Preaching Prevention

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Lydia Boyd. Preaching Prevention

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PREACHING PREVENTION

Series editor: James L. A. Webb, Jr.

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Moral Authorities: Born-Again Churches and Social Protest in Uganda

In Uganda the moral conflicts that surround AIDS prevention have been shaped by broader changes to Ugandan society since the 1980s. The epidemic coincided, as it did on much of the African continent, with a period of rapid urbanization that precipitated widespread alterations to social bonds. Family relationships were especially burdened by the epidemic, as exceedingly high rates of death and disability forced people to rely on extended relationships of kin and community in order to cope. But the changing nature of these same relationships—as young adults delayed marriage and women left their natal homes to find wage labor—also stoked concerns that the abandonment of “traditional” values was a cause of the disease and society’s misfortune. “Loose women” and “unruly youth” were a frequent target of blame for the virus in Uganda, as they were elsewhere.46 Because it became associated for many—especially elders—with changing family dynamics and the perceived misbehaviors attributed to newly more independent women and young adults, the epidemic intensified questions about what types of persons are morally correct in Ugandan society and about the social costs of both modern and traditional ways of being. These practices of reflection have especially engaged the spiritual realm, and blame for sexual misconduct has in some instances, as Heike Behrend has recounted in her study of Western Uganda,47 been attributed to occult forces at work in society. High rates of death during the epidemic fueled a sense of intense social, moral, and spiritual insecurity.

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