Why I left the Anglican church for Pentecostals
Oct 21, 2007
I WAS born and brought up in an Anglican family. My father and mother were baptised Anglicans. My grandfather too was a baptised Anglican, though he married more than seven wives traditionally. My father and mother had their wedding in the Anglican Church.
By Jenn Jagire
I WAS born and brought up in an Anglican family. My father and mother were baptised Anglicans. My grandfather too was a baptised Anglican, though he married more than seven wives traditionally. My father and mother had their wedding in the Anglican Church.
They both never drank alcohol or smoked cigarettes. However, during the course of his life, my father tried many times to marry other wives in vain. My mother refused to recognise them and called them some unacceptable names such as thieves, visitors, late-comers, etc.
They all fled and left my mother alone, the “wife of the ring†or covenant, as she used to say. In my grandfather’s family of eleven sons, only my father and one uncle were monogamists.
My paternal aunt who had only one child, a son, did not have co-wives. My mother’s only sister married a monogamous man with whom she has lived for over 70 years without him ever attempting to marry another wife, even though they were not committed Anglicans.
In view of the above, I found that Anglicanism alone was not enough to get rid of polygamy. Moreover, Anglicans baptise infants. I was also baptised an Anglican as an infant. I went to church and thought that churches were just part of the school curricular.
I never knew that the Anglican Church was about knowing Christ as Lord and Saviour. I went to the Anglican Church for 25 years, but never knew Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
Nevertheless, when I was working in an office where there wasn’t a lot of work, I decided to buy a Bible to read, instead of newspapers or magazines.
I always had this curiosity to read the Bible on my own. I read it in high school as a textbook for the Bible knowledge courses. In the high school, I was taught Bible knowledge first by a secular a third-year Makerere student called Yeko.
That was when I first heard that God said, “I am who I am†to Moses. Next, Sister Frances, a Catholic Belgian nun who had lived in the Congo, taught our class about the Bible.
To this day, I still believe that Catholic nun was a born-again, spirit-filled person. She said a lot of Amen and Alleluia as she taught the parable of the Sower. Next, Father Pinkman, a Catholic priest, taught us Bible knowledge in a class of girls. However, the cheeky girls never gave him a chance to get serious.
After buying my Bible from a bookstore in Sarit Centre in Westlands, Nairobi, I set about reading it in the office. Within four days of reading the New Testament, I was born-again. I had the conviction that the infant baptism that I had been subjected to meant nothing.
I rang All Saints Church (Nairobi) and asked for baptism as an adult. The provost gave me several appointments but must have found me weird to ask for baptism as an adult.
I also felt ashamed to be baptised in public in an Anglican Church, as I would need a God Father and God Mother. I went back to my office and continued reading the New Testament until I finished the book of Revelation.
I then had some soul searching to do. As an Anglican I dreaded the prayers that my mother subjected us to. I thought that they were some rituals. My mother however is a born-again Anglican. She starts reading her Bible everyday at 5am after lighting an oil lamp.
I also didn’t take the Anglican prayers seriously because I had to say them in Luganda, my mother tongue. We said the Apostle’s Creed, the Grace and the Lord’s Prayer every night in Luganda. I said them on the surface but this did not sink into my heart and I never had touch with the Lord Jesus. If anything, I resisted them.
However, in the structural engineers’ offices in Westlands, Nairobi, I met the Lord in a revolutionary way. And after being frustrated by the provost of All Saint’s Anglican Cathedral (in Nairobi) to whom I had also written a request for a private baptism, I decided to drive to Nairobi Pentecostal Church, where I met the then Associate Pastor and told him my story.
I told him that I was born-again and specifically requested baptism by immersion according to what had I read in the Bible. He was delighted and I had my baptism as an adult, after meeting and knowing the Lord in a very personal way. The baptism in the Holy Spirit and the speaking in other tongues followed this later. Persecutions and temptations also followed, but today I can boldly say that I am glory bound.
My being in Canada is not accidental. The Reverend Gerald Morrison and his wife Ruth from British Columbia, who had lived in Africa for forty years as missionaries for the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, were returning home and invited my family to Canada.
Since coming to Canada, by the grace of God, I have been to Carleton University, Ottawa, Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Studies, Oakville, and York University, Toronto – all in Ontario.
I took Women’s Studies, Sociology and Political Science as a mature student. I encourage women to seek political and elective posts, fight hypocrisy, corruption, and challenge and destabilize male-domination. They should also fight misogyny and violence against women.
