Wednesday, February 26, 2014

The Anglican connection to the Uganda bill

Here's a piece that says that Uganda's bill may be partly attributable to the schismatics in TEC, who cast the African Anglicans into the role of protectors of the anti-gays,  and partly due to church politics within Uganda.  My emphasis....
UGANDA’S PUBLIC DISCOURSE about homosexuality did not begin in the mid-2000s with efforts from conservative U.S. evangelicals and Pentecostals. Rather, it was propelled into public awareness during the 1990s through the incipient row within the Anglican Communion over the ordination of gay priests and bishops. 
Ugandan Anglicans’ relationship with Anglicans from the West—namely, the U.S. Episcopal Church—became increasingly defined by their sharp, conservative convictions on matters of human sexuality. Ugandan bishops (along with others from the “global South”) took an uncompromising stand in relation to a resolution on human sexuality passed at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, a decennial gathering of Anglican bishops....
One result of these developments was that Ugandan Anglicans became conscripted into a narrative, often repeated by conservative Anglicans in the West, that portrayed them (and other Anglican provinces like Nigeria and Rwanda) as the vibrant preservers of Christian orthodoxy amidst a decadent Western church that was in moral decay and numerical decline. 
While the Anglican Church of Uganda charted its conservative course amidst the battles within the Anglican Communion, it also had to contend with inter-denominational competition at home, where Pentecostal Christianity has profoundly transformed the religious landscape of Uganda. ... In this contest, historic Ugandan Anglicanism is usually regarded as losing out to the Pentecostals. 
These newer churches have proved very attractive to youth, a fact that concerns Anglicans, who have often viewed Pentecostals with suspicion, derision, and resentment. .... It seemed that some of the support for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill from certain Ugandan Anglicans, therefore, came from a hope that the legislation would curtail the influence of these new Pentecostal churches, which they believed were endangering their children’s bodies and souls.
 Politics, politics, politics.  Can't we all just get along here?

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