Religion and Politics: Should they mix in Uganda?

Should religious leaders be involved in politics? What is the relationship between politics and religion? Over this Easter as we remembered the death and resurrection of Jesus, various Christian leaders made comments on Uganda’s politics.

The Archbishop of the Church of Uganda remarked that, “We have got different callings; the priests should preach the gospel and leave politics for politicians.” He went on to state that, “Sometimes we have seen people with white collars preaching politics; a doctor cannot be a mechanic.” The seems clear from these statements that Archbishop’s opinion is that that religious leader should not be involved in politics.

On the other side of town, the Assistant Bishop of Kampala, Bishop Niringiye Zac stated that, the President of Uganda should relinquish power so as to leave a clean legacy. In a similar tone, Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga in his sermon called upon the President to relinquish power, in his opinion, this is the biggest gift that the President could give to Ugandans.

With church leaders differing on their role in nation building, this has left many faithful confused as to their role in the nation’s state of affairs.  

Bishops, Priests, Pastors and Kiwani preachers in Uganda have become like a batch of comedians and laughing stock, not any different from amarula family. Everything they say is seen as a joke and no one takes them serious when they speak on issues outside religion. This is a dangerous state of affairs.

What should the church do for the poor and oppressed in society? How should the church respond to those that are unjustly treated in society, when people are dying on the streets and children are going without food?

There are those that will say we have only been called to “preach the gospel” that politics is not our duty but there are others who believe the gospel compels them to advocate and defend the oppressed.

This reminds me of the 1994 Rwanda genocide where religious leaders who were looked at as the hope for the oppressed turned out to be the oppressors. This is not any different from the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa that justified apartheid. Should we watch as our country goes to the dogs? I wonder where black and white racism in USA would be if Rev. Martin Luther King Junior, a Baptist preacher, was quite to the issues of his day. I wonder what would be the state of affairs in apartheid ridden South Africa if Desmond Tutu had kept quite. Proverbs 29 reminds us that “by justice a king gives a country stability” and it goes on to say that “the righteous care about justice.”

While it is true that a mechanic is not a doctor, a mechanic can deliver first aid to save a life. The church is an advocate for justice in society.  The target groups that Jesus came for according to Luke 4:18 were the poor, captives, blind and down trodden. These all were people living under oppression and suffering and could do nothing on their own to be set free.

The prophet Ezekiel warned that if shepherds do not warn the wicked man to renounce his ways, then he shall die for his sin, but they will be held responsible for his death (Ezekiel 33). For religious leaders, omission is just as grave a transgression as any other sin. Religious leaders should speak boldly for justice in society. I also believe that religious leaders should challenge political leaders and hold them accountable especially on moral issues.

Kilama Dennis is the Academic Registrar of Africa Renewal Christian College, Pastor at Lugogo Baptist Church and a Doctoral Student at Africa international University.

Learn more about ARCC

 There has been an unusual amount of traffic on our blog this week... for those interested in learning a bit more about how we are helping to address the many problems that Uganda is facing I would encourage you to watch these two short films...

The first is a two minute look at what we believe to be the great crisis in Africa... a link to the video can be found at .... http://vimeo.com/9842321

The second is a three minute video on how we are specifically working to address this problem... http://vimeo.com/25558452

Africa Renewal Christian College Please feel free to re-post the videos... or learn more on our website... www.arccuganda.org Thanks for visiting the site! And for caring about the people of Uganda!

Kony 2012: A survivor's perspective

Since the release of the Kony 2012 video, many painful thoughts have run through my mind. 

Thoughts of sin aroused in me.

Thoughts of my state of hopelessness.

Thoughts of how we the Acholi people have been misunderstood by others.

I say this because…

I am an Acholi. In 1988, my uncle as he was getting off a bus at our Village in Acholibur was shot at by Joseph Kony’s rebels. In 1992, as we gathered to celebrate Christmas as a family the rebels came on the Christmas night and attacked and killed people at the Village trading centre, this was the last Christmas that we  had in the Village as we were later displaced across the Nile to Masindi District. In 1996 at the helm of the war, my father was posted to work in Gulu and on one instance the car that they were travelling in was ambushed and burnt, he stayed in the bush for three days. My cousin was shot and I personally saw her intestines fall out as she was being brought to the hospital in Gulu, my other cousin was adducted by the rebels and he has never returned home to this day. 

