Capitalism is Killing us Silently

In case you haven’t noticed, capitalism is killing us. It’s killing us in many ways, from the most blatant homicides, those of tobacco companies that manufacture products for the direct ingestion of poison, to the more indirect, those of companies whose products are obliquely lethal, such as mining, chemical and utility companies. Their damage is merely collateral.

In either case, capitalism — which has one fundamental ideal: to make profit — can be a merciless economic system. It’s so seductive, insidious and unconcerned about its effects on personal character that even China, a nation that once prided itself on an ideal of shared wealth (communism), is challenging the bastion of free-market rapacity (the USA), for position as capitalist top dog.

Everyone is apt to check his/her values at the door of capitalism. In fact, the so-called free market depends on it: we’re all in the muck together. As a symbol of capitalism, Gordon Gekko, the main antagonist of the movie “Wall Street,” is as apt as they come. Gekko’s moral code has been minimized to maximize profit.

The legal basis for the minimization or morality lies in the stipulations of corporate law:

.”..the directors and officers of a corporation shall exercise their powers and discharge their duties with a view to the interests of the corporation and of the shareholders….

“Although the wording of this provision differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, its legal effect does not. This provision is the motive behind all corporate actions everywhere in the world. Distilled to its essence, it says that the people who run corporations have a legal duty to shareholders, and that duty is to make money. Failing this duty can leave directors and officers open to being sued by shareholders.” —How Corporate Law Inhibits Social Responsibility, Robert Hinkly, Corporate Attorney

Capitalism, the system, is amoral.  It’s fundamentally bloodless and heartless.  Despite the Supreme Court’s wild conceit that corporations are people, corporations would better be characterized as machines. A box-folding machine has just one imperative: to produce folded boxes. A corporate machine’s imperative is to make profit for the benefit of shareholders. Neither imperative has a necessary moral component.

Economist Joseph Stiglizt spoke to this in an interview with Alternet Editor Lynn Paramore:

“… what drives capitalism is the profit motive,” Stiglitz said. “You can profit not only by making good things, but also by exploiting people, by exploiting the environment, by doing things that are not so good. The narrative that you describe ignores the extent to which a lot of the inequalities in the United States are not the result of creative activity but of exploitive activity.”

“Greed is Good,” the fictional Gekko famously claimed. But many powerful characters agree; some are even living, breathing Christians or Mormons.

How can an economic system founded on one of the seven deadly sins go wrong? Let me count the ways.

But Greed is not alone. In fact, Pride and Envy have also found cozy nests in the alleys off Wall Street. Politicians spend millions playing one against the other in back-to-back ads during election cycles. In fact millions in advertizing dollars are spent to stir-up storms of pride and envy. 

We’ve become so mesmerized by the effects of that trio that many of us deny any fact that troubles the waters of our delusions. When Greed, Pride and Envy are employed as national motivators, blaring endlessly from flat screens, who has the strength of character to distinguish lies from truth, or bad from good?

Let’s be clear, capitalism is not killing the planet, it’s creating an environment and conditions that threaten life on the planet. It’s making Earth uninhabitable for creatures like us. The planet will do fine on its own.  The earth did not need us before we came along and will shed not a tear at our passing. In fact, if planets have inner lives, Earth will probably sigh, “Good riddance.”

Those who profit from the degradation of the planet and the corruptibility of its human inhabitants contest this view. But the truth is that capitalism thrives on the degradation of the environment in the short term. It also counts on the corruptibility of everyone in the system to continue unchallenged and unregulated in its quest for maximum profit. 

For the model of unrestrained growth to proceed, everyone from consumer to CEO must not only turn a blind eye to troubling evidence that all is not well with the model, but also reject the evidence outright. This is most likely what informs the thinking of people like Senator James Inhofe, who has labelled global warming a hoax.

Inhofe’s argument is one against evidence which is typical of any founded upon ideology.

At NASA’s Web site, you’ll find this: “Most climate scientists agree the main cause of the current global warming trend is human expansion of the ‘greenhouse effect’ —warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space.”

“Moreover,” says a report of 18 scientific associations, “there is strong evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on society, including the global economy and on the environment.” It would not be inaccurate to throw “life expectancy” into the list of impacts.

Predictably, funding for those arguing against the facts of global warming and environmental degradation come from corporate interests. The environmental organization Greenpeace has documented such funding sources as the Charles Koch Foundation, the American Petroleum Institute, Exxon Mobile and the Electric Power Research Institute, among others. All of which have profit incentives to counter the consensus of science that corporations are creating conditions that threaten life on the planet. What will an ardent capitalist not do to maximize profit?

The question of whether greed-based capitalism warps character can be settled best by the example of the tobacco industry.

The facts are pretty conclusive: odds are that ingesting tobacco will lead to cancer. In short, tobacco kills. Yet here we have a billion-dollar industry devoted to the manufacture and distribution of a delivery system for a poison that leads to gruesome suffering and death — and with full knowledge that that poison is addictive.

The profit of the tobacco industry is realized through advertising appeals of Phillip Morris, et al, intended to lure (often young) people into an addiction that’ll kill them. And yet, (and here’s the character-corruption part) in April of 1994 seven intelligent, well-suited (and probably admired in their community) tobacco CEOs, one after the other, testified under oath that they did not believe nicotine was addictive.

