Can Ubos count our Pentecostals?

On the mountain of religious faith, obstinacy and hypocrisy often overrule truth.

After Justice Mutonyi sentenced Prophet Elijah Kimera of Lusanja to 40 years in prison last week for sexual crimes very similar to those of the late Nigerian mega prophet, TB Joshua, no Born Again/Pentecostal organisation will denounce Kimera or choose his replacement. His grandiosely named Faith Center Church of All Nations is now probably left to the devices of his immediate family.

In crafty Uganda, there are many vultures, conmen and comedians in the Pentecostal churches, which are generally pastored and controlled by their individual owners and spouses, with no credible and undisputed organisation taking responsibility for separating chaff from wheat.

Those are the leaders. But how many in their congregations qualify to be documented as Born Again/Pentecostals?

I do not know how Bishop Moses Odongo, who was elected in 2023 as the Overseer of the National fellowship of Born Again Pentecostal Churches in Uganda, would answer that question. He does not talk so much.

But through his mouthpiece, Dream TV/Impact FM, Pastor Joseph Serwadda, who leads a section of Born Again Pentecostals, will not stop screaming unless the forthcoming Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) census returns around 20 percent of Ugandans as Born Again members.

Verging on intimidation, he and some of his associates allege that Ubos has historically been driven by certain interests to return low Born Again numbers.

This faction is instructing all those who describe themselves as Balokole to fill the census forms as Born Again/Pentecostal or Balokole. The faction has even suggested that English dictionaries should grant Balokole to mean Born Again Pentecostal!

Language could not be deployed more abusively to falsify the facts.

Hankering after status, influence, wealth and a share of taxpayers’ money has made some of our Pentecostals abandon their own professed positions.

They told us that infant baptisms by other Christians are not valid. They are only naming ceremonies. One becomes initiated as a Born Again/Pentecostal only after one is old enough to understand, to commit self and to pronounce. The correct baptism must also be by full immersion, not sprinkling. So, technically, minors under 16 (or 18?) cannot be documented as Born Again Pentecostals, even if their father is Overseer Odongo himself.

Furthermore, having had no immersion yet, many adults going to these churches are therefore masqueraders, or visitors and worship tourists, or seekers of religious entertainment. Some identify themselves as Balokole to conceal their criminal lives.

Finally, as everybody knows, the original kulokoka and Balokole references in the Church of Uganda are still there. Anglicans who remodel their life-styles from debauchery to higher moral integrity and piety often call themselves ‘saved’, Balokole, but many will never go near a Pentecostal church. Some Catholics are like that.

A dingo is a dog, but not all dogs are dingoes. Not all Balokole are Pentecostals. 

The Pentecostal Mulokole is a neo-pagan spiritualist, subscribing to any of several retro-cultic forms of devotion where Satan, demons, angels, Jesus and the Holy Spirit have heightened literal magical/miraculous power attributed to them, and to which the mediation of the priest or prophet supposedly give access.

Failing to summon that power, as he is doomed, the pastor turns to crude manipulation, conjuring, confidence tricks and comedy to keep his congregation twisted and clapping.

Dilemma: If Ubos refuses to be intimidated and presents a true demographic picture, some Pentecostal leaders will say that Ubos is dishonest. If Ubos bows to the Pentecostal demands, some analysts will show that Ubos is intellectually wanting.

Mr Alan Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.
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