I have spent the last two weeks working with a team of Saddleback lawyers who are implementing this impressive program. Having met with Supreme Court and High Court judges, Ministry of Justice officials, and over sixty of the top Rwandan pastors in the country, I am convinced that in a country where 82 percent of the population are Christians, there is no better vehicle for educating the general populace about human rights than the local church. At the invitation of President Kagame, Saddleback Church has been sending hundreds of volunteer professionals–doctors, nurses, lawyers, psychologists, etc.–to work with local churches to address Rwanda’s most pressing problems.
On the legal front, top government officials have identified three central problems: intra-family land grabbing, domestic violence, and sexual crimes. To address those problems, lawyers from Saddleback Church have drafted a human rights manual for local pastors they can use to educate their members about those issues. They have started with the issue of land grabbing, and future manuals will be developed that focus on domestic violence and sexual crimes.
[...] It is an impressive project. The result will be a manual that will be sent to thousands of Rwandan pastors with information on the rights of women and children and information on legal resources for families who struggle with land grabbing. Prevention is the principal objective, but for those who are in the midst of a land grabbing dispute, the manual encourages local pastors to work with government legal aid clinics, the National University of Rwanda, and the Christian human rights NGO International Justice Mission to intervene.
Human rights through your local church
At least that's the idea in Rwanda, where President Paul Kagame is seeking to mobilize Rwandan pastors to protect human rights and pursue forgiveness. Kagame has even teamed up with Rick Warren of Saddleback Church to develop a five-to-seven year project aimed at attaining precisely these objectives. Via Opinio Juris Roger Alford writes:
Time Magazine also ran a story on this back in 2005 which can be found here.