Liberated Sexuality and Spirituality in African Liberation (Part I): Ideological, Political and Theological Dimensions

African Liberation has its fundamental and critical anchors. It is about ending exploitation, oppression, and occupation by foreign interests that we trace from slavery, colonialism, imperialism, and neoliberalism. African liberation is about sovereignty of our nations, resources, and our freedom in all economic, social, cultural, ideological, and political spheres. In the sphere of cultural liberation one of the fundamental anchors is the liberation of sexuality and spirituality. This particular anchor of cultural liberation is also the epicenter of cultural wars in imperialist countries that are outsourced to Africa. The consequences are that we are dominated, oppressed, and exploited in all spheres of our humanity. Our quest is therefore one of liberation in all these spheres of our existence.

Ideological and Political Arguments Against Liberated Sexuality and Spirituality 

The export of the American “religious culture wars” has transformed from localized domestic conflict into a major geopolitical force. In the US, racism, sexism, and homophobia are birds of the same feather working collectively against liberated sexuality and spirituality. Over the last few decades, well funded US conservative and racist organizations, evangelical ministries, and political strategists have systematically exported their rhetoric, legal framework, and lobbying tactics to the Global South and parts of Europe. By shifting the battlefield abroad, these actors have successfully reshaped local laws and social fabrics, often with devastating consequences. Some African leaders have embraced the right wing conservative narratives about same sex relations. The African Union has not been spared either. The drafted African Charter on Family values and Sovereignty has attracted external and national collaborators who are also getting funding from such  US and Europe based organizations as Family Watch International, Christian Council International. 

In the case of Kenya, Christian Lawyers Association has been very active in litigating against any litigation that seeks to defend the rights of LGBTQIA+. The association Judicial Officers for Christ has a membership of magistrates and judges. Serious research is being carried out to see whether this association is funded by these external organizations. If this is found to be the case all those involved will definitely face petitions filed by individuals and organizations before the Judicial Service Commission for their removal.^[1] And that link between the Bar and Bench if established exists, this will be a great blow to the independence and integrity of the Kenyan Judiciary.

Africa has arguably been the most prominent target for white racist exported cultural wars. American evangelicals, finding themselves losing ground on domestic social issues like same-sex marriage, have pivoted their resources towards such countries as Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Nigeria, and Ghana. In the case of the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Acts, US pastors and conservative legal advocacy groups played a documented role in laying the groundwork for these draconian Acts. This was done by hosting conferences that framed homosexuality as a Western colonial import that threatens the traditional African family. They stoked  moral panics. Ironically, they used Western money and imported rhetoric to ban what they labeled a “Western vice.” In other countries, local politicians are funded and recruited into these cultural wars. The fundamental objective is to criminalize not just same-sex acts, but LGBTQIA+ advocacy itself.

The intersection of US culture wars and homosexuality has long served as one of the most potent wedge issues in American politics, deliberately leveraged to polarize the electorate and draw sharp partisan lines. Beginning in the late 20th Century, political strategists recognized that debates on LGBTQIA+ rights-ranging from the HIV-AIDS crisis and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to the battle over same-sex marriages could effectively mobilize conservative voters and fracture the opposition. By framing these legal and civil rights issues as existential threats to traditional American values, and the nuclear family, the culture wars successfully transformed private identities into public and highly contentious political battlegrounds. This  strategic polarization has left a lasting legacy, ensuring that LGBTQIA+ issues remain a reliable tool for driving voter turnout and fundraising, even as public opinion has shifted significantly toward broader acceptance.

Christian fundamentalists have played a central, driving role in this dynamic, serving as the organizational and theological backbone of the anti-gay movement. Emerging as a formidable political force via the “New Right” and organizations like the Moral Majority in the late 1970s and 1980s,^[2] fundamentalist leaders cast the struggle against homosexuality in stark, dualistic terms of spiritual warfare and moral decline. They successfully fused religious orthodoxy  with political activism, lobbying for restrictive  legislation, judicial appointments, and school curriculum changes. While legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015 marked a major shift, the fundamentalist movement adapted by pivoting its focus towards “religious freedom” exemptions and, more recently, targeting transgender rights and LGBTIQA+ themes in education. Through it all, Christian fundamentalists have remained the primary architects of the cultural and political resistance, maintaining homosexuality’s status as a premier battlefront in the ongoing American culture wars.

