Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda

Timothy Longman is director of the African Studies Center at Boston University, where he also serves as associate professor of political science. From 1996 to 2009, he served as associate professor of political science and Africana studies at Vassar College, New York. He has also taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; the National University of Rwanda, Butare; and Drake University, Iowa. He has served as a consultant in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo for USAID and the State Department, the International Center for Transitional Justice and Human Rights Watch, for whom he served as director of the Rwanda field office 1995-6. From 2001 to 2005, he served as a Research Fellow for the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, directing research on social reconstruction in post-genocide Rwanda. His articles have appeared in the African Studies Review, the Journal of Religion in Africa, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Comparative Education Review, the Journal of Genocide Research and America, and he is currently completing a book manuscript titled Memory, Justice, and Power in Post-Genocide Rwanda.

This book studies the role of Christian churches in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Introduction: 1. 'People came to mass each day to pray, then they went out to kill': Christian churches, civil society, and genocide; Part I. 'River of Blood': 2. 'Render unto Caesar and Musinga ...': Christianity and the colonial state; 3. Churches and the politics of ethnicity; 4. 'Working hand in hand': Christian churches and the postcolonial state (1962-90); 5. 'Giants with feet of clay': the churches and democratization (1990-2); 6. 'It is the end of the world': Christian churches and genocide (1993-4); Part II. 'God Has Hidden His Face': 7. Kirinda: local churches and the construction of hegemony; 8. Biguhu: local churches, empowerment of the poor and challenges to hegemony; 9. 'Commanded by the devil': Christian involvement in the genocide in Kirinda and Biguhu; Conclusion: 10. Churches and accounting for genocide.