“On Learning to Betray One’s People: The Gospel and a Culture of Peace in Africa.” The 2014 Louis J. Luzbetak, SVD, Lecture on Mission and Culture Chicago Theological Union, Chicago 9/29, 2014
For Christian faith to offer a radical interruption to the endless cycles of violence in Africa, it has to be grounded within an explicit missiological vision of “Ephesian” identities and communities, for which the story of the 40 young students of Buta provides a most illuminating example. In the Fall of 1997, roused from their sleep by a group of militia and ordered to separate, Hutu on one side, and Tutsi on the other., the students refused. The commander order the militia to shoot. In all 40 students were killed. One of the students who had been wounded ran to the rector’s house, and gasping for breath told the rector: “Father, we have won. They told us to separate and we refused. We have won.” He then collapsed and died.
Missiological reflection in Africa must seek to illumine the logic of that odd “winning” and about the kind of practices that make it possible….. click on link to read the 2014 Luzbetak Lecture
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