I believe that women make better leaders and we are the hope for our country. Women should lead in the fight against the spread of AIDS. I also encourage women to go to school even as adults to overcome illiteracy. In Canada there are more women than men in the universities.
The writer is a Ugandan living in Ontario, Canada
I WAS born and brought up in an Anglican family. My father and mother were baptised Anglicans. My grandfather too was a baptised Anglican, though he married more than seven wives traditionally. My father and mother had their wedding in the Anglican Church.
They both never drank alcohol or smoked cigarettes. However, during the course of his life, my father tried many times to marry other wives in vain. My mother refused to recognise them and called them some unacceptable names such as thieves, visitors, late-comers, etc.
They all fled and left my mother alone, the “wife of the ring†or covenant, as she used to say. In my grandfather’s family of eleven sons, only my father and one uncle were monogamists.
My paternal aunt who had only one child, a son, did not have co-wives. My mother’s only sister married a monogamous man with whom she has lived for over 70 years without him ever attempting to marry another wife, even though they were not committed Anglicans.
In view of the above, I found that Anglicanism alone was not enough to get rid of polygamy. Moreover, Anglicans baptise infants. I was also baptised an Anglican as an infant. I went to church and thought that churches were just part of the school curricular.
I never knew that the Anglican Church was about knowing Christ as Lord and Saviour. I went to the Anglican Church for 25 years, but never knew Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
Nevertheless, when I was working in an office where there wasn’t a lot of work, I decided to buy a Bible to read, instead of newspapers or magazines.
I always had this curiosity to read the Bible on my own. I read it in high school as a textbook for the Bible knowledge courses. In the high school, I was taught Bible knowledge first by a secular a third-year Makerere student called Yeko.
That was when I first heard that God said, “I am who I am†to Moses. Next, Sister Frances, a Catholic Belgian nun who had lived in the Congo, taught our class about the Bible.
To this day, I still believe that Catholic nun was a born-again, spirit-filled person. She said a lot of Amen and Alleluia as she taught the parable of the Sower. Next, Father Pinkman, a Catholic priest, taught us Bible knowledge in a class of girls. However, the cheeky girls never gave him a chance to get serious.
After buying my Bible from a bookstore in Sarit Centre in Westlands, Nairobi, I set about reading it in the office. Within four days of reading the New Testament, I was born-again. I had the conviction that the infant baptism that I had been subjected to meant nothing.
I rang All Saints Church (Nairobi) and asked for baptism as an adult. The provost gave me several appointments but must have found me weird to ask for baptism as an adult.
I also felt ashamed to be baptised in public in an Anglican Church, as I would need a God Father and God Mother. I went back to my office and continued reading the New Testament until I finished the book of Revelation.
I then had some soul searching to do. As an Anglican I dreaded the prayers that my mother subjected us to. I thought that they were some rituals. My mother however is a born-again Anglican. She starts reading her Bible everyday at 5am after lighting an oil lamp.
I also didn’t take the Anglican prayers seriously because I had to say them in Luganda, my mother tongue. We said the Apostle’s Creed, the Grace and the Lord’s Prayer every night in Luganda. I said them on the surface but this did not sink into my heart and I never had touch with the Lord Jesus. If anything, I resisted them.
However, in the structural engineers’ offices in Westlands, Nairobi, I met the Lord in a revolutionary way. And after being frustrated by the provost of All Saint’s Anglican Cathedral (in Nairobi) to whom I had also written a request for a private baptism, I decided to drive to Nairobi Pentecostal Church, where I met the then Associate Pastor and told him my story.
I told him that I was born-again and specifically requested baptism by immersion according to what had I read in the Bible. He was delighted and I had my baptism as an adult, after meeting and knowing the Lord in a very personal way. The baptism in the Holy Spirit and the speaking in other tongues followed this later. Persecutions and temptations also followed, but today I can boldly say that I am glory bound.
My being in Canada is not accidental. The Reverend Gerald Morrison and his wife Ruth from British Columbia, who had lived in Africa for forty years as missionaries for the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, were returning home and invited my family to Canada.
Since coming to Canada, by the grace of God, I have been to Carleton University, Ottawa, Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Studies, Oakville, and York University, Toronto – all in Ontario.
I took Women’s Studies, Sociology and Political Science as a mature student. I encourage women to seek political and elective posts, fight hypocrisy, corruption, and challenge and destabilize male-domination. They should also fight misogyny and violence against women.
I believe that women make better leaders and we are the hope for our country. Women should lead in the fight against the spread of AIDS. I also encourage women to go to school even as adults to overcome illiteracy. In Canada there are more women than men in the universities.
The writer is a Ugandan living in Ontario, Canada