"God Loves Uganda" Premiers at Sundance
Frederick Clarkson printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Thu Jan 17, 2013 at 07:08:37 PM EST
God Loves Uganda, a documentary film about the Christian Right's influence in spreading homophobia premiers a the Sundance Film Festival this week.  The film features, among others, the notorious American antiabortion and antigay demagogue, Lou Engle of The Call.  It also features my colleague Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma of Political Research Associates and author of two related reports on Africa, Globalizing the Culture Wars and Colonizing African Values.

UPDATED to include the official film trailer:


Here  a blurb from the Sundance web site:

A battle rages in East Africa, where crosses replace guns and shouts of prayer roar louder than missiles. American evangelical Christians have chosen Uganda, with Africa's youngest and most vulnerable population, as their ground zero in a battle for the soul of a continent. American missionaries and religious leaders are working with African pastors in a radical campaign to eradicate sin through the most extreme measures. The stakes are nothing less than life and death.

Here is an excerpt from the God Loves Uganda web site:

It features Lou Engle, the creator of The Call which brings tens of thousands of believers together to pray against sexual sin. It provides a rare view of the most powerful evangelical minister in Uganda, who lives in a mansion where he's served by a white-coated chef. It goes into a Ugandan church where a preacher whips a congregation into mass hysteria with anti-gay rhetoric.

It records the culture clash between enthusiastic Midwestern missionaries and world weary Ugandans. It features a heartbreaking interview with gay activist David Kato shortly before he was murdered. It tells the moving story of Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, a minister excommunicated, ostracized and literally spat on for being tolerant and his remarkable campaign for peace and healing in Uganda.


Here is an excerpt from the Indiewire discussion with director Roger Ross Williams:

While shooting in Uganda in 2011, the conservative evangelical pastors I was filming -- the most ardent supporters of the country's now infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill -- discovered that I myself am gay. One began circulating emails suggesting that I be killed. I left the country immediately, and hoped I'd never have to go back.

Cut to a year later. I'm with my editors at the Sundance Documentary Edit lab and it is becoming abundantly clear that we needed more footage from Uganda. We needed to spend more time there to do justice to this very complicated, and very important story. And the only way to get it right meant I had to go back. Either I sacrificed, or the story would have to.

And so I went. I spent three terrifying, thrilling weeks in Uganda, knowing full well that this would be the last time I was in a country I've been filming for the past three years. And I'm happy to say that without the footage we captured on that last trip, `God Loves Uganda' probably wouldn't be premiering at Sundance."




Display:
From "Colonizing African Values", executive summary, third paragraph:

"Political Research Associates provided early warning of the campaigns in its 2009 report, "Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia," and singled out the true instigators of the hateful legislation in Uganda: U.S. Christian Right figures including the internationally prominent Baptist pastor and bestselling author, Rick Warren; Scott Lively, the anti-gay, Holocaust revisionist; and Lou Engle, head of the revivalist group, The Call, and a leader in the right-wing New Apostolic Reformation movement."

Neither Lou Engle nor his The Call ministry are mentioned in Kaoma's first PRA report, "Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia".

In fact, I broke the story on Lou Engle's plan to take "The Call" to Uganda, in a December 2009 story right here at Talk To Action - the fact that I'd broken the story was noted at the time by Richard Bartholomew, Jim Burroway, and Warren Throckmorton (who have paid the closest attention to Uganda's mounting antigay crusade.)

Here's my December 2009 TTA story:

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/12/20/224021/61

by Bruce Wilson on Fri Jan 18, 2013 at 09:26:50 AM EST

namely, Anglicanism, and the various US breakaway ex-Episcopalians who joined up with Uganda and Nigeria.
He published in the Episcoblogosphere on Ugandan Anglican issues before joining PRA.

by NancyP on Fri Jan 18, 2013 at 02:43:27 PM EST
Parent
I didn't want to put it so bluntly, but this isn't about denominational concerns; it's about basic factual accuracy. To put such a false claim in a publicly released nonprofit exec. summary is to my mind quite bizarre. To what end ?

by Bruce Wilson on Sat Jan 19, 2013 at 04:14:52 AM EST
Parent




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