Christian World

IS THE PRESIDENT OF RWANDA, PAUL KAGAME, WHO HAPPENS TO BE A CHRISTIAN, CLOSING DOWN THOUSANDS OF CHURCHES AND EVEN MOSQUES BECAUSE HE IS TRYING TO HURT CHRISTIANITY? OR IS HE TRYING TO PROTECT THE PEOPLE FROM THE AMERICAN DEMONIC, CHARISMATIC/EVANGELICAL, PROSPERITY GOSPEL FOOLISHNESS . . .

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IS THE PRESIDENT OF RWANDA, PAUL KAGAME, WHO HAPPENS TO BE A CHRISTIAN, CLOSING DOWN THOUSANDS OF CHURCHES AND EVEN MOSQUES BECAUSE HE IS TRYING TO HURT CHRISTIANITY? OR IS HE TRYING TO PROTECT THE PEOPLE FROM THE AMERICAN DEMONIC, CHARISMATIC/EVANGELICAL, PROSPERITY GOSPEL FOOLISHNESS OF UNEDUCATED, IGNORANT PREACHERS FLAUNTING THEIR WEALTH WHILE THEY ARE FLEECING THE POOR FLOCK WHO CAN’T EVEN BUY FOOD? NOTICE SOME OF THE SHOCKING COMMENTS FROM ACROSS AFRICA

DANIEL WHYTE III, PRESIDENT OF GOSPEL LIGHT SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL, SAYS THE BISHOPS, PRESIDENTS, AND SO-CALLED LEADERS OF THESE CHURCH DENOMINATIONS SHOULD BE ORDAINING, EDUCATING, AND POLICING THESE CROOKED MINISTERS; HOWEVER, THEY ARE NOT, SO SOMEBODY HAS TO STEP IN TO PROTECT THE PEOPLE, SAD TO SAY, FROM THEIR OWN CHURCH LEADERS.

 

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Rwanda President Paul Kagame said: “I have closed over 6000 churches and mosques in my country and I am now demanding for a theology degree for every religious leader. Stop playing with people’s faith and making it a business. Rwanda is already a blessed country” – Paul Kagame (Rwanda President)

(1) “People complaining please look up ‘Pastor Nganga’ from Kenya to see the madness Kagame is saving his people from with this decision.

I saw Nganga tear a blank piece of paper then ask people in his congregation to buy a piece for Ksh 1,000, slowly people started coming up and by the end they were running and fighting to give their money away for a BLANK PIECE OF PAPER! These pastors exploit and toy with their less fortunate followers, flaunting their wealth as they struggle to pay their bills and have no savings.

People are extremely vulnerable when it comes to religion, if he can make it a little harder for prosperity preachers/conmen to get to the people, good for him!”

(2) “He is definitely the most “enlightened” dictator in all of Africa and possibly the world. He runs the country competently (his policies made Rwanda one of the fastest growing economies in Africa) and corruption isn’t a huge problem and he is good at foreign relations. Even their army is more powerful than Tanzania or Congo, countries many times the size of Rwanda.”

(3) “Now this is a great leader who has the interest of his people at heart. The man is not saying Rwandanis are atheists, rather to hell with fraudulent “men of God”

(4) “In theory, this is exactly what Ghana needs.”

In a move that is widely seen as a major blow to religious freedom, the government of Rwanda has closed more than 4,000 houses of worship over the past month for various infractions that include operating in substandard structures, “unhygienic conditions,” not meeting noise pollution standards and not having formally trained preachers.

The 4,200 churches and mosques have been closed on orders from President Paul Kagame’s government in a resumption of the crackdown on religious groups that started in 2018.

According to Usta Kayitesi, the chief executive officer of the Rwanda Governance Board — the public regulator of the civil society sector — the nationwide exercise is targeting churches and other faith-based institutions that do not meet the country’s set standards.

 

“The government has taken a stance against proliferation in the houses of worship,” she said. “We still see cases of dilapidated [structures] and unhygienic conditions.”

A 2018 law makes theological training a minimum requirement for anyone to lead a religious organization and places of worship are required to adhere to strict construction and hygiene standards — conditions almost unattainable for many religious bodies in the East African country.

