Blogs and Stories
Rick Warren's Africa Problem
During the early 1990s, when many African leaders denied the AIDS epidemic’s existence, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni spoke openly about the importance of safe sex. With the help of local and international non-governmental organizations, he implemented an ambitious program emphasizing abstinence, monogamous relationships, and using condoms as the best ways to prevent the spread of AIDS. He called the program “ABC.” By 2003, Uganda’s AIDS rate plummeted 10 percent. The government’s free distribution of the “C” in ABC—condoms—proved central to the program’s success, according to Avert, an international AIDS charity.
On New Year’s Eve, 1999, Janet Museveni, who had become born-again, convened a massive stadium revival in Kampala to dedicate her country to the “lordship” of Jesus Christ. As midnight approached, the First Lady summoned a local pastor to the stage to anoint the nation. “We renounce idolatry, witchcraft, and Satanism in our land!” he proclaimed.
Two years later, Janet Museveni flew to Washington at the height of a heated congressional debate over PEPFAR. She carried in her hand a prepared message to distribute to Republicans. Abstinence was the golden bullet in her country’s fight against AIDS, she assured conservative lawmakers, denying the empirically proven success of her husband’s condom distribution program. Like magic, the Republican-dominated Congress authorized over $200 million for Uganda, but only for the exclusive promotion of abstinence education. Ssempa soon became the “special representative of the First Lady’s Task Force on AIDS in Uganda,” receiving $40,000 from the PEPFAR pot.
Emboldened by U.S. support, Ssempa took his anti-condom crusade to Makerere University in Kampala, where senior residents of a men’s dormitory promoted safe sex by greeting incoming freshmen with a giant effigy wearing a condom. According to Helen Epstein, one day after she visited the school, Ssempa stormed on to campus, tore the condom from the effigy, grabbed a box of free condoms, and set them ablaze. “I burn these condoms in the name of Jesus!” Ssempa shouted as he prayed over the burning box.
“It was a very controversial time,” Epstein told me. “After the Bush administration authorized PEPFAR, a number of the local evangelical preachers began to get excited about this and get involved in AIDS very rapidly. To try to prove his credentials, Ssempa became increasingly active and vociferous in his antipathy towards condoms.”
By 2005, billboards promoting condom use disappeared from the streets of Kampala, replaced by billboards promoting virginity. “Until recently, all HIV-related billboards were about condoms. Those of us calling for abstinence and faithfulness need billboards too,” Ssempa told the BBC at the time. A 2005 report by Human Rights Watch documented that educational material in Uganda’s secondary schools falsely claiming condoms had microscopic pores that could be penetrated by the HIV virus and noted the sudden nationwide shortage of condoms due to new restrictions imposed by on condom imports.
AIDS activists arrived at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto in 2006 with disturbing news from Uganda. Due at least in part to the chronic condom shortage, HIV infections were on the rise again. The disease rate had spiked to 6.5 percent among rural men, and 8.8 percent among women—a rise of nearly two points in the case of women. “The ‘C’ part [of ABC] is now mainly silent,” said Ugandan AIDS activist Beatrice Ware. As a result, she said, “the success story is unraveling.”
Stars Celebrate the Super Bowl
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
The War on Christmas Peters Out
Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast, writing fellow at The Nation Institute and author of Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books). Contact him at maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com.
Palin's Wing-Nut Rival
Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast, writing fellow at The Nation Institute and author of Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books). Contact him at maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com.
Un-Pelosi: The Senator Who’ll Kill the Stupak Amendment
Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast, writing fellow at The Nation Institute and author of Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books). Contact him at maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com.
Banjo1
A suspicious person would wonder what's behind Max Blumenthal's jihad against Warren. Let me guess. A secular Jew (ck). A liberal with an agenda (ck). A east coast journalist (ck). Gay? (Must inquire further). Well, there.it seems I've answered my own question.
Cycledoc
Follow the Money--a fundementalist belief?
What's fascinating is that when one does a google search on abstinence education Africa, you find many sites associated with church causes promoting the concept but few facts.
