Uganda, the Church, and Homosexuality: A Case of Triumphalism?

Life in prison or the death penalty?

These are the possible outcomes in a new bill proposed against homosexuals in the African country of Uganda. And even worse – the bill has a solid chance of passing.

Homosexuals in Uganda are facing a potentially brutal legislation that would essentially criminalize not only homosexual relationships, but even self identification as a homosexual. The proposed legislation calls for life in prison for anyone convicted of having gay sex and the death penalty if the “accused” is HIV positive, a “person of authority,” or if the “victim” is under the age of 18. Furthermore, the public is required to report any homosexual activity to the authorities within 24 hours or risk three years in jail. One official says that the government is determined to pass the legislation.

What’s even more disturbing is the active role of American religious conservatives in cultivating homophobic fervor throughout the country. In an interview with NPR, Jeff Sharlet contends that the main legislator behind the bill in Uganda belongs to “The Family,” a politically and religiously conservative advocacy group in Washington DC. Sharlet claims that The Family has funded individuals and causes in Uganda linked to anti-homosexual rhetoric along with the proposed legislation, thus linking Uganda’s proposed law and the religious right in America.

The recent rise of Christianity of in the global south and its relationship to the religious right is embedded in this proposed legislation. American conservatives and evangelicals who champion anti-homosexual rhetoric and practices often find friendly ears in Africa and other parts of the global south. Many conservatives who are disillusioned with the political progress of gay rights and other causes in the West see Africa and other parts of the global south as a fruitful opportunity to gain political and religious allies.

Though evangelicals and other conservatives argue that such missions and opportunities in the global south arise out of indigenous perspectives on religion and sexuality, I would argue that a type of religio-political imperialism and triumphalism is at work in manipulating and accentuating such indigenous views. Douglas John Hall, in his book The Cross in Our Context: Jesus and the Suffering World, makes astute observations about this very context:

If it gives comfort to crusading Christian conservatives to think that the future still holds a longed-for triumph of the Christian religion, then they had better think again about the actual history of Christian triumphalism in Western experience….Do they welcome a moral ethos in which not only gays and lesbians but also divorced people were consigned to hellfire, and the psychologically ill were considered demon-ridden?

To speak of the next Christendom without raising such existential questions arising out of the first Christendom is patently irresponsible….for they (the global south) continue to be the victims precisely of the Christian nations and empires-including economic empires of today.

Hall, pg. 164

Hall’s analysis hits at the core social and political issues for the church in this proposed legislation. The wedding of imperialism, country, and religion still plays a formative role throughout the globe and Uganda’s proposed law does not escape such realities. To paraphrase Hall, reverting back to an “earlier religious mentality or form of church and society” is not the answer to building faithful Christian communities around the globe. If such sentiments remain within the mission of the conservative church around the world, then may be destined to repeat our tattered and shamed religious and colonial history to such an extent that human lives may be at risk.

~ by Richard McNeal on December 5, 2009.