Festo Kivengere

Forgiveness in a Time of Murder

Festo Kivengere preached forgiveness after fleeing a dictator whose regime had killed friends, terrorised churches and helped turn his own country into a place of fear. Saying “I love Idi Amin” was not natural sentiment. It was a Christian claim made while the wound was still open. The phrase later became the title of a book and the part of Kivengere's witness most widely remembered. It only makes sense inside the longer story of East African revival, evangelism and a man learning that forgiveness does not require pretending evil is small.

Kigezi and a Changing Uganda

Kivengere was born in Uganda in 1919 into a society being reshaped by colonial rule and missionary Christianity. As a young man he trained as a teacher and came under the influence of the East African Revival, the movement that had begun in the 1930s and spread through Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and neighbouring regions. Revival preaching stressed repentance, open confession, reconciliation and a living walk with Christ rather than inherited church membership.

That movement shaped Kivengere deeply. He became known as an evangelist with warmth, humour and unusual ability to speak across cultural boundaries. He eventually worked with African Enterprise, the evangelistic ministry founded by Michael Cassidy, and became one of its strongest African leaders. At a time when much international evangelical work still placed white missionaries at the centre, Kivengere embodied a different future: African Christians preaching to African cities and then carrying the gospel beyond Africa as well.

The Evangelist and the Bishop

He travelled widely, preached in universities and public gatherings and became known within the global evangelical movement. Yet Uganda's political life was darkening. Idi Amin seized power in 1971. His regime became notorious for killings, disappearances and violent repression. Churches were not spared. Archbishop Janani Luwum, a friend and fellow Anglican leader, confronted Amin over abuses and was killed in 1977.

The Dictatorship and Janani Luwum

Kivengere had become an Anglican bishop by then, serving the Diocese of Kigezi. The murder of Luwum made the danger unmistakable. Kivengere and his family fled Uganda, crossing the border into Rwanda and entering exile. He was not writing about forgiveness from a protected distance. He had lost country, friends and security because of the regime.

Soon afterward he began speaking openly about loving Idi Amin. He did not mean that Amin's actions were acceptable or that justice should be abandoned. Kivengere described the difference between hating evil and allowing hatred of the evildoer to take possession of the Christian heart. The distinction cost him something because Amin was not an abstract enemy.

Exile, Witness and Return

His book I Love Idi Amin carried that message internationally. Some readers found the title almost offensive because forgiveness can sound cruel when spoken too quickly to victims. Kivengere's witness has weight because he spoke first as one of the displaced. He was not demanding that other people forgive an injury he had never felt. He was describing what he believed Christ was requiring from him.

Exile widened his ministry. He travelled across countries speaking about reconciliation, revival and evangelism. He also worked among Ugandans who had scattered because of violence. When Amin's regime fell in 1979, Kivengere returned home and participated in the difficult work of rebuilding church and society.

The return did not erase trauma. Uganda had lost people, institutions and trust. Christian reconciliation could not mean ignoring crimes or rushing communities past grief. Kivengere's preaching stressed the cross as the place where hatred could be broken without calling evil good. The language came from the revival tradition that had taught believers to bring sin and broken relationships into the light.

He also remained committed to evangelism. African Enterprise developed citywide missions and trained African evangelists. Kivengere helped show that the African church was not merely the recipient of missions. It had become a missionary church with voices the wider world needed to hear.

His personality helped. People remembered laughter, affection and an ability to speak hard truth without becoming hard himself. The title of his best-known book could make him sound like a man defined by one enemy. In reality he was defined far more by Christ and by decades of gospel work before and after Amin.

The Difficult Task of Reconciliation

Kivengere died in 1988 from leukemia at sixty-nine. He had lived long enough to see Uganda emerge from Amin's rule but not long enough to see every wound heal. No one did. His life ended while the work of reconciliation was still unfinished.

That unfinishedness is part of the witness. Forgiveness did not mean the past stopped hurting. It meant Kivengere refused to let Amin decide what kind of man he would become. The dictator had power to drive him from Uganda. He would not be given power to own his heart as well.

I love Idi Amin is a dangerous sentence if it is used to silence victims or protect oppressors. In Festo Kivengere's mouth it meant something else. Evil must be named, justice matters, grief is real, and the Christian still asks Christ for a love he cannot produce by himself.