Missionary Gregg Schoof deported from Rwanda

[Katzchen24]

I searched for this guy in FJ's records but couldn't find him. He's been preaching in Rwanda since 2003 but has now been deported as of yesterday. Link to news on CNN below.

Spoiler

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/09/africa/rwanda-us-pastor-deported-intl-scli/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2TGM4a-0OP-odZ42iYHgdbwFwzk_aAB1AL6lp3uO1YniZNQAkhvw8weUI

This article above doesn't say much, but the BBC News article from 07 October says the Rwandan government seems to not like evangelical preachers who hold illegal meetings with journalists. He's accused of preaching against the government for allowing abortion and teaching evolution in schools. His radio station was closed down last year after it 'broadcast a sermon that described women as "evil"'  

Schoof also released a press statement saying saying the government had "taken a stand against God with its heathen practices". Sounds like a class act. I'm surprised he lasted as long as he had.

Link to the Schoof family website here:

Spoiler

http://schoofs2rwanda.com

 

[hoipolloi]

Sounds like Rwanda is well-rid of this asshat.

[samurai_sarah]

Rwanda is a really good place for starting divides of all kinds up again. /s

[apandaaries]

Very glad his ass got deported. Let him stoke his hatred elsewhere, where people hopefully won’t die as a result of his despicable rhetoric.

[Palimpsest]

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.  Take note Zambia.  I want John Shrader deported too, please.

Detailed article in the Christian post: https://www.christianpost.com/news/us-missionary-deported-after-accusing-rwandan-government-of-heathen-practices.html

Quote

The Rev. Gregg Schoof, an outspoken American missionary who was arrested Monday in Rwanda where he ran a conservative evangelical church and radio station, has been deported after accusing the government of taking a “stand against God with its heathen practices.”

Citing a statement from the Rwandan Directorate General for Immigration and Emigration, Rwanda’s leading daily newspaper, The New Times, said Schoof was deported after he was declared a "prohibited immigrant."

"Gregory Schoof  has been deported and sent back to his country as a prohibited immigrant," Regis Gatarayiha, the director-general of Emigration and Immigration told The New Times.

Schoof was arrested in Kigali, the country’s capital, on Monday before he could hold a news conference to denounce the Rwandan government for clamping down on churches, The New York Times reported.

Prior to his deportation on Monday, Schoof and his family had been serving in Rwanda for just over 16 years. He and other outspoken evangelical pastors have been criticizing the Rwandan government for allowing access to abortion and birth control as well as teaching evolution.

Last year however, the government revoked the license for his Amazing Grace Christian Radio and shut down his church and recently refused to renew visas for Schoof and his family.

In a statement, posted on Twitter, Rwandan officials said the license for Schoof’s station was revoked “after this station failed to comply with #RURA’s sanctions taken after a sermon aired by the radio on January 29, 2018 in which a radio presenter repeatedly insulted women referring to them as evil.”

“I did not come here to fight the government. I came to preach the Gospel,” Schoof said in a prepared statement Monday. “But this government has taken a stand against God with its heathen practices.”

Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, said last year that he was shocked by the high number of churches in his East African nation and has been pursuing a crackdown in an effort to exert more control, the Associated Press reported.

"700 churches in Kigali?” he said of houses of worship in the nation’s capital in March. “Are these boreholes (deep wells) that give people water? I don’t think we have as many boreholes. Do we even have as many factories? This has been a mess!”

Most of the churches that have been closed, the AP said, were small Pentecostal prayer houses in which preachers spread the controversial prosperity gospel to impoverished followers.

New legislation was also introduced requiring pastors to have a minimum of a degree in theology or any related field in order to preach the Gospel.

Rev. Charles Mugisha, Chancellor of African College Theology and the Pastor of New Life Bible Church in Rwanda said the new government policy on pastors was helpful and churches should respect it.

“It is a great achievement to have pastors, preachers graduated in religious and leadership-related courses. Now we are able to participate in the government plan to educate church leaders. Churches should have well equipped and competent leaders,” Mugisha told The New Times.

Brandon Barnard, teaching pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in the U.S., also supported the move.

