Splinter Sect of Adventists Jailed in Rwanda for Refusing Education for their Children, ID Cards
by AT News Team
Fifteen members of a splinter group that has left the Seventh-day Adventist Church were given one-year prison sentences last week in Rwanda, according to The New Times daily paper. The convictions were for refusing to allow their children to attend elementary school and refusing to register for identity cards as required by law in the African nation. They also refuse to vote and “never own mobile phones or other ‘modern’ equipment, which they consider worldly,” reported the newspaper.
The members of the sect call themselves “Real Adventists” but are widely known as the Abagorozi. They do not own or use buildings and meet in homes for simple prayer services. Like Jehovah’s Witnesses, they believe that all members are religious workers. They also “believe Jesus is the Supreme Healer, Educator, Teacher, Judge [and] God will do everything for them without making any effort apart from praying.” They refuse to participate in the national health insurance plan.
One member of the group told The New Times reporter Jean Pierre Bucyensenge that they resist education and participation in government “because they need to concentrate on preparing [for] their final days on earth.” The member who refused to identify himself said “they draw their beliefs ‘deep from the Bible’ and other ‘holy writings,’” according to Bucyensenge.
A 14-year-old girl told the reporter she dropped out of school in the fourth grade two years ago. “I chose to leave school after I realized that God is the sole teacher. It is my right to choose.” It is likely that in the United States these individuals would have greater protection under the First Amendment than do citizens of Rwanda, although state laws would generally not allow a 12-year-old to drop out of the fourth grade.
“This an example of the extreme counter-cultural lifestyle of many Adventist groups in developing nations,” a missiologist told Adventist Today. “They believe that the end times are here and that God will care of them without education, medical care, or economic development.”
If they don't go to school, how can they read the Bible?
Maybe that's a problem: finding out what the Bible really says!
Did this emerge spontaneously, or were they influenced by some Adventists?
Will the G.C. sue them for using its name?
Of course they were influenced by some Adventists – at least themselves – before they broke off and formed a splinter group. And of course, as all progressive Adventists and enlightened former Adventists know, extremism breeds extremism. Since the SDA Church is, by definition, extreme, it is obviously the fault of the SDA Church that the brainwashed "victims" of its ideological imperialism are now languishing in an African prison for a mutated faith, planted and nurtured in the soil of a pathological religion. Does that pretty much cover where you were going with this, Elaine? LOL!
As the song says: "You have to be carefully, carefully taught…."
Thanks for the laugh, Elaine!
Of course, we need to be aware and sensitive about SDA influences in Rwanda. It is a desperately poor and overcrowded nation with much ethnic and ethnoreligious strife. Adventism is very popular there and adventists have been right in the middle of some of the horrible attrocities, both as victims, and, apparently, as perpetrators. Sadly, people there are grasping at straws, and extreme and ignorant messages are easily propagated. It really is not a laughing matter.
I couldn't agree with you more, Joe, about the substance of the issue. The persecution that Christians are undergoing throughout the world – especially in Muslim countries – for their faith is tragic. While these "Real Adventists" in Rwanda strike us as extreme, imprisoning them for the conduct reported seems terribly draconian and chilling. My amusement, as you well know, was not at their plight, but at the suggestion that SDAs might somehow bear the blame for the circumstances that led to their persecution. Sorry if I offended you.
I was not offended, Nathan, but thank you for your sensitivity. Religious intolerance is a serious issue wherever it occurs and wherever it is directed. We should all be aware, however, that adventists were involved in some of the horrible genocidal occurrences in Rwanda. Some adventists were blamed, formally accused, and even tried and convicted for some of these atrocities. Whether they really were complicit or guilty is another question. Rwandan ideas of justice are apparently quite different from those in some other places. Rightly, or wrongly, adventists in Rwanda are not universally loved or respected–and are certainly regarded with suspicion by some who seek to move beyond the turmoil of the past decades. When an adventist sect refuses to participate in the educational system that seeks a peaceful way forward, and seems to be retreating into an extreme cult-like organization, one can understand why this might set off alarms. At the same time, imprisoning them also seems extreme and counter productive. The problem is a difficult one.
What they are saying is the logical outcome of taking SDA beliefs to the extreme. Everything is based solidly on a Bible text. What they lack is balance. We have hammered into people that the Bible is the final word and is to be taken literally as the Word of God. Where there is a contradiction between what we read in the Bible and other knowledge or our experience – or even common sense – we must go with the 'plain word of Scripture'. It seems we castigate the 'liberals' in the west for not doing so while being horrified when people anywhere actually do so.
Perhaps they forget, or were never taught, that the Bible is in fact not the final Word of God – Jesus is the final Word of God!
Could you find a dozen popular books on the Bible from SDA writers that say that – or even half a dozen? I doubt they were taught that, and if they were it would be in the context of accepting the Bible as virtually identical to Jesus. Do you know how many books make the equation Jesus = God's Word incarnate, Bible = God'sWord written?
I always like to say that Truth with a capital T is Christ and "truth" is more relationship and doctrinal. Without the Bible, however, we would not even know about Jesus. I would say it is the record of His existence and how God relates to humans. A guidebook, casebook, but not a rule book other than the Ten.
