There is a recent story in the news, from East Africa. The Government of the country of Rwanda has closed thousands of Christian churches. The latest count is more than ten thousand churches that have been closed, by the national government.

Rwanda Explains Why It Closed Thousands of Churches. Again.

This is a conversation that could go in many directions, including accusations of religious persecution. Before the debating starts, we should ask a question: They have ten thousand churches? Rwanda is a small country, and not all churches were closed, only about ten thousand of them. Others remained open.

A rapid increase in the number of churches means also a rapid increase in the number of Christians. Something is happening in that country, and the Government is trying to control the changing situation. This is news, but you may have noticed that our news media only reports on select things. Some people and some places get left out.

The population of Rwanda is just over thirteen million, and the math is easy. If every one of the ten thousand churches that was closed had at least one hundred participants, a million or more people have been forced out of their churches.

That is news worth reporting.

We could focus on the Government reaction, and that is an important topic, but our news media is mostly focused how governments act and react. I think we should first focus on what came before, in places like Rwanda.

How did many thousands of churches, and possibly millions of Christians suddenly appear? What event caused the national Government to react and possibly to panic? How did ten thousand or more churches just appear, before they were closed?

You won’t find the answer to that question on most sources of world news. Things are happening in our world, and most of us don’t know about these events because they are not reported.

In the year 1994, we certainly did have many reports about the “Rwandan Genocide” which was a terrible event in world history, and of course it was truly awful, inside that small country. I suggest that you research the topic, if you want to know more. Now, decades later, we have an event that is changing the country, in a different way, and it is hardly noticed.

In other history, you might have never heard about the Azusa Street Revival, in Los Angeles California. In the year 1906, a group of Americans, former slaves or the children and grandchildren of former slaves began to hold religious meetings. These people were Black, or African American, choose the most respectable name. Many of the names used for them in 1906 cannot be repeated here. They were not respected, and racial discrimination was extreme in those times.

Most Christian groups that are described as “Pentecostal” trace their heritage back to that revival. Today, it is impossible to count the numbers of Christians who are associated with that movement, but estimates are as many as seven hundred million. Azusa was their small spark, for the huge fire that burns today.

The Christians, in the Azusa Street Revival, lived in a time of extreme racial discrimination. Can you believe that a man with dark skin was forced to learn academic lessons from the hallway in a Bible College? He was not allowed into classrooms because of the color of his skin.

Imagine how terrible things were in other places, in society.

The people who supported the revival had very low status, in their society, and they probably didn’t have much money. Also, the building where they met was more than a former warehouse, is was a former horse barn. Religion, for them was purely spiritual, there was no reward for them, in this world.

There are many populations, in the world, who follow the tradition of the old revival in Los Angeles. It is likely that most people in places like Rwanda have never heard of a small street in a city in California, but the patterns continue. People with no importance, in any society, mostly practice a spiritual religion. That is all they can do.

In the Bible, we have the words of Jesus, the founder:

God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

(John 4: 24)

Some unfortunate people may be forced into a poverty model, with low social status, and their religion can only be spiritual. They don’t have resources or social respect.

Some people are aware of huge increases in numbers of new Christians, in places where we wouldn’t expect to find them. Sometimes, it is risky to talk about these groups because persecution might get worse for them.

Communist China probably has more Christians than any other country in the world, and numbers are increasing in India, Nepal, and in the Islamic Republic of Iran. I know of some other surprising places, but I won’t mention them here, for safety reasons.

I hope we all know, the world around us is changing, and the numbers of people who are causing the changes, are in the hundreds of millions, at least.

Brace yourself, God is not dead. He just doesn’t get much attention in the press. So yes, Christians can be a national emergency.

We also have these words, from Jesus the founder, as he started the movement:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

(Matthew 28: 18 to 20)