Is the LRA Christian?

 

The many critics of Christianity like to assume that the LRA or ‘Lord’s Resistance Army’ are a ‘christian terrorist’ organization. Here are a collection of quotes from interviews with links as evidence that the LRA and its current and previous leadership are not part of the Christian church but a theocratic cult /  militant group that were once supplied by Sudanese Jihadists.

==============================

“The Lord’s Resistance Army (also Lord’s Resistance Movement or Lakwena Part Two) is a sectarian guerrilla army based in northern Uganda.”

“The group was formed in 1987 and is engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government in what is now one of Africa’s longest-running conflicts. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the “spokesperson” of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the Holy Spirit, which the Acholi believe can represent itself in many manifestations.[3] The group adheres to a syncretistic[4] blend of Christianity, Mysticism,[5] traditional religion,[6] and witchcraft,[7] and claims to be establishing a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments and Acholi tradition.[3][8][9][10] The LRA is accused of widespread human rights violations, including murder, abduction, mutilation, sexual enslavement of women and children, and forcing children to participate in hostilities.[11] The LRA operates mainly in northern Uganda, but also in parts of Sudan and DR Congo.[12][13]”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LRA

==================================

So if Kony is blending witchcraft, spiritualism and other religious elements he’s serving Jesus right? WRONG!

Let’s look at the original leadership of the LRA and Holy Spirit Movement:

============================

“Alice Auma (1956 – 17 January 2007) was an Acholi spirit-medium who, as the head of the Holy Spirit Movement, led a millennial rebellion against the Ugandan government forces of President Yoweri Museveni from August 1986 until November 1987. The primary spirit she purportedly channeled was that of a dead Italian army officer called “Lakwena”, meaning messenger, which the Acholi believe to be a manifestation of the Christian Holy Spirit.[1] The combined persona of Alice Auma channeling the spirit Lakwena is often referred to as Alice Lakwena.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Auma

============================

Again Ms. Auma was a spirit medium and allowed herself to be spirit possessed. Yet more evidence she and Kony are not Christian but African witches.

According to her Biography:

“Alice Auma was born in 1956. Remaining childless after two marriages, she moved away from her hometown. She eventually converted to Catholicism but, on 25 May 1985, she reportedly went ‘insane’, unable to either hear or speak, later claiming to have been possessed by a spirit, Lakwena. Her father took her to eleven different witches but none alleviated her condition. Alice claimed Lakwena then guided her to Paraa National Park, where she disappeared for 40 days and returned a spirit-medium, a traditional ethnic religious role.”

“Prior to the defeat of Tito Okello, Alice Auma was one of many spirit-mediums working near the town of Gulu as a minor oracle and spiritual healer. In the midst of the chaos of the anti-NRA insurgency of the Uganda People’s Democratic Army and the increasingly brutal counterinsurgency of the National Resistance Army, it is claimed that on 6 August 1986 Lakwena ordered Alice to stop her work as a diviner and healer, which was pointless in the midst of war, and create a Holy Spirit Movement (HSM) to fight evil and end the bloodshed. Through this divine mission that coincidentally required the retaking of the capital of Kampala, the Acholi would redeem themselves from the violence they had collectively done to the civilians of the Luwero triangle and initiate a paradise on earth. An explanation was given in a letter given to local missionaries:”

“The good Lord who had sent the Lakwena decided to change his work from that of a doctor to that of a military commander for one simple reason: it is useless to cure a man today only that he be killed the next. So it became an obligation on his part to stop the bloodshed before continuing his work as a doctor.”

“This came in the midst of a perceived local spiritual crisis that coincided with the threat posed by the occupying southern forces. The increased level of societal tension and number of deaths was attributed to witchcraft. Simultaneously, the soldiers fleeing back into Acholi from the defeat at Kampala often refused traditional purification ceremonies that were said to protect the community from the vengeful spirits of the people they had killed, and the elders found that they no longer had the authority to force compliance.”