For the record most of these Christian groups, including Rick Warren's, had nothing to do with HIV for the first twenty years of the epidemic. That neocon icon, Ronald Reagan, couldn't even bring himself to say the word AIDS during his presidency. Twenty million people died and another twenty or so million became infected in this period.
These groups opposed funding of any anti-HIV intervention in the 80's and 90's. Their philosophy, as voiced to me by a missionary in Uganda in 1988, was that those with HIV got what they deserved. When Bush, to his credit, decided to put money into HIV in Africa. These churches, so to speak got religion, and followed the money. The only problem is that they wish to dominate the program with an ineffective HIV education message. Hopefully this will change.
kahawa
A better educated person might wonder why Banjo1 does not know the real meaning of the word "jihad." The real meaning, not the ire-provoking mainstream media meaning. A less bigoted person might wonder why Banjo1 discounts out of hand the opinions of secular Jews, east coast journalists and gays.
Leader
I'm a Ugandan, and I've witnessed all what these guys are claiming.
1- Dr. Martin has helped my nation very much as regards HIV/AIDS prevention. Initially Makerere was a dean of death! lots of our relatives were dying at the university, reason being HIV/AIDS. the spread was so much causal sex, and sex promotions, with out a full knowledge of what sex entails. its not a matter of just sleeping with someone. Sex has ability to reproduce (bear children), it entails much more, emotion, physical and spiritual....
About the the "Burning of Condoms".. Initially the government had detected that more than a Million NGABO condoms were deffected(http://abstinenceafrica.com/library/index.php?entryid=1780), and they were supposed to be destroyed to protect our people, The government had to destroy them. Dr. Martin helped us alot, he protected our lives by burning those condoms. I WOULD BE A STATISTIC this day if I WERE TO USE THOSE DEADLY CONDOMS.
I urge you to read more and get to the ground.. there many Ugandans in Uganda, who know this, and its a shame that you biased your article, your fellow writers and journalists have written about the matter since 2005 but u're still giving fake information. Which kinda of writer are you? you've to give REAL TRUTH!!!..
There are lots of links to help you...http://www.google.se/search?q=How Fake Condoms Got Onto the Market&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox -a
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
winlock
The motivation behind the article is so transparent. Anti-Christian rants don't make for good journalism. There is a larger story here, one that doesn't fit into the pinched space that Mr. Blumenthal has tried to put it in. It would be refreshing to have a voice on religious affairs at the Beast that can find a way to discuss religion and policy in a way that takes into account the larger picture, and in this case, what someone like Warren is actually accomplishing.
hickssr10
Why is it "anti-Christian" to say that abstinance only education, AIDS preveniton programs that eschew condom distribution, etc. don't work?I think that rather than being anti-Christian, it is begin anti extremist/fundamentalist programs and people who decide that because of their beliefs, science and research should be discounted. If we know, based on study, that something works, but we refuse to allow it because of our BELIEFS then we are doing more harm than good. And when a journalist calls that out, we should applaud him. Stop being so scared of the truth that you have to call people names!.
tonystory
Is this article meant to be serious?
I actually don't even know what to say here. I don't know enough about Warren to have a fixed opinion about this Africa stuff, but this article sure hasn't help inform me. A loose collection of "guilt by association" tales and innuendo. Give us some hard facts... Or does that take too much research and actual hard work?
As an aside... I do wonder what sort of Pastor would keep the left (which I consider myself to be a member of, by the way) happy? If you want a pro-gay, anti-abstinence, non-evangelical... you are pretty much limited Canadian Bishops or maybe someone from New Hampshire. Ok, we get it... you don't like mainstream evangelicals (and plenty of them make me want to puke) but come on! This is meant to be the spiritual part of the inauguration! Get over yourselves and write about something of consequence!
bingo1
It is out of sheer frustration experienced after reading the previous posts that I feel compelled to comment. It seems that every reader leaves the article only more convinced of his or her position prior to starting. This is not a problem with only this article, but nearly every arguement for or against every topic over the last decade. If you are not willing to be open to arguements from the "other" side, why even click on them at all? Why must every solution be and "either/or" scenario? You don't have to agree with the other side, but you do have to respect the rights to have an opinion. What this world needs is a respectful, open, and honest debate, not paranoia, intolerance and name calling. The other side is always going to exist, so our energies would be best spent learning to live with them instead of squashing them.
On the AIDS issue in particular, I think it is such a serious issue that it requires a multi-faceted solution that touches and influences as many people as possible. For this reason, I would argue that you need BOTH an abstinence program AND a safe sex program. I cannot understand why they must be mutually exclusive. Does one negatively impact the other as it relates to slowing the spread of AIDS? The answer, no matter your religion or political stance, is no. One only impacts the the other from the viewpoint of morality and values, which are themselves subjective and relative in nature.
citivas
Are the previous posters kidding (kahawa aside)? Let me guess -- any criticism of a Christian pastor is automatically anit-Christian? Why don't you try responding with intelligent facts, couterpoints or actual discourse? If there are things in the article that are factually incorrect, please state them, I'd like to know. Otherwise it reads as a vert interesting peice and I'm glad someone wrote it.
ColoradoCynic
Kahawa, I think we should all be extremely wary of the work of most East Coast "journalists." I don't know whether he is from the East Coast, but Blumenthal is clearly in league with those elitists. However, by his own words Blumenthal discredits himself as a journalist. This sentence alone is damning: "The bill died and PEPFAR was reauthorized in its flawed form." Regardless of whether one agrees with the meaning of the sentence, it clearly betrays a a bias, something true journalists do their best to avoid.
This is not journalism. This is an extremely one-sided screed that demonstrates Blumethal's wish to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Winlock also points to another obvious problem with this ilk: the near-complete disregard for Christianity, to which the majority of Americans still ascribe belief and from which far more good has come than evil. Blumethal, in fact, tries repeatedly to turn "born again" into an epithet. Laughable.
Max, I shouldn't say this, but if you want to win people to your myopic world view, you need to be a little more subtle than the business end of a barnyard shovel upside the face. People can see past that tactic. Really. From one former journalist to an aspirant, let me tell you that people truly are smarter than you elitists think they are.
bghnow
This is good reporting, Mr. Blumenthal. Does it fully explicate the underlying, good and sincere intentions of Mr. Warren and a good many evangelicals around the world? No. But, Rick Warren I think does that himself on his website and in a great many other venues. No doubt many good things are happening for members of Saddleback and other congregations around the world as they manifest their beliefs. Your reporting here gives a clear view at some of the very harmful consequences that result from their constant need to find an evil to suppress, or fight, in order to see the good in themselves. This is a very old, tribal and decidedly non-christian habit that should be highlighted at every opportunity. Good work.
RealityIsInteresting
How is it Anit-Christian to report facts? I question the emphasis in christianity (and other religions) on sex when clearly SO MUCH senseless needless violence has been perpetrated in the name of religion. Is there a connection between our tendency to supress sex and act violently? This is obviously not a conversation that can be had with someone who is highly invested in their own sexual suppression/repression. But the hippocracy that we see again and again around these issues should give us pause. What instinct is it in us would make us act in so obviously a retarded way? We can easily scoff at African primitivism (sex with virgins will protect you from AIDS?!?) but our own refusal to investigate and uncover reality (no, sex with virgins just reduces the non-infected population AND SPREADS HIV) is just as entrenched and absurd. The question is how can we best perpetuate intelligent ideas when people seem so eager to embrace their own downfall and supression. Education? Can people who see this as a personaly motivated attack on them such as banjo1 and winlock, and those eager to be on the right side with god at the expense (by design?) of their fellows ever loosen their death-grip? Will Batman be able to stop the Riddler in time?
cook1974
I enjoy how Christians always want us to look at The Larger Picture - which in most cases, is that Religion Kills People.
liviapeacock
coloradocynic, your use of elitist as a swear word wears so thin...get over yourself about journalism, this is not a newspaper. the daily beast is a blog site, and does not hold to the same principals. Go back to the WSJ of you want right winged journalism, or NPR if you want fair and balanced. Give me a break and get off this site.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.