In this paper, the growth of contemporary Christianity in Uganda will be analyzed. Uganda, or Buganda (its original name dating back to the name of the ancient and independent kingdom that ruled the region, from the British missionaries and colonizers in the 1800s until Ugandan independence in 1962, and into the present-day, has been shaped primarily by three Christian groups: Anglicans, Catholics, and the wave of evangelical churches that have come to the country from the United States. Both Christianity and Islam are two major world religious influences in Uganda, and Islam had already been in the region for at least one hundred years before the first Christian missionaries and colonial representatives had arrived.
In Uganda, as Behrend pointed out, as well as in contemporary Africa as a whole, “political issues are increasingly expressed in religious discourses.” As with many characterizations of African culture by Western interlocutors, missionaries from Europe and colonizers from the United Kingdom sought “to portray Baganda culture as primitive and savage occurred in concert with the arrival of the first European missionaries in the middle of the nineteenth century.” Uganda serves as a template for the religious and the sociological foundations of colonialism. Christianity, as well as Islam, flourished in the region, because the country was ready to embrace the benefits of literacy that the new religions brought with their preaching, as well as a benefit to the newcomers who benefited in commercial trade agreements with the ruling elite. Europeans who came to Africa saw themselves as “burdened with civilizing the primitive continent beset with unspeakable acts of savagery.” Missionaries saw African cultural practices as “endemic in pagan African societies themselves or supported through the influence of dangerous Muslim cultures.”
The country has suffered various political coups since its independence and religion has played a strikingly interesting stabilizing role. Idi Amin came to power in 1971 — he was overthrown in 1979 when Ugandan exiles invaded from Tanzania in April of that year. The current political situation in Uganda stems from the National Resistance Movement in Uganda in 1986. It promised, “fundamental changes in Uganda’s political and constitutional life, an end to sectarianism and tribal division, and a return to peace and security.” According to Ward, Northern Uganda has been plagued with conflict, violence and devastation.
Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda share a border as well as a share in the machinations of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a guerrilla movement — the LRA was supplied with arms by Sudan and came to prominence in 1994. The terror of young children kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army — and control of villages by the counterterrorism operation conducted by the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Force of the Museveni Government as a form of protection have been the most recent scares in this country. Kony abducted boys and trained them as soldiers, but some of the boys were sold into slavery in return for weapons, while girls were used as servants in Kony’s headquarters or in camps and used for sexual purposes as ‘wives.’
In the realm of organized religion, notably throughout Uganda’s history of Christianization, “Catholics and Protestants have been at odds with each other,” but this has been mitigated by kinship and neighborly allegiances. Politically, the Catholics are represented by the democratic party and the Protestants by the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC). As a whole, there have always been fewer Protestant than Catholic missionaries in Uganda. As Ward has pointed out, “Catholics have suffered as much as anyone else from the war, but their cohesion has been a great asset in their survival and growth.” Interestingly, even with the issue of violence, it has been the Churches, more so than the string of government installations that have offered peace to the conflict in Uganda. The churches have access to people in the countryside in ways the local government does not. Of course, some of the religious movements failed, as we see in the story of Alice Lakwena who founded the “The Holy Spirit Movement” and “many people saw her movement as a salvation but her movement was crushed in 1987.”
Two issues have wracked contemporary Christianity in Uganda and still remain as roadblocks to the future of growth in contemporary Ugandan Christianity. First, is the issue of homosexuality, and second is the issue of the HIV and AIDs epidemic. These two issue are interconnected and have sparked intractable conflicts within Uganda and has spawned different forms of messages from Christianity within the country. These two issues have become intertwined within Uganda’s history and its understanding of its own Christian identity. HIV/AIDS: 7.4% of the population are HIV-positive according to the latest available survey of 2004/05. It is interesting to see the narratives that have been constructed around the reception of Christianity.
Part of the narrative around homosexuality and AIDs can be traced, as Blevins points out, to the incident in 1886, when Mwanga II, Kabaka, “executed forty-five of his male subjects, either by burning or beheading.” The executed men were recently converted to Christianity, “twenty-two to Roman Catholicism and twenty-three to Anglicanism.” The martyrdom of these men was officially recognized in 1964 when the Pope, Paul VI canonized the Roman Catholic martyrs. The date is a national day of commemoration in Uganda, and is an official national holiday. The story of the martyrs has been used politically in Uganda, and it is a good example of how those in support of an anti-homosexuality bill in 2009 used its rhetoric to support homophobia. Interestingly, after a strong outcry against the bill in the global media, it was tabled in 2012.
Unlike in the U.S., “sexual minorities in Africa are only thinly organized and have few allies who will stand up for them.” The ire against homosexuals in Uganda has been partly fueled by the arrival of missionary evangelical churches, most notably Rick Warren from California in the United States. Warren has used a vitriolic rhetoric to spread his version of Christianity. Warren is very influential in Africa, and in Uganda, where his book The Purpose Driven Life is a popularly studied in churches. Warren also has ties with African religious and political leaders. In terms of the highly politically charged homosexuality debate, leaders have used quotes by Warren “to justify anti-gay discrimination and to support their challenge to U.S. mainline Protestants for liberalizing their policies on gay ordination.” Warren said in a 2008 visit with religious and political leaders in Uganda that "Homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right." Warren’s church in Lake Forest, California has worked with leaders in Uganda, for example, Martin Ssempa of Uganda's Makerere Community Church.
Bibliography
Behrend, Heike. 2007. The rise of occult powers, AIDS and the roman catholic church in western uganda. Journal of Religion in Africa 37 (1): 41-.
Behrend, Heike. 1998. 'The Holy Spirit Movement's New World; Discourse and Development in the North of Uganda', in H. Hansen and M. Twaddle (eds.), Developing Uganda, Kampala: Fountain, and Oxford: James Currey, 1998, pp. 245-253.
Blevins, John. 2011. When sodomy leads to martyrdom: Sex, religion, and politics in historical and contemporary contexts in uganda and east africa. Theology & Sexuality 17 (1): 51-74.
Country of Uganda, Global Aids Response Progress Report, in United Nations “Aids” Retrieved online: http://www.unaids.org/en/dataanalysis/knowyourresponse/countryprogressreports/2012countries/ce_UG_Narrative_Report[1].pdf
Kapya Kaoma. 2010. How US clergy brought hate to uganda. The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide 17 (3): 20.
Ward, Kevin. 2001. 'The armies of the lord': Christianity, rebels and the state in northern uganda, 1986-1999. Journal of Religion in Africa 31 (2): 187-.
Ward, Kevin. 2002. “A History of Christianity in Uganda.” Dictionary of African Christian Biography, Center for Global Christianity and Mission (Boston University School of Theology, 2002). Retrieved online http://www.dacb.org/history/a%20history%20of%20christianity%20in%20uganda.html