Maybe that's the problem. The Bible itself admits it doesn't have all the information, as there wouldn't be enough books in all the world to describe what Christ did. It is only in Christ that we can know God.
The Bible is extremely important, and probably gives us the best view of God, because it gives us the best view of Jesus, who gives us the best view of God. But the Bible directly does not give us the total picture of God – it is but a glimpse as through a dirty window.
Young people wear those little bands on their wrists 'WWJD'. You will note it stands for 'What Would Jesus Do' not 'What Did Jesus Say'.
I feel sick to the stomach when I read this blog. What, in the Name of God are we doing to people? Are we responsible? Yes. As Kevin says, it is the logical outcome of SDA beliefs taken to the extreme. I have a "close to home" example of it. Over 15 years ago I was involved in bringing a couple to baptism I taught them a more open sided perspective on docrtine and EGW etc, but today they run their own little group – under SDA umbrella, but extremely conservative.
Many would argue we do good in these countries, but do we? Or do we actually do what Jesus accused the Jews of doing – go over land and sea to make people twice the devil we are?
Rememeber David Koresh? Adventism taken to the exreme, using EGW & D&R.
He was a product of Adventism extremism.
Such religious extremism is seldom found in mainstream churches, but is confined to the "cult-like" who find the very esoteric and ambiguous Bible prophecies to be full of hidden dates, codes and predictor of future events. JWS and Jim Jones, and all those who use the Bible for their own purposes and the extreme devotion to the Bible causes unbalanced personalities to flock to this sort of thing.
But historically, this is exactly how Adventism began. We need to look in the mirror to see the trajectory of what we began. It isn't pretty.
Where did you get the idea he used EGW? He was totally opposite of anything she said. I think he picked up some Adventist traditions–like popcorn on Sat. night, but that is it. As for D&R, he made up his own interpretations which included him.
David Koresh had his own (weird) ideas, but the group itself is very much the result of studying Ellen White and D & R. Yes, Adventism taken to its extreme, but an extreme only possible in small groups that does not listen to the wider church. The lesson for us is not that we need to beware of producing another David Koresh, but that we need to be careful not to produce the sort of groups that both produce and respond to such people. We need to teach our members to not only think for themselves, but to be willing to have their ideas examined by, and where necessary corected by, the larger church. One thing all the small groups seem to have in common is that they believe they have discovered some 'secret' knowledge that the wider church has either rejected or is ignoring. There are things we are ignoring and things we have rejected, but they aren't 'secrets'.
If they believe that all members are religious workers, they are not "like Jehovah’s Witnesses", they are like Adventists. To have professional workers and lay workers in the Church is not a deviation from biblical teaching about "holy priesthood" (1. Pt. 2,5.) of all believers but just a practical organisational structure of the Church. It could be different. Anyway, all members (a better word: disciples, or believers) are religious workers indeed. If they are not – they are not in God's church.
For a period of time I studied the teachings, writings, and growth patterns of these groups that I will refer to as "cultic offshoot" manifestations of Adventism. A number of them had formed in the general vicinity of the union office where I edited the general publication, and I would receive correspondence from members of a number of these groups. In many or most cases I discovered a strong leader/presence who subsequently proved beyond any doubt that he (or she) possessed an absolutely and compelling burning desire to lead others through a cult-like dominance.The leaders were not deluded, per se, but they were absolutely enamored of the prospect of possessing absolute control over a group of adoring followers (who in some cases addressed these leaders as literal gods and ascribed prophetic powers to them, even the ability to raise the dead, etc.). In most every case the followers were absolutely True Believers (as in the book by that title), each and every one—today to my knowledge there are some still in the penitentiary who actually committed murders in response to oracular commands of their cult demigod. These groups do not materialize around a Sabbath-afternoon potluck table, where of one accord they all agree to move a new direction as a cult. These groups are generally the outgrowth of persistent preaching over a fairly lengthy period of time by a compulsively driven leader of Messianic pretentions. The followers are absolutely persuaded beyond even the faintest doubt that membership in the group is the ultimate will of the Almighty. For a Christian who has been reared to believe in the power and efficacy of reason, learning about these internal dynamics is at first sobering and later exceedingly discouraging, as I recognized that there seemed to be no avenue of the mind open to establish anything resembling coherent dialogue. I spoke with many of them who were basically fine people of deeply spiritual impulse, who loved their children, etc., but claimed that belonging to their special group under their special leader brought them intense joy, more than they had ever experienced before, and that this internal feeling of "rightness" persuaded them that they were absolutely on the correct pathway to God's glory. Normally these are not large groups, at most 70 or 80, often just a dozen or so, and they move to remote areas where they can shut out the rest of the world.
I think you have given a very insightful profile of these groups. They come from every kind of background. It has been my observation (and some relationship experiences with such persons) that more than usual come from Jewish backgrounds.
I think all have a connection with the occult. Most don't know that The Branches, which Koresh took over from previous older leaders, were spiritualists. They managed to cause automatic writing and a mental breakdown of one "missionary" that tried to reason with them. (I knew the individual personally, and this is not hearsay.)