This all happened in the first twenty years of my life. When I think about this it’s painful and hurts and I feel bad. I am sure that if my grandmother watches this video today, she will weep in memory of her husband that the rebels killed, if my uncle watched this video fear and hopelessness would reawaken of the rebels re-abducting him, he would reconsider his plans of returning to our village. Is this good?

The solution to our problem is not to capture Kony but to help us continue in this process of healing, the thought of capturing Kony arouses more anger, more pain and feelings of revenge that are unbiblical. In fact if you asked me ten years ago what I would do with Kony if I captured him, I would revenge all the evil he has brought on my family. Now I realize that revenge is for God, I personally have handed Kony over to God. The gospel of Jesus has helped me over come these feelings, the thought of arresting Kony arouses sin in me, reminds me of how hopeless I am and how people do not understand me.

Justice is not only going to happen when our oppressor is captured and taken to The Hague, there are many leaders in Uganda who have done far worse atrocities and qualify as well to go to the Hague even before Kony but no one seems to say anything about them. Justice is going to happen if we the oppressed are restored and given living hope. This hope is what the oppressor took; taking the life of the oppressor does not bring back any hope. I have realized that hope is not in the cows, land, food or other material things we owned, because when Kony took all these from us, we lost hope and life was meaningless.  Hope is in life eternal, hope is in Christ. This hope no man can take.

The focus in Northern Uganda should no longer be Joseph Kony the man that oppressed us for 23 years, but it should be on we that were oppressed. I believe that this Acholi problem needs a biblical and African solution of restoring the broken hearted. We urgently need to raise leaders that will give hope to the hopeless. Therefore the kony 2012 Video is not the solution, hope to the oppressed is the solution.  

KILAMA DENNIS, Academic Registrar Africa Renewal Christian College

The Harvest is Plentiful...

... and the WORK is light...

A student can get frustrated when they believe that a project or assignment is beyond their ability. The same is true when it comes to farming. If someone believes that the work is beyond their ability, available resources or income level that might not even give it a try.

That is why we are working hard to split our farm up into smaller projects to show students what is possible with just a little piece of land and a light work force...

Below is a picture of our rabbit and goat barn with a small scale garden in front... nothing fancy... just two and a half rows of tomatoes... to keep the tomatoes off the ground a simple structure was formed out of sticks found on our campus and so hand woven rope... 

Anyone want to guess how many tomatoes we have harvested from these 2.5 rows?

 

This past season we have harvested over 250 pounds of tomatoes from this small garden!

Using local materials and farming practices which includes the use weeds we have cut from around the campus for mulch...

The harvest has been so large that we were forced to sell off many of the tomatoes to our staff and the local community because it was too much for just our students to eat!

Just another way we are working hard to show are students what is possible when they use the resources that God provides!

ARCC Recycles

It is impossible to teach everything in the classroom alone... so as an institution we believe our campus must become a place that inspires students and helps them to see things in a different light!

One thing that visitors usually notice in Uganda is the trash! It's everywhere... reeking havoc on the environment and distracting our eyes from the beauty of Uganda!

Just as Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden to steward God's creation we are still called to be good stewards of creation today! In order to help our students "see" this idea we have started an on campus recycling program to benefit our farm... all water bottles are taken to the garden to be used as seed beds, all food scraps are cleared from plates after meals and taken to our compost pit and soon we are hoping to recycle our paper by using it as mulch in the garden...

Even in our seed beds you can see that we collected the broken bricks around the campus to separate out the different types of seeds we are planting...  whatever God provides we are going to use!

Genesis 1:29 tells us that God gave us every seed-bearing plant for food. It is our prayer that our students will learn from the practices on our campus and apply them in their churches and communities which are filled with people longing for physical and spiritual nourishment!

ARCC CAMPUS TOUR

The following is the reflections of a TLI team member for their trip to Uganda in January.



