Christian Citizens and the Moral Regeneration of the African State

Barbara Bompani, Caroline Valois

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351999984
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion, Politics & State

In recent years the rapid growth of Christian charismatic movements throughout sub-Saharan Africa has drastically reconfigured the region's religious landscape. As a result, charismatic factions play an increasingly public role throughout Africa, far beyond the religious sphere. This book uses a multi-disciplinary approach to consider the complex relationship between Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity and the socio-political transformation taking place throughout this region.

Each of this text's three main sections helps in understanding how discourses of moral regeneration emanating from these diverse Christian communities, largely charismatic, extend beyond religious bounds. Part 1 covers politics, political elites and elections, Part 2 explores society, economies and the public sphere, and Part 3 discusses values, public beliefs and morality. These sections also highlight how these discourses contribute to the transformation of three specific social milieus to reinforce visions of the Christian citizen.

Examining contemporary examples with high quality scholarly insight, this book is vital reading for academics and students with an interest in the relationship between religion, politics and development in Africa.

Part 1

Regenerating politics

Nationhood, political elites and the elections

1 ‘Good Christians, Good Citizens’

Pentecostal-charismatic narratives of citizenship, public action and national belonging in contemporary Uganda

Barbara Bompani

Ugandan blogs, the Facebook pages of popular opinion-makers, Twitter handles and online newspaper fora where readers reply or comment on articles¹ are indeed valuable opportunities to observe how ordinary citizens debate, imagine, interpret and understand the state, public affairs and the future of their own country. Through the lens of Ugandan virtual life² it is apparent that the majority of preoccupations revolve around the prolonged failure of the State to deliver services, economic and job security, development, progress and in particular to secure a positive future for Ugandan young people (see also academic analyses such as Kobusingye 2010; Wiegratz 2010; Wiegratz 2016).³ In this light, it is not surprising to discover that the second most popular hashtag in Uganda in 2016 was ‘#Ugandadecides’, suggesting the sheer weight of political tweeting and discussions around the presidential elections but also concerns regarding the (mis)management and future direction of the country (‘How Africa Tweets’ 2016). This deep sense of dissatisfaction and preoccupation with the future is very often articulated, in virtual spaces as well as in the materiality of the everyday,⁴ in terms of a lack of morality and integrity from ‘corrupted and ineffective’⁵ political and administrative elites. These elites do not leave much hope in terms of new, quick or straightforward solutions to the seeming impasse of the management of public affairs. This is in line with the frequently enunciated National Resistance Movement (NRM)’s rhetoric, and with many authoritative religious voices, that the nation is suffering from a lack of a strong moral fibre in order to protect its own citizens from ‘immoral’ dangers like corruption, greed, selfishness, lack of respect towards authority and fixed gender roles, divorce, homosexuality etc. – all dangers perceived as brought in by external Western influences attached to colonialism first and globalisation second (as will be expanded upon in the next section). These Western influences now preclude the nation (that according to this rhetoric has abandoned its own original African ‘good’ way of living) from flourishing and prospering.

