Where is Kenya's Church?

The images of men of the cloth laying hands on two of the ICC Four were disturbing. However, it is the spectacle of serving and retired men (and women) of the cloth cavorting with the GEMA and the KAMATUSA that raise questions about their fidelity to Christ's Ministry. The Church of Christ has always been a Big-Tent Organisation, welcoming all and sundry to its comforting confines. In the Church, one is no longer the member of a family, clan, tribe or ethnic community, but a member of a global community that accepts that Christ is Lord, that He died and resurrected, and that on the Day of Judgment, he will return to earth for the faithful who will spend eternal life in bliss in heaven.

The messages that Kenyans take away from the 'prayer rallies' and the Associations' 'conferences' have little to do with the message of unconditional love that Christ bestowed upon humanity. If we are to live in His example, then the subtle and hidden messages of hate and exclusion that the proponents of GEMA and KAMATUSA broadcast will cast us into the eternal flames of hell for all eternity.

Evangelical Christianity's roots are deep in Kenya and the political class has been quick to recognise the political benefits of having tame preachers on their side as they canvass for votes in the country. Images of candidate Ruto with a bible in hand have been broadcast on all leading TV channels. Images of Kalonzo Musyoka, Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga have been broadcast declaiming from pulpits in various churches across the nation. The impression that they are assiduously cultivation is that of God-fearing men who will do right by the Christian community in their hours of need, of which there will be many as Kenya weathers myriad challenges, especially in its implementation of the Constitution. But it is impossible not to conclude that their new-found closeness to men of the cloth, and their churches, has nothing to do with the faith of millions of Kenyans but the cynical pursuit of political power at the expense of everything else. When Kenyans were murdered in their church, I do not recall a single instance when the millions of Kenyan Christians being mobilised by their political leaders or, indeed, their religious leaders to not only offer succour to the survivors, but to scour the nation in search of the perpetrators of the heinous crime and see that they were prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

It is thus with fear and trepidation that I am transfixed by the images of men of the cloth praying for the success of their preferred sons and baying for the political blood of their sons' opponents. The place of the Christian church in Kenya as the repository of the morals and mores of the peoples of Kenya is slowly being supplanted by the political figure, eager to exploit a captive audience for his own selfish ends. Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto stand accused of masterminding some of the most heinous offences in Kenya's brief history. Their communities remain blameless despite the machinations of their opponents to link them to these offences. Crimes are not committed by communities but by individuals. It is thus with the two. The accusations are laid at their feet and not at the collective feet of either the Kikuyu or the Kalenjin. Anyone that says otherwise is an enemy of the people. So why would the men of the cloth from Mr Kenyatta's and Mr Ruto's communities wish to create the impression that their alleged persecution is also a persecution of the Kikuyu or the Kalenjin, or their churches?

One of the most shocking events was when a self-styled bishop chose to stand witness to William Ruto's innocence during the confirmation of charges hearings at The Hague and then being proven to be unreliable and, need I say, un-Christian in his characterisation of the politician or of himself. Asked of his efforts to offer succour to the displaced Kenyans lining in the Rift Valley, where his church is strongest, he could offer no coherent explanation why he had not made an effort even to visit even one of the camps that they occupied while he could find time to fly to foreign nations on his ministry's mission. It is so too every time we witness the dozens of preachers tail-coating the accused Kenyans, regardless of their prominence, every time they and their supporters launch polemics against their political nemesis. The millions of Kenyans who witness their escapades must wonder whether these men and women endorse the vitriol of the politicians and whether they will use their pulpits to cavil against the PM. Rather than preaching the Ministry of Christ, they seem to be preaching the opposite. The church is no longer a Big Tent; rather it has become the safe haven of the worst of the worst.