Revolutionary Love

Published by Community Christian Ministries

P.O. Box 9754, Moscow, Idaho 83843

208.883.0997 | www.ccmbooks.org

Festo Kingevere and Dorothy Smoker, Revolutionary Love

First edition copyright ©1983 by African Enterprise. (Originally published by Christian Literature Crusade, Ft. Washington, Pennsylvania.)

Second edition copyright ©2001 by African Enterprise.

Third edition copyright ©2016 by African Enterprise, PO Box 28190, Spokane, Washington 99228.

Cover and interior design by Valerie Anne Bost.

Cover photo: Agriculture (https://www.flickr.com/photos/floeschen/5497828940 ), by Florian Schrier (http://floeschen.ch/), licensed under CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Cropped from original.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright holder, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Scripture quotations marked...

rsv

are from the Revised Standard Version, of the Bible, copyright ©1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

nasb

are from the from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright ©1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

nkjv

are from the New King James Version®. Copyright ©1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

phillips

are from the New Testament in Modern English by J. B. Phillips copyright ©1960, 1972 J. B. Phillips. Administered by the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England. Used by Permission.

tlb

are from The Living Bible copyright ©1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. The Living Bible, TLB, and the The Living Bible logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers.

kjv

are from the King James Version (public domain).

tev

are from Today’s English Version copyright ©1966, 1971, 1976, 1979 by the American Bible Society. All rights reserved.

Version: 20230316

CONTENTS   

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PREFACE: Revolutionary Love

CHAPTER 1: Love and the Unlovable

CHAPTER 2: Loved Into Joy

CHAPTER 3: Love Reconciles

CHAPTER 4: Love’s Quick Way

CHAPTER 5: Love’s Togetherness

CHAPTER 6: Love on the Throne

CHAPTER 7: Love Comes Home

CHAPTER 8: Love Enables

CHAPTER 9: Love Triumphs in Suffering

AFTERWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION

AFTERWORD TO THE SECOND EDITION

A WORD ABOUT AFRICAN ENTERPRISE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR   

Festo Kivengere (ki-VEN-jə-rā) was the Anglican Bishop of the diocese of Kigezi in Uganda. He was the founder and leader of African Enterprise’s East Africa teams in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

Forced to flee for his life from Uganda in 1977 at the height of Idi Amin’s eight-year reign of terror, Festo and his wife, Mera, remained abroad until the liberation of his country in 1979. He then immediately returned home to bring the message of God’s reconciling love in Jesus Christ to his shattered country. And through African Enterprise, he helped organize emergency relief for those who were suffering and long-term help for the reconstruction of Uganda.

Deeply influenced by the East African Revival—one of the great movements of the Spirit in the last century—Festo Kivengere’s ministry of reconciliation crosses boundaries of race, culture and denomination. Many regarded him as the outstanding black evangelist of Africa in his day, and the impact of his ministry is felt around the world.

For his courageous stand on freedom and human rights in Africa, Festo received the International Freedom Prize in October 1977 in Oslo, Norway. And for his significant ministry to the Christian community worldwide, he was awarded in 1981 the St. Augustine Cross by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Festo Kivengere is the author of Love Unlimited, When God Moves, I Love Idi Amin, The Spirit Is Moving, and Hope for Uganda. Festo died of leukemia May 18, 1988 in Nairobi, Kenya.

PREFACE   

Revolutionary Love

The title of this little book may sound strange to many, both Christians and non-Christians. This strangeness may be the result of the unusual combination of what to most of us seems to involve a parting of the ways, a movement in opposite directions!

Revolution—understood usually as a negative, violent, destructive and fanatical turning upside down of the good and established things of life—leaves lives shattered, empty and miserable.

Love—commonly understood as a positive, harmless, stabilizing thing, a satisfaction with things as they are—is the custodian and preserver of what one possesses from the past and the protector of what makes life enjoyable in the present. Love, in this sense, is the direct opposite of the disturbing elements embodied in revolution, which threatens what the present possesses. Such love will fight with all its established weapons against the tomorrows of any new vision of life—be it spiritual renewal, social progress, political or economic change. But true love is a revolutionary experience. Love between two persons always changes them. Love of art revolutionizes the artist. Love of nation revolutionizes the citizen. And far above any of these revolutionary human loves is the love of Christ, causing the most radical revolutionary experience in human life.

A certain notorious religious fanatic, one who did not hesitate to torture and execute those he considered dangerous to his established religious traditions and the security they offered—Saul, by name—met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Here two revolutionaries met head on: Saul using revolutionary hate, and Jesus using revolutionary love. Jesus’ love penetrated the entire person of Saul that day. Wave after wave of Christ’s revolutionary love went through him, warming, sensitizing, melting, enlightening, transposing all his values and transforming the foundations of all his systems of understanding. The end result of that event is poignantly put in Paul’s own words in 2 Corinthians 5:14-17: The love of Christ leaves me no option (having revolutionized my whole life—mind, thought, word and action!) . . .. For when anyone is in Christ, he/she is a new (revolutionized) person altogether (personal paraphrase). This is not an evolution or reformation but a newly created person!

It is Christ’s revolutionary love that Africa desperately needs to bring radically new relationships between clans, tribes, nations, races, political parties and ideologies. It alone can cure economic exploitation, rampant corruption, unjust laws and hostility between religious denominations. My own entire set of values was exchanged for new ones when Christ met me forty years ago, and that trans-valuation still continues at a deeper level today.

On the cross of Calvary—there for all to see and be exposed to—God in Christ launched His revolutionary love as the only Operation Hope for His chronically fragmented but beloved human race.

I pray that through the shared messages of this book—by the power of the Holy Spirit—you will open up to this revolutionary love of Christ and experience a radical transformation of the foundations of your entire system of life. May He do His work in and through you.

Festo Kivengere

CHAPTER 1   

Love and the Unlovable

What a shock I had when I reached home!

My eagerness to arrive had made the dust and bumps of the long journey seem nothing. So I was definitely unprepared for the situation I found as the old lorry I was riding in pulled into Rukungiri, my home town in Western Uganda.

It was 1939. I was nineteen and coming home with the ink barely dry on my teacher’s certificate. I had been given my first teaching position in the very boys’ school I had attended. That pleased me. At least it would be a start, and I would have money in my pocket.

The first ugly surprise came when the truck rounded the marketplace. A crowd had gathered around some people who were singing church songs right out in public! Imagine hearing this floating over the fruit and vegetables: Down at the cross where my Saviour died . . . To me that was sheer fanaticism.

The headmaster was waiting for me in town, which was gratifying. Some of my relatives were there also. My favorite niece threw her arms around me and cried, "Uncle Festo, welcome home! I love Jesus