However, unless we are to succumb to cultural relativism, the proposed legislation cannot simply be ignored given its apparent support from a leading government minister, its incompatibility with Anglican teaching, its undermining of Anglican ministry and mission, and the danger it represents to many Anglicans and others in Uganda who are likely to face prosecution should it become law. We need therefore to:
*
Pray for David Bahati (the Bill’s sponsor) and the Minister for Ethics and Integrity (who is so supportive of it), for all those who will be involved in any Parliamentary discussion of it (due now in January 2010) and able to amend or defeat it, for all those who now feel even further threatened simply by its publication, and for all those in the Ugandan Church seeking to be faithful witnesses and salt and light in their country.

* Seek to understand more about what is happening and the wider context in Uganda eg most of us in this country would not know the answer to many, if any, of the following questions: (1) how likely is this to become law in its present form, what sort of amendments are realistically possibly, and what will happen if it does enter the statute book?, (2) how does it compare in terms of stringency and penalties to existing legislation in relation to other (hetero)sexual conduct viewed as wrong?, (3) what are the real social and criminal problems which it is a misguided attempt to address and how can they be better addressed? eg has there been a rise in sexual abuse of minors?, (4) is there any reason other than homophobic prejudice and scapegoating as to why the bill and signficant political leaders are particularly targeting homosexual people?, (5) how widespread are the attitudes the bill represents within Ugandan church and society and how can the Christians there and elsewhere in the Communion best reform that culture and its laws?, (6) how is the Church of Uganda ministering to GLBT people?, (7) what are the real threats to marriage and family life in Uganda that this bill claims to be responding to?

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“You can’t understand Africa without understanding religion,” said Emmanuel Katongole, a Catholic priest from Uganda. As he led a tour of Kampala, Uganda’s capital, it was soon clear what he meant. Slogans such as “Jesus cares” and “Try Jesus” adorn taxicabs. Ads for a Catholic bank named Centenary print the letter T as a cross. Businesses have such names as “Holy Light Clinic,” “Born Again Bankers” and “Holy Hair Care.” “There is no Western-style division between secular and sacred or public and private here,” Katongole said.

But the infusion of religion into everyday life has not made Uganda a peaceful land. “We have a culture in Uganda of taking power by the point of a gun,” said Archbishop John Baptist Odama. The archbishop’s see, based in the town of Gulu in the north of the country, has been the scene of a vicious civil war for the past 22 years. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony, has waged an antigovernment insurgency, savagely attacking rural villages and abducting children, who are turned into soldiers or sex slaves. An estimated 25,000 to 30,000 children have been kidnapped over the years.

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AN OPEN LETTER OF SUPPORT TO BISHOP BOB DUNCAN
24th September 2008

The Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan
Pittsburgh, PA USA

Dear Bishop Duncan,

I greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the name above all names, and the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I have very intentionally addressed this letter to you as Bishop Duncan, for, indeed, you are a Bishop.

I was upcountry tending to pastoral business when the TEC House of Bishops took their vote to supposedly depose you, so I am very sorry that I could not add my name at the time to the very good statement issued by my esteemed colleagues, Archbishops Venables, Gomez, and Nzimbi. I hope you know of the unqualified support you have from me and our entire House of Bishops.

In 2004, when the Church of Uganda broke communion with TEC, we stated that, although we were breaking communion with TEC, we remained in communion with you, the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and all who uphold the historic and Biblical faith of Anglicanism and did not support the unbiblical decision of confirming the election of Gene Robinson to the episcopate.

Despite the shameful action taken last week by the majority of TEC Bishops, nothing about our position has changed. We continue to recognize you as a Bishop of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. We continue to recognize you as a Bishop in good standing in the Anglican Communion, and we whole-heartedly support the action of Archbishop Greg Venables and the House of Bishops of the Province of the Southern Cone to receive you into their House of Bishops. We continue in full communion with you and we do not recognize the action of the TEC House of Bishops to depose you.

Furthermore, we are praying that on 4th October the majority of the Diocese of Pittsburgh will vote to be reunited with you as their Bishop. When the King of Buganda tried to destroy the Christian movement in 1886 by killing the converts in his court, he instead fueled the spread of the Gospel among our people. I believe that can also happen in North America. So, do not be discouraged. Our God is a God of redemption, and He will take what was intended for evil and bring good out of it.

Finally, if the world couldn’t see it before, this vote reveals how spiritually lost TEC is and why North America needs a new Province that authentically represents historic and Biblical Anglicanism. The Instruments of the Anglican Communion could have averted this crisis. Instead, institutional inertia is preferred, and meanwhile, the tear in the fabric of our communion is now deeper and wider, the mission of the church suffers, and many people miss out on hearing the good news that a Saviour has come.

I look forward to the day when you are not only the Moderator of the Common Cause Partnership, but when we can also welcome you to the table of Primates as the Archbishop of a new, Biblically faithful Province in North America. May the Lord grant you wisdom and apostolic favour as you lead that movement, and may He add daily the number who are being saved.

