Healing and Forgiveness after Genocide

By PJ Meduri

The country of Rwanda is a small nation located in East Africa. A beautiful nation, known as “The land of a thousand hills” experienced a very dark moment in 1994. In April of that year, a very tragic genocide began which lasted roughly 4 months and resulted in more than 1 million deaths.

Now in 2012 as I prepare for my sixth trip to Rwanda, I’ve seen and heard firsthand how people have found healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

On my first visit to Rwanda I visited a prison and was amazed at what I saw as I was escorted inside. At the front of the prison courtyard was platform were two bands were leading their fellow inmates in singing songs to Jesus Christ. It was inspiring to see the incredible joy on the faces of these men as a result of following Jesus. I couldn’t help but wonder about their role in the genocide, but that only served to increase my amazement at the depth, power, love and mercy of Jesus Christ, who offers all people everywhere the opportunity to find peace with God. It reminded me of my favorite words from Jesus, “All those who come to me, I will never drive away.” And, through Jesus, people in Rwanda are not only experiencing reconciliation with God, but in many cases reconciliation with one another.

The prison visit was amazing, but there is one person I met my first time in Rwanda, whom I will never forget. He survived the genocide as a small boy and in an e-mail he sent to me over two years ago, summed up some of his feelings. “…JESUS is my only real shelter and refuge and my relief in this lonely life.” He then shared something else he’s learned over the many years of healing since 1994. “When you dwell on the past you can lose the future, but when you remember the past just as something that happened and left you with a lesson, you can inevitably save the future.”

Jesus said He is “the resurrection and the life”, something that is very evident in the rebuilding of Rwanda. This “new life” was summarized quite eloquently by a Rwandan Pastor who shared the following with me, as I prepared to leave for home at the conclusion of my visit to this country in 2010.

As he stood up, he looked at me and said, “Tell people in America it’s safe to come to Rwanda” Then as he reached his right hand toward the ground he slowly began raising his hand upward, and finished his statement…. “God has reached into the pit, and lifted Rwanda up, and made her a nation of peace.”

This same God who’s at work in Rwanda is the same One who can reach into any nation and any life. with his amazing love and grace.

PJ Meduri

Director

Taking The Field Ministries

www.takingthefield.org

Are Christians the only children of God?

In the film “Dead Man Walking”, shortly before Matthew Poncelet (played by Sean Penn) is executed, there’s a scene where Poncelet confesses his crime of rape and murder. Up until that time, Poncelet had showed little remorse to his spiritual advisor Sister Helen Prejean (played by Susan Surandon) even though earlier he declared confidently that he knew that Jesus would take care of him on judgment day. What did Helen Prejean—a Catholic nun—tell Poncelet in his final moments that caused a hardened criminal to face the truth about his sinful condition? She called him a child of God. Tears of contrition flow, as Poncelet responds, “Nobody ever called me a child of God before.”

As touching as the movie’s climax may be, a thorny question remains. Is it theologically sound to call someone who hasn’t confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior a child of God? If we take our cues from standard evangelical theology, the answer would be a resounding no! After all, according to standard evangelical theology, there are two types of people in the world: children of God and children of the devil. It takes a conversion experience to go from the latter to the former. After all, didn’t Jesus make it clear that disbelievers are “of their father, the devil” (John 8:44)?

While it may be comforting to divide the world between “us” versus “them”, the moral implications of this worldview is nothing short of monstrous when carried to its logical conclusion. If it takes becoming one of “us” to liberate a person from their status as “child of the devil” then what we’ve effectively done is demonize—literally—everyone except “us” the saved ones. To demonize is to dehumanize, and to dehumanize is to provide a mental justification for all kinds of atrocities against those perceived as the “other.”

Think about all the crimes perpetrated in the name of Christ throughout Church history, or even the suffering inflicted on others today when Christian faith is mixed with blind nationalism. When it comes to formulating an appropriate response to Islamic terrorism, too many Christians schooled in the classic us/them dichotomy of American evangelicalism have little choice but to resort to a theology that says convert them or kill them. Is this really the best way to read the Scriptures?

I don’t think so. At the same time, I admit that I don’t have all the answers when it comes to how to formulate a theology of evangelism that’s both morally defensible and Biblically credible. I think a good start would be for evangelicals to take a closer look at the passages of Scripture that emphasize God as the Father of humanity, not just the Father of Christians. Perhaps the best known passage is Acts 17:29 where the Apostle Paul affirms a pagan quote to show that the idol worshiping Athenians are indeed the “offspring of God.”

There’s also the story of the prodigal son that Jesus told in response to the Pharisees that accused Him of “eating with sinners.” In the story, sinful humanity is portrayed as a son that has gone astray, but a son nonetheless (See Luke 15:1-2, 11-32). Jesus also taught the masses to think of God as a “Father in Heaven”, even to pray to Him as “our Father.” Clearly out of all the masses that He taught, not everyone in His audience would have fit the bill as being in the “in” crowd, yet this didn’t seem to bother Jesus as much as it might bother today’s fundamentalists.

And by the way, that passage where Jesus supposedly calls disbelievers “of their father, the devil”, He was talking to the Pharisees, the people that set themselves up as religious leaders yet were spiritually clueless enough to call Jesus a “Samaritan” and a “demon” (John 8:48). Is this really a proof-text for us/them Christianity or is Jesus addressing a specific grievance aimed at the religious leaders of His day? The answer to this question could mean the difference between a theology of love and a theology of hate. Choose wisely.