RGB’s head of communication, Jean Bosco Rushingabigwi, told the reporters that whenever their inspections — which involve the police, health departments and public works units — find an institution falling short of these requirements, it is shut down.

“The inspection focuses on verifying that denominations and prayer houses have registration documents issued by the RGB, letters of collaboration with the district when a branch is opened, and that prayer houses meet legal requirements [building codes] for their location,” Rushingabigwi said.

He added that inspectors “check if the leaders hold the required academic degrees and certificates in theology at both the organizational and parish or branch levels.”

The privately owned Igihe news site, published in the local Kinyarwanda language, gave 4,223 as the total number of the places of worship that had been closed by July 31, with 427 of those worshipping sites being caves and river banks. Some Rwandan Christians, like most Africans, mix their Christianity with some traditional practices.

When the new regulations were introduced in 2018, more than 9,000 places of worship were shuttered. About 6,000 of these closed permanently; others were given five years within which to regularize their operations, but most still failed to meet these “modest standards” resulting in the latest crackdown. Previous attempts by some religious leaders to defy the law resulted in some arrests.

The U.S. State Department’s report on religious rights in Rwanda has said that the country’s requirements make it more difficult for smaller, underresourced and independent religious groups to operate, which has forced some of them to merge.

The crackdown has affected mostly small Pentecostal churches, which have been mushrooming across the African continent. Results of Rwanda’s 2022 population and housing census showed that 40% of the population is Catholic, 21% Pentecostal, 15% Protestant, 12% Seventh-Day Adventists and 4% belonging to other Christian denominations.

Only 2% of Rwandans are Muslim, which explains the fewer number of mosques caught up in the current crackdown.

No need for churches?

Kagame, the Rwandan strongman who has ruled the country with an iron fist since ending a genocide in 1994, is notorious for closing the country’s political spaces. Last month, he won questionable elections with over 99% of votes to get a new five-year term.

In the past, Kagame has publicly questioned the need for the churches in his country.

“Seven hundred churches in Kigali? Are these boreholes that give people water?” Kagame asked when he heard that more than 700 churches had been closed down by authorities in the capital alone. “I don’t think we have as many boreholes. Do we even have as many factories? But 700 churches, which you even had to close? This has been a mess!”

But critics see the crackdown as an extension of the authoritarianism that Kagame is known for.

“Kagame tightly controls the media, political parties and civil society at large,” said David Himbara, a former senior advisor to Kagame who is now a Canadian citizen. “The churches constituted the last open space. Kagame knows this. The localized community of churches offered a slight space for daring to imagine and talk about change.”

However, the country’s Local Government Minister Jean Claude Musabyimana, who is enforcing the latest ban in partnership with the RGB, told reporters that the crackdown was for good.

“This is not being done to prevent people from praying but to ensure the safety and tranquility of worshippers,” he said.

Himbara said what mattered most was that these churches were willing to open their doors to help communities across the country.

“The churchgoers sang and praised God who they believe will set things rights,” he said. “In Kagame’s Rwanda that is full of poverty, division and oppression, it makes perfect sense that indeed thousands of people flock to churches without hesitation. The Rwandan churches are not unique in this sense . As elsewhere, churches actively and creatively respond to the new reality of a broken world. Churches offer hope and a better future. But to dictators like Kagame, space for independent thoughts and an alternative future is dangerous.”

source: https://religionunplugged.com/news/2024/8/5/rwanda-shuts-down-thousands-of-churches-in-massive-government-crackdown

Cyril Zenda is a Christian and an African journalist and writer based in Harare, Zimbabwe.

IF YOU WERE TO DIE TODAY, WHERE WOULD YOU GO: HEAVEN OR HELL? IF YOU’RE NOT SURE, “BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED” FOR JESUS CHRIST SAID THE MOST IMPORTANT WORDS EVER SPOKEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD WHEN HE SAID, “FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD, THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE.” READ FURTHER RIGHT HERE:

THE BIG QUESTION
GOSPEL LIGHT MINUTE X #447 WITH DANIEL WHYTE III

This is the “Chief of sinners,” Daniel Whyte III, president of Gospel Light Society International, with the Gospel Light Minute X Podcast #447 titled, “The Big Question” I’m here to remind you of what the Bible says, that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” like you and me.

