Interview with Dr. Jonnes Bakimi

At the end of the 19^th century, the new Christian religion had made an impact in Uganda, clashing with the traditional religions. The Kabaka (King of the Baganda), refused to let people convert to Christianity because he wanted the people to worship him, and the Christians in his court refused his homosexual advances. The Christian boys in the court stood firm in their faith. They were wrapped in wet mats and roasted alive in a fire. These boys and others who were killed by the Kabaka are honored as martyrs in Uganda, and there is a shrine built to them, and a national holiday. Because of the “worship” of these martyrs by Catholic churches, many evangelicals have stopped remembering them altogether. Two ditches Christians fall into.

The next period of persecution was under Idi Amin, who outlawed all the evangelical churches and killed many of the Christians. He technically permitted the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, but when the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda spoke against him, he personally beat him to death. Under Amin the jails were full of Christians, but the jails were converted into churches.

The situation today is no longer one of persecution, actually it is the opposite- it is trendy to be a Christian. The problem in Kampala is the “prosperity gospel” – pastors basically advertise their church saying “come and you will have big cars and lots of money and go to America.” This is in the cities, in the villages there are many faithful pastors. So you can’t generalize, but the main problem today is that people who “convert” are more concerned with what they can get from Christianity than what they can give- their lives.

Christianity in Uganda is being shaken, and the false doctrines being shown for what they are. Until recently there were “big men” or “prophets” who ruled churches in fear because they could actually make people die or their ministry fall apart if they opposed them. Christians, including Uncle Jonnes, prayed that God would show who was greater, Himself or one of these men, and the man jumped out a window and killed himself for no reason one day.

God With Us: God For Us

"Despite the bastardization, Christians should rediscover and take joy in Christmas."

Read the venerable Adeyoe Adekola's weekly devotion. He could slash back nonsense with a blunt panga.

http://www.anglican-nig.org

"Theologians may harp on the technicalities of the incarnation, but the mystery of Emmanuel is summed up simply in Panan Percy Paul’s “If I chop gari, Jesus chop gari o”. In essence, Jesus took upon himself everything human with the exception of sin."

Fire

"The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire."

-T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, Little Gidding, IV

I have been thinking about a revolution lately. Then heard Dr. K preach revival for two weeks. So now my burning question (I change them out from time to time) is: how can I carry out a revolution or revival when I am so damnably apathetic? I think I belong to an age of apathy (that's what the overpass on I-205 says anyway). Even my "burning questions" don't light me on fire. For all God has done- "It has set him on fire all around, Yet he did not know; And it burned him, Yet he did not take it to heart." (Is 42).
So I asked how can our hearts be burned? When we are unable to set ourselves on fire?
Rev. Messner, chaplain of Covenant college, preached about those infamous lovers of boiled meat, Nadab and Abihu. God is holy- in his presence sin is consumed by fire. Our God is a consuming fire. But after Jesus' death and resurrection, the Spirit came down as a flame of fire on them, but they were not killed, they were filled with the fire.
Can I, an apathetic American, be set on fire? It seems impossible. The Ugandan churches are burning. And the further north you go, the closer to poverty and persecution, the brighter the flame.
Still I will not pray that Hillary is elected and terrorists break down our nation so we too can experience persecution. The Church is one. Our Church is burned by the fire of our enemies and the fire of God (65 churches in India were burned a few weeks ago, last week a church in Kenya was burned with dozens of people inside)- yet we do not take it to heart.
Whatever nationality we are, whatever blessings or persecution we experience, we are only fuel for the fire. The Spirit can burn us all the same. So my prayer is that we will be set on fire. That we will stop trying to quench the fire and learn to live by and breath out flames.

"May I always see thy beauty with the clear eye of faith,
and feel the power of Thy Spirit in my heart,
for unless He move mightily in me
no inward fire will be kindled."
- a Puritan

The fundamental things apply...

When searching for a blog title or any other title, one has only to open the pages of any Jane Austen novel at random to find, as Lady Catherine says, "a treasure."
Here shall I post a picture of the small child with the big smell that I have had staying with me, and then have done, because my list of things to accomplish today will not tick itself off. (The British call check marks "ticks" and there is a guest house in Kampala called the Tick Hotel on this account.)

This is Ava and I call her Frankincense "because she smells so sweet" (haha) and because she eats like the Seven Brothers before they are civilized (tonight she had cabbage on her head). I am reading Pride and Prejudice to her while she's in her bath, and she has learned to say "sense," and I pray someday she will learn the meaning.