THE CHURCH AS AN AGENT OF CHANGE

 

The church can act as an agent of change in the following ways.

1.         Providing education to people. This can be either through paying school fees directly or building schools. Schools such as Rubaga Girls and St. Peter's Nsambya are the products of the church. This has helped in fighting illiteracy among people.

2.         The church preaches the love of God and neighbours. This has helped to transform the hostile attitude people have towards each other to a friendly one.

3.         The church "also preaches equality of all human beings. This has made people to realize the need to treating all people equally with respect and human dignity.

4.         The church has also set up many organizations or associations to help people in one-way or another. For example, Young Christian Society (Y.C.S), Mother's Union, Young Women Christian Association (Y.W. C. A).Some of these associations are giving people of different backgrounds life skills like tailoring, teaching and accounting among others.

5.         The church has further ventured in the field of health. Many hospitals have been and are still being built to rescue people from different diseases. For example, St. Mary's Hospital Lacor in Gulu District, Nsambya Hospital and Rubaga Hospital all in Kampala.

6.         The church is also on a forefront of providing guidance and counseling services. This has helped those with-problems by giving them a sense of direction.

7.         The church has always been and is still offering employment opportunities to her people. People are employed as teacher, doctors, nurses, drivers, preachers, cooks and many others.

8.         The church has been setting up income generating projects. For example, Centenary Bank. This bank is providing financial support to people in the form of loans thus fighting poverty among people.

9.         The church has and is still helping the needy like the orphans, poor, disabled and widows. For example Sanyu Babies home in Mengo (Kampala). This has improved the status of these under privileged group of people.

10.    The church is always teaching people good morals. Emphasis is put on virtues such as honesty, fairness, humbleness, faithfulness, forgiveness and sincerity. This has helped to bring stability and peaceful living among people

11.    The church has always been exemplary in all aspects of life. This has influenced and changed the lives of many people who are also still following the same lifestyle.

12.    The church has always reconciled people having conflicts among themselves. For example, the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) negotiated peace between the government and the rebel group-Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) to end the war that has devastated Northern Uganda since 1987.

 

Changes causing increased immorality among the youth today

Immorality refers to behaving contrary to the required norms of the society. In other words, it means failure to follow the belief, customs or rules and regulation governing life in a given society. In short, immorality means involving in wrong acts.

Looking at Uganda's society, immorality appears to be growing at a higher rate in various spheres of life especially among the youth. Examples of such misbehavior include.

o  Alcoholism

o  Stealing

o  Drug abuse     

o  Sexual abuses

o  Poor dressing  

o  Strikes

o  Abortion    

o  Bullying

o  Gambling

The changes that have caused the above various cases of misbehavior include the following.

1.         Immorality has been promoted by peer group influence. The desire for each member to behave like the others is what is responsible for causing gambling, alcoholism and others,

2.         Immorality is being caused by poverty. People engage in immorality such as prostitution and stealing because they want to survive.

3.         Immorality is a result of irresponsible parenthood. Some parents abandon their children. This means that they may grow up lacking parental guidance. Such children can choose to behave in any way they like.

4.         Some people misbehave because of the influence of drugs like marijuana and cocaine. This is because they tend to lose their sense of reasoning after taking the drugs.

5.         Immorality is caused by the change in the observation of human rights. For example, children have today been given the freedom of not being punished anyhow by parents. This has given-them the chance to misbehave.

6.         Immorality is being caused by exposure to pornographic materials. It is common to find pictures of naked people in some magazines like Redpepper, The Kampala Sun, Showme and Bukedde. The immorality is promoted basing on the temptations to follow the contents of the magazines.

7.         Immorality is also being caused by permissiveness in the society today. This refers to the desire of having too much freedom in respect to people's behaviour. The assumed freedom has given people the opportunity to misbehave.

8.         Immorality is common today because of the generation gap. Most parents and children do not have the chance of staying together for a longer period. This makes it difficult to monitor the behaviour of children thus giving them the chance to misbehave.

9.         Cultural decline is also responsible for the growing level of immorality today. As culture declines, there have been changes in behaviour of people in various ways including dressing, sexual affairs and eating among others.

10.    Exposure to uncensored mass media is responsible for the immorality in Uganda today. These include the newspapers, television, radio, magazines and others. The wrong message carried by the mass media is copied, especially by the youth. For example, watching films is held responsible for the high rate of sexual abuses, smoking, gambling and violence among the youth.

11.    Immorality is being caused by instability in the family and the country. During such instabilities, there is no order. This leaves room for people to commit various crimes, including stealing, fighting, armed robbery and others.

12.    Exposure to too much material wealth is also responsible for the growing rate of immorality. For example, giving too much money to the children may be disastrous, especially when they misuse it through smoking, drinking alcohol, gambling and others.

13.    Immorality is being caused by a decline in religious teachings among people. Moral virtues such as honesty, faithfulness, forgiveness and love among others are not taken up seriously especially by the youth. This exposes such people to aspects of misbehavior including stealing, abortion, prostitution and others.

14.    Immorality is caused by idleness which is common among most people today. Being redundant gives people the room to think evil as they gang up, as the saying goes that "an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.”

15.    Exposure to some western cultures has also contributed to some cases of immorality. This can be seen in the modern styles of dressing, smoking, alcoholism and even kissing in public.

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A complete talking Book for Uganda certificate of Education