Fact-checking Alan Tacca’s fury with Pentecostal churches

Writing in his regular Sunday column about his pet subject, rogue pastors are good for NRM, Alan Tacca, who describes himself as a novelist and a social-political commentator, went a notch higher in his pattern of hostility and bigotry targeting pentecostal churches since his prior commentary in which he spewed rage and fury under the subject Pentecostals, witchdoctors should form one association that appeared on February 16, 2019 and updated on January 29, 2021.

Fixated and undone with rhetoric and innuendo packaged as a constructive debate but seriously lacking objectivity and depth as were his prior articles on the subject, Mr. Tacca sarcastically poses a question and offers an answer over why a government as corrupt as the NRM should improve religion? The two, in his eyes, are partners in perversity to imply that the state is disincentivized with “improving” religion. But for curiosity’s sake, how may the state even in a corrupt-free society achieve the daunting task of weeding out cults from the church by enforcing a puritanical blend of religion that some faithless opinion writers see as the solution in search of a problem?

My own fears are that if an atheist, as Mr. Tacca, God forbid, were somehow to kind of shape and influence state policy, it is easy to tell with near certainty that his animus against theology and/or Christian doctrines and practices whose teachings he may disagree with, would lead to summary closures of non-traditional Christian churches as a means to cleanse and purge exploitation out of the church. He had the nerve, in his low opinion of non-traditional churches, to say that attendees of megachurches in this country to be under a charm as folks with feeble brains!

Let’s pause here for a second and consider how other societies arguably less vulnerable to predators, stand in comparison to us patronized as suffering from feeble brains. According to a 2003 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article as reported by ABP News on July 19, 2007 with a story line Affluent pastors use wealth differently; some give back; others buy yachts, at that time, Creflo Dollar was reported as driving a black Rolls Royce and traveled in a $5 million dollar jet; Benny Hinn as living in a $3.5 million home and drove an $80,000 Mercedes-Benz G500; T.D Jakes as having 2 mansions; while Robert Tilton’s ministry owned a 50-foot yacht; et al. The reporting goes on to say that in a 1997 CNN interview, Benny Hinn said that he earned between $500,000 and $1 million annually.

Therefore, at what level of “exploitation” should the state step in by slapping anti-exploitation legislations on the church? Wouldn’t the same propagandists who today are insisting on “improving” religion be the ones zealously lobbying for lifting tax exemptions from the church by imposing a tax on tithe, gifts and offertory? By now, you should have heard of Ron Reagan, son of President Ronald Reagan, a Republican known for espousing Christian values and heritage, the polar opposite of his son who appears in a 30-second tv commercial mostly run by CNN as other networks turned down the ad where he proudly speaks of himself as “an unabashed lifelong atheist who is not afraid of burning in hell.” Unlike our insecure types afraid of being labeled atheists and non-believers for who they are, Ron Reagan promotes a secular organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation in which he says: “Hi, I’m Ron Reagan, an unabashed atheist, and I’m alarmed, as you may be, by the intrusions of religion into our secular government. That’s why I’m asking you to join Freedom From Religion Foundation, the nation’s largest and most effective association of atheists and agnostics, working to keep the state and church separate- just like our Founders intended. He ends with a call for people to join the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

With that, does anyone realize that a recent surge in anti-Pentecostal church messaging is both a mischaracterization of the truth and a showing of ineptness about a state’s neutrality in matters of religion as a constitutional issue? To the extent that this country, as many others, does not have a state-religion, the state in any civilized society should not support or appear to endorse one religion over another or endorse non-religion over religion. That is the core message in Ron Reagan’s TV ad.

While our constitution tells us that fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual are inherent and not granted by the state, however, a clause therein that guarantees religious freedoms is somewhat hazy and blurry, for instance, it says that every person shall have the right to freedom to practice any religion and manifest such practice which shall include the right to belong to and participate in the practices of any religious body or organisation, but ends with a catch, in a manner consistent with this Constitution.

Under more liberal and less traditional societies, the constitution keeps in check the delicate balance between the church and the state that you would never have heard in a century invitations let alone suggestions and innuendos appearing in mainstream publications as this one is for the state to appoint a Czar to keep an eye on opulent lifestyles of pastors, to name and shame rogue pastors in the name of guarding the house of the Lord from exploitation or “improving” religion (whatever that means!). That is medieval, if you ask me, if not outwardly backward.

As early as 1947, the U.S Supreme court recognized the dangers of promoting a certain religion by the state where it had this to say: “A large proportion of the early settlers of this country came here from Europe to escape the bondage of laws which compelled them to support and attend government-favored churches.”- Everson v. Board of Education.

Spending a ton of energy on Pastor Joseph Collins Twahirwa, who is facing rape charges to galvanize the base and stoke hostility and opposition against Pentecostal churches for what in essence is individual criminal behavior, and openly put on display disdain at people one disagrees with over their religious choices as having feeble brains, is nothing but a new low in the latest cultural wars that are starting to permeate our society. 

We can disagree but still remain civil and give one another respect. Vendetta against the church thinly veiled as constructive debate may make good weekend reading for one’s leisure yet in the long run it could potentially hurt a publisher’s sales volumes in a country which is predominantly Christian and where daily newspaper sales and online subscription are well below 100,000 or so.

James Tamale is an Advocate of the High Court of Uganda.