A documentary chronicling the influence of American evangelical Christianity on Uganda premieres today at the Sundance Festival. “God Loves Uganda” tells how the culture wars in America have been exported to Uganda and other nations in Africa.
From the Sundance web-site:
A battle rages in East Africa, where crosses replace guns and shouts of prayer roar louder than missiles. American evangelical Christians have chosen Uganda, with Africa’s youngest and most vulnerable population, as their ground zero in a battle for the soul of a continent. American missionaries and religious leaders are working with African pastors in a radical campaign to eradicate sin through the most extreme measures. The stakes are nothing less than life and death.
Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams exposes the missionary movement in Uganda as an outgrowth of Africa’s colonialist past and a twenty-first century crusade to recreate a continent of people in the image and likeness of America’s most extreme fundamentalists. Williams captures vérité footage so shocking that viewers may be squirming in their seats. Masterfully crafted and astonishingly provocative, God Loves Uganda may be the most terrifying film of the year
A panel discussion with include the director, Roger Ross Williams, Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, an Anglican Ugandan who was disciplined for his stand affirming the dignity of LGBT persons, and the Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma, an Episcopal priest from Cambridge, MA, who has written extensively on the influence of the American religious right on Uganda.