Ideological and Political Arguments in support of Liberated Sexuality and Spirituality 

Cracks and the Exposure of Hypocrisy

The Anglican Communion has faced cracks since the Archbishop of Canterbury approved same-sex marriages and opened Church doors to the gay community. Realizing that  within the gay community are devout Christians, the Archbishop’s decision was as courageous as it was controversial. The Anglican Churches in Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria opposed this move and threatened to secede from the Communion. The debate rages on. I have heard within the Kenyan grapevine that the Christian fundamentalists in the US have been funding the Archbishops directly without accountability. The liberal churches in America have funded the Churches as institutions and held them accountable for funds received. If true about the Archbishops, this would be a worrying trend where the leaders of Churches become Monarchs who are not accountable to both the flock, pastors, cannons, and bishops!

Reverend Dr. Kapya Kaoma is an ordained Anglican priest and theologian from Zambia. He is widely recognized as the pioneering researcher who blew the whistle on how the American religious right systematically weaponized African politics, using the continent as a proxy battleground for US culture wars. Working as a senior research analyst for the Boston-based think tank Political Research Associates (PRA), Kaoma conducted  groundbreaking, and under-cover investigations that traced the millions of dollars and deep strategic ties connecting American evangelical leaders to draconian anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation in Africa.

Kaoma authored two seminal and explosive reports that fundamentally shifted global understanding of these dynamics. The first report^[3] documented how American conservative groups, having lost cultural ground on issues like same-sex marriage domestically, pivoted to Africa to build an alternative  power base. The follow-up report detailed the direct role that American evangelicals played in drafting and promoting Uganda’s notorious “Kill the Gays” bill, proving that the legislation was not out of homegrown African movement, but an imported American product.^[4]

One of Kaoma’s most brilliant theological and political insights was exposing the deep hypocrisy of the anti-gay rhetoric used by African politicians. While local leaders claimed they were protecting “traditional African values” against “Western moral decadence,” Kaoma proved the exact opposite was true. He demonstrated that the pre-colonial African societies often exhibited diverse understandings of gender and sexuality, and that the virulent, legislated homophobia being introduced was actually a new Western religious colonization, funded by wealthy American right-wing networks.

Because Kaoma named specific figures, such as Scott Lively, Rick Warren, and organizations like the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defending Freedom, his work drew immense attention. He testified before the U. S. Congress and the United Nations, putting intense international pressure on the networks funding these initiatives. However, exposing these powerful networks came at a severe personal cost. Following his reports, Kaoma faced intense hostility, death threats, and character assassination from conservative factions both in the US and within Africa. His safety was so severely compromised that he was forced into exile, unable safely to return to his home country,  Zambia, for years.

As a theologian, Kaoma did not just criticize but he offered an alternative. He has consistently argued that the true mission of the African Church should be centred on liberation, poverty alleviation, human rights, and environmental justice (eco-theology), rather than obsessed with policing human sexuality at the behest of foreign political actors. Through his courage, Kaoma single-handedly reframed global conversation, forcing the international community to recognize  that Africa’s anti-LGBTQIA+ laws are deeply intertwined with the financial and ideological machinery of the American religious right.

The Supremacy of Traditional African Sexuality and Spirituality

Walter Rodney has written on African history, culture, and religion. I have always found his sermons on all these critical subjects very persuasive. He writes that “Among the values and principles of African culture the following are to be noted: hospitality, respect, (especially to elders), importance of the woman (especially in cases of inheritance), humane treatment of lawbreakers, spiritual reflection, common use of land, constant employment of music (especially drums) and bright colours.”^[5] I personally lived and internalized these values and principles in my community in the 1950s and 1960s. These principles resisted, and continue to resist, colonial and imperialist principles.

I find Walter Rodney’s position on African traditional religions profound in the search for a democratic secular state and society. And above these, religions become sites of struggle against religions that have been enslaved by imperialism. Their values of religious tolerance, human tolerance, and spiritual reflection are the antithesis of religions that support imperialism.  Rodney writes:

African traditional religions are by nature non-imperialistic. Unlike the universal revealed religions, they do not set out to show others light, so that there is no possibility of domination in this sphere. African systems of dynamic belief allowed Islam to exist peacefully for centuries; they allowed the first Christians to enter without demur, and above all the various African religions never waged the religious wars which were so much a part of the history of Europe. Even Christianity in Africa, as represented by the Ethiopian Coptic Church, took on a different and more tolerant aspect. Western Christians mocked Ethiopian Coptic faith, largely because they despised its syncretisms and its coming to terms with the divergent elements of culture within Ethiopia.^[6]

Professor Sylvia Tamale reinforces these values and principles of African Traditional Religions as follows:

