Public prayers, worth hankies cried into?

Jun 27, 2010

LAST Sunday saw a new entry into the diary of public events: prayers for recharging public morality. They were graced, indeed strongly recommended, by no less than the President and First Lady, and, among others: the Minister of Ethics and Integrity, Dr Nsaba Buturo.

By John Nagenda

LAST Sunday saw a new entry into the diary of public events: prayers for recharging public morality. They were graced, indeed strongly recommended, by no less than the President and First Lady, and, among others: the Minister of Ethics and Integrity, Dr Nsaba Buturo.

I shall explain why the latter is picked out a little later. It is as usual the Americans who started Breakfast Prayers at the highest level, the White House, which are now a brand that has spread throughout the known world.

Am I alone in never having attended one, even at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel? But by setting aside the exclusiveness of such as those seen at the White House, and inviting all and sundry, however high or low to be gathered together in holy prayer, this time to save the nation, how can you fail?

And yet the thought creeps uninvited into your columnist’s mind: Are these public prayers worth the hankies cried into?

What happens the day after, the week after, the year after? Are we to believe these prayers have the power to change for the better a society, as societies do, seemingly bent on sinning its way throughout its existence?

I ask as someone who knows quite a lot about Prayer and its possible power to change lives. I am the product of the Balokole (Saved Ones), where my father William held a position of some authority: and, if he had even sanctioned such a statement, would have quickly added: if so, by Power of God. Others included his brother-in-law (and in Christ), Semioni Nsibambi—who had helped to start the whole Revivalist Movement—and his brother Blasio Kigozi; Yosiya Kinuka (and Joe Church, with whom my father and Kinuka preached around the world) and later Bishop Festo Kivengere.

I mention all these names because to mention one and not the others would be wrong, but add also that there were many others, too many to list here. Serious prayer, and jovial meetings, and

Conventions, were the foundation on
which revivalism was built, and why it spread, in Africa and beyond. But heartfelt confession and repentance too. And these were not annual occurrences but daily events, and were a Way of Life indeed.

I must confess I largely failed to measure up to these high efforts, and do so to this day.

What about the multitudes which attended the prayers this Sunday? I fear for their ability to remain faithful to their goal on one annual infusion! They would likely become merely ritualistic, rhetorical, even histrionic.

Worse, they would seem to accomplish something, thus becoming self-serving, yet giving the partakers a feel-good factor, while in fact changing nothing.
When the Balokole of old repented, brought matters, however demeaning to themselves, into the light, it gave them chances to improve, to be “born anew”, and they did this on a daily basis.

It even, they fervently prayed and hoped, made them better people. They feared nothing in consequence, even prison and the repayment of things stolen.

Now let us take another look at Dr Buturo, today Minister of Ethics and Integrity (a very interesting ministry – in both senses of the word – and quite difficult to visualise).

At another stage of his life he was chief of Panda Gari (Board the Vehicle), a fearsome organisation that took people away, many never to be seen again.

Are we wrong to ask, implore, of the good doctor (actually a very nice package when you meet him) to repent as the Balokole did and ask for forgiveness?

He was not the only offender, but he is the one always invoking the name of God. Perhaps he repented in the private chambers of his soul, or in the bosom of his family; but this is not enough, and it fails the Balokole test of redemption through “dealing in the light”, in transparency.

On Tuesday he wrote, post the Sunday prayers, an article: “Embrace God, to build a strong nation”. No doubt; but does it occur to him that these and other high-sounding proclamations he is wont to disburse become as nothing, hollow cymbals, sounding cynical manipulations to those who know his past, and who have never heard him repent publicly, as true people of God must? Might it not hinder his work in ethics and integrity?

Looking at the handsome and already, at only one and a half years of age, confident and composed face of little Kham Kakama, kidnapped and savagely killed and parts of his body stolen, an almost lustful passion arises in you to hunt down and equally savagely destroy those who did it. Above all, not to entrust this job to others: such as the type of police people who have wilfully bungled evidence in the past to let the guilty off for reward. Or indeed judges, who through incompetence or greed (or for complicated judicial reasons sometimes difficult to perceive) have let the seemingly guilty go.
But in either option, would a spot of public judiciary prayer help to bring to an end these hugely distressing cases; which to the naked eye seem to grow, seemingly the more those thought to be guilty are let off? I doubt; not even when the cows come home!

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