“HAVE YOU BEEN BORN AGAIN?”
The question is not “Have you joined a church?” or “Are you trying to do your best?” or “Do you have religion?” but “Are you twice-born?” Jesus Christ said in John 3:3, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”.
We enter the physical world by birth. Spiritual life likewise is entered with a birth. We become members of a human family by birth; we become members of the family of God by birth, by being “born again.” There is no other way to get into the human family except by birth, and there is no other way to get into God’s family except by the new birth. Neither education, nor cultivation, nor reformation, nor “turning over a new leaf,” will accomplish this. What is needed is not a new “leaf” but a new “life”! “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7).

A New Nature Needed
By physical birth we become partakers of human nature; by being born again we become “partakers of the divine nature”. A Christian is the product of a divine “begetting”. The second birth is not an improvement of the old nature; it is the imparting of an entirely new nature. The old nature is hopelessly corrupt and incapable of ever being made fit for His presence. The new birth requires a creative act of the Holy Spirit. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature”.

Not “Trying” But “Trusting”

“Trying to follow Christ” is not Christianity. Christianity is not imitation of Christ, it is the indwelling of Christ. Christianity is not trying to do anything. It is trusting Christ Who has done it all! He has “finished the work” and there is nothing left to do but simply to receive and trust Him. He shed His precious blood on the cross and the work is all done once and forever! Cease trying and begin trusting! Believers will progressively become more and more like Christ, but by His power, not their own.

What Must I Do To Be Saved?
Simply “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”. The Bible says in 1 John 5:1, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God”. The Bible states in John 1:12,13, “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”.
You are born again, you become a Christian by trusting a Person—receiving a Person. The very moment you do this, the Lord Jesus Christ comes in and life begins!

What Is Meant By “Believe”?
To “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” means more than simply believing the historic facts concerning Him. Intellectual belief about Christ is not sufficient. The belief that brings salvation must be “with the heart,” that is, with the whole being. This belief also includes repentance: “Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ”. The Bible states in Acts 17:30, “God … now commandeth all men every where to repent”.

The faith which saves, then, includes the necessity to repent, and to receive Christ as Saviour and Lord, to rest upon Him alone for salvation. It means to trust Him so utterly and completely that, if He should fail, there would be no hope at all!

May I Know That I Am Born Again?
This is an important question. We know that we are born again by the testimony of God’s Word. God says in John 5:24, “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life”. Have you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as explained by God’s Word? If so, then you are saved, you are “born again,” you have “passed from death unto life.” God says so! Take God at His Word, and go on your way rejoicing!

One Final Word
You may “belong to a church,” you may be “trying to do the best you can,” you may be “striving to live right.” Your outward life may be the model of moral correctness, and you may be looked up to, honored, revered, and respected. Yet, if you have not been “born again” you are just as lost as if you had never heard of Christ. Yes, you may teach in the Sunday school, read the Bible, sing, shout, “feel happy,” and all the rest—but if you have never been “born again” you are still in your sins and a stranger to the Lord Jesus Christ!.

If you want to be saved from the wrath to come and from an eternity in Hell, and if you believe that Jesus Christ suffered, bled, and died on the cross for your sins, was buried, and rose again from the dead and you are willing to trust Jesus Christ with all of your heart so you can go to Heaven, please pray with me what is called the sinner’s prayer: Holy Father God, I acknowledge that I am a sinner and I admit that I have sinned against You and that I have broken Your Ten Commandments. I have lied before. I have stolen things before. I have lusted after people and things before. I have dishonored and disobeyed my parents. I have taken Your holy Name in vain. For Jesus Christ’s sake, please have mercy and grace upon my soul and forgive me of all of my sins, my failures, and my faults. As I now believe in Your Holy Son the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that He suffered, bled, and died on the cross for my sins, was buried and rose again. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit and help me to repent of my sins past. Help me to turn from my old, evil life and follow You in the new life. For it is in Your Name I pray. Amen.

SUPPORT THIS GREAT MINISTRY BY PURCHASING THE BOOK LETTERS TO YOUNG BLACK MEN BY DANIEL WHYTE III. ORDER IT FOR AS MANY YOUNG BLACK MEN IN YOUR LIFE AS POSSIBLE FOR THE GLORY OF GOD.

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