Staying with Uganda, the New Vision reports the latest on David Bahati, the MP behind the proposed draconian “Anti-Homosexuality Bill”; he was among attendees at a recent prayer meeting for parliamentarians, after which (emphasis added)
…eight MPs were selected to be in the servant leadership team for Parliament for three years.
They included Ruth Tuma, Alice Alaso, Beatrice Lagada, Moses Ntahobari, Capt. Grace Kyomugisha, Benson Obua, David Bahati and the East African legislative assembly MP, Maj. Gen Mugisha Muntu.
The prayer meeting was run by Dr. Fred Hartley, president of the College of Prayer International, who instructed MPs on the power of prayer:
Hartley explained to the MPs that the Kingdom of God involves righteousness, joy, peace and the Holy Spirit. He told the MPs that if they prayed in line with the Kingdom of God they would be able to cast out demons.
“True signs of wonders will follow if you pray in truth. The blind will see, the lame will walk and the deaf will hear,” he said.
One MP explained how he had helped a woman give birth through prayer; others, however, were more interested in politically-tinged miracles:
During testimonies, Soroti Woman MP Alice Alaso (FDC) testified that Apostle Julius Oyet prophesied in 2000 at Lugogo stadium that she would win elections in 2001.
“Indeed, I won elections without spending money and I will continue doing so,” Alaso said.
Oyet is not the only Ugandan neo-Pentecostal leader to have made electoral prophecies; I blogged on Robert Kayanja’s efforts here.
The College of Prayer International is based in the USA (Georgia) and has numerous campuses around the world. According to its website:
The College of Prayer is a ministry of the Revival Prayer Institute, Inc. established to mentor Christian leaders who will reach a lost world through a revived church. We are a faith ministry organized exclusively for the purpose of mentoring and encouraging pastors, wives, Christian leaders, missionaries, intercessors – all who desire to more effectively impact their world through fervent revival prayer, prayer evangelism, intercession, and worship.
And as for Hartley:
As President of the College of Prayer International, Fred is our visionary leader. He was mentored by Armin Gesswein, whose ideas and passions helped shape the COP. Fred is also the Lead Pastor at Lilburn Alliance Church, a church located in metro Atlanta, Georgia where he and his wife Sherry have served since 1988. Fred is the author of thirteen books.
His church bio adds the details that his father was the comics illustrator Al Hartley, and that his grandfather was Congressman Fred. A. Hartley, Jr.
The late Gesswein was a much-respected figure in American evangelicalism, known for his emphasis on prayer; as a revivalist he was among the first to promote Billy Graham, and he was associated with Fuller Theological Seminary.
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I was aware of “The Family” based in USA, but did not knew about this “College of Prayer International”. The majority of the third worlders want something in return for membership of such “families” whether it be a “hands off” approach or an increase of Aid. Interestingly, it does not take long before you come across defence contractors somewhere in the prayer sessions.
The College of Prayer is a ministry of the Revival Prayer Institute, Inc. established to mentor Christian leaders who will reach a lost world through a revived church. We are a faith ministry organized exclusively for the purpose of mentoring and encouraging pastors, wives, Christian leaders, missionaries, intercessors – all who desire to more effectively impact their world through fervent revival prayer, prayer evangelism, intercession, and worship.
Is this supposed to be some sort of scoop/exposé? these people are quite transparent about their aims and motives.
Rather featherweight considered the events at Fort Hood, isn’t it? You know? The 13 murders committed by that Pentacostal fellow
Is this supposed to be some sort of scoop/exposé?
What, whereas writing a post on a subject that is currently the top world news story with hundreds of journos and pundits all over it would be a “scoop”? And it’s “Pentecostal”, with an “e”.
Come on Richard – attacking someone’s misuse of a vowel is a bit supercilious of you, is it not?
You, at least, have the luxury of going back and editing your typos and grammatical contusions.
Once we mere morals have hit that “Submit” button, our typos are there for posterity. And I have noticed a few uncorrected grammatical errors – improperly parsed syntax etc – in some of your earlier postings. I have never found those important enough to mention.
Poor spelling is not the worst sin in the blogosphere.
Highlighting a misspelling of the word “Pentecostal” does not negate what June wrote.
I think what is going on in Uganda is wrong, but I find it strange that you get your burka in a bunch over the homophobia of Christians (such as Martin Mawyer) but never giving such concern to homophobia when supported by Islamic regimes or Islamists etc.
I did a site search here on the word “gay” and it took me four pages of entries of Christians, BNP members and Zionists expressing their homophobia before I found an entry from October 30, 2008 where you hinted that Saudis and Russians might unite over a contempt for gays:
http://barthsnotes.com/2008/10/30/russia-islamic-world-strategic-vision-group-meet-in-saudi/
Now this apparently deliberate partiality has got me rather suspicious, I am afraid to say, and before I publish my opinions, I would like to clarify a couple of points.