But the character of everyone having to do with the manufacture of tobacco is tainted. The cogs of a system make a system go. Capitalism relies upon malleable character to do business — but should this be surprising in an economic system propelled on the grease of Gordon Gekko’s greed?

We’re told that capitalism is the best of all possible economic systems and there’s no doubt it has produced a cornucopia of wonders and comforts (Joseph Stiglitz agrees). But capitalism is also much like a Ponzi scheme: if you’ve gotten in early and are near the top (USA), capitalism’s a wonderful thing, but if you’re a victim of its unregulated excesses —one of those victimized by the corruption capitalism brings (3rd World nations and labor in general)— it may be more like hell.

The problem is, as capitalism outdoes itself in the short-sighted rapacity of endless growth and escalating profit, everyone on Earth becomes its victim — even its success stories, or their offspring.

African Traditional Practices, How bad are they?

OUR African traditions have come under fire in many circles. Daily we have so-called learned people, experts in this and that, blaming African traditional practices for a whole lot of things.

African traditions have become nothing but barriers to development, even in the eyes of Africans themselves.

This makes us wonder where we are headed as Africans living in Africa. With this globalization that has come, what will remain of true African traditions?

Slowly, and systematically, African traditional practices are being pushed aside, and out of existence.

Is it not sad that most HIV and AIDS campaigns, using a Eurocentric view of things, have, on a daily basis, lambasted and demonized our traditional practices and our own people have silently condoned this destruction?

Many a time we have been told that this and that traditional practice is bad, that it increases the risks of HIV and AIDS infections or that this practice is some form of women abuse or an undemocratic way of doing things.

One by one our traditional practices have been castigated, demonized and thrown out of the window.

Polygamy has been criticized as a serious driver of HIV and AIDS in Africa. We are yet to see scientific proof and statistics clearly showing how polygamy drives HIV and AIDS. Where are the defenders of our traditions?

True HIV and AIDS is running riot in Africa. But is it because of polygamy?

What is more safe to have two or three wives legally than what we are seeing in the West where people are changing partners every month or year?

We don't hear any condemnation of the popular culture in Europe and Hollywood. Is it because in Africa we are dying in millions? Our teenagers read about American stars dating this star this week and moving to another within a couple of weeks. This behavior seems acceptable, normal. Why? Is it because these celebrities are not dying of HIV and AIDS?

If the idea is about discouraging many partnerships then all forms of multi-partnerships should be denounced.

Many other traditional practices such have been labelled such as inheritance of widows as forms of women abuse and drivers of the pandemic. Again no one has stood up to defend it. Imbalu has been classified under sexual abuse, the extended family has been rejected by many. Our traditional forms of worship and other religious rituals have, for years, been called pagan and demonic.

Sadly, artistes, cultural activists and traditionalists alike have conspired to be silent and not defend our practices. But honestly speaking are the claims about most of our cultural practices facts or mere biased opinions?

Why is no one challenging these assertions? Or are we all afraid that challenging them may be seen as politically incorrect and might lead to one being alienated by the donor community?

Perhaps it's time our artistes, and those that believe the arts and culture are a community or nation's umbilical cod, stood up and began defending our culture and tradition.

We are not, in anyway, saying everything about our culture and tradition needs defending.

All we are saying is we are yet to hear someone standing up and telling us certain traditional cultural practices are crucial to our survival and therefore should not be discarded at the instigation of people of another culture or other traditions.

Certainly there must be certain practices that we should keep to remain true to ourselves, to remain true Ugandans or true Africans.

Honestly, we are waiting for a time when someone will stand up and tell us how we can use certain positive traditional practices in our different cultures to fight the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Surely, all our traditional practices are not that bad, they are not all drivers of HIV and Aids or some forms of women abuse.

If we truly believe that the role of an artiste, or other cultural practitioner goes beyond just mirroring the society, that they are duty-bound to direct society in the direction they see fit, then we must start demanding certain standards, certain levels of thinking and doing things from them.

As a community or a nation we should go beyond measuring an artiste's success by the trips he or she makes abroad, or by the cars or clothes he or she wears, or by the awards he or she wins every year.

Our artistes' success must be measured by the issues they deal with and how they affect the society they live in.

Artistes must be measured by their contribution to the development of their own communities or societies, politically, morally, socially and economically.

This is the time to start standing up and defending our own traditional practices.

The Complexity of African Witchcraft

The expression “It’s just witchcraft” is misleading. Witchcraft moves from one imaginary representation to the other, between Western imagery and African realities. Religion shows the power of magis, fairies, and enchanters.

However, it is also a gateway to the shadowy occult world and forces of evil, of which the sulphurous sorcerer is the intermediary, an archaic figure of charlatanism. The colonial and the scientific spirit confused the reading of this phenomenon which becomes more fleeting the more that one tries to define it.

In Hergé’s unforgettable Tintin in the Congo, Tintin’s poodle Milou strikes down the enormous lion that had terrorized an African village, further proof of colonial power. The Babaoro’m people’s sorcerer, depicted wearing a pot on his head, understands the danger of this imbalanced competition. The reflections of the all-powerful sorcerer, in French in the text :

“This little white, he take too much power. Soon, the Blacks no listen to me, their sorcerer, anymore. Have to get rid of this White.” The duel ends in the sorcerer’s defeat. Thanks to his skills and – and aspirin that destroys evil spirits – Tintin takes control of the situation, and ends a tribal war (the Babaoro’m against the m’Hatouvou), provoking the adoration of the m’Hatouvou : “You big witch ! You be king of m’Hatouvou !”