Yours, in Christ,

The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi

ARCHBISHOP OF CHURCH OF UGANDA.

The church in Africa has often said that it conceives its mission in terms of service rather than power. It preaches to political leaders and leaders in other fields to use their position in service to humankind, especially the vulnerable. That means, in fact, that the church is concerned about the question of power.

It cannot avoid engaging the critical question of the manifestations of the use or abuse of power, which often lie at the heart of ethnic war and conflict in countries like Uganda where Church growth is phenomenal. And it is not just a matter of the bishops or the church challenging society about the proper use of power and position.

They too need to engage critically with the way they exercise their power over clergy and laity alike. It is inevitable to comment about the absence of the bishops at Canterbury of the Church of Uganda.

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I should have known better. I should have understood that a City with such a rich and extensive history as Canterbury cannot be “done” in one day. My original assumption was that I would spend perhaps twenty minutes in the Cathedral, take the thirty-minute train ride to Goodenstone Park Garden and then on to Augustine’s Abbey. I might even tuck in a castle or two along the way, I thought. Can’t be done. In the end, I spent two and a half hours “communing with saints” in the Cathedral. Then, it was almost lunch time and it seemed wiser to abandon my ambitious plan of taking the entire county of Kent in a day and stay right here in Canterbury. A visit to the Norman Castle (dating back to the 11th century) and a couple of museums wrapped up the day.

The Cathedral visit was incredibly satisfying; a truly fulfilling and spiritual experience. There was a strong awareness for every moment of the visit that I was physically present and meditating in the exact physical location that thousands and thousands of people – going back to the sixth century A.D. – have been. There was a sense of being in communion with all those saints and recognizing once again the vastness of this holy family both in space and time. A truly awesome experience that language simply cannot fully express.

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As the divisions in the Anglican faith grow wider ahead of the Lambeth conference in the UK over homosexuality, Uganda’s Archbishop was in London last week to drum up support for traditional Anglican teachings.

But Archbishop Henry Orombi denied trying to ”˜poach’ traditional Church of England supporters.

Archbishop Orombi, who is Archbishop of Uganda as well as Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney, Australia and Archbishop Greg Venables, Primate of South America’s Southern Cone, were in London last week to address a meeting of the Church of England supporters on the formation of a new grouping within the church known as the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.

The meeting and the setting up of Foca drew strong criticism from the spiritual head of the Anglican faith, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

But the three clergymen denied that they were trying to “seize power” within the church. Archbishop Orombi said that he had travelled to Britain to ”˜help restore traditional theology’ to the mother church.

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The Christian leaders declared that they would remain in the Anglican Communion, but be independent of Canterbury, the seat of Anglicanism currently under the leadership of Dr. Rowan Williams.

“Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. We, together with many other faithful Anglicans throughout the world, believe in the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism. We intend to remain faithful to this standard and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it,” they declared.

The conference, which ended yesterday, was aimed at deliberating on the crisis that had divided the Anglican Communion. It brought together over 1,140 lay and clergy, including 291 bishops representing millions of faithful Anglican Christians, mainly from developing nations. A total of 107 delegates represented Uganda.

The Conference adopted the 14-point Jerusalem Declaration to offer future guidance to the movement.

The meeting called for the formation of another Anglican Province in North America. This would include the 44 churches in the US, which are now part of the Church of Uganda.

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Watch and listen to it all.

Uganda has a small but thriving Jewish community. A reporter joined them for Passover last year.

Listen to it all and note carefully the reason for the leader’s conversion from Anglicanism to Judaism.

A mother in traditional Ugandan dress wailed uncontrollably as rescue workers searched for the body of her daughter amongst the ruins and ashes of Buddo Junior School dormitory.

Other hushed onlookers crowded around in shock. An acrid smell hung in the air.

“My brother’s just told me he can’t identify his child,” one man, who has a son at the school, said.

Like other parents, he rushed to the primary school, about 14km from the capital, Kampala, when he heard of the fire which gutted a girls’ dormitory on Monday night.

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UGANDA’S rebel outfit, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has been angered by a new US proposal urging rebel leader Joseph Kony (pictured) and his other indicted colleagues to surrender to the government of Uganda and give up themselves to the national judicial process, largely to shake off the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The proposal, circulating to negotiators in the South Sudan regional capital Juba, has prompted Kony to accuse US President George Bush’s administration of exerting pressure on the rebels and using underhand methods. The US and EU last week joined the South Sudan mediated talks in Juba as observers.

In a document; Scenario For Peace and Justice in Northern Uganda, Mr Timothy Shortley, senior adviser to US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Dr Jendayi Fraser, who has been in Juba as a US observer to the peace talks, says his proposals are meant to expedite the negotiations.

In the paper, the US representative proposes that Joseph Kony and his colleagues who are wanted by the ICC, place themselves in the custody of the Ugandan authorities. This, he says, would ensure they are safe and a peace agreement signed in Juba.

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