Journal Articles

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The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah revisited: military and political reflections
(Old Testament Essays, 2015) Wabyanga, Robert Kuloba
That Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis have been a subject of constant cognitive itch is a truism rather than fiction. Aware that the HB is an ideological text, the story of Jordan states notably Sodom and Gomorrah may need further reflections outside sexual frontlines but from the perspectives of political dynamics of the ANE. This paper explores Sodom and Gomorrah as a political and military story that turned theological and ideological. I opine that the fire that razed Sodom and Gomorrah could have been the result of military invasion(s). What is however intriguing is the interest of the biblical writer: at what points would the military or political afterlife of Sodom and Gomorrah meet with the ideological interests of the Bible writer? What interests does the writer have in Sodom and Gomorrah that he finds it necessary not only to conceal the historical reality but also invent ideas and imageries of Sodom and Gomorrah as condemned cities? The paper employs Clines' and Exum's strategies of reading against the grain and defragmenting the stories. In this case, the different stories of Sodom and Gomorrah in chs. 10, 13, 14, 18 and 19 are read critically and in conversation with each other.
Innovation or Competition? A Critical Analysis of Contemporary Divine Healing Practices of Pentecostal Africans in Africa and the Diaspora
(International Bulletin of Mission Research, 2020-10-12) Wabyanga, Robert Kuloba; Nyamnjoh, Henrietta; Ugba, Abel
This article examines current practices of divine healing of Pentecostal Africans. It provides insights into current developments by using the explanatory concepts of innovation, competition, and agency. The article draws on data obtained through an interdisciplinary, transnational, and multisite investigation of eight Pentecostal churches in Kampala, Nairobi, Cape Town, and London. Methods used included ethnographic observation, visual ethnography, and semistructured interviews. Pentecostal Africans in Africa and the diaspora, this article argues, are simultaneously reenacting centuries-old faith-informed healing practices and creatively reinventing aspects of these practices to assert their relevance in a postmodern world characterized by religious plurality, competition, and secularism.
Innovation or competition? A critical analysis of contemporary divine healing practices of pentecostal Africans in Africa and the diaspora
(International Bulletin of Mission Research., 2020-10-12) Wabyanga, R. Kuloba; Nyamnjoh, Henrietta; Ugba, Abel
This article examines current practices of divine healing of Pentecostal Africans. It provides insights into current developments by using the explanatory concepts of innovation, competition, and agency. The article draws on data obtained through an interdisciplinary, transnational, and multisite investigation of eight Pentecostal churches in Kampala, Nairobi, Cape Town, and London. Methods used included ethnographic observation, visual ethnography, and semistructured interviews. Pentecostal Africans in Africa and the diaspora, this article argues, are simultaneously reenacting centuries-old faith-informed healing practices and creatively reinventing aspects of these practices to assert their relevance in a postmodern world characterized by religious plurality, competition, and secularism.
“I am Black and Beautiful”: A Black African Reading of Song of Songs 1:5–7 as a Protest Song
(Journal of the Old Testament society of South Africa, 2021-11-16) Wabyanga, Robert Kuloba
Adamo’s article on Ebed-Melech’s protest brings fresh insight into my earlier article on Song of Songs 1:5–7, prompting me to reread the text as a protest song (essay) against the racial stigmata that continue to bedevil black people in the world. The current article, using hermeneutics of appropriation, maintains the meaning of שְׁחוֹרָה as a black person, who in the Song of Songs protests against the racism, which transformed her status to that of a socio-economic other. The study is informed by the contemporary and historical contexts of racial injustices and stigma suffered by Blacks for ‘being’ while Black. The essay investigates this question: In which ways does Adamo’s reading of Jer 38:1–17 influence an African reading of Song 1:5–7 as a protest against racism? The article employs African Biblical Hermeneutics, as part of a creative and literary art in the protests against racism, to read the biblical text as our story—a divine story, which in the language of Adamo, has inherent divine power that can empower oppressed black people.
Reading Proverbs 13:23 in Texts and Contexts of Poverty in Africa: A Theoretical Framework
(Journal of the Old Testament society of South Africa, 2022) Wabyanga, Robert Kuloba
The Masoretic text of Prov 13:23 (רָב־ אֹ֭כֶל נִ֣יר רָא שִׁ֑ים וְ יֵ֥ש נִ֜סְפֶֶּ֗הבְלִ֣ א משְפָָּֽט) highlights the absence of mishpat (משְפָט) as the cause of the poverty of the poor. This article reads Prov 13:23 in conversation with the contemporary conceptualisation of economic poverty. The concept of mishpat (משְפָט) is theorised and hermeneutically applied to the issue of poverty in Africa. The key questions under investigation are: What is mishpat in the text and its context? How should mishpat be read in the African context? How does the biblical understanding of the poor and mishpat inform responses to Africa's poverty? In this study, the assumptions are that poverty in Africa is the result of both socio-economic and political injustices of the West and Africans themselves. Africans are agents of their own poverty. The study employs a hermeneutical and multidisciplinary approach, drawing examples from the social sciences.