Colonial language invoked a pejorative lexicon to speak of the complexity of ritual African practices. A world where spiritual concerns, instrumentalized magic and religious tradition were all grouped together. According to a series of degrading equations, religion = superstition, cultural objects = magical amulets or objects, and officiator = sorcerer.

In the New World, before the cultural reappropriation of the 1930s, the sorcerer (who also made the dreadful journey in the holds of slave ships) appeared as an evil being. He was seen as shadowy servant of occult forces, a virtuoso of poisons and spells, the familiar of bloody sacrifices. Even worse, he was also the catalyst of revolts and fires that brought terrible consequences. In this case, good-bye sugar, tobacco, cotton, beautiful homes and easy fortune.

 Makandal, “the Mandingo sorcerer”, devised a plan to poison the colonists of Saint Domingue (1757-1758). Then, Boukman, another voodoo practitioner, started the 1791 insurrection, whose revolutionary alchemy would transform Saint Domingue into Haiti. However, the fear of witches has much older origins.

An age-old story

The phobia of witches took hold in two powerful currents of thought : the big three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and the cult of scientific thought. Moses’ commandments forbid consulting seers on pain of being considered unclean ; the New Testament condemns frequenting magicians ; and, Islam rejects all forms of idolatry. 

The geopolitical expansion of Christianity and the expansion of Islam considerably reduced – and sometimes liquidated- polytheistic religions. The latter favoured a multiplicity of divinities, provoking an animist proliferation of the sacred, and the growth of rites and sacrifices.

In France, Chateaubriand congratulated himself that The Genius of Christianity swept away all confusion regarding wandering gods of Greco-Roman antiquity and the undesirable blurring of man/animal by centaurs, sirens and other. The guardians of polytheistic cults ended up with two different “North/South” rankings : on one hand, the Greek priestesses, Roman vestals, and Druids ; on the other side, African sorcerers and their supplies of gris-gris, leopard skins, amulets, straw skirts and mysterious masks.

The supernatural which was vanquished in the West lived on in nostalgic and commercial marvels : the wizard Merlin, the witches of Charmed, and Harry Potter. In Christian Europe, the Inquisition resulted in terrible, fiery witch hunts. Colonial expansion went on to bring powerless African “witchcraft” into contact with militarized capitalism which relyied on both the “civilizing power” of Christianity and triumphant science.

What use were a sorcerer’s gris-gris and fetishes against guns and canons ? 

It required an enormous amount of work on the part of anthropologists to normalize, in scientific terms, the world of sorcery. Applied to the African context, the term witch remains pejorative and unclear.

African witchcraft : appellation non-contrôlée

The uncontrolled usage of the term African witchcraft feeds into a sort of religious segregation which leads to a spiritual ghetto. This ghettoization does not enable comprehension of the phenomenon’s complexity in Africa. Most of the time, the guardians of African religions favour either : divinity cults, divination, or traditional plant-based medicines. Those that engage in dark practices are looked down upon, sometimes even hunted or killed in times of societal crisis.

In Bantu society, the healer (mganga) is dissociated from the spell-casting sorcerer (ndoki). The Yoruba distinguish between the babalorisha (agent of the divinities), the babalawo (soothsayer), the babalosain (healer), and the babaegun (appointee to mortuary cults). In the southern regions of three countries in the Gulf of Benin region (Togo, Benin, and Nigeria), the Fa or Ifa techniques of divination present great sophistication.

In Madagascar, the officiator and traditional healer, the ombiasy is distinct form the sorcerer that practices black magic, the mpamosavy. However, great importance is placed on the divination of the mpanandro, mpisikidy, or mpamintna. These different fields are not definitively separated. More and more, the prevailing trend is towards concentration. The majority of time, the sorcerer chooses to limit himself to beneficent works “travailler des deux mains” by acceding to both positive and negative requests by clients who are considered responsible for the consequences of their demands.

Thus, sorcery as a supernatural force can be offered in a positive form (aswewe) or negative (azevè). The outside perception of the phenomenon is confused by the fact that, under the category of sorcery, the religious dimension (explanation of the workings of the world, ethical cosmogony, sacred acts) as well as magical practices targeting the capture of spiritual energy to obtain material rewards, are considered the same.

The Dark Side

In the 1989 film Yaaba (grandmother, in More), Burkinabe filmmaker Idrissa Ouedraogo tells the story of a solitary old woman who provokes a village’s hostility and ends up lynched because she is considered a witch. Cases like this are not rare in contemporary Africa. With Rural exodus and civil wars, elderly women and child soldiers, considered useless mouths to feed, are often left to fend for themselves, revealing the limits of solidarity in weakened societies. 

These are not real witches but the scapegoats of collective anxiety.

These victims, sacrificed in times of crisis, recall the case of the pharmakon in ancient Greece, people of marginal status (prisoners of war, handicapped people, foreigners, slaves) who were sacrificed in times of calamity, epidemics, or famine. In the excellent book Violence and the Sacred, Rene Girard explains the therapeutic function of these ritualized collective killings.

