First, it reminds me of something RC says, that persecution comes not only from the world, but from that which is worldly in the Church. And one might add "but from that which calls itself the Church, but is really just the world in vestments." It has been my experience that supposedly peace-loving liberals, not to a man, but as a group, hate and fear conservatives far worse than the reverse. I think it would take very little for things in this country to snap and turn into overt violence against God's people.
Second, it makes me wonder about the state of the Church in general in the Third World. How much more of the fruit of the modern missions movement has ended up rotten like this? And that's not to dis missions. Remember that the most of the churches Paul planted didn't survive more than a century or two. But when we count the number of Christians in the world, are we counting the likes of the Hutus? Are we pointing proudly to the successes of Western missionary efforts in places where we ought to be like Paul, soundly scolding his church plants when they erred?
I know very little about the Rwandan massacre, I haven't read the book in question, and I'm not really equipped to evaluate things from a historical perspective, especially on the basis of those few paragraphs, but these are the thoughts and questions they brought to mind. And it never hurts to remind ourselves to eat, drink and be merrily worshipful and obedient to God in all things, for tomorrow we may die, and not necessarily of natural causes. Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 1/17/2005 08:30:00 AM
• • Permalink