ATRs [African Traditional Religions] are not missionary religions and make no efforts to convert non-believers. In Africa, the majority adhere to the messianic Abrahamic religions of Christianity (45%) and Islam (40%). But what remains hidden from the official databases on African religious affiliations is the fact that millions of people practise the received religions simultaneously with their traditional ones. It is not unusual to find individuals wearing a rosary or misbaha and at the same time in possession of a traditional amulet to protect them from evil spirits. Covert visits to the shrines of traditional spiritual practitioners by practising Christians and Muslims are as frequent (if not more so) as those to churches and mosques. Such syncretic worship is evidence that ATRs are still alive and well and far exceed the global element of 6 percent.”^[7]

Because ATRs are not proselytizing, their members have a great propensity to live side-by-side with members of other faiths without tensions based on the fact of religious difference. This contract between African ethnic religions/ATRs and the religions with universalist ambitions like Christianity and Islam is well captured by Ali Mazrui, using his “triple heritage” framework:

Of the three principal religious legacies of Africa (indigenous, Islamic and Christian) perhaps the most tolerant is the indigenous tradition. It is even arguable that Africa did not have religious wars before Christianity and Islam arrived…By not being proselytizing religions, indigenous African creeds have not fought with each other. Over the centuries Africans have waged many kinds of wars with each other - but hardly ever religious ones before the universalist creeds arrived.^[8]

Professor Mutua has described the treatment of African traditional religions by Abrahamic religions in their quest for conversion as cultural genocide. He has argued that freedom of religion can never mean to discriminate and destroy other religions.^[9] His article has a great historical background to the implementation of the 2010 Constitution. Many of its suggestions have now found their way to various articles of the Constitution including the Preamble, Articles 1, 8, 10, 27, 32, 44, 159, 259. The vision of the Constitution is one of a democratic secular state that upholds, defends, respects the freedom of religion, belief, opinion, and conscience in its society. Its vision is also about freeing people from religion, hence, the protection of atheism and other spiritualities that do not fall under any particular religion. Professor Mutua shared this article with the late Nzamba Kitonga,  the Chair of the Committee Of Experts that gave us a draft Constitution.^[10] After reading Professor Mutua’s article against the Articles of the Constitution in question, it is my view that it is most likely that some of Mutua’s ideas found their way to the provisions of the new constitution.

Murray, S.O, Roscoe, M, and Evans-Pritchard, E.E are leading scholars who confirm that Africans practiced homosexuality before Africa’s domination by Western imperialism. Although practices were not always widely accepted or institutionalized, they were tolerated.^[11]

Socialist Sexuality and Spirituality: Two Examples

We can safely start by reflecting on the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and how the Revolution dealt with sexual liberation. Sherry Wolf writes:

In 1917, all laws against homosexuality were struck down by the new revolutionary government along with the rest of the Tsarist criminal code. Consensual sex was deemed a private matter and not only were gays free to live as they chose without state intervention, but the Soviet Courts also approved of marriage between homosexuals and, extraordinarily, there are even recorded instances of sex change operations in the 1920s. In other words, the revolution accomplished this grandiose social-sexual leap three years before American women achieved the right to vote and nearly ninety years before the Supreme Court of the United States finally struck down all sodomy laws.^[12]

Worth analyzing also is how these revolutionary reforms were clawed back during the Stalin era and the governments that followed in that era. Zillah Eisenstein observes Putin's era thus; “There is hardly a shadow left of the enormous gains made by men and women during the Bolshevik Revolution.^[13] Here we have a great opportunity of learning what happened to building socialism in the Soviet Union. This cannot be discussed without a holistic analysis of economic, social, and cultural developments that took place, and in what historical contexts. What is clear is that what collapsed in 1989 was not socialism. Indeed, since 1963 the Chinese Communist Party described the system in the Soviet Union as Social Imperialism. There have been debates among African scholars on this issue.^[14]

Similarly, the relationship between the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the struggle for gay rights is one of the most fascinating, progressive, and often overlooked chapters in the history of the American Left. While the early days of the Party were frequently marked by rigid, hyper-masculine, and sometimes homophobic attitudes typical of the 1960s radical movements, the BPP underwent a historic ideological shift.

On August 15, 1970,  Huey P. Newton published a letter in the Black Panther newspaper titled, “A Letter from Huey P. Newton to the Revolutionary Brothers and Sisters about women’s liberation and Gay Liberation Movements.” In the letter, Newton challenged the deep-seated prejudices within his own party and the broader radical movement. His position was defined by several key insights:

• Recognizing Shared Oppression: Newton argued that gay people and women were among the most oppressed  groups in society, and therefore, they were natural allies of the Black revolutionary struggle. He famously wrote: “Whatever your personal opinions and your insecurities[are] about homosexuality…we should try to form a working coalition with the gay liberation and women’s liberation groups.

