“Revolutionary love” sounds like an oxymoron. Revolution is usually a negative, violent, and destructive change, while love is positive, peaceful, and contented. But true love always changes people. And Christ’s love brings the most revolutionary change of all. Festo Kivengere (1919–88) experienced both kinds of revolution. He escaped Uganda when the brutal regime of Idi Amin seized power. But he could not escape the pursuit of Jesus, who came into his life with radically transformative grace. In Revolutionary Love, Kivengere tells his story of learning to freely receive Christ’s love and freely share it with others.
Festo Kivengere (1919 - 1988)
was a Ugandan Anglican-Christian leader referred to by many as "the Billy Graham of Africa".[who?] (See endnote 4.) He played a huge role in a Christian revival in southwestern Uganda, but had to flee in 1973 to neighboring Kenya in fear for his life after speaking out against Idi Amin's tyrannical behavior.Kivengere had been made bishop of Kigezi and was among several bishops summoned to Amin's quarters. Angry mobs called for their deaths. Eventually, all were permitted to leave but one, the archbishop, Janani Luwum. The others waited for Luwum to join them but he never came out. The next day the government announced that Luwum had died in an automobile accident. Four days later, despite government threats, 45,000 Ugandans gathered in the Anglican cathedral in Kampala for a memorial service honoring their fallen leader. Kivengere did not attend the service. Urged to flee by friends who said, "One dead bishop is enough," he and his wife that night drove as far as their vehicle could take them and with the help of local church people in the hills they walked until the next morning brought them to safety across the border in Rwanda.[1]
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