Two events, apparently unrelated and far from each other, but actually connected, happened in the last fortnight. One was the death of famous evangelist, Billy Graham, on February 21.

The other was the closure last week of hundreds of churches in Kigali and across the country.

Billy Graham’s evangelical work made it possible for churches to sprout and proliferate.

There wasn’t much commentary in Rwanda about Graham’s death. He was not much known here. The wave of evangelical fervour that he started largely passed us by, perhaps because of the stranglehold of the Catholic Church on religious life in this country.

Of course, Rwanda had experienced an evangelical wave before. The great East African Revival (origin of Balokole movement) had its beginning here before spreading to the rest of the region.

But it was within the Anglican Church, and while it was disruptive, it did not seek to destroy the existing religious order. Congregations, too, were rather orderly.

They swayed to the rhythm of the signature hymn, Tukutendereza Yesu, eyes closed, arms waving in a trance-like bliss, but let others be. They were different from the massive crowds caught in mass hysteria under the hypnotic influence of fire and brimstone preachers.

Billy Graham’s revival wave was different. It cut across denominations and spread across continents, and spawned independent churches. The only thing they shared was the zeal to convert others.

It was also subversive. He made preaching of the gospel more accessible to all manner of people. In this sense he liberated it from the tight control of the more established conventional and hierarchical churches. He also took worship from its designated place in church buildings and put it out in the public square, stadium and on television.

In a way, Billy Graham popularised Christianity in a period of great scepticism, permissiveness and even outright attack on religious belief.

In East Africa in the 1970s, it became cool to follow Jesus, especially among young people in schools. The name Jesus was said with a special accent of sweetness and contentedness. Brigades of brethren hailing each other with ‘Praise God’ were everywhere.

In schools, Scripture Union clubs that had been boring bible study groups transformed overnight into jolly groups of young men and women who went about urging everyone to smile because Jesus loved them, and trying to convert all to their new-found friend.

But they could also be self-righteous and intolerant, and called everyone else a sinner who must repent to escape damnation and hell.

I remember nearly being caught in this frenzy as a freshman at university. Some former schoolmates thought I was a suitable candidate for conversion. One evening, they took me to one of the chapels and prayed over me to let Jesus into my life and be my personal saviour.

It didn’t work that night. Next day they took me to a student crusade in a nearby school. We found a mass of jabbering youth, purportedly speaking in tongues, many of them jumping up and down or falling down, supposedly possessed by the Holy Spirit. It was a frightening scene of mass hysteria.

I left and was followed by the chilling words: those who walk away do so in the bondage of the devil. I thought the fellows I left behind were the ones in some sort of bondage.

Again, in the 70s, a number of freelance preachers sprung up, inspired by Billy Graham’s crusades and incubated in the Scripture Union.

Starting with the 1980s, more of these appeared and soon set up their own churches outside the mainstream ones.

In Rwanda they began to appear after 1994. The genocide against the Tutsi, committed by people who professed Christianity, shook the faith of most in the traditional churches.

But it also left a spiritual void which the new churches were eager to fill. The genocide also created a sense of hopelessness. The new churches were attractive as they promised hope and deliverance from pain and suffering, and despair.

Billy Graham and his successors had liberalised the worship business. You could become a preacher without any formal theological training. You could declare yourself pastor, apostle, prophet or bishop. You didn’t need an organised church with a known hierarchy and procedures for that.

You could worship anywhere, for as long as you wanted and as loudly as you wished. In fact, the more unconventional you were, the more godly you were supposed to be.

Naturally that opened the door to all manner of charlatans.

This is how the many churches in Rwanda started, as largely unregulated, free for all ventures. Many of them have now been closed. Some regulation is necessary. Order, too. Worshippers need protection.

The days of the freelance preacher and church founder in Rwanda may be gone. They may have come to an end at about the same time the man who set it all in motion died.