“Alice Auma claimed that the possessing spirit Lakwena required that Alice be possessed by numerous other spirits to achieve its aims, which was unusual in the context of Acholi spirit-behavior. After a series of spectacular victories, Alice led the Holy Spirit Movement south out of Acholiland towards Kampala, where she garnered much support from other ethnic groups that had grievances with the Museveni government. However, subsequent military setbacks suffered by the HSM prompted some followers to accuse Alice of being a witch using spirits for destructive ends. As the HSM suffered its final defeat under withering artillery fire in the forests near Kampala, Alice fled, and claimed Lakwena had left her.”

 

“Alice Auma lived in the Ifo refugee camp near Dadaab in northern Kenya for the remainder of her life, and claimed to have been abandoned by the spirits. In November 2004 she was implicated in child trafficking from Gulu to the refugee camp. In 2006 she claimed to have discovered a cure for HIV/AIDS. Auma died on 17 January 2007, after being sick for about a week with an unknown illness.”

According to the end of this interview:

“Asked what he was fighting for, he replied: “We want the people of Uganda to be free. We are fighting for democracy. We want our leader to be elected — but not a movement like the one of Museveni.” “

 

“Was he also fighting for the Ten Commandments? “Yes, we are fighting for Ten Commandments,” he replied. “Is it bad? It is not against human rights. And that commandment was not given by Joseph (Kony). It was not given by LRA. No, that commandment was given by God.” “

 

“He was guided by spirits, he said. “They speak to me. They load through me. They will tell us what is going to happen. They say ‘you, Mr Joseph, tell your people that the enemy is planning to come and attack’. They will come like dreaming, they will tell us everything. You know, we are guerrilla. We are rebel. We don’t have medicine. But with the help of spirit they will tell to us, ‘you Mr Joseph go and take this thing and that thing’.” “

 

“Perhaps the spirits are pushing him to the negotiating table. “Through this peace talk I know that we are going to solve all those things, we are going to solve all those problems.””

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article680339.ece

=========================

How is being used by demonic spirits keeping Gods Ten Commandments?

“In 1989, the twenty-five year old Joseph Kony rose to the forefront of the Acholi People’s struggle against Museveni’s government. Kony’s rebels managed to curb atrocities committed against the Northerners by Uganda’s military, but soon the rebels began committing their own war crimes. Not surprisingly, Mr. Kony had been tutored by his aunt, the Acholi Priestess, Lakwena, who herself had engaged in brutal kidnappings (forced conscriptions) into her Holy Spirit Army.[6] From the start, Joseph Kony exhibited a ruthlessness in war noted for an arrogant flaunting of the 1949 Geneva Convention. In one decade alone, over 8,000 children were kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Most of these unfortunate children are now presumed dead, killed either in combat or in the murderous crossfire of warring sides. Tragically, these prisoners of war are transported, tied in columns by rope as slaves, to LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) camps.[7] When shooting breaks out, the conscripts often are unable to escape. If the kidnapped children survive the long journey to the LRA camps, they are forcefully indoctrinated into the LRA’s grand vision of an Acholi nation based on the Ten Commandments–savage beatings are meted out to all nonbelievers. The child captives are taught the rebel leader’s belief in an apocalyptic arrival of “The Silent World.” Joseph Kony believes there will be a time in history when all guns worldwide will fall silent and only those knowing how to use crude weapons, like stones, spears, and machetes, will prevail against their enemies.[8] (LRA members are obsessed with the idea of supernatural intervention and battlefield odds favoring the use of primitive weapons.) LRA military indoctrination consists of beatings, rapes, and the severing of limbs by machete–all based on selected Biblical passages–no doubt some of the harshest found in the pages of the Old Testament. Joseph Kony subjects his child soldiers to an odd blend of Christianity, primarily the fundamentalist kind, mixed with African animistic beliefs which include the practice of witchcraft. Of course, the Biblical passages forbidding engagement in witchcraft are overlooked by Mr. Kony and his entire LRA command structure. Anyone who resists LRA indoctrination, or who attempts to escape, is executed–often savagely beaten to death by those newly abducted into Kony’s Spirit Army.”

