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PART II - “GOD HAS HIDDEN HIS FACE”: LOCAL CHURCHES AND THE EXERCISE OF POWER IN RWANDA
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
Summary
Why dost thou stand afar off, O Lord?
Why dost thou hide thyself in times of trouble?
In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor …
He sits in ambush in the villages;
in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the hapless,
he lurks in secret like a lion in his covert;
he lurks that he may seize the poor,
he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
The hapless is crushed, sinks down,
and falls by his might.
He thinks in his heart, “God has forgotten,
God has hidden his face, he will never see it.”
–from Psalm 10INTRODUCTION TO PART II
The first part of this book has provided a social and political history of the churches in Rwanda in an attempt to explain how the churches became so deeply implicated in the 1994 genocide. I emphasized three main points. First, from the arrival of the first missionaries in Rwanda, the leadership of the Christian churches committed themselves to developing a close alliance between their institutions and the state.
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- Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda , pp. 199 - 202Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009