And the evangelicals strike again.

[the_future_modernes]

Ghana’s Growing Gay Pride Faces Now-Familiar Evangelical Backlash

On particular midweek nights, throngs of men and women gather at a few particular clubs to dance the night away to pulsating beats, and sometimes live music. The men dance provocatively close to each other, with reckless abandon. The few women around do the same with each other. Kisses are even exchanged.

At seaside dance parties where beer and reggae flow to all and sundry, it’s no longer uncommon for men and women in Ghana’s capital city, Accra, to test the waters and try to pick up companions of the same sex. Even in conservative Ghana, it seems that gays and lesbians are taking steps out in the public domain, at least at night.

But like elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, a backlash to that new openness has erupted as well. Since late May, it has spilled out onto the radio. Hours are spent debating whether gays should be allowed to exist here. Then Ghanaians wake up to national headlines screaming that gays and lesbians are dirty and sinful and ought to be locked up.

The pattern is becoming a familiar one throughout sub-Saharan Africa. As evangelical Christianity has seen its fastest growth on the continent, gay communities have simultaneously grown more open. The parallel developments have led to a growing list of countries in which politicians and media outlets have both incited and exploited social panic around sexuality. In the late 1990s, a beleaguered Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe drew global attention as he invited violence against gay people and blamed the country’s growing troubles on the European deprivation he said they symbolized. Since then, similar moments have struck in places stretching across the continent. Most recently, Uganda has been embroiled in controversy over a proposed law that would, among other things, allow the death penalty as a punishment for homosexuality. The authors of that law are closely tied to the U.S. religious right.

Now, this West African nation is having its own gay-dialogue moment and, once again, much of it has been unsavory, with religious leaders and some politicians stoking the flames.

“Gay bashing had never been a feature of the Ghanaian social landscape until, oh, I would say the last 10-15 years. And it came with the evangelical Christians,” says Nat Amartefio, 67, a historian, lifelong resident and former mayor of Accra.MORE

Questions: WHY is evangelical Christianity so popular? What needs and wants does it fulfill? Who is funding it? Who are the missionaries? How in the hell do we stop it? Why is it that progressive Christianity seems to be so fucking far behind the assholes? Because GODDAMN, I am sick and fucking TIRED of this.

Comments

[nagasvoice]

Have you read any of twistedchick's older posts about the Dominionists? Which term may be a catchall term these days for groups on the right extreme wing that don't agree or get along at all well. They each have their own take on the interpretations of Revelatons, some of them quite cultlike. Some of the scarier ones believe in taking over all secular institutions "for Christ." Meaning, they want to exercise secular and police powers over everyone to enforce their distinct religious beliefs. (Different schisms of the Baptists may not be obedient and agreeable enough to please such leadership, you understand, and let's not get into those utterly damned pagans and Buddhists and so on.) It explains oh, so much.
A week or so ago I posted a link to a NY Times article discussing how reporters have been careless about lumping all these complicated groups together and failing to distinguish those leaders who *don't* like the idea of a monolithic politically powerful religious elite.
But the ones trying to whup up membership for African congregations, they know exactly what inciting fear and preaching fire and brimstone is all about.

[eva]

Why is it that progressive Christianity seems to be so fucking far behind the assholes?

Nobody reports about it. A church like our partner church in South Africa, which has a kindergarten that allows Zulu children to learn English so they can get a higher education, in which AIDS orphans are cared for, in which young people who are HIV-positive are ministered to, in which the Reverend tries to aid young women who are forced to prostitute themselves in order to pay for their university tuition - and as far as I'm aware, all these things happen without putting the fear of Hell into people - such churches aren't big news, and they have better things to do than go around shouting at people who aren't interested.

As for why evangelicalism is so popular: My father, who is a Protestant reverend (which here means learning Latin, Greek, Hebrew, critical studies of the sources, and most emphatically not believing the Bible to be literally true, no matter said sources) says that it comforts people to have simple answers to their questions that do not require any further reflection. He also says that simple answers have the disadvantage of frequently being wrong.