Fluidity and hybridity of customary marriage traditions in contemporary Uganda
(E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (EHASS), 2023-03) Alexander, Paul Isiko; Joy, Mukisa Isabirye
The ideology that customary marriages are celebrated according to ancestral traditions and customs is rife in Africa. There is however continuous invention and evolution of institutions associated with customary marriage rendering it burdensome to trace the visibility of ancient ‘traditions’ therein. This argument is anchored in the theoretical perspective of ‘invention of tradition’, to analyse the extent to which the celebration of customary marriages in Uganda has maintained the ancestral ‘traditional’ status quo owing to the influences of colonisation, westernisation globalisation and modernisation. Busoga, a predominantly Bantu ethnic society, is used as a representative case for this analysis. Using a historical and ethnographic approach, it was established that there is a lot of fluidity and hybridity of contemporary traditions upon which these marriages are celebrated. The notion that customary marriages are celebrated based on past traditions is a fallacy, although at best, efforts have been invested to dramatise past traditions in contemporary settings.
Evolution of multi-disciplinary philosophies of method: colonial antecedents and post-colonial paradigm shifts
(Springer International Publishing, 2023-08) George, Kizito Michael
The hegemony of the natural and biological sciences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries coincided with the entrenchment of positivism as a superior methodology in knowledge acquisition and justification. Positivism exalted empiricism or experiential knowledge from sense perception. This not only led to the sciencization (empiricization) of humanities like ethics but also social sciences such as sociology, anthropology, economics, law, education and political science. Unfortunately, the radical empiricism embedded in positivism (scientism) bred a plethora of racist and sexist scholars who hid under the facades of positivistic science to justify slavery, colonialism, racial segregation and gender discrimination. The abolition of slavery and slave trade in the nineteenth century led to anti-colonial sentiments and agitations for independence in Africa, Asia and Latin America. A number of African countries attained independence in the 1950s and 1960s. This ensconced Pan-Africanism and its related nuances such as Pan-African governance, Pan-African development and Pan-African education. Consequently, Pan-African scholars embarked on the deconstruction of colonial methodologies and modes of knowledge embedded in the positivistic mono-perspectival schema in favor of post-colonial multi-disciplinary methodologies and interpretive philosophies of method. Feminist scholars in both the global North and South also used the post-colonial methodological paradigm to further expose the positivistic scientific methodology as androcentric and gender blind. This chapter therefore argues that multi-disciplinarity and inter-disciplinarity are simply a logical consequent of decoloniality and post-coloniality. The chapter contends that post-coloniality and decoloniality dethrone positivism and all its quantitative superiority pretexts in favor of interpretivism, multi-disciplinarity, mixed methodologism, qualitative analyses, epistemological justice and epistemological realism.
The relationship between young children’s influence and violence against children in selected Bugiri primary schools in Uganda
(East African Journal of Education Studies, 2024-04-19) Achan, Jackline Bwire; Maan, John Samson; Lubaale, Grace
This study investigated the relationship between children's influence and violence against children in selected Bugiri schools based on the fact that Bugiri district had reported high rates of violence against children. The study was guided by the following three research objectives: To establish the level of children’s influence in the chosen schools, determining the level of violence against children at the chosen schools, and lastly to determine the relationship between the two factors (children’s influence and violence against children) at the chosen schools. The study used a sequential explanatory mixed method design and was carried out at two government-aided primary schools in the Bugiri district of Uganda. Two hundred thirty-six (236) young children in primary three comprised the sample, out of the 365 children in the accessible population. The data were analysed using regression analysis and Pearson's correlation coefficient index. The results indicated a statistically significant, correlation between children influence and violence against children in schools (self-esteem, role model attachment and decision-making capacity). The study recommends that children should be used to influence violence decisions and planning at school. Programs at school meant to lessen violence have to include children in choosing violence reduction strategies and implementing violence-reduction activities in schools.