“Rwanda is strong and growing quickly. Having well equipped church leaders and preachers will make the country stronger. Also, the development will strengthen the church in the country in the way of serving the people as they support poor and live in peace,” he told the publication.

Twenty-five years ago, on April 7, 1994, the dominant Hutus of Rwanda turned with well-planned violence on the Tutsi minority, whom they held to be traitors. Nearly one million people, most of them Tutsis were killed in 100 days.

And you have to admire these grifters.  From the Schoof website:

Quote

Things we like - but which are hard to get in Rwanda:

Kool-aid, nuts, dried fruit, goldfish crackers, Velveta Cheese, matchbox cars, chocolate chips, Crayola Crayons, English King James Bibles (new or used), stickers, 3 x 5 cards, Jello, pudding, candy, salad dressing mixes, herbal tea, and money.

Especially money.

[FluffySnowball]

Good riddance. I just feel sorry for the communities that have to endure him now. 

[hoipolloi]

Well, now Greg Schoof can park his worthless ass back in Hammond, IN and get all the help he needs with his "ministry."

[Marmion]

2 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Well, now Greg Schoof can park his worthless ass back in Hammond, IN and get all the help he needs with his "ministry."

And in case no one noticed , they are IFB .  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Baptist_Church_(Hammond,_Indiana)  

[Howl]

Correct me if I'm not right, but isn't First Baptist in Hammond, Indiana = Jack Hyles, Jack Schaap?  What a damn viper's nest of a**holes.

[Grimalkin]

    I don’t know if they have a different site or not but they are so busy with ‘ministries’ they haven’t had a chance to update their site since 2010. 

    I clicked on the link ‘changed lives’

and this is what I got 

      That’s really something to be proud of.

[Grimalkin]

     Another little gem. When asked what they like best about Rwanda they answer

”good temperature and the countryside.” 

Now these are people with real passion for what they do. WTF.

 

[Melissa1977]

Happy to listen that Rwanda is pro-choice and anti-fundies.

[Cheetah]

21 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.  Take note Zambia.  I want John Shrader deported too, please.

Detailed article in the Christian post: https://www.christianpost.com/news/us-missionary-deported-after-accusing-rwandan-government-of-heathen-practices.html

 

Ooh I like this line from your article:  "New legislation was also introduced requiring pastors to have a minimum of a degree in theology or any related field in order to preach the Gospel."  Oh please let this trend spread worldwide.  

[JillyO]

On 10/11/2019 at 1:11 PM, Palimpsest said:

Things we like - but which are hard to get in Rwanda:

Kool-aid, nuts, dried fruit, goldfish crackers, Velveta Cheese, matchbox cars, chocolate chips, Crayola Crayons, English King James Bibles (new or used), stickers, 3 x 5 cards, Jello, pudding, candy, salad dressing mixes, herbal tea, and money

I just about died at things we like: "kool-aid." You don't say!

And I'm sure money is real hard to come by in Rwanda. Especially if you refuse to, you know, work.

[mollysmom]

I went to bible college with both him & Angela back in the late 90's. Couple of quacks. ?

[apple1]

On ‎10‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 9:38 PM, Howl said:

Correct me if I'm not right, but isn't First Baptist in Hammond, Indiana = Jack Hyles, Jack Schaap?  What a damn viper's nest of a**holes.

(I'm late reading this. but...) YES!

Hyles is dead and Schaap is serving time in federal prison for transporting a minor across state lines for sexual purposes. A different guy is the current pastor, but the attitudes and problems of the HAC (Hyles Anderson College) remain and continue. This particularly arrogant strain of IFB (worse than most IFB) doesn't seem to be going away any time soon.

[mollysmom]

7 hours ago, apple1 said:

(I'm late reading this. but...) YES!

Hyles is dead and Schaap is serving time in federal prison for transporting a minor across state lines for sexual purposes. A different guy is the current pastor, but the attitudes and problems of the HAC (Hyles Anderson College) remain and continue. This particularly arrogant strain of IFB (worse than most IFB) doesn't seem to be going away any time soon.