On our first day in Uganda we were able to tour the campus of African Renewal Christian College (ARCC), formerly named Gaba Bible Institute. Our tour guide was Jeff Atherstone (director of ARCC) and I must admit that when Jeff told us we were going on a tour I thought, "I've seen all the buildings already, but another tour will be helpful anyway...probably." And then the tour began. Jeff started by telling us about the land that ARCC is located on - it was originally owned by the family of the former prime minister of Uganda - Professor Apolo R. Nsibambi. According to Jeff, Professor Nsibambi's father (Simeoni Nsibambi) was the chief medical office of Uganda and in 1929 the Lord told him to take off his shoes because Uganda was holy ground.
He was one of the key figures in the East African Revival which spread through Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Brundi, and Tanzania in the 1930s. In Uganda land is very important and it is an interesting (awe inspiring) fact that the land ARCC now owns was the ancestral land of the "father of the East African Revival" (quoted from the Dictionary of African Christian Biography).
Jeff then told us about their plan to construct an administration building across from the current parking lot and how all their construction plans are designed to start with 1-story buildings that can then be renovated to have two or even three-stories. He explained that the vision of ARCC is to train Christian leaders - not just pastors, but also social workers, teachers, counselors, etc. to work with the many NGOs in Uganda that provide sponsorship programs for disadvantaged children.


He showed us the location where they hope to build a 1000 seat chapel and explained their vision to be a church-planting center. ARCC is currently giving scholarships to many local pastors to provide them training and develop connections so that future students can work in their churches as they study here. At this point, I was pretty impressed with the vision. But there was more.

Jeff showed us where an old foundation had been on the property when they moved in and explained that ARCC strives to be stewards of what God has given them. All of the students and staff work on campus from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm on Fridays during the school session. During these work sessions, they dug out the bricks and rebar and have re-used them all over campus. Each brick is worth $1 US and so far they have dug out 3,000 bricks. He explained that he wanted the students to see in practice what it means to use the available resources creatively and in a way that demonstrates good care of what God has given. As a former teacher, I was impressed with the hands-on learning they were providing and their ingenuity. But there was more.

The next part of the property that we visited was the farm. Jeff explained that ARCC had purchased 500 matoke trees for about 40 cents each. Matoke is a staple in the Ugandan diet and is an incredible plant - each tree produces only one crop of fruit and then dies. However, during its growing season, it replants 3-5 new matoke trees around its base. So the ARCC farm staff takes these new matoke trees and plants them in open areas on the farm. When the trees were small, they planted beans around the trunks of the trees (another Ugandan staple which we've eaten 2 out of every 3 meals since we've been here). The farm staff and student workers harvested over 1 ton of beans and are using them to feed the staff and students of ARCC. In addition, there are large crops of tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, and eggplant. ARCC employs 6 full-time farm staff from the community. They pay them slightly more than other farming operations in the area, but are sensitive to the local economy (so they can't pay them too much more) and so they look for ways to give them other benefits (free housing and food, for example). The farm uses as many natural resources on the property as possible - the cucumber stands were made of branches picked up around the farm, etc. I was impressed with the way that ARCC looks for ways to supplement its income by growing the food they would have to buy anyway. But there was more.

After this we visited another part of the farm where they are growing coffee beans and plan to produce coffee for sale (also to supplement the school income). We saw the goats and rabbits being raised on campus and the plot of land (about the same size as an average Ugandan family might have) where they are raising crops to show Ugandans what they can do with their resources. The rabbits are used as a food source and there are plans to use the rabbit manure to make bricks to use as fuel for the stoves instead of wood (deforestation is a big problem in Uganda). Jeff told us about many other things, but I think at this point you can see what I did - the tour was much more than looking at buildings. It was a wonderful opportunity to see how God has uniquely gifted Jeff and his wife, Christine (who is specializes in agriculture and is a veterinarian), and to learn about how African Renewal Christian College is bringing glory to Him here in Uganda.
- Rebecca Berry

5th ARCC Graduation

Friday February 3rd was the 5th Graduation Ceremony for Africa Renewal Christian College (formerly Gaba Bible Institute). We had the honor of graduating 52 students with Diplomas and Certificates as well as the first 18 graduates from our Kiwoko Extension Campus.

Over 400 guests from partner churches and organizations joined us for this historic event, including a special performance from Mwangaza Children's Choir. 

17 of our students received Diplomas in Biblical Studies or Pastoral Ministry. 28 students received Certificates in Ministry or Worship Leading and another 7 students received Certificates in English or Computers. This no gives us over 160 alumni serving throughout East and Central Africa!

It has become a tradition to end the graduation ceremony with a commissioning and prayer service for the graduates. The students knelt in the middle of the field while pastors from all over the country laid hands on them and prayed over then as they head out into the mission field. It is our prayer that God will use them in a powerful way to build up his church and to spread the gospel throughout Africa!

Congratulations Class of 2012!