Editor,

I wish to respond to Kenneth Agutamba’s article, "Can Rwandans trust church again?” (Sunday Times, March 16).

Mr Agutamba is spot on. What the so-called believers in God did was very wrong and inhumane. But after reading and internalising the Bible, I realised that there is a stark different between church and churchgoers (including the clergy). Therefore those church members who killed people defiled the church.

Those killers sinned against God and people, but God remains God; he did not ask those so-called believers to kill. They killed because they were not genuine believers after all; they were blindly going to church. There several examples of such people in the Holy Bible.

When you see people going to church do not think that all are very nice, some of them are – according to the Bible – "animals”. You will know the true believers on their deeds and not by what they preach.

That is why you can still go to church because God did not kill our people. And you go to church to pray and serve God, which Rwandans have continued doing, in post-Genocide era despite what happened two decades ago.

Nduwayo, Rwanda

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The church is not that holy as we might want to believe or as we have been taught to believe, but the reason behind is that the church is about people and as long as people remain people, there will always be sin.

Therefore, in my view, the church still has many of its bad guys but it’s hard to know how to identify them without another incident that would be able to expose their true self.

People should stay faithful to the church and the teachings they get from the church as a way of keeping peace within their communities, but trusting man entirely – be it the clergy or otherwise – should be done with a lot of caution, and what they say needs not be taken as Gospel truth.

Niyonzima, Rwanda

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Mr. Agutamba’s article is a good read. I was deeply saddened by the role the church played in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

More so, the church has historically played a major role in sending a section of Rwanda’s sons and daughters to exile, starting from 1959; and in some countries on this continent, the Church played a role in resisting the independence of African countries.

I must also say that Rwandans were made refugees in the interest of the Belgian colonialists and the Church. Well, I will continue to have faith in God but not in the men of the robe.

Mujyanama, Rwanda