A Ministry of Political Religion.

The National Prayer Breakfast came and went. Do you have any idea why we have a national prayer breakfast?

We pretend that we have made a conscious effort to separate religion and the state. It is time we stopped lying each other. We want religion in the affairs of the State and we want the  State in the affairs of religious institutions. It is why the Constitution makes a declaration about "Almighty God of all creation" and why we still appoint kadhis. And it is why politicians and ministers of faith will invite the business community and the diplomatic corps to camouflage their blossoming romance.

Mwai Kibaki had a hot-and-cold relationship with ministers of faith; none was seen to be close to him but he still managed to find time to attend one or two church services during his tenure. Baba Moi, on the other hand, had his pet ministers of faith and their churches received his patronage on a regular Sunday basis. But Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto and their allies have taken to churches and godmen like ducks to water. It is fascinating.

When George Muchai, his bodyguard and his driver were murdered, the political class expressed its anger in places of worship. When Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto attempted to rein in the combative Bomet governor, they made their attempt at the inauguration of a minister of faith in Governor Ruto's Bomet itself. Of course, you remember that the anti-ICC campaign that whipped up sympathy for the Dynamic Duo was prosecuted with the active connivance of ministers of faith and sundry dubious godmen.

The National Prayer Breakfast, financed by captains of industry so that the charge of a misuse of tax shillings is never made, is the price the politicians will pay for the endorsement of the ministers of faith. We do not yet know what the captains of industry get out of the whole shebang, but it is not something that we can pretend not to really know, is it?

So why the hypocrisy about what we want our government and godmen to get up to? We have subconsciously endorsed the insidious influence of ministers of faith on public policy, whether it is controlling the spread of sexually transmitted infections among school-children, abortion, gay-and-lesbian NGOs, sex education, school uniforms, religious curricula in schools and the like. We have endorsed the godmen's involvement in the shaping of land administration policy, national security and fibre-optic cable investments by telecom companies. 

Let us just set up a Ministry of Political Religion and be done with the hypocrisy. That way the Dynamic Duo don't have to invent excuses to -visit this, that or the other godman and ministers of faith can stop pretending that they have our spiritual lives in mind when they cavil against this, that or the other big-tender public policy. And the national prayer breakfast can be the place where both the godmen and their politicians come to extort funds out of the captains of industry as it should be.