Ugh. Still can't believe I ever looked up to Schaap. They had us so incredibly brainwashed. Oh well, now he's someones bitch in prison. Asshole. 

[apple1]

1 hour ago, mollysmom said:

Ugh. Still can't believe I ever looked up to Schaap. They had us so incredibly brainwashed.

(I never went there, but my baby sister did. Long story, much of it hers to tell. But still makes me angry).

Brainwashed, exactly. And really, in that world, as a girl, what actual choice did you have at that time? I don't know you personally, but I do know that world.

[HeadshipRegent]

This is out of topic and may be the fact that english is not my first language but why do they say “Missionary to *insert country here” and not “Misdionary in *insert country here*”?

[apple1]

2 minutes ago, HeadshipRegent said:

This is out of topic and may be the fact that english is not my first language but why do they say “Missionary to *insert country here” and not “Misdionary in *insert country here*”?

Well - I suppose we could read into that expression - but I suspect it is just how it has always been expressed. JMO.

[Jasmar]

It kind of helps preserve the notion of the Other, and the idea that they’re going to whatever people group, rather than being in or with them.

[hoipolloi]

12 minutes ago, Jasmar said:

It kind of helps preserve the notion of the Other, and the idea that they’re going to whatever people group, rather than being in or with them.

Yes, as in "I have come FROM my morally superior, white Christian nation to bring the light of Jesus TO you citizens of a morally inferior, non-white, non-Christian -- or not-the-right-kind-of-Christian -- nation."

Edited October 16, 2019 by hoipolloi

[Punch2the(Solar)Plexus]

On 10/11/2019 at 6:38 PM, Howl said:

Correct me if I'm not right, but isn't First Baptist in Hammond, Indiana = Jack Hyles, Jack Schaap?  What a damn viper's nest of a**holes.

Yes. Hyles Anderson also gave you the Pissing Preacher and Zsucifer (although he didn't finish his studies). 

 

As someone from the Hammond, IN area, First Baptist was the worst. They regularly go door knocking to save souls, but only in the surrounding poor communities. They require a 10% tithe, complete with W2s to prove you are not shirking your duty. I have never known them to do any kind of community service at all. 

One time, a member of the church who had not won enough souls offered my brother and his friend $20 each to sit through a church service so it would look as though he had saved a couple of poor souls. He tried recruiting a couple of 9 year old boys at the park with $20! The cops that took the report said that wasn't all that uncommon and advised us not to go to the park on Wednesday or Sunday if we didn't want to encounter overzealous First Baptists. 

 

I could go on and on. 

[mollysmom]

@Punch2the(Solar)Plexus I can't even imagine living within a 100 mile radius of Hammond anymore. Those people are maniacs. I'm so sorry that you have to deal with them. When I went to college there we had to fill out a weekly report & if we didn't "witness to" a certain number of people within a week (or maybe it was witness to people for at least an hour a week, I can't remember anymore) then we got demerits. Honestly, I could probably write a book about the stuff that took place there. The way they treated grown ass adults was unbelievable. There was a "lake" behind the buildings & if we went outside to walk by the lake or to the gym (which was right on campus) we had to sign out on our door exactly what time we left and what time we came back. There was nightly checks to make sure you were in bed and that your pajamas matched (oh yes) you would wake up to a flashight beaming in your face while they did that. Couldn't go to Walmart or anywhere off campus unless there were 4 or 5 of you (can't remember) and one of them had to be an "approved" girl and it had to be approved in advance. (no mixed groups obviously because we might fornicate in the dressing room at Walmart  ) I could go on and on and on but I won't. That place was and still is definitely a cult. I am SO glad I am out of that world. So glad. I still get really bad anxiety (and anger) when I think about that place. Still have nightmares about it. 

[Howl]

12 hours ago, mollysmom said:

One of them had to be an "approved" girl and it had to be approved in advance. (no mixed groups obviously because we might fornicate in the dressing room at Walmart  

Yup, the old control women because the men can't control themselves.  The Jack Schaap polishing his shaft er, arrow masturbation sermon still makes me nauseous.