Educational Media Reviews Online

On the surface, this film explores the connection between conservative American evangelicals and missionary efforts in Africa, specifically Uganda. But its larger message connects the wholesale export of conservative social values, funded in large measure by deep-pocket Republican evangelicals under the guise of Christianity, which finds its particular expression in the demonization of homosexuality. For filmmaker Williams, Africa—and Uganda specifically—has become the dumping place for extreme American ideas, where white privilege continues to express itself in these Pentacostal-infused missionary efforts at work in Uganda.

We begin in Kansas City, Missouri at the International House of Prayer (IHOP), an old-timey revivalist-type community that offers a 24-hour prayer ministry. Their call now extends outward beyond the United States, where IHOP transforms the mandate to “go and disciple the nations” into an active effort to “take over the world with the power of the Holy Spirit.”

In Uganda, after the fall of Idi Amin (1979), a power vacuum created an opening for American evangelical movements like IHOP to seize the moment and export Christian values as well as American dollars. In the power void, they sent untold numbers of missionaries who built big churches, universities, hospitals, schools and orphanages, all fueled by a conservative Christian ethos. This movement further raised up indigenous Ugandan pastors and politicians, several of whom have come to mirror the worst excesses of American televangelists—palatial estates both at home and abroad, funded in large measure with American money—while their congregations and their constituents continue to live below the poverty level.

But for filmmaker Williams, the most damning result of this covenant between American conservatives and Uganda is the wholesale condemnation of homosexuality. Footage of American social activists like Scott Lively equating gays with the holocaust and claiming that the “homosexual agenda” actively recruits children to its lifestyle has profoundly influenced Uganda. President George W. Bush appears on camera, tying funding for Uganda to abstinence-only social programs. From these and other efforts, the film argues that Uganda rejected condom distribution programs and went to an abstinence-only approach, which has caused HIV infection rates to soar. Moderate Ugandan Christian leaders who have labored on behalf of the Ugandan LGBT community, such as Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma and Bp. Christopher Senyonjo, have been vilified, threatened and, in the case of Bp. Senyonjo, removed from their clerical offices. The ultimate valorization of this homophobic campaign, for Williams, is the concession that Uganda was and is willing to make as its leaders strive for American recognition and friendship.

In the final analysis, this film provides a polemical and not completely unbiased look at the intersection of American evangelicalism, the economics of power and the commodification of social values. For the filmmaker, young white American missionaries undertake this work as something of an adventure. But for Africans, and especially gay Ugandans, this is a matter of life or death. Homophobic hysteria often degenerates into vigilante justice in rural Africa. This troubling film suggests that the American culture wars now have a new playing field where the myopic vision of conservative Christian values take a dark, murderous turn. Recommended.

Awards

• Best Documentary, 2013 Dallas International Film Festival
• Best Feature Length Documentary, 2013 Ashland Independent Film Festival
• Best of the Fest-Feature, DocuWest
• Best Feature Documentary, 2013 Philadelphia Film Festival