Ultimately these rooted emotions and understandings have an impact on public action and the political imagination of a polity; and therefore need to be taken seriously by academics. What does it mean, for example, to be a citizen in a continuously underperforming African state? How do global forces, with their rapid and radical social changes brought in by neoliberal interventions,⁶ shape the meaning of citizenship and a sense of national belonging for social and political communities? How do concepts such as public action and participation change across time and space? And most of all, in line with the concerns of this book, how do other spheres and actors beyond the ‘purely’ political participate in the construction of a sense of national belonging and citizenship when politics seems to fail to deliver? As Sanja Osha argues in his philosophical and political account African Postcolonial Modernity (2014), there is an urge to approach the study of political realms in new and original ways in light of the erosion of the old nation-state model and, I would like to add, in the slow erosion of trust towards the international aid assistance community,⁷ taking in consideration the emergence of new actors that are shaping the political in ‘non-traditional manners’ (Osha 2014:7). For example, in contrast to secularist expectations that religion was retreating from the political sphere in Africa as well as in the West, academic literature has shed light on the dynamic and creative role that religion plays in the public in African countries (ter Haar & Ellis 2006; Marshall-Fratani 2009; Wariboko 2014; Ranger 2006) and how more and more religious ideas, leaders and religiously framed public action are shaping society, public policies and electoral trends (in this book, for example see Chapter 2 “Vox Dei, Vox Populi: Pentecostal Citizenship and Political Participation in Nigeria since 1999” by Asonzeh Ukah and Chapter 3 “Election Prophecies and Political Stability in Ghana” by Emmanuel Sackey). In Uganda, where religion has always been connected to the political sphere in various ways (Gifford 1998; Ward 2005), new religious actors are emerging as shapers of the political domain and producers of their own vision for the future of the country within which (religious) citizens should contribute in an active way. It is within this analytical framework that the chapter offers an analysis of Pentecostal-charismatic churches (PCCs) in Uganda as a relatively new reservoir of political creativity and a driver of citizens’ public action with very specific religiously driven expectations and motivations. Moving in the space of a few decades from a publically silent religious minority⁸ to a vibrant and vocal group able to influence public debates and policies, Pentecostalism, in its charismatic form, is successfully filling a vacuum in terms of providing a positive vision for the future of the country – that implies corruption, inactivity and immorality be defeated through conversion to Pentecostalism – and in publically stating solutions to address the perceived lack of morality and ethical public behaviour. It is in this light that the chapter offers an analysis of the accentuation of the ‘moralisation of politics’ in contemporary Uganda and provides an understanding of these new forms of ‘Christian public activism’ through which Pentecostal subjects are called (more than ever) to play an active role in shaping the nation and society after decades of ‘secular’ failures.

Public morality and Christianity in Uganda

Not surprisingly, given their conservative theological overview, Pentecostal-charismatic public action in Uganda has been vigorous in support of morally framed campaigns and policies (Boyd 2015). For example, in the past eight years Pentecostal public interventions and battles have been strongly connected to the campaign and debates over the introduction of a new and tightened Anti-Homosexuality Bill aimed at replacing the old repressive law introduced by the British government in colonial times and severely punishing Ugandan LGBTIQ communities (Bompani & Terreni Brown 2015; Bompani 2016; Valois 2016). Similarly, Pentecostal churches were publically backing the Anti-Pornography Act that came into law in February 2014. This law was led by the Minister of Ethics and Integrity⁹ Father Simon Lokodo, an ex-Catholic priest,¹⁰ and strongly supported by the Pentecostal-charismatic community that saw in the act the possibility of better controlling public decency and morality in the country, perceived as in constant decline brought about by the increasingly secular and decadent (according to those interpretations) Global North. With the implementation of a national anti-pornography committee, the law tries to ensure “early detection, collection and destroying of pornographic materials defined as any representation through publication, exhibition, cinematography, indecent show, information technology or by whatever means, of a person engaged in real or stimulated explicit sexual activities or any representation of the sexual parts of a person for primary sexual excitement” (NewVision 18 February 2014). With the inclusion of the ban for women to wear short skirts, the law became known as the ‘mini-skirt ban’. In a public appearance Minister Lokodo said that whenever his team arrests ‘immoral people’, human rights groups storm his office to ask for their release. “It is a painful fact that Uganda has lost its esteem as a God-fearing country because people have embraced with enthusiasm Western cultures that have a negative impact on our morals yet when I arrest immoral people, you talk about rights” (Minister Lokodo, The Daily Monitor 29 April 2015, Kampala). At the same event, he claimed that “rights activists have increased moral decadence” (ibid.). Pentecostal-charismatics also ferociously campaigned against the Marriage and Divorce Bill that, if passed, would cover a wide range of marriage, divorce and gender issues, including bride wealth, female circumcision and rights of cohabitating couples. The Bill caused controversy from the beginning, with some objecting to the very naming of the proposal which mentions marriage and divorce in the same breath, others arguing that it was a Bill that only favours women. A common objection was that the Bill undermined traditional and religious understandings of marriage and property relations and that ultimately it would penalise the idea of family as the core of Ugandan society. Pentecostal churches are focused on influencing the channelling of international aid and State support¹¹ to morally framed development and educational interventions. In fact, Pentecostal voices and campaigns frequently attack the work of secular NGOs that provide healthcare to LGBTI communities, that support birth control activities and sex education in schools’ curricula (Valois 2016; Bompani 2016). For example, in her first visit to a school in 2016¹² as Education and Sport Minister Janet Museveni, considered as a sort of moral leader of the Pentecostal community in Uganda, urged the teachers to scrutinise and change the “Comprehensive Sexual Education Curriculum”, in her terms defined as “containing dangerous material for the children and schools” because it “basically teaches homosexuality” (UgChristianNews 22 July 2016).

