not be killed while there, but unfortunately, a big number of them were massacred from there.

According to Rutayisire, this shows the failure of the church during the Genocide.

Though not all Christians took weapons and killed the Tutsi, and some tried to save people from being killed during the Genocide, Rutayisire questions the church for largely staying silent while innocent people were being killed.

In 1994, Rutayisire was a preacher.

Rutayisire blamed some Christians who still have the ideology of divisionism based on ethnicity, instead of embracing the brethren as real Disciples of Christ would do.

“If the church had taught the people to love each other, there would not have been the killings of innocent people. Jesus said ‘You are my disciples if you love each other.” So, the Genocide against the Tutsis proved the failure of the Church, since over 90 per cent of Rwandans were thought to be Christians,” he said.