Ntambi

The whirlwind surrounding Frank’s statements should not be surprising. There are many grounds for disagreement with him. But the abuse he is facing from the so-called Christians should remind us that many self-professing Christians do not act Christianly. They don’t look like, or aspire to look like, the Christ they profess. Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising either, because many self-professed Ugandan Christians have not encountered the gospel. They have not encountered Christ. They are ‘Christian’ in name, but their deeply held beliefs are far from biblical and historic Christianity. The reasons are many, ranging from a lack of theologically trained pastors and clergy to easy-believism rooted in a spirituality of convenience and sin, to a lack of gospel-preaching churches and sound theological resources. The result is that, as Ugandan Christians, we have, by and large, let experiential theatrics trump the apostolic teaching passed down through history, and we abuse anyone who questions our deeply held beliefs, not because they are wrong (and sometimes they may be), but because the questioning exposes that most of our long-held beliefs are unexamined. Many carry unexamined beliefs that form their core identity, and questioning these deeply held beliefs is like removing the ground on which they have stood all their lives. Few have taken the labor to be like the Bereans in Acts 17:11, who had the audacity to confirm what the apostle Paul taught from the OT Scriptures. We do not know what the early Church believed and taught because we don’t read and don’t want to read. We don’t take the time to read the early Church’s writings because we often don’t think of Christianity as a Faith and body of doctrine handed down to the Saints to be studied, preserved, and passed down to future generations. Rather, we consider Christianity an experientially relativistic relief. That explains why the common Bible Study question is ‘what does this text mean to you’ rather than ‘what did the author mean here?’ To us, Christianity is only beneficial if it serves our desires and felt needs. We treat the Bible as a painkiller and a prosperity formula that soothes our troubles and helps us cope in the day-to-day trenches of life, a sort of supermarket with many shelves that serve different household needs—the household being ourselves. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with our professions being of practical value, we are in deep trouble if we don’t love the truth of God’s Word more than our comforts, for after all, our Lord is Truth (John 14:6). But the sad reality is that we are more therapeutic than theological, seeing God as an errand-boy and housemaid who exists to serve our immediate needs. We are a Church largely shaped by experientialism rather than by the expository preaching of God’s Word, and we are malnourished because we exchange the nutrients of God’s Word, exposited, for religious junk pandered on many pulpits every Sunday and at lunch hour. As a result, many professing Christians have not encountered the God of the Bible—only the men and women who claim to represent God. That’s why people will defend their pastors with all their passion. They will attack anyone who questions the authenticity of their pastors’ claims of miracles with all the heart and hearth of a bear robbed of her cubs. And this is understandable, given that what many believe about God is not borne out of a personal and diligent study of Scripture, but from what they have heard their pastors say. The result is that, rather than discussing the ideas raised, we abuse and insult those who raise them. Ad hominem fallacies arise in a context of illiteracy, where conversations about ideas are absent and blind belief is celebrated. Obviously, such unexamined lives benefit the so-called men and women of God, who have honed their skills at exploiting the unlearned and biblically illiterate for financial gain. The charge that many churches are personal businesses is not without merit, and we cannot dismiss it by merely abusing those who raise it.

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