Uganda’s Repentance

This past weekend, WorldNetDaily published an article with the headline: “Ugandan President Repents of Personal, National Sins.” The article links to the Ugandan news site New Vision Reports, where the complete prayer of president Yoweri Museveni is included.

First of all, one has to be encouraged by a national leader’s willingness to repent of his own sins and to request forgiveness for the sins of his people. It shows that Uganda really has come a long way since Idi Amin declared Islam the country’s official religion.¹ Furthermore, Musveni specifically names the sins in his prayer for the nation, refraining from vague platitudes. He then even dedicates Uganda to God: “We want to dedicate this nation to you so that you will be our God and guide. We want Uganda to be known as a nation that fears God and as a nation whose foundations are firmly rooted in righteousness and justice to fulfill what the Bible says in Psalm 33:12: ‘Blessed is the nation, whose God is the Lord. A people you have chosen as your own.’” This call for repentance and prayer for Uganda by a national leader is, by today’s standards, definitively worth praising, along with Uganda’s criminalization of homosexual behavior. In these two aspects of Christian law – both the verbal, open acknowledgment of God’s Lordship over the nation and the protection of heterosexual monogamy through the suppression of homosexuality – Uganda is undoubtedly ahead of the West. These encouraging signs have caused white evangelicals and some theonomists to praise Uganda and its leadership, even to the extent that some have openly admitted considering moving to this third-world nation from a developed country such as the United States. While we join in their praise, we must still caution them to respect God’s prescribed boundaries.

Uganda’s beautiful testimony has an interesting history of aid having come from the right places. Back in 2002, Edith Ssempala, a Ugandan ambassador to the U.S., appealed to the Chalcedon Foundation when Uganda was so deeply troubled by the terrorist acts of the Lord’s Resistance Army.² The white South African/Rhodesian Peter Hammond, from the Frontline Fellowship, working in close relationship with Chalcedon, has been at the forefront of the advancement of Christian Reconstructionism in various African countries like Uganda ³ Even though neither Frontline Fellowship nor Chalcedon is a kinist organization, they were both born out of a white, racially conscious background, Chalcedon being Rushdoony’s groundbreaking work and Frontline Fellowship emerging from apartheid South Africa, in whose Defence Force Hammond also served.⁴ This, again, proves the practical value of the wisdom the apostle Paul received when he taught that the different races would better aid each other when they also cherish their national identity (Acts 17:27).

Theonomy, however, when applied without consistency and wisdom, can become just as tyrannical as any other man-made form of government. This is precisely the case in Uganda, where, despite getting help from some of the right places, Christianity is in practice more in line with Roman Catholicism, Pentecostalism, and the apostate Church of Uganda (affiliated with the Christ-denying Church of England) than with true, biblical Christianity.⁵ Despite the fact that homosexuality is punishable in Uganda, the government has failed to institute laws that could stop the nearly 270,000 annual abortions in that country.⁶ Such a blatant inconsistency inevitably casts doubt on the sincerity of the implementation of the anti-homosexuality law. Furthermore, despite the large number of abortions, president Museveni nowhere mentions the issue in his prayer. There are also statements in the president’s prayer that hardly resemble orthodox Christianity, most notably his statement, “Help us to see that we [Ugandans] are all your children, children of the same Father.” He states this despite the fact that 12% of Ugandans are Muslim and that 27% openly admit to believing in the supernatural power of ancestor-worship.⁷

Without the aid of a Western nation with pure Christian foundations, Uganda will fail miserably, not because of the inherent superiority of the white man, but because of the gracious blessings and responsibilities with which God has endowed us. Of course, we should trust in God alone for our deliverance from evil, and so should Uganda, but God provides help by various means. In His wisdom, He has providentially chosen not to prepare a religiously sound white nation to aid Uganda in their sanctification. This could prove catastrophic. Let me explain my position by virtue of analogy: just as with individuals in the body of Christ, where the strong must support and guide the weaker members (Rom. 15:1-2), the same goes for nations within the body of Christ – weaknesses and strengths do not magically disappear by virtue of regeneration, but are sanctified. Because of a lack of support from a white Christian nation, Uganda’s attempts at theonomy will probably be as futile as its foundation is shaky. God is, without question, mighty to act in such a way that Uganda could indeed stand strong on its own, but this would make Uganda the exception that proves the rule; moreover, even if God were to work this miracle, Ugandan theonomy still would not have a Western character. This being said, following the curse-and-blessing paradigm espoused by Noah in Genesis 9, there is no reason believers should expect Him to do so. The white nations are in this sense letting Uganda down. Mainstream Western churches preach a false gospel of universalist, egalitarian love, and maintain that racial integration serves as a manifestation of the unity we have in Christ; with these false doctrines, they are bound to mislead the upcoming church in Africa (and elsewhere). Not only are they untrue to their calling as Japhethites (Gen. 9:27), but also, by virtue of being unready, they are possibly letting the opportunity to have a Christian ally on the most resourceful continent on the planet slip through their fingers.

As a white Christian, true to my calling, I will pray for the people of Uganda, but moving there and creating an egalitarian, multiracial society will most certainly be destructive to both Ugandans and whites. The white man’s responsibility is to his own people first and foremost (I Tim. 5:8). Let us be diligent and let the positives in Uganda motivate us to work as instruments in the sanctification of our own peoples, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to place ourselves in the sort of position where we can aid the rest of the world.

“Then came she [the Canaanite woman] and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But He answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” – Matt. 15:25-28a

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