• Challenging Internal Homophobia: He directly confronted the use of homophobic slurs within the Party, urging members to check their own insecurities. He noted that a person’s sexual orientation had no bearing on their revolutionary potential, stating, “A homosexual could be the most revolutionary.”

• An Early Concept of Intersectionality: Decades before the term “intersectionality” was coined, Newton recognized that the systems of capitalism, racism, sexism, and homophobia were interconnected, and that true liberation required dismantling all of them simultaneously.^[15] 

Theological Arguments in Support of Liberated Sexuality and Spirituality

An example of how literal interpretation of the Bible expresses conservative, ahistorical, and fundamentalist narratives is the story of Lot, the passage in Genesis 19:1-10. Scholars have challenged the literal reading of the story. Dr. Mollenkott, for example, argues that “…the sin in the Sodom and Gomorrah passage…is less about homosexuality than it is about inhospitality and gang rape. The law of of hospitality was universally accepted and Lot was struggling to uphold it against what we assume are heterosexual townsmen threatening gang rape to the two male angels in Lot’s home. While people dwell on this passage as a condemnation of homosexuality, they bypass what I believe is the central issue, or, if you will, sin: Lot’s offering his two virgin daughters up to men to be used as they desired for gang rape. Here is a perfectly clear example of devaluing and dehumanizing and violently brutalizing women.”^[16]

Aisya Aymanee M. Zaharin^[17] writes about this story of Prophet Lut (in Islam) as follows: “Through the lenses of reformist and progressive Muslims, Lut’s story demonstrates that the Quran does not dismiss homosexuality in the context of contemporary same-sex relationships but condemns forced sodomy….The central analysis of the Lut story is that Lut’s people are punished for the accumulation of several sins, the greatest being the rejection of monotheistic religion and the sexual violence inflicted on other men.”^[18]

As to how the Quran is to be interpreted Zaharin argues that to “...avoid bias, this paper agrees with the principle that every text in the Quran should be interpreted in relation to the Quran in its entirety…Quran 39:55 makes it clear that Muslims are instructed to extract, out of the many possible interpretations, the interpretation that achieves the greatest good….In addition, the Quran was revealed through its interactive explanatory process, where verses are explained through verses, and therefore the verses need to be observed within a cluster rather than detached from their correlations.”^[19]

The Quran has to be interpreted holistically instead of picking a verse to the exclusion of others. Dr. Mollenkott argues that “The eight Biblical references (and not a single one from Jesus) to alleged homosexuality are very small indeed when compared to the several hundreds references (and many by Jesus) to money and the necessity for justly distributing wealth. Yet few people go on rampage about the issue of a just economic system, using the Bible as a base.”^[20] 

Indeed, in the issue of LGBTQIA+ I have always wondered why the sin supposedly being committed by gay community is prioritized without reference to Holy Scriptures saying so. Indeed, the critical question that is avoided by homophobes and heterosexists is who created the gay community. I have heard it said that gay people are created by Satan. Satan is God’s creation. God’s Satan has not created anyone! The themes in the Holy Scriptures such as gender equity, diversity in humanity, social justice, liberation, rejection of prejudices, delivery of strength to the oppressed, are anchored in a  forgiving and merciful God. In Islam there is no evidence that Prophet Mohamed punished homosexuality. And Jesus’ view on adultery and not homosexuality has been quoted by Judge of Appeal Waki, above.

Zaharin’s think piece is rich in its historical treatment on the issue of rights of LGBTQIA+. Colonialism is implicated in its role in developing revulsion to homosexuality and the cultures of colonized people. Islam, like Christianity is now a global religion and the input of the other cultures to its values becomes important. Like all Holy Scriptures there have been debates about the impact of humans in their interpretations focusing on class, patriarchy, and religious leadership, and scholars playing God.

