God Loves Uganda takes an insider view of America's "evangelical right" and their push into the vacuum of post-Amin Uganda. Pointed in the direction of Kansas City's International House of Prayer (IHOP) by the Rev. Kapya Kaoma (who himself has been exiled from Uganda for his research into the inhumane treatment of LGBT peoples), Williams sidles up to the church's bombastic congregation and gives them the opportunity to preach their creed, free from the eyes of the judgemental non-believers. Williams, though critical of the church's ideology particularly as it relates to his homeland, doesn't attack, he feeds them screen time, earns their trust and gives them affirmation enough for them to lay their good work bare.
As a result, his film is remarkably, and rather chillingly subtle. Williams steers his subjects clear of their usually defensive stance and captures their evangelism in full ardour. It is hard to imagine hardcore Christians, who share IHOP's bright-eyed care-you-to-death approach to "sin", will find much to fault in the soon-to-be-missionaries' insidiously fervent neo-colonial mindset. Even this committed atheist found a spark of connection in their apple pie passion.
But while their cheery, love-spreading demeanours strike a chord prior to their departure, when they arrive in Uganda at the "missionary training school" run by two scarily bushy-tailed young missionaries, Jesse and Rachelle Digges, all those good intentions show themselves for what they really are: misguided, ethnocentric and entirely self-involved.
Williams parallels the missionaries' proselytising with the increasingly violent reality of modern Uganda, and he draws direct links between the two. His central flashpoint, the anti-homosexuality laws that were then being drafted in Kampala, becomes the firebrand for his dismantling of the missionary mindset. Homosexuality, it seems, is the only topic that introduces caginess into the missionaries' otherwise chirpy dispositions. The Digges' discussion of the upcoming legislation is particularly telling. They are dismissive, they obfuscate, they downplay. Eventually, the couple wash their hands of the gays completely; the laws may not even come into effect, they say, though not without hinting at their real feelings. They may not (in their eyes) be driving the hate, but they are happy with the ensuing effect.
But Williams isn't satisfied with casual links, he also documents a stronger connection. Along with the stomach-churningly frank admissions of the IHOP crew, God Loves Uganda contains a litany of damning anecdotes from politicians, as well as footage from inside the Ugandan parliament, attesting to the depth of the Christian right's penetration into their countries political engine, beginning with the Bush administration's obsession with abstinence and culminating in the in-parliment workshop presented by American anti-gay pastor, Scott Lively (author of such charming titles as 'The Pink Swastika' and 'Why and How to Defeat the “Gay” Movement').
There is a real danger of me overstating the case here, but the most horrifying aspect of God Loves Uganda, perhaps even more disturbing than the escalating homophobic violence, is the brazenness with which the bible-bashing Americans bash bibles, how fervently they have Ugandans doing the same, and how young their primary targets are. It's easy to see why the Christian right are so obsessed with the possibility that the "gay movement" is "recruiting" to our "cause"- it's because they fear we're getting a peek at their playbook.
God Loves Uganda is a clearly shot, lucidly presented examination of the missionary mentality. Anyone who's ever lived within that world will recognise the dangers of an unexamined mindset, just as anyone who's ever lived within that world will recognise that God-fearing sorts are usually the least likely to attempt to unpack the implications of their involvement in the cultural ecosystem. I hope that the subtlety of the film's admonishment doesn't preclude those in the film from seeing the damage they have wrought and continue to wreak.
Again, having met these sorts, I'm not holding my breath.
★★★☆
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