What if it was not about the Gitwaza sermons?

I have to agree that at that time, I also asked myself many questions; and rightly so. I felt a bit disappointed. I always thought he was much more humble than that. Many explanations were given for and against him; but I decided to think through the whole context and before I was even done, a second video came. This time more “heretic.” In this one, Apostle Gitwaza appears saying only Zion Temple Christians will go to heaven. I was on the verge of giving up on him but then I got the full version in which he clearly states the opposite.

That’s when a question arose in my heart: “What if it was not about the Gitwaza sermons?”
I hesitated a lot before writing this article; many discouraged me and wanted to know why I would take the risk of attempting to challenge people’s opinion on this. Why would I do this since I am not a member of his church? My answer is simple: why not? This is not a church issue; it is about standing for what is right.

I asked myself a number of questions; what if the intention of the one who posted the first video was not different from that of the person who posted the second one? What if they had the same mission? What if it was actually the same person? The “lawyer” in me resurrected and I started digging deeper. I looked at what my teachers used to call “Modus Operandi”, a particular way of doing or achieving something (Cambridge dictionary). In both videos, it is clear that this person has been following Gitwaza’s sermons for some time, he/she probably attends his services, has attended them before or worked closely with someone who fits these criteria. It appears to me that it would be hard for someone without any interest to locate such words in a sermon of one hour and thirty minutes.

It also appears to me that the person who edited the videos clearly knew that the context was different. That is the main reason he/she made sure words were cut out at the right point to change the context of the message. Since the so called “recent” video was first published in 2012, it is also intriguing how it is drawing much attention today. What changed in the last six years? The last thing I would like to point out here is that no one was ready to own this social media campaign against Apostle Gitwaza. It looks like the person behind this plan wants us to think that he is not the one, but the whole online community is against Gitwaza.

This person capitalizes on the new technologies and the instant generation that strives to be the first to share information. This makes us cool; it makes us “legit” when we are the first to share what’s new in town. There have been a lot of negative reports about churches lately some of which were even closed. This has made pastors less credible in the eyes of people and any news shared about what they do wrong is easily be believed. While I am of the opinion that no one should use the name of God for his own interests, and I am convinced that no one has the right to take hostage people’s minds or wealth in the name of God, we have to be very careful not to fall in the trap of putting everyone in the same basket or even worse putting God in that same basket.

This Apostle is not an apostle by name like many who just bear the name for prestige. According to my research, he has planted Zion Temple here in Rwanda, in Burundi, DRC Tanzania, Belgium, Denmark, France, UK, Sweden, Italy, US, Canada, Australia and China. In Rwanda, he has managed through the church to impact his community positively by building schools and a health center. He is the founder of Authentic International Academy, Authentic Kingdom University and Bethsaida Health Center. These achievements are a testimony of a proven track record of someone we know. When you ask people from the region names of Rwandan church leaders they know, his name probably comes first. Can’t we at least give him the benefit of doubt and respect him for that? He has contributed a lot to the rebuilding of this nation and mainly the rebuilding of souls. As for the person behind the social media campaigns, we still don’t know him/her but why are we quick to believe in the distorted messages he/she shares.

My curiosity now led me to investigate what the Rwandan Laws say about whether or not there are consequences for the practice of sharing edited segments of someone’s message.

I opened the new penal code, Article 157 and sure enough, there it was!

“Any person, who in bad faith, publishes in any way whatsoever an edited version of a person’s statements, or images and photos without explicitly stating that it is not the original version, commits an offence.

Upon conviction, he/she is liable to imprisonment for a term of not less than six (6) months and not more than one (1) year and a fine of not less than one million Rwandan francs (FRW 1,000,000) and not more than two million Rwandan francs (FRW 2,000,000).”
After reading this, I opened my twitter app and raised a concern.

I had tried to tag anyone I thought could help me raise the concern but also included the Ministry of Justice and the Rwandan Police; to my surprise the minister of Justice himself responded to my humble question. He said that the Law could very much be applied even to such a case as the one at hand.

It was comforting for me to know that we have laws that protect people’s statements against those who distort them in bad faith. When I posted about the law, some Christians said he should just forgive them since he is a believer. “Aren’t Christians supposed to forgive their enemies?” However, the judiciary has the right and mandate to hold accountable anyone who violates the penal code whether the victim of the offence wants it or not. Christians are also citizens protected by the same laws as anybody else.