“Just what motivates these young fighters of the Lord’s Resistance Army? Mr. Joseph Kony, with his syncretism of religious beliefs, has thoroughly convinced many of his young warriors that the Holy Spirit can shield them in battle if the proper belief, the proper application of Holy Oil, the proper number of signs of the cross, and the proper recitation of prayer songs, are displayed in combat.[9] But that’s not all! LRA fighters are told to sew a stone into their clothing so a mountain may be projected in front of them as they advance toward enemy positions–all the better to shield them and absorb enemy fire.[10] Child soldiers are given a bottle of water for protection against Ugandan soldiers. LRA fighters must dip a stick inside the bottle and then empty the bottle’s contents to magically create a river that will drown any bullets fired in their direction.[11] And where is Joseph Kony during the battlefield melees? Safely in the rear area sitting out the firefights in a white robe! In the heat of battle, child soldiers are ordered not to take cover, but to stand tall when the shooting starts.[12] They have been told, by their officers, these are the orders of the Holy Spirit, as revealed personally to Mr. Kony. Why doesn’t the LRA commander exhibit the same belief in the Holy Spirit’s protection and expose himself to enemy fire? Perhaps he believes that malevolent spirits (called joks) will maliciously retaliate against him. Joseph Kony’s belief in “joks” is strong and because of his superstition the LRA has executed Ugandans, primarily women, believed to be in league with spirits.[13] Strangely, Mr. Kony’s own consultation of a spirit council, a disembodied panel of two Chinese, two Sudanese, three Americans, and one Congolese, aren’t grounds for the same LRA death penalty![14] I guess it pays to be the leader.”

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_petraitis/spirit_war.shtml

============================

“Despite ideological differences, the LRA won support from the Islamic government in Khartoum in retaliation for Uganda’s support to the Sudanese rebel movement and its leader, John Garang. Khartoum in recent years used the LRA to breed an army drawn from Ugandan villages to attack rebel strongholds in south Sudan. Its abuses against civilians on both sides of the border include kidnappings, summary executions, torture, rape and sexual assault, forced labor, and mutilation. Mr. Kony lives mostly in Sudan, and some say he converted to Islam. “

“Despite a 1999 agreement between Sudan and Uganda to end support to one another’s rebel groups, LRA abductions and killings are continuing. Religious leaders in the area say Khartoum, and until recently al-Qaeda, has supported the LRA with arms and training.”

http://www.worldmag.com/printer.cfm?id=8701

=========================================

When we look at the definition of Christian we find:

Definition of Christian

“krɪstən/  Show Spelled Pronunciation [kris-chuhn]”

“–adjective”

“1. of, pertaining to, or derived from Jesus Christ or His teachings: a Christian faith.”

 

“2. of, pertaining to, believing in, or belonging to the religion based on the teachings of Jesus Christ: Spain is a Christian country. ”

 

“3. of or pertaining to Christians: many Christian deaths in the Crusades. ”

 

“4. exhibiting a spirit proper to a follower of Jesus Christ; Christlike: She displayed true Christian charity. ”

 

“5. decent; respectable: They gave him a good Christian burial. ”

 

“6. human; not brutal; humane: Such behavior isn’t Christian. ”

 

“–noun”

“7. a person who believes in Jesus Christ; adherent of Christianity.”

 

“8. a person who exemplifies in his or her life the teachings of Christ: He died like a true Christian. ”

 

“9. a member of any of certain Protestant churches, as the Disciples of Christ and the Plymouth Brethren.”

“Origin:”

“1250–1300; < L Chrīstiānus < Gk Chrīstiānós, equiv. to Chrīst(ós) Christ + -iānos < L -iānus -ian; r. ME, OE cristen ”

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Christian

——————————

So apparently joseph kony and his former leader alice auma do not have any clue on true Biblical Christianity. They prefer to mix up a variety of beliefs and claim to be followers of Jesus.

I CONDEMN both their actions and beliefs as ANTI CHRISTIAN!

I pity their many victims and pray that they will be avenged upon both the LRA and their muslim masters!