Word: churched
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...bill's loudest supporters is a charismatic pastor, Martin Ssempa, who heads a Ugandan campus AIDS eradication organization that is funded in part by the U.S. and who was associated with the global outreach of Southern California's Saddleback Church, run by Rick Warren, author of best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life. Ssempa has a penchant for burning condoms. In 2007, he organized a rally against homosexuality to protest "homosexual agents and activists" who were "infiltrating Uganda." Asked how the anti-homosexuality bill might affect the fight against HIV and AIDS, Ssempa seemed bemused. "I don't see what...
...Rick Warren's prized achievements over the past few years has been his outreach to Africa. The influential pastor of Saddleback Church in Southern California, author of best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life, has become an influential voice in several countries on the continent, including Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda. But that prominence has recently drawn him into controversy. When the Ugandan legislature began considering a draconian anti-homosexuality bill - which in one version would have punished "aggravated homosexuality" with death or life imprisonment - Warren was castigated for not denouncing the proposed law, especially when one of its most public...
...nations, but it is my role to speak out on moral issues." He told the Ugandan pastors that the bill was "unjust, extreme and un-Christian toward homosexuals." The bill's requirement that Ugandans report any meeting with homosexuals to authorities, he said, would hinder the ministry of the church and force homosexuals who are HIV positive underground. He also defended the timing of his denunciation. "Because I didn't rush to make a public statement," he said, "some erroneously concluded that I supported this terrible bill, and some even claimed I was a sponsor of the bill...
...belief in traditional marriage. "We can never deny or water down what God's Word clearly teaches about sexuality," he wrote. "Let me be clear that God's Word states that all sex outside of marriage is not what God intends." But, he declared, "at the same time, the church must stand to protect the dignity of all individuals - as Jesus did and commanded all of us to do." (See the top 10 religion stories...
...audience, cheering Bahati and Langa on, sat Pastor Martin Ssempa, a popular and politically well-connected preacher who has been at the forefront of the anti-gay movement in the country. Until October, he was associated with the enormously influential Saddleback Church run by Pastor Rick Warren, the author of The Purpose Driven Life. Controversy over the anti-gay bill, however, led Warren, who has a large East African network of connections, to sever ties with Ssempa. Ssempa, who has told reporters of a secret group of witches who live beneath Lake Victoria, has a rapt student following...