Welcome on my website

I am a pastor of the Protestant Church in The Netherlands.

I studied theology  at the Free University in Amsterdam. My main interest was in Systematic Theology and Social Ethics.

After having served a congregation in the Netherlands I spent many years in Rwanda both before and after the genocide as a teacher of theology at different levels.

Challenged to present the Christian message in the Rwandan context, I started studying Cultural Anthropology. I made an in-depth study of the traditional funeral rituals in Rwanda, which I presented as a PhD thesis at the Free University, Amsterdam in 1990.

In the 1990s I taught Ecumenical Relations and Theology, and Science of Religion at the Higher Institute of Windesheim, Zwolle, The Netherlands.

During the years 1999-2004 I was a research fellow at the University of Utrecht, focused on the African traditional religion and Churches in Africa.

After my retirement in 2005, I have been teaching  in the fields of Science of Religion, Anthropology and Missiology for short periods at the Faculties of Protestant Theology in Yaoundé. The last few years I have been teaching at the Theological Department of de Protestant Institute of Arts and Social Sciences (PIASS) in Butare, Rwanda, for periods of several weeks each year. 

My main academic interests:

• Systematic Theology, Social Ethics, Missiology
• History of Religion, especially Islam and African Religions
• History of Christianity in Rwanda, and the role of Churches in particular during the civil war (1990-1994) and the genocide (1994)
• The Development of Charismatic and Pentecostal Churches in Africa, particularly in Rwanda.