Pastor, Family Burned Alive in Islamist Attack

Islamist villagers in eastern Uganda burned a pastor and his family to death after he led three Muslims to faith in Christ, the pastor’s brother said.

Pastor Weere Mukisa, his 25-year-old wife, Annet Namugaya, and their two daughters, 7-year-old Judith Banirye and 4-year-old Sylvia Bamukisa, died when the assailants set fire to their home shortly before 3 a.m. on October 13, said the church leader’s brother, James Tusubira.  Pastor Mukisa was 30.

The tragic attack took place in Kibale village, Mpumiro Parish, Bulange Sub-County, Namutumba District.  Pastor Mukisa had led the Muslims to Christ in September.

“When the three young Muslims converted to Christ, my brother started receiving threatening messages that he should stop any contact with the three young converts, and that the act committed is against the teaching of Islam to not join the religion of infidels,” Tusubira told Morning Star News.

Tusubira said he saw flames and smoke coming from the family’s home at 2:48 a.m.  “We rushed to the scene of the incident and found the house torched and the five bodies burned beyond recognition,” he said.  “Many people started arriving till the break of the day.  Plastic bottles of petrol were found outside the house.”

The assailants were from a neighboring village and were known to the pastor, Tusubira said.  The killings have been reported to the police in Kibale.  Officers were hunting for the suspects, who have absconded, Tusubira said.  Villagers were in great shock and fearful over the gruesome attack, he said.

“Please pray for us so that these radical Muslims who destroyed my brother and the entire family can be brought to book,” Tusubira said.

In Nankoma, Bugiri District, a mother of three children was beaten and burned with acid by her Muslim husband after he learned she had put her faith in Christ.

Hidaaya Nabafa, 27, was receiving hospital treatment for severe burns after the attack by Juma Nsibambi, 42, she said.

Nabafa had received Christ in August at a church in Nankoma village, undisclosed for security reasons.  Keeping her faith secret, she had gone to a worship service on October 9 while her husband was in Kampala.  “When I came back at 4 p.m., I found my husband at home, and he asked me about where I have been; I kept quiet for a while,” Nabafa told Morning Star News from her hospital bed.  “At last, I decided to tell him the truth that I gave my life to Jesus.”  She had Christian tracts about the life of Christ, she said.

“Upon hearing my confession, he got annoyed and boxed me and started beating me up,” Nabafa said.  “I tried to make an alarm for rescue, but all in vain.”  Nsibambi momentarily left, leaving her on the ground, and when he returned he poured battery acid on her, she said.  “I lost consciousness, only to find myself in the hospital bed,” said the mother of three children, ages 7, 5 and 2.

Neighbors arrived and took her to a hospital in Bugiri, where she was expected to continue treatment for a few more weeks due to the severity of the burns.  She is expected to need reconstructive surgery for some parts of her body badly injured by the acid.

These attacks were the latest of many instances of persecution of Christians in Uganda that Morning Star News has documented.

Uganda’s constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate one’s faith and convert from one faith to another.  Muslims make up no more than 12% of Uganda’s population, with high concentrations in eastern areas of the country.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Kamala Harris is Most 'Anti-Faith' Candidate in History

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts warned Americans in a Friday press call that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, is the most “anti-faith” presidential candidate in history and that her administration would lead to Christians losing their freedom to worship.

Roberts, who has led the conservative think tank since 2021, hosted a Virtual Faith Media Roundtable to Discuss Why Christians Should Vote Friday.  In his remarks, he warned about the implications of a Harris Administration and assuaged Christians with concerns about the Republican candidate for president— former President Donald Trump. 

The conversation took place four days before the 2024 presidential election, where the Republican ticket of Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance (OH-R), is locked in a tight race with the Democratic ticket of Harris and MN Gov. Tim Walz. 

Roberts described Harris as “the most anti-faith, anti-religion presidential candidate in history.”  He maintained that “People of faith who are worried about the choice they are making really need to understand what’s at stake.”  He asserted, “We’re going to lose our ability to worship, we’re going to lose our religious liberty if the Harris-Walz campaign prevails.”  He cited the vice president’s suggestion to attendees at one of her recent rallies who shouted phrases including “Christ is King” that they were at the wrong rally as an example of her hostility to religion. 

Roberts expressed concern about the prospect of a Harris-Walz Administration “expanding abortion” if the Democrats gain complete control of the U.S. Congress in addition to the presidency as well as “a real abridgement of religious liberty” and efforts to “abridge free speech.”  He expressed concern that “they’re going to abridge free speech for people of faith” as well as media organizations. 

“Although I’ve got other things I’m concerned about, I think it’s not hyperbole for me to say that I think the entire First Amendment is endangered” in the event of a Harris-Walz victory in the 2024 election, Roberts declared.  In addition to laying out the implications of a Harris-Walz Administration for people of faith, he attempted to reassure those with concerns that a Trump-Vance Administration would not be much better. 

Roberts lamented that “There are people of faith who are sitting on the sidelines because they have forgotten that we are electing a president, not a pastor.”  He contended that Christians who plan on sitting out the 2024 election because of their concerns about Trump need to remember that “none of us is perfect,” including Trump and Vance. 

Roberts’ comments about people of faith “sitting on the sidelines” in the 2024 election comes as a study from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University published last month estimated that 32 million self-identified Christians will abstain from voting. 

Addressing the concern that Trump has taken an inadequately pro-life position by insisting that the issue of abortion should be left to the states following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision determining that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion and his vow to not sign a national abortion ban, Roberts maintained that “I think people of faith need to remember the … former president’s track record” on the issue from his previous time in the White House. 

