Rwandan Religion

More than half of Rwandan population is currently Roman Catholic while another 25%-30% is Protestant. There are a growing number of Seventh Day Adventists and a very small number of Muslims, while less than a percent currently participates in other indigenous religions. This large number of Catholics and Protestants is significant throughout history, and certainly for the current reality of the state.  One reason it is significant is because it was the Roman Catholic missionaries in the colonial-era that helped encourage and even introduce the idea of Tutsi superiority, and then later Hutu superiority. So the church, very much, has played into the racial dispute that has gone on for hundreds of years.

                

According to the Dictionary of African Christian Biography, “Rwanda was one of the last areas of Africa to receive Christian missionaries.” (1.) The first Catholic mission was started in 1900 and German Lutherans began work in Rwanda in 1908, but were expelled during the first world war.

                

Pre-Colonial Rwanda fell into a cast system. The highest of the caste system was the king of the Tutsi clan, and he was known as the Mwami. The Mwami was believed to be of divine origin. A famous myth that I found in many places of research, including African Myths of Origin is the story of three children who each grew in a pot filled with milk. Each of the children fell from heaven to a woman who was unable to bear children. She was begging and paying Imana (the tribal god) for a child. It is believed that one of the three children was Kigwa, who founded the elite Tutsi clan. (2.) Later on when Catholicism made its way into Rwanda, the Hutu and Tutsi people were taught that there was a different inherent value placed on them. The Rwandan people believed it and the Church confirmed it. It is such a tragedy for the nation of Rwanda.

Bibliography

1.       Kevin Ward, “A Brief History of the Church in Rwanda” 2008. http://www.dacb.org/history/rwanda-briefhistory.htm

2.       Stephen Belcher, African Myths of Origin, (London, England, the Penguin Group, 2005), 182-191.