KIGALI, Rwanda – Grace Room Ministries once packed Rwanda’s largest stadiums three times a week, drawing thousands of worshippers to services led by its charismatic founder, Pastor Julienne Kabanda. Today, its doors are shut.
The evangelical organisation is among more than 10,000 churches closed by the Rwandan government since May for failing to comply with a 2018 law regulating places of worship — one of the most sweeping crackdowns on religious institutions in the region.
Authorities say the law, which sets strict standards on health and safety, financial disclosures and theological training for preachers, is necessary to protect congregants and restore order in a sector that has rapidly expanded in recent years.
President Paul Kagame, however, has made little effort to hide his disdain for many of the churches affected.
“If it were up to me, I wouldn’t even reopen a single church,” Kagame told a news briefing last month, accusing some pastors of exploiting believers.
“Many are just thieving… some churches are just a den of bandits,” he said.
Rwanda is overwhelmingly Christian, according to the 2024 census, and the closures have left many believers travelling long — and often costly — distances to find open places of worship.
Control and influence
While the government frames the move as regulatory, critics and observers argue the crackdown is also about influence and control.
“There’s no rival in terms of influence,” said Kigali-based lawyer and political analyst Louis Gitinywa, noting that the ruling party becomes uneasy when any organisation gains significant public following — a view echoed by an anonymous government official who spoke to AFP.
Under the 2018 law, churches must submit annual action plans showing alignment with “national values”, channel all donations through registered accounts, and ensure preachers have formal theological training.
Pastor Sam Rugira, whose two churches were closed last year over fire safety concerns, said the regulations have disproportionately affected newer evangelical churches that have “mushroomed” across the country.
President Kagame has repeatedly linked the growth of such churches to Rwanda’s colonial past, describing them as a legacy the country must confront.
“You have been deceived by the colonisers and you let yourself be deceived,” he said in November.
Shock closures and growing unease
The revocation of Grace Room Ministries’ licence stunned many worshippers. Kabanda’s services had recently filled Kigali’s BK Arena before authorities cited unauthorised evangelical activities and failure to submit annual financial and activity reports. AFP was unable to reach her for comment.
A senior church leader in Kigali, speaking anonymously, said Kagame’s “open disdain and disgust” for churches signals “tough times ahead”, adding that even institutions that complied with the law remain closed.
“It is unfair that those who fulfilled all requirements are still locked out,” the leader said.
Security concerns and genocide scars
Some analysts link the government’s hard line to lingering security concerns stemming from the 1994 genocide, in which about 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed.
Ismael Buchanan, a political science lecturer at the National University of Rwanda, said religious spaces can sometimes be exploited as recruitment channels for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu militia formed in eastern DR Congo by perpetrators of the genocide.
“I agree that religion has helped heal emotional and psychological wounds after the genocide,” Buchanan said. “But it also makes no sense to have a church every two kilometres instead of hospitals and schools.”
Pastor Rugira, however, argues the government is “regulating what it doesn’t understand” and should work with churches to address shortcomings rather than shutting them down wholesale.
“We should be partners in weeding out bad apples,” he said, “not casualties of a blanket closure.”
