Month: March 2010

Uganda: What a difference a year makes

A year ago in early March, we were talking about Uganda. We are still talking about Uganda.

On March 2, I posted this:

I decided to post about this after reading an article about an upcoming (this weekend) conference in Uganda on homosexuality. The article begins:

Parents to train on how to handle homosexuality issues

Family Life Network and other stakeholders in Uganda have organized a three-day seminar to provide what they termed as reliable and up to date information so that people can know how to protect themselves, their children, families from homosexuality.

A year and many posts later, the effects of that conference reverberate.  The Anti-Homosexuality Bill is waiting committee action and has not had a second reading. To become law in Uganda, a bill must be read three times and be signed by the President. He could refuse to sign it and then it would go back to the Parliament who could pass it over his refusal.

The bill might languish in committee and not come out for months or years. However, in the mean time, vocal Ugandan clergy such as Martin Ssempa are out in support of the bill with regular rallies. I may be posting about Uganda a year from now.

Read all posts on Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill here.

Doug Coe’s 1989 sermon to the Navigators

Doug Coe is one of the responsible leaders of the Fellowship Foundation, a non-profit organization which helps implement the National Prayer Breakfast. There are very few recordings of him speaking and he tends to eschew the limelight. With Mr. Coe’s permission, I have uploaded this almost 31 minute sermon to YouTube in four parts. The very beginning and end is clipped off unfortunately. This speech has been controversial because of Coe’s references to Hitler and Mao. In my view, he is not commending these tyrants or recommending their ideas, but using them as an illustration of complete devotion to a cause. By contrast, American Christianity expects very little from followers of Jesus.

Here I am providing the first part with the rest on another page. Watch the whole thing and make your own opinion.

Part One

Watch the rest…

I met Doug Coe at the February, 2010 National Prayer Breakfast and have an interview with him in preparation. Other articles regarding the National Prayer Breakfast and the Fellowship Foundation are also in the works. Just one note now. It became very clear to me that David Bahati’s involvement with the Fellowship Foundation did not influence him to write the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. In fact, he had to ignore the core principles regarding finding common ground and the common humanity of all people in order to write a bill which so badly stigmatizes and attacks homosexuals.

Live Like We’re Dying – Kris Allen

Well, some people like to throw stones. I prefer to use them to build something useful. Time is flying by, love and live like we’re dying…

Yeah, we gotta start looking at the hands of the time we’ve been given

If this is all we got and we gotta start thinking

If every second counts on a clock that’s ticking

Gotta live like we’re dying

We only got 86,400 seconds in a day to

Turn it all around or to throw it all away

We gotta tell them that we love them

While we got the chance to say

Gotta live like we’re dying

How about an Anti-Sodomy Bill?

Reading an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof titled, “Learning from the sin of Sodom,” I was reminded of the biblical passage, written by the prophet Ezekiel where the nation of Israel was judged by God. Here is the paragraph from Kristof:

In one striking passage, Stearns quotes the prophet Ezekiel as saying that the great sin of the people of Sodom wasn’t so much that they were promiscuous or gay as that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49.)

The Stearns he references is the CEO of World Vision, Richard Stearns, who last year published a book, The Hole in Our Gospel. The book calls Christians away from the culture war into a war on apathy and poverty. The passage in Ezekiel is well worth the read for evangelicals just sure that defeating homosexuality is the highest bullet point on God’s agenda.

Chapter 16 begins with a recitation of the sins of Israel with particular scorn for their idolatry and sacrifice of children. Then God through Ezekiel has an interesting commentary on the relationship between Israel and Sodom (Ezek. 16:46-48)

Your older sister was Samaria, who lived to the north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you with her daughters, was Sodom. You not only walked in their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they.  As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done.

On the scale of sin, Israel tops Sodom. But what sins are we talking about? The next verse may surprise those who are calling for a ban on sodomy.

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me.

The real sodomite is the arrogant person, the overfed and apathetic person who ignores the poor and others in need. The sexual sins of Sodom are second rate compared to the sins of pride and greed. Ban Sodomy, anyone?

Sodomy, viewed from God’s perspective, is practically the American way. I guess we have been exporting sodomy to Uganda.

The sins of Sodom mark the American church in ways that are very uncomfortable to confront. Defined biblically, I hope we can unite against sodomy. Defined biblically, we have all been sodomites, have we not?

Ezekiel goes on to put things in perspective and offers hope (Ezek. 16:52-53).

Bear your disgrace, for you have furnished some justification for your sisters. Because your sins were more vile than theirs, they appear more righteous than you. So then, be ashamed and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.” ‘However, I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and of Samaria and her daughters, and your fortunes along with them.

We are all in this need-of-redemption thing together. Rather than pick out sins and sinners to protest, it appears we would do better to walk humbly, and take heed, lest we fall.