15 minutes with Pastor Ssempa
<b>By Rebecca Harshbarger</b><br><br>As I travelled to Pastor Martin Ssempa’s office on Makerere Hill, I had no idea that my expectations of the man I had read so much about would radically change in just a brief interview with him. I was going to se
By Rebecca Harshbarger
As I travelled to Pastor Martin Ssempa’s office on Makerere Hill, I had no idea that my expectations of the man I had read so much about would radically change in just a brief interview with him. I was going to see the pastor for a story on pornography, but rather than focusing on the questions I had planned, I was really thinking about everything I had heard about him.
When President Barack Obama chose conservative pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his swearing in ceremony in January, I spotted an article on a popular American news site about Warren’s ‘Africa’ problem. Squinting at the headline, I was intrigued when I read that Warren’s problem was not just African, but Ugandan. According to the author, Max Blumenthal, Warren was intimately linked to a Ugandan pastor who burned condoms in the name of Jesus Christ: Martin Ssempa.
As a woman from a country where homosexuality is legal and abstinence education is controversial, and whose university embraced the Vagina Monologues, I wondered what Ssempa would think of me, an American. In the US press, Ssempa is portrayed as a man well-oiled with money from conservative churches, eager to fund abstinence programmes and fight homosexuality in Africa. But his office was a humble one, dusty with its paint well-worn. Ssempa’s Macintosh laptop looked almost as gray and dirty as my own, which made me smile. Clearly, he was a man who loved to write, judging by his computer’s worn-out keys.
Ssempa wasn’t in his office when I arrived. When he eventually came, he looked at me kindly: “Look at you,†he said, beaming. “You’re the one who has brought in this cool breeze.†One of the young adults he mentors brought me a bottle of water.
I told him I was reporting on pornography, which was illegal in Uganda but still highly prevalent. When he responded, his words were somehow carefully chosen but passionate: “I think porn is a cancer that has silently eaten our country. It has passed a malignant stage, it’s deadly. It’s affected the delicate parts. In every village, there is a ramshackle video hall that runs on a generator and is accessible. There are no age restrictions on who enters and they broadcast pornographic films in the evenings,†the bespectacled pastor narrated.
He described his campaign to push back against the onslaught of pornography in Uganda, visibly disappointed as he told me about the institutional breakdown of Uganda’s censorship board. “The electronic media statute of 1995 provides for a censorship board,†said Ssempa. “But the Government has never constituted that board and the media council operates more on a volunteer basis.†Ssempa was a good source, sending reports to my e-mail from his laptop as we spoke on pornography in Uganda, while offering statements that I knew would be good quotes.
We also talked of the economic crisis and how poverty can threaten marital relationships. Although I knew Ssempa was passionate about fighting pornography, I didn’t realise how romantic he was about the dynamic between men and women. Despite being a cynical journalist, I’m a huge believer in romance and true love and clearly, so was Ssempa.
“True love will be tested,†he said sympathetically. “But the spouses need to exhibit a love that is unconditional. A love that hopes, a love that believes. I encourage spouses to pray together, to express vulnerability to God and intercede for His benevolence.â€
Although I was taking notes, I couldn’t help but imagine my self, married later on in life, praying to God and asking for His intervention. I realised that even as a single woman, seeking intervention wouldn’t be such a bad idea, and vowed to pray more in the future.
As we wrapped up the interview, I had no idea that Ssempa might be seeking my services. He told me that he wanted to become the number one blogger in East Africa and he wanted to get more pastors involved in posting their thoughts on the web. As someone obsessed with blogging, I was excited. I promised to come back and coach him and the pastors on the fine art of blogging and twittering (a type of micro-blogging). As we said goodbye, he told me about the condom fiasco, which had reverberated in the international press—he said the condoms he was burning were expired, but the journalist manipulated the account of what happened to cast him in bad light. Burning expired condoms, after all, is much different from burning those that are safe for use.
As I travelled to Pastor Martin Ssempa’s office on Makerere Hill, I had no idea that my expectations of the man I had read so much about would radically change in just a brief interview with him. I was going to see the pastor for a story on pornography, but rather than focusing on the questions I had planned, I was really thinking about everything I had heard about him.
When President Barack Obama chose conservative pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his swearing in ceremony in January, I spotted an article on a popular American news site about Warren’s ‘Africa’ problem. Squinting at the headline, I was intrigued when I read that Warren’s problem was not just African, but Ugandan. According to the author, Max Blumenthal, Warren was intimately linked to a Ugandan pastor who burned condoms in the name of Jesus Christ: Martin Ssempa.
As a woman from a country where homosexuality is legal and abstinence education is controversial, and whose university embraced the Vagina Monologues, I wondered what Ssempa would think of me, an American. In the US press, Ssempa is portrayed as a man well-oiled with money from conservative churches, eager to fund abstinence programmes and fight homosexuality in Africa. But his office was a humble one, dusty with its paint well-worn. Ssempa’s Macintosh laptop looked almost as gray and dirty as my own, which made me smile. Clearly, he was a man who loved to write, judging by his computer’s worn-out keys.
Ssempa wasn’t in his office when I arrived. When he eventually came, he looked at me kindly: “Look at you,†he said, beaming. “You’re the one who has brought in this cool breeze.†One of the young adults he mentors brought me a bottle of water.
I told him I was reporting on pornography, which was illegal in Uganda but still highly prevalent. When he responded, his words were somehow carefully chosen but passionate: “I think porn is a cancer that has silently eaten our country. It has passed a malignant stage, it’s deadly. It’s affected the delicate parts. In every village, there is a ramshackle video hall that runs on a generator and is accessible. There are no age restrictions on who enters and they broadcast pornographic films in the evenings,†the bespectacled pastor narrated.
He described his campaign to push back against the onslaught of pornography in Uganda, visibly disappointed as he told me about the institutional breakdown of Uganda’s censorship board. “The electronic media statute of 1995 provides for a censorship board,†said Ssempa. “But the Government has never constituted that board and the media council operates more on a volunteer basis.†Ssempa was a good source, sending reports to my e-mail from his laptop as we spoke on pornography in Uganda, while offering statements that I knew would be good quotes.
We also talked of the economic crisis and how poverty can threaten marital relationships. Although I knew Ssempa was passionate about fighting pornography, I didn’t realise how romantic he was about the dynamic between men and women. Despite being a cynical journalist, I’m a huge believer in romance and true love and clearly, so was Ssempa.
“True love will be tested,†he said sympathetically. “But the spouses need to exhibit a love that is unconditional. A love that hopes, a love that believes. I encourage spouses to pray together, to express vulnerability to God and intercede for His benevolence.â€
Although I was taking notes, I couldn’t help but imagine my self, married later on in life, praying to God and asking for His intervention. I realised that even as a single woman, seeking intervention wouldn’t be such a bad idea, and vowed to pray more in the future.
As we wrapped up the interview, I had no idea that Ssempa might be seeking my services. He told me that he wanted to become the number one blogger in East Africa and he wanted to get more pastors involved in posting their thoughts on the web. As someone obsessed with blogging, I was excited. I promised to come back and coach him and the pastors on the fine art of blogging and twittering (a type of micro-blogging). As we said goodbye, he told me about the condom fiasco, which had reverberated in the international press—he said the condoms he was burning were expired, but the journalist manipulated the account of what happened to cast him in bad light. Burning expired condoms, after all, is much different from burning those that are safe for use.