The religious bit, continued

The religious bit, part two
re Sunday 22 Feb

I don't much like going to church, for several reasons, some general and some specific to my experience here in Rwanda. I don't like being in a situation where I might be assumed to believe things I don't believe. I don't like the busyness. I love traditional English church music, and I enjoy African call-and-response singing, but I don't care for choruses with formulaic melodies and harmonies. I experience the excessive amplification of keyboard and microphones as physical pain. I don't like being pushed to express a fervour I'm not feeling; I resist strongly the expectation that to every 'Alleluia' I will respond with a loud 'Amen'.

However, the Evangelical Friends Church in Rwanda is part of the world family of Friends, so these are my cousins. Most of the people I am working with belong, and they seem genuinely pleased to see me when I turn up. The English language service is relatively new, it needs support, and really I would be churlish to refuse to attend on even one of my four Sundays.

On my final Sunday, then, I set the alarm for six o'clock – not unbearable after a week without early starts – and enjoy the freshness of the early morning air on the 20 minute walk.

There are about 30 people present, compared with about 150 for the later service, including the American missionary couple with their children and two other members of Evangelical Friends Mission - a business specialist to help set up a moringa business and his wife who is teaching the adult English classes. A song is being taught as I arrive – I find it dull but my evaluation isn't what matters here. I sing quite strongly, recognising among the congregation several people whose English I know to be far from confident. There is a second song, and perhaps a third – they are so similar I find it hard to remember. The words are displayed on the wall in front of us, the computer operated by one of the two young men who also play the keyboard.

Now it's time for the address. It seems we are part way through a series. Last week the subject was Satan. Today we have moved on to demons. There are four questions to consider. I missed the first, I'm afraid, while preparing my camera, and can't recollect it. The others were also displayed: 'Are demons active in the world today? If yes, explain.' 'Can a Christian be possessed?' 'How can demon influence be recognised?' The young preacher tries to insist on plenty of interaction, but gets little. I don't know if the problem is poor English or lack of confidence in hazarding responses. The pastor and his wife from a neighbouring Friends church are the most vocal. The native English speakers (including me) hold back, for the most part.

One theme is whether Africa is more prone to demons than Europe and the USA. We hear a couple of stories of demonic activity in Rwanda, such as lifting a preacher onto the roof of his church in the middle of his sermon. I wonder whether to raise the question of metaphorical versus literal truth, but restrain myself. After about 45 minutes time has run out. We are exhorted to learn what we can about Satan, fallen angels, demons and devils, using the bible as our source of information. (I remember Bosco telling me a couple of weeks ago that the reason for praying before eating is to cast out the demons who otherwise are lurking to get inside people when they eat. I responded that there can indeed be bad practices that lead to food poisoning or even deliberate adulteration and he observed that 'you Europeans are so scientific'.)

Outside the church I comment to Debby Thomas that I was conscious of silence around the topic of prominent churchmen including bishops who participated vigorously in the genocide and wonder whether the subject is an elephant in the room. She makes an observation I find very informative - like most of what she tells me: many church people in this society will commit sinful acts, such as theft, for example, and say it wasn't their fault because they were possessed. There was talk inside church of it being only those supposed Christians who are 'mixed', who go to church in the morning and take part in traditional witchcraft in the evening, who are vulnerable. I'm no expert but I don't find that entirely convincing.



I have so much to understand. There are fascinating questions about the balance between individual and group responsibility, for example – Friends Peace House has adopted the slogan from Friends in Cape Town: 'Peace is a group effort'. In the groups I have been teaching I notice that if I ask one person to fetch something or do something, at least half a dozen others follow suit and it can be quite difficult to stop the flow. I remember on visits to the Soviet Union in the 80s being told very firmly that we Westerners were far too devoted to individualism and undervalued the communal. That certainly needs considering, whatever one's evaluation of its source.

No tidy conclusions. I suspect that much of what I experience as strange and uncomfortable may be very familiar to members of churches in other continents than Africa. It's enough for me that I have been welcomed despite my oddity. Bathed in such warm appreciation, I could allow my prickles to soften perhaps.