In Africa the idea that occult forces can be used for evil ends often incite dangerous suspicion in cases of unexpected natural death, repeated sickness or spectacular success. Faced with the dark and incomprehensible aspects of punitive sorcery, many African states attempt to regulate the uncontrollable violence of occult proceedings by implementing legal repression of such acts. Chad and Cameroon’s legal codes condemn delinquent witchcraft practices.

Due to its implantation in traditional culture, the complexity rests undiminished because the sorcerer is able to impose his presence, even if detested, in the relational fabric and it can be used either as an executioner of punishments or as an indispensable intermediary in police enquiries as in Sorcellerie à bout portant by the Congolese author Achille Ngoye.

Unforeseeable metamorphoses

The word sorcerer conveys many meanings. The uncertain nature, by the harnessing of psychic uncertainty, enables its use as a method of explanation, interpretation and influence on opinion. The negative perspective on witchcraft serves as explanation for one of modern Africa’s biggest calamities, AIDS, especially in the DRC and southern Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland). Desocialized children coming from civil wars are sometimes accused of transmitting it.

The nganga healers, accepted as such in Bantu Africa, can plan an information relaying role while those considered bewitched messengers are looked down upon and sometimes mistreated. The international press showed a particular case at the fork between power and manipulative sorcery regarding the Gambian president, Yayah Jammeh (continually re-elected since 1996). With the help of incantations, Koran and plant-inspired prayers, the President created a “miracle cure”.

Just as in days gone by, relations between political power and religion were very widespread before the separation of powers ; the links between power and witchcraft have in no way disappeared. Marabouts and feticheurs are hardly absent from the electoral context. Even invoked during football matches, sorcery is too rooted in the collective unconscious and the supernatural to disappear from the mental landscape.

Africa & Witchcraft. A Case of Separated at Birth?

A  poll recently found that belief in magic is widespread throughout sub-Saharan Africa, with over half of respondents saying they personally believe in witchcraft.

Studies in 18 countries show belief varies widely (ranging from 15 percent in Uganda to 95 percent in the Ivory Coast), but on average 55 percent of people polled believe in witchcraft.

As might be expected, the older and less educated respondents reported higher belief in witchcraft, but interestingly such belief was inversely linked to happiness. Those who believe in witchcraft rated their lives significantly less satisfying than those who did not.

One likely explanation is that those who believe in witchcraft feel they have less control over their own lives. People who believe in witchcraft often feel victimized by supernatural forces, for example, attributing accidents or disease to evil sorcery instead of randomness or naturalistic causes.

A cultural belief in witchcraft has wider implications for Africans as well, from law enforcement to aid donations to public health. In Africa, witch doctors are consulted not only for healing diseases, but also for placing curses on rivals. Magic (or at least the belief in magic) is commonly used for personal, political, and financial gain.

African belief in witchcraft has also led to horrific murders and mutilations in recent years. In 2008, a mob of hundreds of young men killed eight women and three men in two villages in rural western Kenya.

The victims were accused of witchcraft — having cast spells that lowered the intelligence of the village's children. Some of the suspected witches and wizards were hacked to death with machetes, or had their throats slit before their bodies were burned.

In East Africa, at least 50 albinos (people with a rare genetic disorder that leaves the skin, hair and eyes without pigment) were murdered for their body parts in 2009, according to the Red Cross. An albino's arms, fingers, genitals, ears, and blood are highly prized on the black market, believed to contain magical powers and are used in witchcraft.

In a continent of dark-skinned Africans, albinos are often the subject of fear, hatred, and ridicule.

The practice of using body parts for magical ritual or benefit is called muti. Such attacks are particularly brutal, with knives and machetes used to cut and hack off limbs, breasts and other body parts from their screaming victims — including children.

While personal belief in magic and witchcraft may seem harmless, the actions some people take based on those beliefs clearly are not. 

Homosexuality.. The Christian Perspective

Homosexuality, what is it?

Homosexuality is the manifestation of sexual desire toward a member of one's own sex or the erotic activity with a member of the same sex. (The Greek word homos means the same). A lesbian is a female homosexual. More recently the term "gay" has come into popular use to refer to both sexes who are homosexuals.

Is the practice  right or wrong?

That depends upon who is answering the question. The Christian point of view is based solely upon the Bible, the divinely inspired Word of God. A truly Christian standard of ethics is the conduct of divine revelation, not of statistical research nor of public opinion. For the Christian, the Bible is the final authority for both belief and behaviour.

What’s the bible’s explicit teaching about homosexuality?

This question I consider to be basic because, if we accept God's Word on the subject of homosexuality, we benefit from His adequate answer to this problem. I am concerned only with the Christian or biblical view of homosexuality. The Bible has much to say about sex sins in general.

First, there is adultery. Adultery in the natural sense is sexual intercourse of a married person with someone other than his or her own spouse. It is condemned in both the Old and New Testaments (Exodus 20:14; I Cor. 6:9, 10). Christ forbids dwelling upon the thoughts, the free play of one's imagination that leads to adultery (Matthew 5:28).

Second, there is fornication, the illicit sex acts of unmarried persons which is likewise forbidden (I Corinthians 5:1; 6:13, 18; Ephesians 5:3).