In his book, Christianity and Homosexuality Reconciled: New Thinking for a New Millennium,^[21] Rev. Joseph Adam Pearson gives reasons for writing his book:

I have written this book: 

(1) to help resolve conflict within people’s minds concerning the reconcilability of Christianity an homosexuality; 

(2) to better equip heterosexuals people and homosexual people to combat tyranny from those who would try to rob homosexual people of what is rightfully theirs through Christ Jesus (i.e, salvation, spiritual power, peace, joy, faith, hope, and love); and 

(3) to bring more honor, glory, and praise to our Creator, Savior, and Sovereign King, Christ Jesus, by drawing more people to his cross and, thereby, closer to each other.^[22]

Reverend Pearson makes many compelling arguments in defence of LGBTQIA+ communities. He states that God does not possess human gender.^[23] God loves both heterosexual people and homosexual people alike.^[24] He addresses the issue of how the Bible is to be interpreted, holistically, in words that are music to my ears:

Holistic interpretation is advised. Verses must bear in mind the historical, social, economic, and spiritual contexts of when these verses were written. Some were written when society was still patriarchal, male -dominated and male-dependent society.^[25]

Don’t run to the verses in the Bible that are used against homosexual or transgender(ed) people without running first to the rest of the Bible. If Christians are going to be good students of the Holy Bible, they must hold the whole Bible while they simultaneously attend to its various verses.

To be sure, individual Bible verses have been used to foster ethnocentrism, racism, and sexism throughout millennia. However, it should be clear that only half-truths are presented when the Bible is not taken in its entirety. That is why, rather than building church doctrine on only a few selected verses, Christians need to hold the whole Bible while they simultaneously attend to its various parts….It is only when the Scripture is taken in its entirety and accurately contextualized that one comes to a more perfect and complete understanding of the whole truth on any particular topic, subject, or issue in the Bible.^[26]

Reverend Pearson has an occasion in his book, at pages 63-73 to revisit the story of Sodom and Sodomites which reinforces the arguments of other scholars and theologians that have been discussed here. These pages are a great interpretation of this story of Sodom. At page 73 he states: “It should be obvious to the reader that the story of the intended brutal rape in Sodom has nothing to do with loving, monogamous, and committed relationships between consenting adults of the same sex or even opposite sex.” And at page 212 he argues against the prioritization of sin by stating that “to be sure, the homosexual orientation is no more sinful than the heterosexual orientation.”

Randal F. Schnoor^[27] focuses on interpretation of the Torah to reveal the debates between conservative and liberal interpretations of Holy Scriptures. On page 53 (see also page 57) this debate is captured in the following words:

Traditional Jews interviewed tend to take the position that the Torah is a divinely written document that must be respected and revered. However, the way in which the passages from the Torah that concern homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:23) have been traditionally interpreted by religious authorities is, according to them, incorrect and not in keeping with modern times. They emphasize the dynamic and changing nature of Halachah (Jewish Law) and argue that more discussion and debate is necessary to develop new Jewish understandings of same-sex attraction.

On pages 53-4 there is this revealing passage on the dangers of selective interpretation without reading all the relevant verses holistically:

Gary offered his opinion about the way anti-gay sentiments have been super-imposed onto the Torah, while other passages in the text that support same-sex love are conveniently ignored or denied: Homophobia has been added into biblical stories over and over again, when in fact if you look at the biblical text, there are a lot of homo-erotic elements to it: Joseph and Potiphar story and certainly the David and Jonathan story. Those are examples of real loving relationships between men.

The position taken by the theological/theocratic class in the US shows clear support for its system of imperialism.

Conclusion

Liberated sexuality and spirituality is a fundamental cultural anchor to African Liberation. As Africa, and the African diaspora, struggle to liberate themselves from domination, exploitation, oppression, militarism, sexism, homophobia, racism, and ecological destruction by imperialism, we must use this anchor as part of our arsenal in these struggles.

There is a need to transcend US culture wars on homosexuality. This article has delineated the forces in the trenches of this battleground. One clear issue on which Africans should be agreeing on is how African values on sexuality and spirituality are in fundamental ways more humane than any of the imperialist ideological and political positions on both issues. Why do elite leaderships in Africa succumb to these Western cultural wars when African values on sexuality and spirituality show us a more humane path to the realization of these values?

The pastors, priests, imams, religious leaders in Churches, Mosques, Synagogues and Temples need to know that no great faith can be sustained for a long time on the basis that one religion is closer to God than any other. The position of Africans from the beginning was to welcome these foreign religions on the basis of equity, equality, and inclusiveness. Respect for each faith and belief; co-existence between faiths and beliefs is one major pathway that can enable us to end the undesirable, unsustainable, and unacceptable status quo on the planet.

Willy Mutunga was Chief Justice & President of the Supreme Court of Kenya, 2011-2016. He is also an Adjunct Professor in Public Law, Kabarak Law School & Member, The Gaza Tribunal of Conscience.

Endnotes