WHY "CHARLES TUCKER?"

Dee's Blogosphere Debut: I can't believe he actually wrote this! My husband tries to stay as far away from blogs as he can, unless I force him to read one....And with no further adieu...let me introduce to you, Henry Cleveland DeBardeleben IV's first blog post!! 

[This blog post was written by Melissa’s husband – Dee.]  I am not a blogger and, besides Melissa’s blog, I read no blogs.  I have a strange sort of pride in the fact that I am not daily immersed in the “Blogosphere,” as I like to call it; however, because I love my wife, I agreed to do this one blog post.  I thought of coming up with a pseudonym to hide who truly wrote this post but I figured I had no pride left anyway – as a married man with three children.  Furthermore, since I came up with the name “Charles Tucker,” it does make sense that I explain why. 

 Despite popular opinion, “Charles Tucker” was not decided to be our new son’s name because we wanted to punish him or make him sound really southern; however, both of the aforementioned criticisms are fair.  In short, we chose the name because we liked it but how I came up with the name is an entirely different story.  I came up “Charles Tucker” because it is a name rooted in history (one of my favorite subjects), particularly, the history of Uganda.  As an aside, it was a difficult decision for Melissa and I to change his name but we felt that naming an adopted child was biblical and it promoted the idea that our new son was wholly part of our family.  I am sure I could be wrong, it will not be the first time, but that is a topic for Melissa to address on another day.

I will get to the point as I seem to be rambling on about nothing.  “Charles” was picked because it was the name of one of the earliest Christians in Uganda, Charles Lwanga (sometimes “Carl” or “Karoli” in the lugandan language).  Charles Lwanga was born in the 1860s and was a page to the then king of Buganda (i.e., the African Kingdom around Kampala and the namesake Kingdom of Uganda), King Mwanga II.  During Charles Lwanga’s tenure as a page for the king, Christianity came to the kingdom through both Catholic and Protestant missionaries.  Charles Lwanga was led to Christ by Roman Catholic missionaries called the White Fathers.  The king very quickly became annoyed with the new faith of his people and, particularly his pages, and he soon began to insist that Christian converts renounce their new faith upon threat of death.  The king carried out his threat by executing many converts to Christianity who were Anglican.   Joseph Mukasa, a Catholic priest, reproached the king for his behavior and was subsequently beheaded.  Charles, a recent convert and chief page to the king, immediately stepped into Joseph Mukasa’s role and secretly baptized the remaining Catholic catechumens and also protected many of the king’s pages from the king’s unwanted sexual advances.  Ultimately, Charles Lwanga and 12 other Christian Converts, who were Catholic, were burned alive at the stake.   

 Charles Lwanga was canonized by Pope John Paul VI in 1964 and is a national hero in Uganda.  His death is now a national holiday in Uganda known as Martyr’s Day.  Needless to say, we have high hopes for “Charles Tucker,” Lord willing.  Furthermore, Charles is a popular name on the DeBardeleben side of the family.

“Tucker” is the last name of Alfred Robert Tucker, the first acting Bishop of the Anglican Church in Uganda and he was an Englishman.  The first appointed Bishop was also killed by King Mwanga II.  Alfred Tucker was an artist at the Royal Academy prior to returning to divinity school later in life at Oxford University.  He was staunchly evangelical and had a huge heart for Africa.  He, along with other British missionaries, was largely responsible for the evangelization of Uganda.  He did not like the arrogance of other European missionaries that thought they had everything to give and nothing to learn from the African people they were ministering to; instead, he believed that the African church would be benefited by African ideals, indigenous leadership, and Europeans dressing like Africans.  He not only evangelized large numbers of people in Uganda, but he also planted churches and established educational institutions.  In 1910, the year before Alfred Tucker died, Uganda’s first seminary was named in his honor.  Now, the institution is a university, i.e., Uganda Christian University but the seminary is still named for Tucker.  His legacy is often credited with the current Christian and missionary zeal in Uganda.  Again, we have high hopes for Charles Tucker.  Both Charles Lwanga and Alfred Tucker were instruments greatly used by God to perpetuate Christianity in Uganda and maybe God will find some way to use Charles Tucker DeBardeleben similarly.