Then there is homosexuality which likewise is condemned in Scripture. The Apostle Paul, writing by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, declares that homosexuality "shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians 6:9; 10). Now Paul does not single out the homosexual as a special offender.

He includes fornicators, idolators, adulterers, thieves, covetous persons, drunkards, revilers and extortioners. And then he adds the comment that some of the Christians at Corinth had been delivered from these very practices: "And such were some of you: But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God" (I Corinthians 6:11). All of the sins mentioned in this passage are condemned by God, but just as there was hope in Christ for the Corinthians, so is there hope for all of us.

Homosexuality is an illicit lust forbidden by God. He said to His people Israel, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination" (Leviticus 18:22). "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" (Leviticus 20:13).

 In these passages homosexuality is condemned as a prime example of sin, a sexual perversion. The Christian can neither alter God's viewpoint nor depart from it.

In the Bible sodomy is a synonym for homosexuality. God spoke plainly on the matter when He said, "There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel" (Deuteronomy 23:17). The whore and the sodomite are in the same category. 

A sodomite was not an inhabitant of Sodom nor a descendant of an inhabitant of Sodom, but a man who had given himself to homosexuality, and the unnatural vice for which Sodom was known.¹ Let us look at the passages in question:

But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house around, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:

And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. (Genesis 19:4-8)

The Hebrew word for "know" in verse 5 is yada`, a sexual term. It is used frequently to denote sexual intercourse (Genesis 4:1, 17, 25; Matthew 1:24, 25). The message in the context of Genesis 19 is clear. Lot pled with the men to "do not so wickedly." Homosexuality is wickedness and must be recognized as such else there is no hope for the homosexual who is asking for help to be extricated from his sinful way of life.

So what’s with these marriage ceremonies in which two persons of the same sex are united by an officiating clergyman or justice of the peace?

To call a union of two persons of the same sex a "marriage" is a misnomer. In the Bible, marriage is a divinely ordered institution designed to form a permanent union between one man and one woman for one purpose (among others) of procreating or propagating the human race. That was God's order in the first of such unions (Genesis 1:27, 28; 2:24; Matthew 19:5). 

If, in His original creation of humans, God had created two persons of the same sex, there would not be a human race in existence today. The whole idea of two persons of the same sex marrying is absurd, unsound, ridiculously unreasonable, stupid. A clergyman might bless a homosexual marriage but God won't.

My comments on the words of a Jesuit Priest, John J. McNeill, who once said "There is no clear condemnation of homosexual activity to be found anywhere in the Bible." During a conference called Christianity Today, on June 3, 1977

This particular Jesuit priest, like some other supposedly Christian theologians, have totally ignored the Scriptures as the guidelines for Christian behaviour in regard to homosexuality. McNeill does not speak for the Roman Catholic Church, but for a small segment of priests who, having vowed themselves to celibacy, that is, to abstain from marriage and sexual intercourse, have found sexual gratification in homosexual acts.

However, sexual sins are to often practiced and/or condoned by religious leaders. Religious leaders on both sides of the Atlantic have gradually eased away from the Scriptures.¹ In England men like Bishop John Robinson, in his book Honest to God made a play on the term "The New Morality," which in reality was a plea to open the door to immorality making it respectable and thus acceptable.

The Bishop went so far as to describe the unscriptural adulterous relationship as "a kind of holy communion." This modern concept of Christian ethics rejects totally the precepts laid down by God in His Word. It is blasphemous and atheistic.

Recently in America , I read about ten homosexually oriented religious organizations, comprised of men and women from more than a dozen denominations, and from seventeen states and Canada, met at Kirkbridge, a retreat and study center near Bangor, Pennsylvania. The retreat was entitled, "Gay and Christian." But the two terms, "gay" and "Christian" are mutually exclusive, incompatible, incongruous.

Representing the women at that retreat, Nancy Krody a lesbian, spoke on "The Lesbian Christian Experience." Here again is a misnomer. A practicing Christian, from the biblical viewpoint, will not be a practicing homosexual. Of course, I make the distinction between a professing Christian and a practicing Christian. Calling one's self a Christian does not make one a Christian.

Malcolm Boyd speaks about "The Gay Male Christian Experience." Boyd, a protestant clergyman, says he has been a homosexual secretly for years. Only recently he made a public announcement of his homosexuality. He claims that his public announcement of his homosexuality has brought him back to the church. Boyd does not tell us what he means by the "church"!

Following is one point on which the speakers at Kirkbridge agreed: "A monogamous homosexual relationship characterized by fidelity, honesty and love is possible, desirable, and honoring to God."

Any evil condemned in Scripture cannot be honouring to God. Homosexual religious leaders attempt to smooth over the breaks and rough places with Christian terminology so that a euphoria predominates, but God is not in it. A truly born again person, who loves and understands the Bible as God's revelation to him, will not condone an evil that God condemns.

"If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of Him" (I John 2:29). "Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His. And, let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity" (II Timothy 2:19). Practicing homosexuals are engaged in a divinely forbidden evil.

Homosexuals refer to themselves as “gays”, why?

