Rwanda Archbishop Laurent Mbanda Needs to Resign as GAFCON Chair

Local officials showed up on Sunday morning in order to clear worshipers from their buildings. Over the following month more closures occurred, topping 10,000 (according to RGB postings) and affecting approximately ten million people. For Anglicans, each Anglican diocese has been left with only ten to fifteen open buildings out of approximately 250-350 churches in each diocese. Several dioceses have no open churches. To date, not a single closed church in the country has been reopened, regardless of whether the requirements have been fulfilled.

But can’t the people gather outside the buildings? Absolutely not. All gatherings of closed churches are proscribed, and a gathering of any size led by the pastor will result in his imprisonment. I know of several cases where the pastor met with his parish committee to strategize how to meet the requirements, after which he was arrested for violating the RGB rules. Maintaining group discipleship falls entirely to courageous laity willing to test the grey areas.

Shockingly, Anglican Archbishop Laurent Mbanda has been one of the most outspoken defenders of the government actions. In a series of public interviews, Mbanda has reiterated, “What was introduced–not today but five years ago–is good for the church.

The government gave us five years to comply and kept giving us reminders.” In no way, in no instance, has he questioned any aspect of the government action, and in no way has he offered comfort or encouragement to the Christians under his care. Sitting for a televised interview on The Summit (Rwanda TV), Mbanda made no objection to RGB CEO Doris Picard’s statement, “Faith is about compliance,” as she summarized the necessity of closing non-compliant churches. Mbanda agrees that a church in poor repair is a church that should be closed. “I think we are starting churches where they should not be. Sometimes we are having church structures that a god cannot live in, let alone a person.”

The ancient church might demur.

If anyone is in a position to publicly speak for the pain of Rwanda’s Anglicans or the nation’s Christians in general, it is Mbanda. He is not only the Anglican primate but is also the new Chairman of Rwanda’s Inter-Religious Council (RIC), the body of denominational leaders with responsibility for representing the faith community in conversation with the government. But instead of advocating for the Church, Mbanda has been a stalwart apologist for the government.

The one Anglican leader who has publicly spoken against the unreasonable scope of the closures, retired pastor Canon Antoine Rutayisire, was quickly forced to make a public apology. A month later, in September he was called to a large interdenominational meeting of Rwandan church leaders, where he was publicly shamed and his words misinterpreted as dangerous and subversive to the state. An eyewitness said Mbanda gave no support to this senior and highly respected priest of his denomination.

What is going on? Speculation and rumor runs rampant in Rwanda. Many Rwandans believe President Paul Kagame has become paranoid about Kinyarwanda-speaking Rwandans in eastern Congo or returning exiles infiltrating the churches and making them communities of dissent. Others suggest that his tactic of reducing authorized denominations down to six is a step towards a single, state-sponsored Church reminiscent of Communist China. Whatever the real motive, these closures are a move of control and intimidation. If churches reopen, they will be reorganized under government control. The RGB describes the preferred future: “The Government is committed to ensure the safety of people who pray by educating the public to be vigilant and avoid misleading teachings, intensifying monitoring and regulation of Faith-Based Organizations, and improving collaboration and interaction between the government institutions and Faith-Based Organizations.” Already, government officials make their presence known at every meeting of denominational leaders, including the Anglican House of Bishops.

But the problem goes deeper than government control. Governments have often persecuted God’s people. In the Anglican House of Bishops, the line has been blurred between church and state. Writing of the period just before the Genocide, Bishop Thad Barnum wrote in Never Silent (2008) “both Catholic and Anglican church leaders were tragically found ‘in total support of the regime.” With similar tragedy, the same might be said of the Anglican Church in Rwanda today, albeit in support of a different regime. It is mystifying how a church known for its courageous leadership and willingness to suffer for the gospel through a recovery from national trauma has become thoroughly compliant with a government known for silencing dissenters and eliminating opponents.

Over the last decade, transitions in the House of Bishops have been strongly influenced by the government. The House has ignored its own canons requiring an advanced theological degree. Political party has replaced that clear qualification. Of Rwanda’s thirteen bishops, the supermajority are members of Rwanda’s ruling party, the Rwanda Patriotic Front. In the run-up to July’s sham Presidential election, bishops including Mbanda, Bishop Nathan Amooti of Kigali Diocese, and Bishop Gahima Manasseh of Gahini regularly bowed to government pressure to appear at political rallies for President Kagame–contrary to the country’s constitution. Every leader of the Interreligious Council is a member of the RPF. Rwandans ruefully joke that it is the religious wing of the RPF.

Broadly speaking, Rwandan Anglicans feel betrayed by their leaders. More specifically, even Rwanda’s politically compromised bishops feel betrayed by their leader, Archbishop Mbanda. They are fully aware that he has not acted in his role as GAFCON Chairman to ask for the prayers of the Church, or even to acknowledge their plight. They have heard him minimize the Church’s suffering and his consistent advocacy for the RGB’s policies.

Instead of drawing together the House of Bishops in this time of crisis, Mbanda has taken opportunity to alienate and punish his critics, most especially Canon Antoine and now Bishop Samuel Mugisha of Shyira Diocese. Last week Mbanda cut short an RGB-ordered internal financial audit of Shyira Diocese and pushed forward an indefinite suspension of Bishop Sam from active ministry, without completion or conclusion from the audit. Some of the animosity in the House stems from Mbanda’s avoiding the Rwandan Canons’ mandatory retirement at 65. He is now 70. In the thirty years since 1994, sources throughout the Church say the House of Bishops has never been so divided. And this at a time of existential crisis.

It may be that Archbishop Laurent Mbanda finds himself in an impossible situation, fearing to offend the government and thereby worsening the situation for the Anglican Church. It may be his life is at risk. I make these charitable assumptions, and therefore conclude it is essential for Archbishop Mbanda — for his own sake as well as for the Church’s — to resign his position as GAFCON Chairman. At best, his compromised position hinders the work and witness of the GAFCON movement. We are scandalized by the simple fact that no GAFCON province has been called to pray for millions of brothers and sisters being denied worship. Mbanda has actively choked that call, even after it was put in draft form. At worst, we may all be complicit in silence in the face of evil. “Silence is assent.” From my vantage point in South Carolina, GAFCON silence serves the kingdom of the RPF, not the kingdom of Jesus.

It is time for Archbishop Mbanda to resign as GAFCON Chairman.

Rwanda Archbishop Laurent Mbanda Needs to Resign as GAFCON Chair

A WORLD EXCLUSIVE

By John Goldsworthy
www.virtueonline.org
October 30, 2024

The situation in the Anglican Church of Rwanda has reached a point of crisis that compromises the integrity of the GAFCON movement under the continued chairmanship of Archbishop Laurent Mbanda. For the sake of GAFCON, Archbishop Mbanda needs to resign.

Most readers will have little idea that over 90% of the churches in Rwanda are now closed — including Anglican churches. It has hardly raised a ripple in the news, which certifies the success of its architects.

Beginning in the last weekend of July, the Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) issued an order late Saturday July 27 to begin closing churches that failed to meet a list of requirements. These ranged from the reasonable — having oversight by educated clergy, no dirt floors, plastered and painted walls — to the ridiculous and sometimes impossible — parking areas, sinks, and security systems even in areas where the government has provided no roads, water supply, or electricity.