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Advent, the Absence of God, and the Unburied Bones of Rwanda

Advent, the Absence of God, and the Unburied Bones of Rwanda

Last updated on: November 30, 2015 at 12:40 pm by Kyle Roberts

Advent, the Absence of God, and the Unburied Bones of Rwanda 2015-11-30T12:40:44-05:00 Kyle Roberts

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The first task of theology is to address the very possibility of theologizing about silence and absence.

In these words, Mario Aguilar sets forth the purpose of his haunting book, Theology, Liberation and Genocide: A Theology of the Periphery.

Inisheer CC-BY-SA-3.0 / WikiCommons

The death and destruction that took place in 1994, during the three months of the Rwandan genocide, is staggering. Close to a million people died in that East African country–a country comparable in size to Haiti. More died during the longer context of the civil war (beginning in 1990) that culminated in the genocide.

For Aguilar, the problem of genocide is a problem that theology must engage, because such wide-spread death and evil inevitably raises the question of God.

Where was God during the three months of unbridled slaughter? Was God looking away? Distracted? Uninterested?

These questions are especially sensitive for Christian theology because it was Christians who were doing the killing–and against Christians. Further up the chain, it was Christians (Belgians) who colonized Rwanda and who imported their Christianity with its theologies and its institutions into Rwanda in the first place.

In the context of the brutal and widespread massacre, one in which families were at war with families, friends against friends, Christians against Christians, the question of “God” is particularly troubling.

But, it can’t be answered by the typical solutions offered in either the creeds or apologetic theodicies.

The question of God must be addressed, Aguilar insists, by attending to reality–to history, to what really took place here.

His approach is thus a “hermeneutics of bones,” by which he means that the question of the presence or absence (or even death) of God must be addressed by reflecting on the unburied bones of Rwanda.

Today in Rwanda there are unburied bones of the victims of the Rwandan genocide open and visible in many sacred sites (as in the above image), churches, and memorials. After the conflict ended, the government decided not to bury all the bodies–but to let many of them stand as ongoing memories of the terrible violence and as testimonies to the victims.

These unburied bones allow family members, loved ones, and other survivors to be physically proximate to the “bodies” of those they lost. It also gives them a tangible and visceral connection to suffering and to death.

In societies where death is the greatest of all things to be feared and is to be suppressed or put as far from public consciousness as possible, the very idea of real human bones gathered in public spaces–with all the memories of recent horrors that they represent–is hard to imagine.

But for Aguilar, the public presence of the bones is not just a reminder of the horrors of the genocide and the potential for evil in all of us, it’s also a reminder of the presence of God and of the promise of God’s love. But this presence of God is a complicated presence, because it’s a presence that allows for nearly a million brutal killings–many of which took place in the churches where God is supposedly worshipped.

In these churches, after western missionaries abandoned them, the Rwandans were left without the protection of either the institutional church or of God. As Aguilar put it, in those churches,

God is not to be seen while ethe killers destroy his dwelling places. In turn, the collapsing structures of divine existence materially destroy those who are seeking refuge in empty structures without power, without spirit, without God (41).

Was God dead? Looking away? Distracted? Uninterested?

For Aguilar, the bones of Rwanda do not mean that God was literally “dead” (what would that mean?) or even absent, but they do say that a particular kind of God–that concept of God which sharply distinguishes God from the world and which proclaims a certain kind of picture of God (all-powerful, all-knowing, unaffected by suffering, and so on), makes no sense in the context of the Rwandan genocide.

The “hermeneutics of bones” suggests that God was and is present in Rwanda–as in all experiences of suffering and evil–but that God’s presence is one of suffering, solidarity, and weakness.

When you have to live with unburied bones, your theology is forced to deal with that fact.

The hermeneutics of bones in Rwanda has become an experience of memory: ultimately, for the poor and the marginalized, for the victims of the genocide, it has become an experience of love for the memory of their relatives and for a God that has returned to Rwanda after that three months of divine absence. (49)

For Aguilar, the God of the unburied bones of Rwanda is the God of the crucified Christ and of the empty grave. The God of the unburied bones is the God of suffering love.

The crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth remains at the center of that loving plan of embracing by the Father of all, yes, of all! The unburied bones of Rwanda speak of the love of God and the injustice of human society because the perception of all of them was that they would be protected inside the churches. they prayed together and they sang as the killers were coming, they comforted each other; mothers protected the young under their bodies even when the killers were smashing babies against the walls of the church. The God of the poor and the marginalized was there and remained there among those dying and those who fled from the killers. God never left them, even after the Blessed Sacrament was taken away from the tabernacle. God could not prevent the killings because God was a victim as he had been at the cross he was in all of those who showed their love even at the moment of death.

And so who is the God of the unburied bones of Rwanda?

It is possible to argue that the God of Rwanda as the God of El Salvador and the God of any genocide is a silent, tranquil God who accompanies human beings on their journey. It is of his essence that he is a God that liberates but the liberation actively sought by God is a complete identification with the poor and the marginalized of society. Love for the poor and the marginalized is the first and only central act in the active silence of God within genocide because human actors have temporarily lost the possibility of creating a more human and divine society. It is the God that chooses to become fully human that is present at the moment of horrific killings within the churches of Rwanda–God is there holding a child, embracing another human being, crying for the lost humanity and the presence of evil. God has not left, has not remained untouched by the poor he showed solidarity to in the Gospels…

I think of the unburied bones of Rwanda and of Aguilar’s picture of God refracted by those bones in the context of the advent season which is now upon us.

Some of us here at Patheos are reflecting on what a “progressive understanding of advent” might involve. I can’t help but think that any understanding of advent, progressive or otherwise, would be wise to begin with Aguilar’s reflection on the unburied bones of Rwanda.

The advent calls us to reflection on the incarnation. The incarnation of God in Christ means that God is not far from us, not distant from us, but is present to us and with us; even in–especially in–great suffering, trauma, and evil. If incarnation means anything at all, it must at least mean that and begin with that.

The horrifying reality of genocide does not imply the eternal death of God or the forever absence of God, but a God who lives among the bones and calls forth–through the memory of death–a hope for a better life.

Some might even believe–it is always absurd to say it–that God will make unburied bones live again.

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