A cruel joke on the faithful.

In my neighbourhood are seven churches. They are pretty similar in many respects. They all hold multiple Sunday sermons. They all preach the Gospel with varying emphases. They all celebrate marriages. In key respect are all similar: they are ringed by eight-feet high, razor-wire topped fences and armed guards to control access. In a key respect, all but two are remarkably similar: after five in the afternoon, access is limited to a chosen few. Except for the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints in Phase 5 and the Roman Catholic Church in Phase 4 which allow people to enter their premises to play basketball and football in the evenings, every other church in Buru Buru is like a barricaded fortress, repelling the angry pitch-fork wielding hordes from hell.

This is not a screed about the relative merits or otherwise of the Mormons or Catholics in Buru Buru but an observation of how far we have taken this lunacy with our avarice and selfishness. the church, as an institution, was the only legitimate institution to rival the State. It transcended politics, ethnicity, race and even economic status; everyone was welcome to the church as a sanctuary, as an educator and as a healer. Churches never, ever would have been surrounded with fences, nor their windows barred with grilles or their doors padlocked to keep out thieves. The church, and church doors, were open to anyone and everyone. The church, in the community, was not the target of thieves and brigands and the community was not treated with suspicion by the church. The church was the community. The community was the church.

But in the evolution of the church in Kenya with the evolution of the State, politics, the people and social mores and values, we have lost our souls and with it we have lost communities that had stood by our parents through many travails and celebrated many of their successes. It is possible to see a church leader, whether he or she is a preacher or a lay leader, living in the lap of luxury while many of his or her congregants can barely make ends meet. The church leader will tell you that it is due to God's munificence and that One Day God will bestow favour on the congregants if only they keep their faith. but with the daily litany of scandals that consume leaders of the church, whether it is regarding the offerings of their congregants or their congregants' spouses or children, the image of the church leader as the pillar of probity in a world buffeted by sin has suffered desecrations it might never recover from.

Where are the people to turn when the church has adopted the mannerisms of the State, political institutions, thieves and cheats? Someone will argue that the values and mores of the church are the values and mores of the congregation. That person is an idiot. The church was always the one institution where on which we bestowed our trust to make the right decision over the matters that affected us collectively. When Henry Okullu spoke out against contraception for children in 1990, it had afar greater impact on us because of the authority and legitimacy the church still enjoyed. In 2014 when John Cardinal Njue speaks out against the same thing, we roll our eyes and mutter that he is a Jubilee politician in canonical robes and the equivalent of Aden Duale or Jakoyo Midiwo in legitimacy or authority.

Where the church used to subsidise our lives, it now profits just like any other for-profit organisation. Where it was a moral leader, it has been overtaken by individuals with great moral character, even individuals in the church, like the late Nelson Mandela or Archbishop Desmond Tutu; it is interesting that we cannot find a strong moral leader in Kenya in 2014. If you believe that this is an unfair attack on the church, there was that story last week where a church leader, with the support of his congregation, hired armed thugs to beat off other armed thugs who were "invading" the church's property. If you missed the implication, that church leader and his church went to war using militia. Are you still willing to turn a blind eye as the one moral, spiritual and social institution we can rely on becomes a caricature, a cruel joke on the faithful?