From Legal Positivism to Neo-Liberal Scientism: A Metaphysical Defence of Moral Law and the Inseparability Thesis
(Jumuga Journal of Education, Oral Studies, and Human Sciences (JJEOSHS), 2024-06-20) George, Kizito M
Despite decades of contentions between moral legalists and legal positivists about the place of morality in law, moral law has vehemently stood out as the end of history. The scientific experiment has despondently failed to logically evict the moral law from the jurisprudential discourse. This research article posits that moral law is the End of History as far jurisprudential evolution is concerned. It argues that the mechanization of law through the positivistic experiment is a moral debacle dented with logical inconsistencies and insurmountable fallacies. It thus uses the inseparability thesis to demonstrate the pivotality of moral law in every positive jurisprudence superstructure. It contends that law appeals to our moral sensibilities because it pre-supposes a conscience in the law giver, the law enforcer and the citizen who is supposed to abide by the law. This Ought necessity therefore makes the trio morally credible to legislate, enforce the law and be legally bound by the principles and precincts established by the law.
Researching Religion and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa: The Contribution of African Scholars
(Journal of Religion in Africa, 2024-08-08) Isiko, Alexander Paul
Abstract Studying religious phenomena in an era when religion was grossly curtailed as a conveyer of COVID-19 proved to be an unusual challenge. This called for innovative approaches and methodologies that differed from the conventional ones in religious research. An assessment of the thematic concerns, methodological approaches, and challenges faced at a time when the global shutdown and quarantine had significantly affected academic research is timely. However, the normative reference to and comparison with Western scholarship on religion overshadows the contribution of African scholars in global studies on religion, which portrays African scholars as demonstrating conspicuous scholarly silence on issues that affect their continent. This article addresses this problem by highlighting the works and contribution of African scholars to the study of religion and COVID-19 to emphasize their visibility in the global production of knowledge. It further analyses African scholars’ attempt to accentuate African society’s interface with the pandemic.
Subverting state censorship: Social media and the struggle for human rights and democracy in Uganda
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2024-10-13) George, Michael Kizito
The liberalization of the print and electronic media in Uganda has culminated in a proliferation of media houses. The country now has over 300 licensed radio stations and over 50 television stations. The liberalization of Uganda’s electronic and print media space, however, has not been accompanied by the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of expression and the right to access information. This is because the almost four-decades-old dictatorship in Uganda has put in place draconian media legislations to stifle media freedoms. This has encouraged some media organizations to opt for self-censorship on a number of issues in order to align with the autocratic interests of the state. Consequently, a number of radio and television stations broadcast music, comedy, sports, and other forms of entertainment instead of focusing on fundamental human rights, social justice, democratic and development debates. Many of Uganda’s young people have become cognizant of the fact that the print and electronic media are highly controlled by Museveni’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM). In order to advance the struggle for human rights and democracy, they have opted for social media spaces like Facebook, WhatsApp, X, TikTok, and YouTube. This chapter assesses the ethical implications of offensive, libelous, and seditious communication models in the struggle for human rights and democracy in Uganda.
Pentecostal Reinventions of the Passover: Contextual Reflections on the End of Year Night Worship Festivals in Uganda
(Journal for the Study of Religion, 2024-12-13) Isiko, Alexander Paul; Kisekka, Enock
Pentecostal scholarship in and about Africa is a vibrant arena in world Christianity, with an upswing in the proliferation of scholarly works on Pentecostal Churches and its centrality in the political and social fabric of African societies. Pentecostalism has been hailed for revival of Christian conservatism in Sub-Saharan Africa, predominated by the nominal Roman Catholics and Protestant Christianity. While some authors have studied African Pentecostalism with prejudgments based on other Christian traditions, some have hailed the theological innovations in healing and evangelism. The study of the Pentecostal end of year worship festivals unravels one of the innovations that justifies the uniqueness of African Pentecostalism, promulgating theologies and traditions on the one hand, and reinventing Judeo-Christian practices in African perspectives, which in a sense give African Pentecostal Churches a claim to divine originality, on the other. In another way, theologies, traditions, and practices emerging from the observance of the annual Pentecostal worship festivals place African Pentecostal Churches among the towering African Christian traditions, which then borrow rather than debunk such Pentecostal theological innovations. This article therefore discusses the Pentecostal Church reinvention of the ancient Jewish Passover festival to mirror the lives of African Christians in contemporary contexts. The ‘contextual theology’ analysis is employed to reflect on both the Jewish Passover and annual Pentecostal worship festivals, with a view of establishing how Passover (non-)parallels and reinventions have produced African Pentecostal theologies, traditions, and practices defining the uniqueness of African Pentecostalism.

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