This is the continuation of our conversation with Rtd. Bishop Dr Christopher Senyonjo on the rights of LGBTQI+ people’s rights and the Church.
Qn: How possible is it to reconcile the church with sexuality?
Bishop: First of all, we have to accept the people, love is the key. Whatever we do, if love is not our guiding principle, we will tend to lose track along the way. There will be formulas and rules, but these should all be governed by love.
We may not all agree, it is like in a family, but we know that we can live together despite our differences. I am not expecting people to all agree because the truth is so complicated. We are talking about real human beings. LGBT people are real human beings, but some people want to deny that they are real people. We can continue with dialogue on the issue without feeling hatred. Don’t and say; you LGBT people, don’t come to my church. It isn’t your church or even my Church; it is Christ’s church and Christ taught us to love, love even our enemies. So that is why I am hurt when somebody says these people may not even come to our church, they cannot share in our worship and all that. Fortunately, I have not turned away people in my church to worship their Lord. But the Church of Uganda of course as you see has a branch of the Anglican world church, but I get worried when I hear people say that we can no longer work with those and all that. I have different children and these children of mine I don’t say because this child is different from that one they are not my children. They may even be different from me in many ways but they are part of me I would listen to them they would listen to me we differ here and there so I think love is the key and God who created this universe is love. If you love you get the love you should learn to give love with differences.
Why do some Christian leaders use the Bible to preach hatred, is it written anywhere in the Bible?
You see, the Bible is a very difficult book, we need to be guided of course by the Holy Spirit. Our Lord Himself said that you should know the truth and the truth shall set you free, but the truth is not easy, and he also said that he could not tell us everything then when he was in the world but when the holy spirit comes he will be guiding us. Now I think truth should be listened to whenever it comes and wherever it comes from. We can get some truth from scientists, we can get the truth from social scientists, from psychologists. We can’t dismiss scientists who discovered that the earth goes around the sun. You have to listen to the truth despite our differences. We don’t know all the truth, we continue to learn, let us not hate each other because of our differences, let us try to live together.
Qn: Tell us more about the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah
Bishop: There are some basic texts in the bible which make things very adamant like the verses concerning Sodom and Gomorrah. You will hear people talking about Sodom and Gomorrah and how it was destroyed because of homosexuality. But when we really study this in Ezekiel 16:49, it was because they were not hospitable. They refused to welcome and show love to strangers, we could even say sodomites are people who don’t like to welcome those people who are different, not homosexuality. In our bible, we have in the book of wisdom, I was reading 19:13, it talks about bitter hatred of strangers. These people of Sodom and Gomorrah had bitter hatred. I am not saying everybody should agree, but we shouldn’t be blind to research and truth. Let me not hate my brother or sister because we are different, and for this, I love everybody myself, and that is why I refuse to leave my Church even when people don’t like to greet me, I go and say hello, I know they still have a problem, I also have a problem but we should accept God’s creation is so diverse, very different. If you think of the universe, we are a very tiny thing, the universe even the earth as the planet we are very tiny, but made in the image of God and love is the key to being in the image of God which we are failing to reflect.
To be Continued…!