These public and highly political interventions are only the tip of the iceberg of more systematic day-to-day work of Pentecostal-charismatic communities in an attempt to fill a perceived sense of a national moral deficit. When we consider the work of those churches we always need to keep in mind their tripartite action that aims to transform at the same time the individual/self; the community/Church; and the nation perceived as an extension of the religious community. Daily efforts attempt to shape Ugandans, the Church and the country. Along with influencing politics through direct interventions, lobbying, through political connections (for example with the Museveni family through the First Lady and the President’s daughter Pastor Patience Rwabogo Museveni), further work is done on a daily basis through Bible readings, cell meetings, social events, training, messages reiterated and discussed during Sunday sermons, in radio owned by Pentecostal-charismatic pastors,¹³ in television programmes, in church published print and online material where morality and common goals are thoroughly articulated and through the power of praying that in Pentecostal interpretations has powerful material implications. This simultaneous three-level action clearly emerged from my analysis of the four Pentecostal-charismatic churches investigated in Kampala between 2012 and 2014.¹⁴ The churches under analysis were: Watoto, formerly known as Kampala Pentecostal Church (KPC), with its five churches in the capital identified by their local position, Central (in Nakasero), North (in Ntinda), East (in Kazinga), South (Lubowa), West (in Kyengera) and one church in Gulu; Life Line Ministries (LLM) a much smaller affair than Watoto, situated in a low-income area of Kampala, Kinawataka, that is known in the city for its wetlands and informal settlements; Miracle Centre Cathedral (MCC) the mega church situated by the Kabaka’s palace at Mengo and to the Roman Catholic Rubaga Cathedral; and Convenant Nation Church (CNC), a small but influential church situated outside of Kampala, in Bunga, a very wealthy suburb. From an analysis of those churches and their weekly work, it was evident that at the core of their action there was the preoccupation of reconnecting the entire Ugandan nation with the spiritual and the moral and guiding them towards a more prosperous and successful future. As Freston (2004) has observed, biblically the nation becomes the vehicle for reconnection with God in times of crisis and misery. In this perceived moment of degeneration and moral crisis, churches’ attention seems to move away from the individual – the subject – in order to reconnect with the community – the polity.

The moralisation of the public and political spheres is not new in Uganda and it is important to understand contemporary idioms and actions within longer historical trajectories. As several authors have demonstrated (Ward 2005; Ward & Wild-Wood 2012; Peterson 2012) social transformation has always been debated in terms of moral guidance and orientating examples in the country (Peterson 2012:286) and the public sphere has always been an arena for moral judgement in times of social and political change. For example, within the perceived crisis of gender roles and ‘traditional’ family in the period of post-independence reconstruction, in 1964 Milton Obote appointed a commission where religious leaders were consulted to consider the laws regulating marriage and divorce (ibid 285). Even the 2014 Anti-Pornography law can be reconnected to Idi Amin’s mini-skirt ban¹⁵ issued in May 1972 (Decker 2014) when the then dictator legislated to instil discipline and morality within the framing of a new cultural nationalism that proposed specific ideas of how Ugandan women should be and perform in public. This was followed by the wig ban and, in 1975 when times became more turbulent, by the banning of makeup and skin lightener that in Amin’s words were changing “the natural beauty of women” (Decker 2014:65).

In line with these historically rooted articulations, in the present religious and political leaders respond to a new profound sense of social anxieties with a new wave of public moralisation (Sadgrove et al. 2012). While Christianity has always been at the core of this morally framed public action, what Pentecostal churches are offering in contemporary Uganda is a more meticulous and proactive engagement than other churches. While also the Catholic and Anglican Church promote these morally framed public policies at different levels, their open support and public presence is considerably limited compared to Pentecostal voices while day-to-day their work within their religious communities is not as engaged and cannot be compared with the systematic project of influencing and shaping new moral citizens and their actions.¹⁶ This can be extrapolated from a comparison of ser...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• Introduction: Christian citizens and the moral regeneration of the African State
• Part 1 Regenerating politics: nationhood, political elites and the elections
• Part 2 Regenerating society: economies and the public sphere
• Part 3 Regenerating morality: values, public beliefs and morality
• Index