Right now, the President of Uganda is about to sign a law that would impose life imprisonment for homosexuals who infect children and the disabled with AIDS through sexual contact. President Obama has condemned the law, and the mainstream media will not paint him as a pedophile-supporter because he’s black and a Democrat.
But today is a very special day for the people of Uganda. Today, there is a lessor feast within the Anglican Church as they remember Archbishop Janani Luwum. He was murdered by Idi Amin (by some accounts, Idi Amin personally murdered him) 37 years ago. The official story by the Amin administration was that the Archbishop was killed in a car crash on his way to interrogation after being arrested for treason. If the story was true, then it would have been the first car crash in history to riddle a man with bullets.
Why was he arrested for treason? How could a significant religious leader commit such an act? What did he do to merit being arrested and covertly executed for treason?
If you think it was that he was supporting rebel groups or speaking out against the legitimacy of Idi Amin’s regime, then you would be wrong. His act of treason was to deliver a letter written by him and several other bishops asking Idi Amin to stop the executions and disappearances that his regime was engaged him.
That’s all. They did not question his rule as leader of their country. They did not rebel against him. They merely asked him to stop murdering their citizens.
For that, he was murdered.
Today, the United States government has executed American citizens without due process. President Obama has taken just about every opportunity he can to go to war and thus cause the deaths of many young men and the rape and deaths of many young women in the military. War is mankind at its worse.
And what does our church do in the face of this? Do our church leaders stand up and ask our President to stop murdering people?
No. Instead we see political games with Churches either complacent with the status quo or are completely silent on the matter. But they ignore the obvious immorality that is committed by the President through his manipulations of the State machine. Modern Western Churches really want to keep their non-profit status and so churches do not have strong leaders.
The Churches in the West could learn much by the late Janani’s example. As he said to his fellow bishops as he was taken, “I sense God’s hand in this.”