Apostle Umar Mulinde of Gospel Life Church, Namasuba has on Thursday responded to an article by Apostle Joseph Sserwadda that appeared in the Ugandan State owned Newspaper (New vision) of Monday June 19 2017.
Mulinde, a Muslim convert to Christianity who on 24th December 2011 survived an acid attack, says Pr Serwadda’s statement in which he pledged full support to the proposed Religion and Faith-Based Organizations (RFBO) draft policy demands an objective response.
This controversial RFBO draft policy by government is, according to reports in its formative stages.
His statement in full.
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Apostle Joseph Sserwadda’s article that appeared in the Ugandan State owned Newspaper (New vision) of Monday June 19 2017 on page 24 demands an objective response.
To begin with, since the matters raised within the upcoming Policy are of a criminal nature, why is it necessary to draft Legislation on Churches for this matter, when we already have well established procedures to curb criminal excesses in Uganda?
In my observation, the policy clearly upholds the traditional Churches and Mosques but faults the Balokole (Born Agains) accusing us of disharmony, lacking accountability, transparency and friction with the state.
Whereas the policy may be politically necessary, we must make sure that this is not a disguised plot to undermine the Balokole faith in Uganda.
To be sincere, disharmony, lacking accountability, transparency and friction with the state exist in other religious faith even within political parties and corruption is more within Uganda government institutions.
Seriously speaking, the Catholics criticize the state than Balokole, witch doctors frequently sacrifice children in cold blood and Muslims are a security threat killing each other, persecuting Christians and directly fighting the state through ADF, so why pointing us out of many at this time?
The spirit behind the policy is what can make it good or bad. So, after scrutinizing this policy, I find that the spirit behind it is biased and discriminatory against Balokole and therefore, Balokole leaders involved in this, should consult extensively to take a clear acceptable pro-Balokole position, otherwise, we shall reject this and demand to offer the alternative (Acts 4:19, Daniel 3:18-29).
Please do not act based on any pressure, trying to favor any leader or to appear politically correct, but please visualize far ahead putting in mind that we are here today but tomorrow we shall be gone even governments come and go but, the Church of God will remain. So, our struggle must be for a legacy otherwise (God forbid) it may go down in history that some Pastors participated in forming anti-Balokole policy.
In history most of state initiated laws in regard to the Church ends up being bad laws that result out persecution of members of the Church – remember Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Daniel, what happened during Idi Amin, now in China, Russia, Muslim Arab States and revival was enormous in Great Britain but was slowed down by such government interference ventures!
Why we must reject this?
Something of a global nature is going on to try to control spiritual churches from expanding, growth, getting new members, so that eventually spiritual Churches may lose steam/become compromised to give way for the one religion system that the one world order is setting up.
This is a plot by humanists; to make it possible for civic religion (Humanism) to penetrate societies and be entrenched in modern culture, even in sections of the Church.
By the way some churches and Christians have unknowingly embraced humanist culture to such a degree that their loyalties lie more with the civic religion and with humanist governments and society than with the Kingdom of God. Christianity is in danger and in a state of moral crisis.
The idea is that Churches will embrace humanist ideology and lose relevance to the society. So if we allow such it will override the Church and the Church will no longer appear to have a relevant and authoritative voice within society.
It’s for the Church to influence leaders and state agents and to provide a moral framework for society but if the state influence the Church, what will happen is that the Church and God will be pushed out of the public space, governments becoming all-powerful and increasingly seek to control more and more areas of people’s lives yet Christian principles can help governments to make good, wise and just decisions and laws.
It’s very dangerous to allow the State interfering in the affairs of the Church. That is one of the reasons why revival was quenched in Europe and now, in many countries, the State is using civic religion (Humanism) as a means to gain more control.
Humanism has therefore been given a primary position in guiding the ethical basis of society.
One important aspect of this is the humanist belief that religion causes conflict and war. And so, in order to create a safe society, governments are re-interpreting religions and setting the moral and ethical criteria for society.
For example, governments desire to control the spread of Islamic extremism, but in an effort not to single out just one religion, such governments impose controls in all religions. They use the pretext of security to stop Overnight Prayers, monitor, regulate, and dis-empowering Christian groups.
At the beginning of 2016 in the United Kingdom, a Christian chaplain working in a prison was banned from praying with inmates and sharing the Christian faith with them. His future sermons were to be monitored and censored. It is feared that the precedent that this case set will allow the State to determine what is said in any church in the country.
And so, Christians who challenge the decisions and injustices of a state can be marginalized and in some instances censored, fined, removed from their jobs or positions or even arrested.
A new type of civic religion has emerged throughout society and even within the Church. It has a worldview and culture that marginalizes Christian doctrine and focuses instead on a civic moral code, much of which is in opposition to Christian morality.
In my conclusion, as we go through this process of handling this particular pertinent matter, I kindly submit that, it’s in our right to demand government to give us another government official, preferably a known mulokole (Born Again) Public Figure trusted by Balokole but not a priest of another religion that seems not to favor Balokole for this matter.
Even then, Balokole should be facilitated to form unity, convene nation-wide consultation meetings, extensively involve all Balokole stake holders and agree on our own biblically based policy for the government to implement but not vise-versa.
Your’s in Jesus Christ Service,
Mulinde Umar, Apostle
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