Name: Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi

Nationality: Burundi

Church: Anglican Church of Burundi

Function: Archbishop

Central Committee: Member since 1998

Age: 62

Family: Wife, Mathilde, five children, four grandchildren

First encounter with the ecumenical movement: when Desmond Tutu visited Burundi on behalf of the WCC. I was a young priest and impressed that the WCC was interested in a small church like the Anglican Church of Burundi.

In the world there have been many conflicts, particularly in my region – the Great Lakes region of Africa. The people who are fighting are members of the church, so one way or another we are concerned. The church became a field of conflict as well. We are called to be peacemakers, to be light for the world and salt for the earth, so Christ’s commandment to love one another cannot include genocide or crimes or exclusion of the other as we have seen in the Great Lakes region of Africa.

The church in Burundi, especially the Anglican Church, is engaged in climate issues because the Bible story in Genesis tells us to care for creation. We are mandated to care for it. So when we see drought and erosion, we took action – a programme to plant 9 million trees. We have planted 6 million so far. We must reflect on the way our style of life affects creation and bring people to question the style of lives so we can better protect our environment.

The biggest challenge I see, in being a disciple of Christ at this moment, is to take the gospel of love into secular society and multicultural environments. How do we make the gospel contextual in life today? I love the Irish saying: ”the hard gospel” – living out the gospel is not easy.