Omusawo Muniini Mulera
I thank you for this one sided view of what the Late Bishop Festo Kivengere
was. Like you I, too had many occasions to listen to him preach and wallow in
the beauty of his Bahororo descent and how they (he and his wife) managed to
keep their marriage ever youthful. What I am uncomfortable about is that you
have emphasized his oratory skills and translated it to his other social et
management skills.
Anyone who ever cared to know, knew that Kivengere was also in charge of the
African Evangelistic Enterprise(AEE). He, together with his right hand man, the
also deceased Rev John Johnson were involved in gross financial malfeasance at
the AEE where millions of US Dollars were misappropriated and used to put up
Mega million dollar investments in their personal names in Kigali Rwanda. When
the Church of Uganda (COU) house of Bishops found out, there was an audit done
on the AEE and before Rev John Johnson(RIP) could give the culpatory evidenced,
he was one morning in 1987as he left Namirembe Guest house to get downtown
Kampala, gunned down. When Kivengere's strong man Museveni was asked about who
could have done this, he, Ssebagabe feigned ignorance of who the Rev John
Johnson was. To this date the malpractices that were unearthed in the AEE,
courtesy of Kivengere and John Johnson will never be fully fathomed for they
have now assumed Ethereal existence.
With this type of background, I expected a man of your enlightenment to be more
balanced with your analysis than just pouring out praises on a man who fell
short of being the saint you would have beatified him to be. If you bother to
make a scan into the lives of the many evangelists world wide, they are all the
same. Men and Women who have perfected the art of coning ordinary people by
appealing to their intangible beliefs and lives. So, please, revisit your view
of Kivengere. He was indeed a good orator but anything but a Saint.
And society simply demands that you tell the facts as they are.
Em
Toronto
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"
----- Original Message -----
From: kale heru
To: kale heru
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2007 5:18 PM
Subject: :::When crooks did not rule the pulpit in Uganda_KIVENGERE did!!:::
Dear Mr. Mulera,
You wrote, and I quote:
:::::::::::::::::::::::::
"Bishop Kivengere was the most well travelled Ugandan evangelist of his
time, standing shoulder to shoulder with famous international
preachers like Rev. Billy Graham of the United States and Rev. Michael
Cassidy of South Africa. Yet he happily served as the first African
bishop of the small Anglican diocese of Kigezi and took his seat as an
equal among the less famous bishops in the Church of Uganda."
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Anybody who was of age in the 1980s knows very well how the late bishop
Kivengere was the right-hand man of your M7 and his NRA/NRM. This is something
you know very very well - so why this lie?
After M7 grabbed power, it was even "rumoured" (as you know there are no
secretes on the streets of Kampala), that M7 even went to the late Kivengere's
home to secretely marry (but may have been introduction?) one of Kivengere's
daughters. I am not sure if that was Hope Kivengere. Is it even a surprise
that Hope Kivenge has held such posts and power since they grabbed power?
Please, next time you try to save someone's face, or try to tell a lie of
this nature, think twice as you may not own the monopoly of all information!
You may fool many people, but you won't fool everybody!
Have a nice week.
Kale Heru
..............
When crooks did not rule the pulpit in Uganda
July 16, 2007
Dear Tingasiga: There was a time, not long ago, when pulpit-hopping
crooks were a very rare phenomenon in the Christian churches in
Uganda.
Unlike today's multitudes of fraudsters who view Jesus Christ as a
mercantile commodity that holds the key to worldly riches and power,
Uganda was once blest with Roman Catholic and Protestant church
leaders, including great evangelists, who did not need to labour hard
to persuade us that they actually believed and lived what they
preached.
The majority of those that I personally knew or came to hear about
from my elders were men and women who enjoyed society's high esteem,
not because of the collars they wore but because they lived what they
preached.
Men like Rev. Ezekiel Balaba of Buganda and Kigezi, Rev. Simon Peter
Kigozi of Buganda, the Rev. Yusto Otunnu of Acholi [father of former
UN Under-Secretary General Olara Otunnu], Bishop Kosiya Shalita of
Nkore, Archbishop Erica Sabiti of Nkore, Rev. Abraham Zaribugire of
Kigezi and Archbishop Janani Luwum of Acholi, stand very tall among
the genuinely Christian leaders of the Native Anglican Church in which
I was raised.
However, the tallest of them in my opinion, was Bishop Festo Kivengere
of Kigezi who remains the reference point against whom every other
Ugandan evangelist must be judged, not because he was a better
Christian than the others, but because he never allowed his charisma,
his international fame and opportunities and his access to some of the
most powerful people in Africa to get to his head.
Bishop Kivengere was the most well travelled Ugandan evangelist of his
time, standing shoulder to shoulder with famous international
preachers like Rev. Billy Graham of the United States and Rev. Michael
Cassidy of South Africa. Yet he happily served as the first African
bishop of the small Anglican diocese of Kigezi and took his seat as an
equal among the less famous bishops in the Church of Uganda.
Though he studied and lived in England and the USA long before others
had opportunities to travel outside Uganda, he did not find it
necessary to speak with a fake English or American accent in an
attempt to sound more sophisticated than his peers.
He had a greater intellectual and scholarly grounding in theology than
the majority of his peers in the Great Lakes Region, yet his sermons
were invariably simple messages that almost always struck a chord with
his listeners. He made the rather complex scriptures of the Old
Testament accessible and meaningful to those of us with deficient
stores of Bible knowledge.
He possessed a natural charisma that assured him packed churches
wherever he travelled, yet he never turned this gift into a cash cow
that could have made him one of the financially wealthiest preachers
of his time.
Unlike some of today's "pastors" who live in palatial mansions,
Kivengere built himself a very modest house on Rugarama Hill in
Kabale, in which he lived as Bishop of Kigezi, and kept a small
apartment in the Bat Valley Flats.
He did not need "Prayer Palaces" or "Miracle Centres" or "Crystal
Cathedrals" to preach his highly effective messages. He simply let his
life affirm the truth of his words. And beyond his traditional
evangelical work, Kivengere was a tireless human rights fighter who
used his position to challenge secular authority whenever the lives
and rights of the citizens were threatened.
It was a risky undertaking, of course, for which he nearly got killed
by Field Marshall Idi Amin in February 1977. Of course he was human,
complete with weaknesses and inadequacies. However, he was always the
first to acknowledge these and to turn them into vehicles for
delivering the message of humility, love and forgiveness that were
central to his work.
The most memorable sermon from the many that I heard from Bishop
Kivengere was one where he told us of a day he was sharing leadership
of an evangelical meeting with Graham.
When the electrified American congregation sang the famous chorus:
"How Great Thou Art", the thought briefly crossed Kivengere's mind
that it was to him that the words were directed. But soon he regained
his senses plus his humility and realised that it was to Jesus that
the congregation was speaking.
From then on he never failed to remind his congregations to clap for
Jesus, not to the preacher before them. And these were not empty words
designed to hoodwink his listeners into parting with their shillings,
but spiritually enriching sermons that were aimed at bringing personal
peace and inter-personal harmony.
Nineteen years have passed since death took Kivengere away from us at
the premature age of 68. Yet his stature remains undiminished, his
thoughts and sermons and writings quoted by preachers and scholars
around the world. Kivengere's brand of Christianity is still
remembered by many as a living example of what Jesus of Nazareth and
Paul of Tarsus preached nearly two thousand years ago.
Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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