The word "gay" means merry, exuberant, bright, lively. More recently it has been adopted by homosexuals. In its original use it did not have this double meaning. The clever adaptation of the word "gay" by homosexuals has robbed it of its pure meaning, thereby corrupting a once perfectly good word. I never use the word "gay" when referring to homosexuals.¹

First Corinthians 6:9-11. What is the meaning of the word "effeminate" in verse 9?

There are certain words in every language that can be used in a good or bad sense. In the context of this verse the use of "effeminate" is obviously in a bad sense. It is listed among other evils which are condemned.

 It describes feminine qualities inappropriate to a man.

 It is normal and natural for a woman to be sexually attracted to a man; it is abnormal and unnatural for a man to be sexually attracted to another man. Many male homosexuals are effeminate, but not all. Nor are all lesbians unduly masculine.

Other Scriptures in the New Testament which deal with homosexuality

 Romans 1:24-27; I Timothy 1:10 and Jude 7. If one takes these Scriptures seriously, homosexuality will be recognized as an evil. The Romans passage is unmistakably clear. Paul attributes the moral depravity of men and women to their rejection of "the truth of God" (1:25). They refused "to retain God in their knowledge" (1:28), thereby dethroning God and deifying themselves. 

The Old Testament had clearly condemned homosexuality but in Paul's day there were those persons who rejected its teaching. Because of their rejection of God's commands He punished their sin by delivering them over to it.

The philosophy of substituting God's Word with one's own reasoning commenced with Satan. He introduced it at the outset of the human race by suggesting to Eve that she ignore God's orders, assuring her that in so doing she would become like God with the power to discern good and evil (Genesis 3:1-5).

That was Satan's big lie. Paul said that when any person rejects God's truth, his mind becomes "reprobate," meaning void of sound judgment.¹The reprobate mind, having rejected God's truth, is not capable of discerning good and evil.

In Romans 1:26-31 twenty-three punishable sins are listed with homosexuality leading the list. Paul wrote, "For this cause God gave them up into vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet" (Romans 1:26, 27). These verses are telling us that homosexuals suffer in their body and personality the inevitable consequences of their wrong doing.

Notice that the behaviour of the homosexual is described as a "vile affection" (1:26). The Greek word translated "vile" (atimia) means filthy, dirty, evil, dishonourable. The word "affection" in Greek is pathos, used by the Greeks of either a good or bad desire. Here in the context of Romans it is used in a bad sense. The "vile affection" is a degrading passion, a shameful lust. Both the desire (lusting after) and the act of homosexuality are condemned in the Bible as sin.

About allegations that Homosexuality is a genetic problem, any evidence to support such?

I read in a periodical that in June, 1963 a panel of specialists in medicine, psychiatry, law, sociology and theology participated in a conference on homosexuality called by the Swiss Evangelical Church Union. That group reached the conclusion that homosexuality is not constitutionally inherited, it is not a part of one's genetic makeup. The ill-founded and unverifiable myth that homosexuality results from genetic causes is gradually fading away.

There are possibly a number of different ways in which homosexual practices could begin. When boys and girls reach puberty and the genital organs develop, it is not uncommon for boys to experiment with boys, and girls with girls. In prisons where men and women are denied access to persons of the opposite sex for long periods of time, some are introduced to homosexuality for the first time.

Homosexuality must be accepted for what God says it is-- sin. Some homosexuals will attempt to circumvent the plain teaching of the Bible with the reply that they are the way God made them.¹ There is not the slightest bit of evidence in Scripture to support this false concept. God never created man with a so-called "homosexual need." No baby is born a homosexual. Every baby is born male or female. In every place the Bible refers to homosexuality, the emphasis is upon the perversion of sexuality.

The practicing homosexual is guilty of "leaving the natural use of the woman" (Romans 1:27), meaning that his behaviour is "against nature" as in the case of the lesbian (Romans 1:26). In as much as homosexuality is opposed to the regular law and order of nature, the genetic concept must be ruled out completely. If homosexuality were a genetic problem, there would be little hope for the homosexual simply because there is no way that the genes in a person can be changed.

Are there contributing factors to homosexuality for which a homosexual might not be responsible?

I believe there are. I have not done much research in this area, however, studies made by others showed varied deviations from the average or normal parent-child relationship. For example, clinical cases show that some homosexuals have not had a normal or natural relationship with the parent of the same sex. In some instances there has been a wide gap between father and son. 

There are those boys who have been neglected by their unaffectionate fathers. The boy who has not had a good and wholesome relationship with his father could have an unfulfilled need for a father relationship with a man.

Now that need will not start out as a sexual one, but there are cases on record in which the sexual relationship has developed. I know one case of a homosexual adult who seduced a 13 year old boy whose father had forsaken him. Before the boy's contact with the older man he had no knowledge whatever of homosexuality. The older man seduced the boy.

Lesbianism has been known to follow this same pattern. Some mother-daughter relationships are not conducive to a normal social and sexual development.

Is the homosexual controversy causing problems for churches of Uganda?

Evil in any form is a problem in the church. It always has been. The greater problem, however, is the church's failure to discipline evil when it arises. Karl Menninger's book, Whatever Became of Sin?, deals directly with that point.

There are ministers, priests, and pastors  who never talk about sin. There was a time when the minister of God's Word preached the whole counsel of God. Today many pulpits are silent on the sin question. Sin has become fashionable and therefore acceptable. When sin gets its victim into serious difficulty, the psychiatrist and psychologist tell him he is sick. The church must face the fact of sin squarely.

