The Church and hate preaching
By Mfon Offiong
I keep appealing to my Christian brothers and friends who send me inciting articles & messages which are “false and fake” via WhatsApp to beware, reminding them of Rwanda & the fate of Christianity there after the 1994 genocide.
Rwanda is 96% Christian.
Half of that Catholic.
However, the pulpit was used as a platform by Christian Hutus to spread ethnic hate against Christian Tutsis.
“The devil knew that the hate has ripened”,
no thanks to the activities of clerics so he brought down their President’s helicopter.
When the Hutu President & some of his Ministers died in the helicopter crash in 1994, it set off the genocide.
800,000 people, 95% of the Christians were massacred in 100days.
That’s a Christian Country.
So we shouldn’t assume that because we are Christians, that we can keep sowing hate & not reap its fruit.
Hate is a precursor to murder.
Hate has no place in Christianity.
After that, what happened in Rwanda?
Paul Kagame took over.
He is Tutsi.
He has been ruling Rwanda since 1994 & has removed term limits.
What happened to the dream of enthroning a government dominated by Hutus which led to the hate speech in Churches by Christians against Christians that resulted in the genocide?
Rwanda is now Ruled by a minority Tutsi.
Again, the Church in Rwanda no longer has the freedom it had in Rwanda before the genocide.
In March this year, a move by Rwanda to shut down more than 714 Churches in its Capital City, allegedly for building safety, hygiene & noise violations,
is prompting accusations that the government of President Paul is trampling on Religious freedom.
On Tuesday (March 6), Police detained six Pastors, accusing them of conspiring to rally other clergies in defiance of the government’s shutdown orders.
What do Christians and the preachers that urge them on want by spreading Religious & ethnic hate by sharing lies like the Police recruitment was done in Arabic,
that NUC directed that Arabic should be one of the general studies courses in all Nigerian Universities.
Permit me to paint this grim picture.
The helicopter that took VP Osinbajo to a function in Gwagwalada, Abuja was reported to have malfunctioned.
It was said to have taken off & could not go above the height of a tree & landed.
Assuming he has entered it & God forbid, it got bad mid-air & crashed,
these same set of so-called Christians and their Pastors who don’t see anything good in PYO will claim Islamic religious conspiracy.
I hope they have the army to fight the religious war whose drums they keep beating week in, week out.
How will you hold a normal Church Service during a war?
The clerics who were preaching ethnic hate and conspiracy theories in Rwanda didn’t see the genocide coming.
They didn’t believe such a thing could ever happen.
Keep cooking for the devil by spreading lies and hate from your pulpits and Churches in the belief that nothing will happen.
This needs to be read by everybody preaching hate through religion especially Christians…
Imagine someone posting dat d match btwn Russia 🇷🇺 and Saudi Arabia is a clear depiction of the war between Islam and Christianity…
If God forbid war breaks put in Nigeria or Something relating to that of Rwanda happens in Nigeria Christianity in Nigeria will never recover from the blow it will receive.
As such, there is no Imam or Sheikh dat preaches hate against Christianity but if you attend a Church function today even if its FCS in Schools you will sense the hate in their sermons even if you listen to it for just 15 mins!!!
We need to change our ways.
