Thursday, December 10, 2009
Rick Warren - Letter to the Pastors of Uganda
Let's give Rick Warren credit here.
He is an evangelical US preacher. He has spoke out against the Ugandan bill as strongly as he can.
Unreservedly - Good on Rick Warren!!
Why can't Rowan Williams and Benedict XVI speak out?
Some commentators have been slightly reserved about supporting Warren.
I simply felt a flood of grace. I am usually anti-Protestant but here in the UK we have been discussing whether the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams *should* make a statement because of fear of seeming imperialist.
It is shameful for Catholics that noone has even suggested that Benedict XVI would intervene.
Rick Warren has, I think, single handedly won a victory for both freedom and grace on this subject.
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3 comments:
Speaking of worthless old queens like Benedict, what about Elizabeth II? Uganda used to be a British protectorate, the people of Uganda used to be her subjects, and Elizabeth is the supreme governor of the mother church of the Anglican communion whose bishops have endorsed the law with the death penalty in Uganda.
Isn't it about time she did something worthwhile or that she put an end to the monarchy so that their ill gotten wealth be put to better use? (I'm trying to be nice.)
First of all, I am right behind anyone - Christian or not - who opposes the proposed anti-gay legislation in Uganda. However, the situation there is rather more complex than many people appreciate. (I may have got the details of the following wrong but I think this is roughly what happened.)
When the first Christian missionaries arrived in Uganda in the 19th C they discovered that the local chief was not only a vicious tyrant but a predatory homosexual as well. He was in the habit of selecting choice young men to join his bodyguard and they had to submit to him in bed as well. There was nothing voluntary about this. The chief's rule was absolute. The Christiam missionaries had some success with converts and when the chief had his next recruiting drive there were about 30 young Christian men among those selected for the bodyguard. With great courage they refused to submit to the demands of the chief. As far as I know they did not refuse to fight for him, but they did refuse - as Christians - to be buggered by him. This act of defiance was considered not only a personal insult to the chief but treason as well. The chief had the 30 young men put to death, slowly and with a great deal of sadistic imagination. The courage and streafastness of these youn men deeply impressed those who witnessed their deaths and the Christian missionaries received many more converts in consequence. "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church." The Martyrs of Uganda are still deeply honoured today by Ugandan Christians. To many of them, even the tacit approval of homosexuality would seem like a terrible betrayal of the courage and faith of these maryrs. It takes a very sophisticated person, I would suggest, to be able to distinguish between the rapicity of as tyrant and the voluntary acts of two equals when the same desire is the basis of both.
The story of the Martyrs of Uganda will be well known to the Archbishop of Canterbury - and probably to the pope as well - and to HM - it is part of Imperial / Commonwealth history. The dilemma for the Archbishop will be how he can possibly express his revulsion of the proposed legistation in terms which will not be seen by ordinary Ugandan Christians as kicking away the foundations of their church.
I do not envy him, and I can sympathise with his discretion. It is an aweful situation.
Barbara, do I need to remind you that the Church of England was founded by a predatory heterosexual and serial killer, Henry VIII. the most reasonable lesson to draw from Ugandan and English history is that absolute power of one man over another is a great evil and that regicide is always and everywhere preferrable; however, I do see how it would be a tough sell to the queen.
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