THE CHURCH CAN NOT STAND IN ISOLATION

This week the country has witnessed preparations for the ordination of three American Bishops who will be answerable to the Anglican Church in Rwanda.This comes shortly after Kenya and Uganda consecrated three US Bishops, the latest in a string of priests who are defecting to Anglican congregations because of the American Church’s liberal stance on gays. This is a move in the right direction, if the country has to save so many of the souls that had crumbled due to the Church’s recent scandal. The same souls that form majority of our society have since guarded against any ideology that tends to draw back to the nasty feelings of human destruction and depriving persons of their dignity and respect. The Church too, can not stand in isolation. It is high time our Church leaders accepted to render a hand to the ‘friend in need’ before the seeming schism takes actual root between African and the West. The position of the United Nations Human Rights Committee that detention on the basis of sexual orientation constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of liberty contrary to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, might have to reconsider the developing world that is in need of guarding the dignity and respect of the human person. The Church is one and any argument that is put across to mask political struggles within the Church just for the control of her by interested groups, will only ruin her into a rupture. The scripture used by all Christians clearly puts it that “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman: it is an abomination” (Lev 18:22). “If a man lies with a man in the same way as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall be put to death: their blood is upon them” (Lev 20:13). According to the 1997 Rwanda’s Penal Code Act, there are no concrete laws stipulated against the homosexuality, but it is reflected in the law that prohibits crimes such as beastiality and therefore it is crime to sodomise. However, Rwanda is yet to come up with a conclusive stand on homosexuality through the new Penal Code Act that was passed by the Cabinet two weeks ago.Ends