The Bible tells us how the church should deal with sexual sins

In Old Testament times in Israel God dealt severely with homosexuals. He warned His people through Moses, "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" (Leviticus 20:13). Every Jew knew that homosexuality was an abomination, a disgusting practice to be loathed, hated. This was God's attitude toward that evil practice.

He hated it to the extent that He considered it worthy of punishment by death. Now God loved His people Israel dearly, and it was from His great heart of love that He chastened them. The Epistle to the Hebrews says, "For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth" (Hebrews 12:7).

When God issued His law forbidding homosexuality, and the punishment for those persons who violated that law, He did so in order to prevent them from sinning. However, when anyone broke the law, the offender paid the penalty due him. God is a holy God who hates and judges sin. Parents who love their children will not refrain from warning them of prevailing evils, nor will they fail to chasten them when they disobey. The church today not only tolerates sin but in some instances condones it. God does neither.

In the New Testament the principle of discipline was applied with apostolic authority. In the church at Corinth the young man who was committing fornication with his step-mother was excommunicated. Paul instructed the church to take that action "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . and with the power (i.e. the authority) of our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Corinthians 5:1-8). In Romans 1:21-32 where Paul shows the Gentile world in its downward plunge into sin, including the sin of homosexuality, verse 32 concludes with the words, "who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death . . . " Worthy of death, yes.

But today we are not under law but under grace. People used to hear and heed the Gospel-truth, the message that God is holy, man is a sinner, and that through faith in the substitutionary death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, sinful people can be born again and thereby delivered from the guilt and penalty and practice of their sins.

My suggestions and recommendations for the church

Nothing is more foundationally essential for the church and the world than a return to the truth. Recently I read where someone said we are suffering from a famine of the worst kind, "a truth-famine."

Our modern culture is in a degenerating, deteriorating stage caused by a departure from the truth. And I must say unequivocally that truth does not exist independently of God, and His written Word the Bible, and His Son Jesus Christ.

Truth is in no sense of man's imagination or contrivance. Man in his fallen state does not know truth, and that is why he continues to go on sinning. A civilization without the truth is doomed to oblivion. Every ancient civilization that ignored God and His laws has crumbled. Our present civilization is well on the road to doom. We cannot survive independently of God and His Word.

The Church must return to the truth, the whole truth, the sum total of truth founded and grounded upon Him Who said, "I am the truth" (John 14:6). In our Lord's high priestly prayer for His own He prayed, "Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy Word is truth" (John 17:17).

There must be in our churches the clear exposition of the Scriptures and a continuing exaltation of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ if our civilization is to be saved from the disasters that overcame past civilizations. Any civilization with a philosophy or a doctrine which denies the real truth cannot survive.

Any prophetic significance in the recent homosexual upsurge?

Yes, I see some. However, I would suggest caution on this point. It is not uncommon for preachers to attach a prophetic meaning to every earthquake, riot, war, moral scandal or political disaster, labelling all such events as "signs of the times."

The modern homosexual upsweep is one phase of a declining trend in morals. When the disciples asked our Lord, "What shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the consummation of the age?" He told them that "iniquity shall abound" (Matthew 24:3, 12).

There is today a permissiveness and a promiscuity in sexual behaviour unprecedented in the history of Uganda. There is little restraint upon the widespread of material containing pictures and writing depicting erotic behaviour intended to cause sexual excitement. This would be included in our Lord's prophecy about abounding iniquity.

There is also a prophetic statement in Paul's Second Epistle to Timothy which has some bearing upon the subject we are discussing. Paul said, "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 

For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection . . . " (II Timothy 3:1-3). Homosexuality is an unnatural affection, practiced by persons "that defile themselves with mankind" (I Timothy 1:10),

 I conclude, in the light of these Scriptures, that the rise of homosexuality is very definitely a trend which indicates the approaching end of the age.

What should be the Christian's attitude toward the homosexual?

We must always keep before us the fact that homosexuals, like all of us sinners, are the objects of God's love. The Bible says, "But God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Jesus Christ "is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (I John 2:2). The Christian who shares God's love for lost sinners will seek to reach the homosexual with the gospel of Christ, which "is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth" (Romans 1:16).

As a Christian I should hate all sin but I can find no justification for hating the sinner. The homosexual is a precious soul for whom Christ died. We Christians can show him the best way of life by pointing him to Christ. Our Lord said, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). We are obligated to take the gospel to all.

Help to those who get involved in the practice of homosexuality

We can help them by seeking to draw their attention to what God says in His Word. In a kind and loving spirit we can show them that they are wrong.

However, the homosexual must admit to the fact that he is living in sin and that he has the desire to be made free from it. Without a genuine conviction of God's displeasure and a strong desire to do God's will, there is no hope.

A true Christian cannot continue to practice sin without reaping the results of miserable unhappiness brought on by loss of fellowship with God, the fear of retribution and the anxiety produced by guilt. The homosexual must ask himself, "Is the temporary gratification of the flesh worth all the penalty and losses I must suffer?"