You work for SOAS – the School of Oriental and African Studies. Now it is known that SOAS has received funding from Iran and Saudi Arabia – and bizarrely in March 2009 SOAS was going to host an event featuring Ibrahim Mousawi, who is closely linked with the Iranian-funded terrorist organisation Hizbollah.
Paul Webley – SOAS’s director who was appointed in 2006 (and author of a monograph about dog fouling) , tried in vain to reassure Jewish students in February that Moussawi would not be given a platform to express his anti-semitic political views. Why did SOAS support having him on the premises?
But then SOAS publishes the most strange document (below)
pdf:
http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/publications/dv/file54518.pdf
This appears to justify the Iranian theocratic regime. On the subject of the appalling manner in which this year’s election protests were handled, and civilians were blatantly murdered by the Bassij militia, this SOAS-published document ADVISES WESTERNERS NOT TO INTERFERE IN IRANIAN INTERNAL AFFAIRS.
I am sorry Richard, but considering the whole bias of your blog and considering the bizarre politics of your fundie-funded employers, I have to question your motives for deliberately targeting Christians and ZIonists and opponents of Islamism, as these seem to be the natural enemies of the Iranians.
(Just in case anyone here suggests that I too have taken money from Iranian sources – I refused to accept an attendance fee when I appeared on Iranian-funded Press TV recently, and asked for that fee to be given to an Islamic charity.)
But I am wondering Richard, why there is this apparent coincidence where you apparently cannot be bothered to openly criticise the actions of Islamofascist regimes and their supporters who apparently fund your paymasters at SOAS , but you happily attack individuals who are – by comparison – such “easy targets”?
I am sure your readers would love to know. I think some of mine would, too.
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I corrected “Pentacostal” because it’s a common goof, not just a typo. I even saw it on a TV documentary once.
As for SOAS, their website is botched – I was a research associate there, but I’m not currently and the details on the site seem to have mixed me up with someone else. Alas, I do not enjoy the patronage of any academic “paymasters”. Certainly, I know that Saudi and other Middle Eastern funding has played a role in certain centres and departments at SOAS (none that I was involved with, by the way, and I agree that it is problematic), but you cannot seriously suggest that you can extrapolate from that to the motives of anyone who has a current or recent association with the place.
And even if you did find some malignant motivation behind my writing, so what? I could hold the most wicked or foolish political views possible, or be in the pocket of some secret benefactor (I’m not), but my writing stands or falls on its own merits, not on what kind of a person its author may be (that’s also why I don’t go on about my own academic credentials, by the way).
As it happens, I’ve written a number posts against both the regime in Iran and against Hizbollah, but even if I hadn’t that would hardly mean I must smypathise with them. I’m sure I could find some social or political evil that you haven’t written about – does that mean I should accuse you of therefore being in favour of it?
I write more about Christian groups than Muslim groups as they are closer to my main area of interest, and there is more often background material available in English to dig into. Simply writing posts expressing my general dismay at acts of Islamic extremism might make me feel good, but quite a number of other people do that already. And often the stories are well-known anyway. Homosexuals being killed in Iran is terrible, and of course I’m against it – but we’re not surprised that it goes on and we know the dynamics of why it happens. The fact that Uganda might go the same way, though, is a remarkable development which needs to be investigated.
Okay Richard.
Thank you for your answer. You’re not worth an article – and I mean that in a most non-contemptuous way. You agree that funding from certain regimes is “problematic” and that is what I had hoped. I do like to be slightly provocative to get to the truth.
But this particular subject – re: Uganda – is certainly fascinating and deserves to be exposed as it is virtually invisible in the MSM. So please expose away on it – the fact that tax-payers will probably be funding Uganda to some degree means that we should be able to question what sort of society receives aid donations.
For the widespread misspelling of “Pentecostal” I think we should blame Nadine Baggot and her wretched “pentapeptides”. Mind you, if I can stave off some of the ravages of theageing process, I am willing to add Olay Regenerist to my Bailey’s.
OK you guys, nice clean fight and no gouging!
xx
Hello Mr Morgan-ji, Priya directed me here to witness the fitna :)
I don’t think there’s too much fitna right now, Miss Charlotte, but if that little f**** Mr M doesn’t give me an admission of his own ignorance or dishonesty, there might be.
Charlotte’s one of those “Cheerleader” jokers. Not welcome here.
Excuse the typos in my post. It is not ignorance, it is myopia.
And if he is welcome while he is libeling me, then does that not make you guilty of libel too?
Well, let’s not find out, shall we? Comments on the subject have been deleted.
Homosexuals, like the Flag burning amendment are always convenient scapegoats here in the USA.
Economy going to hell? Wars being waged and lost based on lies? Roads, bridges, schools and other infrastructure falling apart with no money to fix them because of those wars?
Good paying jobs now a thing of the past?
No problem, just gin up some more horror stories about homosexuals and the ‘patriotic’ Americans will tear them a new asshole….
If JC came back to the planet today and ran around and hung out with only dudes and washed their body parts and never married, do you think he’d be viewed as a heavenly being or a branded by right wing pundits as a flaming homo?
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