217 Tharcisse Gatwa and Laurent Rutinduka (Eds.)

book reviews 217 Tharcisse Gatwa and Laurent Rutinduka (eds.) Histoire du christianisme au Rwanda. Des origines à nos jours. Yaoundé (Cameroun): Éditions CLÉ 2014, 418 pages, ISBN 978-9956-0-9280-2, price € 25.00. Twenty years after the Rwandan genocide this well edited handbook about the history of Christianity in Rwanda, in which twelve Rwandan authors, from the Roman Catholic Church and the various Protestant denominations, all Rwandans, has been published. The fact that this book is the result of teamwork between Protestants and Catholics is in itself a way marker in Rwandan Christianity. It is significant that in 1990 two young Rwandan Protestants published a presentation of the history of the Protestant churches on the occasion of the visit of Pope John Paul II to Rwanda under the revealing title Les autres chrétiens du Rwanda (The other Christians of Rwanda). This showed that Protestantism in Rwanda should be regarded as a factor to be considered in Rwandan society. Two decades later, this book reveals a new situation and a new ecumenical spirit. The book is divided into three sections. Under the title: ‘This Christianity arriving from abroad’, the stories about the foundation and development of the Catholic Church along with the seven Protestant denominations prior to the genocide are presented. The development of the cooperation between Protestants in the Protestant council is also covered, and an impression is given of the multiple new movements and churches that were created after the genocide. This section accounts for two thirds of the volume. Part Two, under the title: ‘The Torch of Faith or the Element of Appropriation’, presents a more critical analysis of the character of Catholicism and Protestantism. Part Three, entitled ‘Models of Faith’, gives the biographies of some outstanding personali- ties who have contributed greatly to Rwandan Christianity: the first Rwandan Catholic bishop, Aloys Bigirumwami (1904-1986), the Catholic historian and philosopher Alexis Kagame (1912-1981), as well as the Presbyterian pastors Naasson Hitimana (b. 1930), Oscar Rwasibo (1916-1994), and the Anglican lay- man Israel Havugimana (d. 1994). In Part One the facts, names, dates, photos and characteristics of the first missionaries and of the Rwandans in charge of the different churches after the national independence in 1962 are to be found. Each article is written by a person belonging to the church in question. Thus we learn that Roman Catholic White Fathers arrived in 1900, followed by German Lutheran missionaries in 1907, who were serious competitors to Catholics until they had to leave in 1916, when the Belgian army conquered the German colonial regime. The Belgian authorities, to whom the official trusteeship of Rwanda was given by the League of Nations in 1924, favoured the Roman Catholic mission. In spite © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi �0.��63/�57�543X-��34�364 218 book reviews of the arrival the Adventist missionaries (1919), the Anglican Mission (1920), the Danish Baptists (1928) American Free Methodists (1942) and Swedish Pentecostals (1940), the Protestants remained a minority, sometimes despised and certainly underestimated by the Catholics. It is a shame that the development of the many new churches created after the genocide, characteristic of present day Christianity in the urban areas, has not been developed in depth, obviously because academic research on this new phenomenon still has to be done. The most in depth articles are those of Tharcisse Gatwa on the Presbyterian Church and of Viateur Habarurema of the Pentecostal Church, who both could build on historical research that had been performed previously. Gatwa presents profound reflections on the sense of independence of the Presbyterian Church, when it launched a kind of moratorium in the beginning of the 1970s rejecting the strong influence of former missionary partners in Europe. He mentions also the reflections within the church during the political and military crisis in the period 1990-1994, and the ecumenical efforts in which Catholics and Protestants cooperated, to intermediate between the different parties in conflict during that period. He finally explains the stability of the Presbyterian Church through the ‘ecclesiology of consensus’ expressed in the Presbyterian-Synodal form of organization of the Church, that provides an institutionalized balance of power, in which centralized leadership is con- trolled by a Synod chosen from below. In his reflection on the character of his church, Habarurema Viateur mentions that discipline, baptism by the spirit and role of singing and chants are essential in Pentecostal spirituality. It is striking that almost all authors are reticent about the developments and posi- tions and actions of the churches taken during the genocide. Part Two of the book, gives the deepest analyses of Rwandan Christianity. Under the title ‘The East-African Revival and the Church-State relationships’ Thaddée Ntihinyuzwa, presents a well-documented insight into one of the main characteristics of Rwandan Protestantism, the Revival movement that originated from the first Anglican missionaries to Rwanda, both Englishmen and Ugandans, that has influenced Protestant denominations up to the present (p. 345-363). On the basis of his historical research he proves that right from the beginning of the Revival in the 1930s, one of its objectives was to overcome racial hatred between Hutu and Tutsi. Thus, the Revival became a movement working towards healing the wounds caused by the deeply rooted antagonism between the segments of the population: Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. The dynamics of this Revival clashed with those of politicians in different periods. However, the Anglican Church, that had been part of an Anglican diocese that earlier comprised also Burundi and parts of Uganda and Congo, was weakened when Exchange 44 (2015) 201-220.

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