Syrian Conflict and why no one wants it to spread

Responses to the Syrian bombing of a Turkish village were swift, but Ankara, its neighbours and the west have no interest in war

Fighting across the Syrian-Turkish border is an alarming escalation of the conflict but, on past form, beyond any immediate retaliation for the incident, it still looks unlikely to change the overall contours of the bloodiest crisis of the Arab spring.

The sharpness of Nato's late-night response to Syria's shelling that left five dead in a Turkish village has been backed up by strongly worded public statements from the US, Britain and other member states, which may turn out to be more robust than any reaction on the ground. Intervention will probably be limited in both scope and duration.

Turkey received full backing to retaliate, certainly with artillery fire but without air strikes and only a signal of readiness to cross the border if provoked again. But the clear message from a senior official – fashionably announced not in a diplomatic demarche but on Twitter – was that Ankara has "no interest in war".

The Atlantic alliance wants to stay away from the Syrian quagmire. Tellingly, ambassadors meeting in Brussels invoked the article of Nato's charter that refers to solidarity rather than the one that requires member states to come to the defence of another. Turkey, which was lavishly praised for its "restraint", will not act alone.

In Damascus, the government seemed just as keen to calm the mood, quickly offering "sincere condolences" to Ankara and announcing an investigation into exactly what happened at Alkacale. Russia, its chief protector, urged the Assad regime to apologise for an "accident." Assad's overall strategy, of war to the end the uprising, will continue.

Turkey, along with neighbouring Lebanon and Jordan, has been living with the tremors of the Syrian earthquake for more than 18 months, though the main impact has been refugee flows – 120,000 in Turkey – rather than military action, deliberate or accidental. Parliament's mandate for incursions is a template that has been used before to deal with the Kurds in Iraq. It was intended as a deterrent.

Talk of creating "safe zones" or "humanitarian corridors" in the border area, a key demand of the Syrian opposition, was quick to resurface. The hope is that rebels in the Idlib area could consolidate their position with a degree of international protection they have so far been denied. But the politics of implementing such ideas remains as tangled as ever. Syria's formidable air defences – which would have to be destroyed to create a "no-fly" zone – are still invoked as one good reason not to get involved. There are many others.

At the United Nations, the security council is paralysed by deep divisions between the US, Britain and France on the one hand and Russia and China on the other. UN approval for any kind of Libyan-style military action in Syria seems impossible. And action without UN agreement looks equally impossible. As before, western diplomatic efforts will focus on getting Russia to change tack to hasten Assad's departure and contain the crisis. That won't be any easier than it was before.

The Syrian rebels and their Arab supporters will see an irony in the spasm of international outrage generated by this border incident. Early on Thursday Syria was trending on Twitter for the first time in months – routine killing now passes without much attention.

Assad's enemies say bitterly that despite all the calls on him to step down and end the bloodshed, too little is being done to make that happen. The only "red line" laid down by the US is the use of chemical weapons. Syria has made clear it will not use them unless attacked by an outside power. And no outside party, Turkey included, wants the conflict inside Syria to spread beyond its borders.

When people don’t behave according to economic models

What falls outside the standard assumptions and models of economics?  How does that matter for development?  Last week, the Africa Chief Economist’s Office and the Development Economics Research Group of the World Bank sponsored a star-studded course exploring exactly this issue.

Nobel Prize winner George Akerlof highlighted how, because of all the advantages of markets, we ignore the traps that come along with them.  Sellers can deceive buyers and prey on their unconscious biases, lack of self-control, and naiveté.

Using his famous “lemons” market example, Akerlof showed that, instead of there being no equilibrium, naïve buyers will in equilibrium buy poor-quality used cars. He calls this phenomenon “Phishing for Phools”.

Decisions are also consistently affected by beliefs about what is right and what is normal, the “framing” of our choices.  World Bank economist Karla Hoff showed how soap operas have dramatically affected people’s beliefs about reconciliation and a willingness to disagree with leaders in post-genocide Rwanda; they have also positively affected views of women’s roles in India.  Likewise, quotas on women community leaders in India have transformed people’s views on the appropriateness of women in leadership positions.  Not only is framing powerful: Popular media can be used to shape frames and open people to a wider array of choices.

Esther Duflo of MIT showed how a rational decision maker could be affected by hope and hopelessness, often leaving him or her in a poverty trap.  Imagine a business which must cross a certain threshold to reach high profitability.  A small business owner who doesn’t believe she has a chance of ever crossing that line may decide it isn’t worth doing her best on other business decisions.  Likewise, someone who doesn’t believe they’ll ever be truly healthy may not see a point in investing in nutrition.  “A little bit of hope allows people to realize their potential,”  she said.

Taking the long view, Nathan Nunn of Harvard University demonstrated how slavery patterns hundreds of years ago still affect trust today, and how the type of agriculture employed by ancestors (plow or hoe?) affects gender views today.  These historically determined views can be slow to evolve, a counter to the frame-shifting examples given by Hoff.

A panel of researchers in behavioral economics highlighted that behavioral economics can inform the design of policies and programs to influence take-up and compliance. Shanta Devarajan (if you don’t know who he is, you must be new to the blog) underlined that some of the apparent deviations from rational decision making may be due to political forces rather than psychological biases.  At the same time, political actors are subject to these same biases.

Beyond being interesting, these insights need to be applied to the first-order poverty problems facing the world today.  How can knowledge of framing, hope, and culture be put to work to reduce poverty?