“I’m cautiously optimistic that in a Trump-Vance Administration, that the policy default of the president and vice president will still be solidly pro-life,” he said.  Reflecting on the assembly of a presidential cabinet and administration that would follow a Trump-Vance victory, Roberts declared “It’s sort of impossible to avoid appointing pro-life people.” 

Roberts described the pro-life movement as “a vital, vital part of the political coalition that will have succeeded in electing Trump and Vance,” stressing that giving pro-life activists prominent roles in the administration would be “politically intelligent.” 

Polling at the national level as well as in individual swing states as of Friday forecasts a close election.  The RealClearPolitics average of national polls asking voters which candidate they support shows Trump with a very narrow lead of 0.3 percentage points over Harris.  The RealClearPolitics “no toss-up” map, which projects the outcome of the presidential election in the electoral college based on polling averages in individual states, shows Trump capturing 287 electoral votes to Harris’ 251. 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Harris Rejects Religious Exemptions in Abortion Debate

Democratic candidates have been running on abortion for years, and both President Joe Biden and now Vice President Kamala Harris have pledged to resurrect a more extreme version of Roe v. Wade if Democrats win the White House in November.  But Harris is promising more than just unrestricted abortion on demand: she’s promising to make American Christians carry out and pay for abortions.

In an NBC News interview on last week, Harris was asked if she would consider “making concessions” on abortion if she were to win the White House in order to garner support from pro-abortion Republicans like Senators Lisa Murkowski (AK-R) and Susan Collins (ME-R).  “What concessions would be on the table?  Religious exemptions, for example; is that something that you would consider if the Republicans control Congress?” NBC’s Senior Washington Correspondent Hallie Jackson asked.  Harris replied, “I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body.”

When Jackson asked if Harris would consider religious exemptions as an “olive branch” extended to Murkowski or Collins, the vice president said that “a basic freedom has been taken from the women of America, the freedom to make decisions about their own body, and that cannot be negotiable, which is why we need to put back in the protections of Roe v. Wade, and that is it.”

Christian organizations were quick to react.  In comments to The Washington Stand (TWS), Mary Szoch, Family Research Council’s director of the Center for Human Dignity, said that Harris “isn’t pro-choice; she is pro-abortion.”  Szoch continued, “She wants to force everyone to perform abortions — even physicians who recognize that the killing of an innocent unborn child is murder and a grave sin — and she wants to force American taxpayers to pay for abortions.”  She concluded, “This woman will do everything possible to increase the number of babies aborted in this country.  No Christian can vote for her in good conscience.”

The Center for Baptist Leadership called Harris’s comments “chilling,” adding, “This means that all Christian hospitals, healthcare providers, businesses, etc., would be forced to provide/cover abortion if she got her way.  It would be the end of the First Amendment and religious liberty as we know it.”

In comments to TWS, William Wolfe, the executive director of the Center for Baptist Leadership and a former Trump staffer, said, “In the final moments of her floundering campaign, Kamala Harris has decided to drop the mask and reveal her deep-seated hatred for the unborn and all American Christians.  There are so many things wrong with her recent comments, both morally and legally, that it’s hard to know where to begin.”

“First, there is no ‘fundamental freedom’ to murder the unborn in the womb.  Rather, the government is obligated, under God and the Constitution, to defend the lives of all American citizens, including the unborn,” Wolfe explained.  He continued, “Second, her rejection of ‘religious exemptions’ when it comes to abortion would be the end of the First Amendment as we know it.  She is openly admitting that, if elected, she would use the full force of the federal government to require Christian doctors to perform abortions against their conscience and religious beliefs.”

Wolfe called the agenda “nothing short of a satanic tyranny that flies in the face of everything America was founded on.”  He added, “As a Baptist, this is particularly concerning, as we believe that religious liberty is foundational for free societies.  She’s made her antipathy toward those who want to uphold the First Amendment and protect innocent life in America known.  Now, we will see how Christians respond at the ballot box.”

CatholicVote, a conservative advocacy group, protested in a statement over social media, “Kamala Harris admits she would deny religious exemptions for abortions — forcing Christians to kill unborn children and seemingly doubling down on weaponizing the government to jail pro-lifers who pray outside abortion facilities.”  The organization wondered, “Why would any Christian vote for her?”

Andrew T. Walker, professor of ethics and public theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, summarized, “Killing a pre-born child is a more fundamental right than religious liberty according to Vice President Harris.”  Ben Domenech, editor-at-large for The Spectator, commented, “Forcing Catholic hospitals, which supply care to some of the most vulnerable populations, to perform abortions or shut their doors is literally the most vile thing a major party candidate has ever endorsed.”

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly condemned Harris for her demonstrable animosity towards American Christians and pro-lifers.  At the “11th Hour Faith Leaders Meeting” on last Monday, Trump insisted that Harris is “very destructive to Christianity and very destructive to evangelicals and to the Catholic Church.”  He added, “She is your worst nightmare.  Much worse, much worse than Biden, and he wasn’t so hot.”

Trump has previously called Harris “militantly hostile toward Americans of faith,” pointing out her record on such issues as abortion and the LGBT agenda, as well as her repeated prosecution — both in the White House and prior to becoming vice president — of pro-life Americans and her complicity in targeting American Catholics with the FBI.

Trump has pledged to “stop the Biden-Harris Administration’s weaponization of law enforcement against Americans of faith” and has said that “no longer will the DOJ and the FBI be allowed to target, persecute, or round up Christians or pro-life activists and throw them in jail for living out their religious beliefs.”

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel