A Posture of Protest for a New Pentecostal Movement - The ...

Race and Revival: A Posture of Protest for aNew Pentecostal MovementBy Christine Mungai

On the night of April 9, 1906, a small congregation led by William J. Seymour, a black preacher, wasmeeting at a home on Bonnie Brae Street in Los Angeles, California. The group was three days into aten-day fast, praying and waiting on God. Suddenly, “as though hit by a bolt of lightning, they wereknocked from their chairs to the floor” and they began to speak in tongues and shout out loudpraising God.

In the next few days, news of the event spread throughout the neighbourhood, and Seymour beganto look for an alternative venue to accommodate his growing congregation. At one point, the frontporch of the house collapsed under the weight of the swelling crowd. They found a place at 312Azusa Street, a ramshackle building that had most recently served as a stable for horses with roomsupstairs for rent.

It was in this building on Azusa Street that the modern Pentecostal movement can trace its origins.People from all over the United States and beyond came to experience the “outpouring of the HolySpirit”, and from the outset the Azusa Street movement was remarkable for attracting a diversegroup of followers – black, white, Asian, people of all ages, income and class backgrounds.

Consider that this was happening in 1906 in “Jim Crow” America, just a decade after the Plessy v.

Ferguson Supreme Court decision that entrenched racial segregation as law in the US. The racialintermingling was a scandal, to some extent even more than the “Weird Babel of Tongues”, as afront-page headline from the Los Angeles Times described it. The paper continued: “Colored peopleand a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and night is made hideous in the neighborhoodby the howlings of the worshippers, who spend hours swaying forth and back in a nerve racking (sic)attitude of prayer and supplication.”

Seymour’s mentor, Charles Parham (who was white), broke with his erstwhile disciple and was sharpin his criticism: “Men and women, white and black, knelt together or fell across one another; a whitewoman, perhaps of wealth and culture, could be seen thrown back in the arms of a big ‘buck n-gger,’and held tightly thus as she shivered and shook in freak imitation of Pentecost. Horrible, awfulshame!”

A few years earlier, Seymour had attended Parham’s bible school, which at the time violatedTexas Jim Crow laws – Seymour had to take a seat just outside the classroom door. Later Parhamand Seymour preached on street corners together, but Parham only allowed Seymour to preach toblack people.

Seymour himself endorsed speaking in tongues as a sign of the Holy Spirit, but with time came tobelieve that although tongues-speech was the initial evidence, it was not the absolute evidence. Hesaw that some white people could speak in tongues and continue to treat people of colour as inferiorto them. For Seymour, Holy Spirit tongues-speech had to be accompanied with a breaking down ofracial barriers and a reordering of society – it had to be, as Ashon Crawley writes, a posture ofprotest: “It would have to be a practice that is not merely a style, but also a political practice.”

This stance was not unique to Seymour. Contrary to what today’s Pentecostalism may suggest, earlyPentecostals – especially those who stayed close to Seymour’s position – rejected war, militarism,patriotic indoctrination, wage slavery and racism, believing that the love of Jesus had to supersedethe love for nation-state, money, social class and yes, whiteness. The outbreak of World War I in1914 (which came just eight years after the revival on Azusa Street) would put their convictions tothe test. They opposed the war and refused to be drafted into the US military, arguing against it asconscientious objectors.

They were vilified for this, and called “traitors, slackers, cranks and weak-minded people forextending Jesus’ love beyond racial, ethnic and national boundaries”, as the seminal work, EarlyPentecostals on Nonviolence and Social Justice, an edited collection of writings by those earlyleaders including Seymour himself, outlines.

Pentecostalism is mainstream now, so if you are thinking of a group that is radically committed tosocial justice and the breaking down of racial hierarchies and capitalistic exploitation, Pentecostalswouldn’t be the first folks who come to mind. But that obscuring of Pentecostalism’s early, radicalhistory has made us all the poorer for it, and has resulted in reaching for prayer, speaking intongues and public piety as the default, go-to reaction in the face of crisis. To be sure, earlyPentecostals did pray, shout, jump, speak in unknown tongues and get slain in the Spirit. But theydid more – their Spirit baptism had real-world, political consequences.

Seymour’s breaking ranks with his mentor Parham in some contexts is attributed to a difference indoctrine – Parham believed that tongues were real, translatable human languages, whose purposewas to empower missionaries to travel around the world converting non-believers to Christianity.Seymour believed that this could be the purpose of tongues, but that tongues could also be a “divinelanguage”, perhaps the language of angels that could not be understood by human ears.

Pentecostalism is mainstream now, so if you are thinking of a group that is radicallycommitted to social justice and the breaking down of racial hierarchies and capitalisticexploitation, Pentecostals wouldn’t be the first folks who come to mind.

Is it any wonder then that as a white man Parham’s understanding of tongues was embedded in amissionary-driven, evangelistic and imperial project, but Seymour – who as a black man could noteven sit inside the very Bible school classroom teaching the concept of tongues – was convinced thatthe Holy Spirit had to bring a broader, more elevated freedom-speech that had the power to teardown the immediate racial restrictions in his own life?

In our context here in Africa, spirit-empowered movements were not necessarily a direct outgrowthof the Azusa Street revival. Some were, such as the Assemblies of God, Apostolic Church and Churchof God in Christ, established by American Pentecostal denominations. But others either aroseindependently, and became known as African-initiated/ independent churches, or emerged out ofWestern mission churches as a revivalist streak within mainline denominations – Anglican,Presbyterian, Lutheran, Mennonite and so on. In later years another category emerged, that is theneo-Pentecostals, which became most associated with Pentecostalism as most of us know it today –the urban-centred, upbeat prosperity gospel churches.

“Good people” in positions of power

My own experience with Pentecostal and evangelical churches while growing up in middle-classNairobi was one of not necessarily avoiding direct engagement with the political, but insteadimplicitly ascribing one of two theories of political change, if not both simultaneously.

The first theory assumed that concerns regarding social justice would resolve themselvesspontaneously if the general population received the redemptive message of Christ and becameBorn-Again and Spirit-filled. It was a matter of simple arithmetic – individual salvation wouldeventually translate into societal transformation, one soul at a time.

This strategy may appear, at first glance, to be disengagement with the public sphere and withpolitics. However, as Damaris Parsitau’s research has demonstrated, African Pentecostals do notregard prayer, fasting and evangelism to be apolitical. Not at all. In fact, they are intensely political,a strategy that spiritually “takes the nation for Christ” through crusades, tent revivals, healing anddeliverance services, conferences and symposia, fellowships, ladies’ meetings, men’s meetings,prayer fellowships and night vigils, and expects that this will eventually have real-world, politicalconsequences.

The first theory assumed that concerns regarding social justice would resolvethemselves spontaneously if the general population received the redemptive message ofChrist and became Born-Again and Spirit-filled. It was a matter of simple arithmetic –individual salvation would eventually translate into societal transformation, one soul at atime.

The second theory of change is more targeted, and in some ways, more elitist. It is the idea thatChristians can “infiltrate” and influence structures of power for good. In practice this meansworking to ascend to positions of influence in order to harness that power towards a “godly” agenda.This second strategy has become more refined in the neoliberal era, one that is ostensiblymeritocratic, a “marketplace of ideas” where the best ideas and the most qualified people would riseto the top.

The mission was to ensure that these people, apart from being technically qualified for the job,would also be Born-Again, Bible-knowing, Spirit-filled and so “ambassadors” for Christ. It would alsomean pastors and other religious leaders ascending to unofficial but incredibly influential positionsas advisors to presidents and politicians, for example through organising “National PrayerBreakfasts” in Africa and elsewhere, which are usually attended top government officials.

Ebenezer Obadare’s Pentecostal Republic outlines how this latter strategy has played out to greateffect in Nigeria since the country’s return to civilian rule in 1999. Obadare’s book makes acategorical assertion – that the Nigerian democratic process over the past two decades is ultimatelyinexplicable without the emergent power of Pentecostalism, “whether as manifested in the risingpolitical influence of Pentecostal pastors, or in a commensurate popular tendency to view socio-political problems in spiritual terms”.

The problem with both of these political strategies, when we really think about it, is that both workwith the general assumption that the fundamental political structures of society are eitherinconsequential to public welfare, or if they are, they are in the main, sound and just. They assumethat all we need to fix racism, capitalistic exploitation, social decay, violence and neo-colonialism isfirst, a change of heart, and second, “good people” ascending to positions of power and influence.The system is mostly sound, the idea goes – all that is needed to fix it is “leadership”. However,these notions do nothing to radically challenge the status quo; rather they reify and stabilise it.

Slave patrols and modern-day policing

However, in the past few weeks, especially in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in the US, we haveseen the limits of those arguments. Take the problem of police violence, for example. It is not aresult of “a few bad apples”. Abuse, harassment, misconduct and brutality are not rare oraberrations; they are structural and part of everyday policing.

Policing in the African colony was always and inherently designed to protect the property of the elite– at first, European property and people, and later, the property of their African compradorsuccessors. The African poor were viewed as a problem to be contained. The enforcement of minoroffences designed to restrict African movement and corral them into working for European farmsand industries took up most of the colony police’s time and resources. Even to this day, the firstquestion that a Kenyan police officer is likely to ask you upon contact is for your ID card – ahangover from colonial vagrancy laws that still exist, which render the African as an “illegal”presence in the colony unless the African’s existence is justified – that is, if his/her labour benefitsthe colonial state.

The second theory of change is more targeted, and in some ways, more elitist. It is theidea that Christians can “infiltrate” and influence structures of power for good. Inpractice this means working to ascend to positions of influence in order to harness thatpower towards a “godly” agenda.

In the US, policing in the South started as slave patrols, first to capture runaway slaves and returnthem to their masters, and second to provide a form of organised terror that would deter enslavedpeople from revolting. Later, the police’s major job was to enforce the black codes of the Jim CrowSouth to control the lives and movements of black people. In the early 20th century in cities in theNorth, municipal police were primarily involved in suppressing and breaking up the labour strikes ofthe day.

In such a context, where impunity, classism and racism is the structure, the scaffolding and theraison d’être of the police force, how can one honestly say that you can “influence” it for good? Eventhe Jesus in the gospels did not move to Rome to “influence” Caesar; his life and ministry wereinstead in Judea, among peasants and fishermen.

Furthermore, oppressive regimes are sustained not by brute force alone, but also by a coterie ofenablers who mistakenly believe that they can “change the system from the inside” but really onlyend up legitimising the regime. Using the context of Zimbabwe and the ruling party Zanu-PF, Alex T.Magaisa, in this article, expertly peels the layers off this fantasy that is frequently held sincerely bywell-meaning and competent people, but which only ends up normalising the abnormal, and sobecomes invaluable in giving a sheen of legitimacy to a thoroughly oppressive regime.

Magaisa’s searing analysis can apply to any illegitimate or repressive system in any country. “Theymay start from the periphery wearing the label of ‘technocrats’ but soon enough, they will findthemselves deep in the cesspool, wearing scarfs and chanting ridiculous slogans…,” he writes.Cocktail parties and prayer breakfast meetings are not just about hobnobbing with the high andmighty; they also give the impression that everything is normal, which is something oppressiveregimes desperately need. But as we say on social media, it always ends in premium tears.

In Obadare’s analysis, although Pentecostalism has indeed influenced the struggle for state power inNigeria, it has had little effect on the state itself, “whether in terms of its governing philosophy oranimating spirit”. In fact, Pentecostalism in Nigeria is a force focused on appropriating state power,and even demobilising civil society. Parsitau echoes this view. Her research highlights that in theKenyan context, Pentecostal and Charismatic theology abstracts social evil into spiritual terms –attributing problems such as inequality, poverty and crime as the work of the devil, demons andother malevolent spiritual agents.

New sight, new tongues and a new wind

In my view, using simplified language like this is not necessarily a bad thing. Structural evil issometimes so insidious and its effects so thorough that if you don’t have access to terms like“neoliberalism”, “the prison-industrial complex” or “exploitative capitalism”, the only way you cansincerely describe the devastation around you is to ascribe it to the devil.

It is actually demonic that the world’s richest 1 per cent have more than twice as much wealth as 6.9billion people, or that the 22 richest men in the world have more wealth than all the women inAfrica. How else can you describe our violent world where anti-blackness is global, where black livesare disposable, where women’s lives are the most precarious? How can you reckon with a planetthat seems to be hurtling towards self-destruction? How can one exist in a world like that andremain sane?

In such a context, where impunity, classism and racism is the structure, the scaffoldingand the raison d’être of the police force, how can one honestly say that you can“influence” it for good? Even the Jesus in the gospels did not move to Rome to“influence” Caesar; his life and ministry were instead in Judea, among peasants andfishermen.

Facing the truth – that fellow humans are, in fact, responsible for this state of affairs – is sometimestoo much to contemplate. It would drive one to commit retributive mass murder, or resort to suicide.James Baldwin puts it thus: “To be a Negro in this country [the USA] and to be relatively conscious isto be in a rage almost all the time.” (We could say the same about being black anywhere in the

world.)

Escapist though it may be, attributing such evil to the devil is, in some ways, a way of preservingone’s sense of humanity. Since I am human, surely those who commit such evil must be animated bya malevolent force, otherwise, how could we both be human?

But because Pentecost Sunday was recently held on 31 May, I want to argue, like Rev William J.Barber does, for a new Pentecost – and for revisiting the passions of early Pentecostal leaders andexamine Pentecostalism in fresh ways. The account of the day of Pentecost in the New Testament,Acts 2, outlines a dramatic moment when Jesus’s followers spoke in new and unknown tongues, andwere given new sight and power as a wind shook the building they were in. My dear friend CurtisReed once told me that many Christians are exhausted by trying to identify and resist dominationand intimidation because it is frequently housed in Christian language (like Deputy PresidentWilliam Ruto saying he’s “investing in heaven” when dishing out large sums of money to churches).

If we are to find that again in this moment, we need new sight (to clearly see the structures ofdomination) new tongues (language to describe what we are seeing) and a new wind (if whiteness isinvisible and powerful like air, then Pentecost in 2020 would mean new energy and drive to confrontthese entrenched systems, just as we’ve seen a wind of consciousness drive a whole generation tothe streets in Minneapolis, Atlanta, New York, London, and further still).

In my view, using simplified language like this is not necessarily a bad thing. Structuralevil is sometimes so insidious and its effects so thorough that if you don’t have access toterms like “neoliberalism”, “the prison-industrial complex” or “exploitative capitalism”,the only way you can sincerely describe the devastation around you is to ascribe it to thedevil.

The first thing the believers did after receiving the Spirit at the end of Acts 2 was to sell theirpossessions and share according to each one’s need, going against the logic and normativeframework of Empire. (Empire is about extraction, accumulation, excess and wastage, as the earlyJesus followers must have experienced intimately as oppressed subjects of the Roman Empire.)

We must remember that the modern Pentecostal movement was led by a black preacher who sawthat any claim of Holy Spirit baptism must have anti-racist and anti-imperialist real-world politicalconsequences. This must lead us to move against patriotic indoctrination, militarism, and capitalisticexcess. The love of Jesus and the power of the Spirit cannot be an abstraction, and cannot be limitedto individual rehabilitation, but must extend into a practice of justice and equity for all people. Itmust be, as Seymour discovered, a posture of protest.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their societyby interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Follow us on Twitter.

Race and Revival: A Posture of Protest for aNew Pentecostal MovementBy Christine Mungai

Our world, as we know it, has been turned upside down by the coronavirus (COVID-19). The virushas not just exposed our fragility as human beings, but has also raised our awareness of ourinterconnectedness as people sharing one planet with viruses and microbes.

First identified in China in November 2019, COVID-19 has since spread to more than 100 countriesworldwide, including Italy, the USA, UK, Germany and 24 African countries so far.

The magnitude of this pandemic, as well as its fast geographical spread, has not only paralysed bothrich and poor nations, but also caused global panic, creating gripping fear for our lives. On March11, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 a pandemic. At the time ofwriting this article, the pandemic had killed 8,000 people and infected 200,000.

The virus, which experts says is most certainly passed from animals, in this case the bat, has alreadyinfected seven people in Kenya, if the government reports are anything to go by. Other Africancountries that have reported its presence include South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzaniaand Ethiopia. For many Kenyans, it was not a matter of if, but when the virus would strike. The

country is a major travel hub in East and Central Africa, with nearly every major global airlinesstopping at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi.

After seemingly dilly-dallying for some time, President Uhuru Kenyatta, finally, on March 15,ordered schools and institutions of higher learning to close. He also banned political rallies andreligious gatherings.

However, despite the ban, on Sunday, March 15, Kenyan churches were packed to capacity withthrongs of people, apparently oblivious of the coronavirus pandemic and the risk of spreading thedisease. They (the churches) dulled the congregants’ fears and cried to God for protection. Myneighbours even held a prayer fellowship in my neighbourhood to pray against the demonic virus asmany have christened it, except that COVID-19 is not a demon.

In a country whose easy dalliance with the supernatural is legendary, this is not surprising. Inmoments of political, social and ecological crises, Kenyans turn to God, supposedly for guidance.Such challenges are seen through the prism of religion. In a country with a highly educated andexposed population, pandemics like COVID-19 and HIV/AIDs are still said to be caused by the deviland other dark forces. Even when science is very clear on the genesis of the viruses, the majority ofKenyans and other people elsewhere will still interpret them as the invention of the devil. Notsurprising in a country where nearly 85 per cent of the population is Christian.

Kenya, in particular, is a highly religious country with diverse religious groups with high levels ofreligious participation across various religious traditions. Belonging and participating in variousreligious activities is essentially important to many people across the country. A 2015 study showedthat for 95 per cent of Kenyans, faith informs how they conduct their daily lives.

Given the important role of religion in the lives of millions of people, it is important that we changehow we practise our faiths in the face of this global pandemic that has already heavily impacted allof us. Already, the virus has killed 19 priests in Italy, which sadly means that no one is immune fromthe virus, not even our religious leaders.

Similarly, no amount of prayers and faith healing could cure this virus. African Christians have beenpraying for a cure for AIDS/HIV and Ebola for decades not but not a single person has certainly beencured of these dangerous viruses. The same logic should apply to COVID-19.

This is not to say that prayers and faith don’t work. Neither does it mean they have no significancein the lives of people. Faith is the glue that holds people together in moments of crisis like this. It isalso a purveyor of hope in moments of immense anxieties and fears. Yet, in times of globalpandemics like the coronavirus, science and medicine would seem the more reliable solution. Afterall, it is science that has continually sought cures for these epidemics. The antiretroviral drugs andthe Ebola vaccine (not prayers and demon-bashing) have given a new lease of life to millions ofpeople around the world. It is also science that will come up with a cure for COVID-19, not miraclesand faith healing.

Given the important role of religion in the lives of millions of people, it is important thatwe change how we practise our faiths in the face of this global pandemic…

Yet, science and religion are not enemies, neither are they in competition with each other. There isnothing wrong with people praying and casting out the demons of disease if that is how theyunderstand it, even as they wash hands, self-isolate, self-quarantine and maintain social distance, asadvised by science and medical practitioners. Faith and science should not be in contradiction with

each other. Each plays important and significant roles in our lives. Faith and prayers hold ustogether in hope and community while science tackles the virus in scientific and practical ways.

Yet, the easy resort to religion and prayers as the only solution during times of crisis like this is notonly problematic but is also risky and reckless. It takes away our focus from holding our negligentgovernments accountable. The Kenyan healthcare system has been struggling for decades, but theruling elite does not care because it can afford to seek the best medical care abroad. Our blindreligious faith does not allow us to question the massive inequality in our healthcare system, inparticular, and in Kenyan society in general. We also do not ask why the poor lack sanitation andwhy they live in dehumanising conditions.

The national day of prayer and other diversionary tactics

This is not a far-fetched assertion: Every time we are faced with a crisis as a country, thegovernment, in collusion with religious leaders, call for prayers. Saturday, March 21, 2019 wasslated as a national day of prayer by President Uhuru Kenyatta, who asked Kenyans to pray forforgiveness. Kenyans who have suffered years of neglect and broken healthcare systems must askwhat we are repenting for. Who between Kenyans and the government should be repenting for thesins of the nation, for the inaction, corruption and bad governance that have seriously put our healthat risk for decades?

It seems to me that the government wants to divert attention from its inept and tardy response tothe pandemic, while religious leaders are seeking for relevance and respectability at a time whenthe virus has rendered them impotent. The national prayer day called by the government is meant todull our anxieties. It is a diversionary tactic to manage the public’s fears and soothe our anxieties aswe are socialised not to squarely put the blame where it belongs: on the government.

Kenyans who have suffered years of neglect and broken healthcare systems must askwhat we are repenting for. Who between Kenyans and the government should berepenting for the sins of the nation, for the inaction, corruption and bad governance thathave seriously put our health at risk for decades?

Across the world, religious leaders are making hard and painful decisions to close their worshipsanctuaries. Because religious services, by their very nature, bring together large groups of people,houses of worship in Africa are potential hubs for virus transmission. In developed democracies,religious leaders are scrambling to understand the COVID-19, even as they as find ways ofprotecting their congregations, while African clergy are either denying the virus or praying againstthe demons that cause the virus.

In Saudi Arabia, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca’s holy sites have been substantiallyreduced. The Vatican is streaming mass on television. Rabbis in many parts of the world arediscouraging their followers from hugging and shaking hands. These are hard and painful decisions,but practical and important measures to keep followers alive.

Secondly, there is evidence in South Korea that the virus spread quickly because of the socialinteractions of the worshippers. South Korea was the first country to report significant coronavirusinfections outside of China. In New Rochelle in New York, a synagogue, as reported by Slate.com,was the centre of an outbreak of coronavirus that eventually led to the summoning of the NationalGuard.

In Houston in the US, the world-renowned Pastor Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church, which attracts

upwards of 50,000 people, has closed his church. Similarly, the famous megachurch pastor T.D Jakesof Potters House suspended church services for his thousands of followers.

Church business as usual in Kenya

While there were only seven confirmed cases of coronavirus in Kenya, by the time of writing thisarticle, there was general panic in the country, which suggest that everyone should avoid crowds.Yet, religious leaders across the country have yet to cancel church services. Only the All SaintsCathedral, Christ is the Answer Ministries (CITAM), Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA),Nairobi Chapel, Mavuno church and Jamia Mosque had suspended mass worship by the third weekof March. Instead, many have provided water and soap for members to wash their hands at theentrances of the church compounds. While washing hands has been suggested as one of the ways tofight the virus, it does not cancel the benefits of social distancing. Are religious leaders feigningignorance about the latter, or are they simply turning a blind eye to this important measure? I posita number of theories to explain this lackadaisical behaviour.

First, church spaces in Kenya are not about people; they are about the church founders who use thetithes and offerings to enrich themselves and live a life of luxury. They are never about people-centred theologies or a gospel of social justice, but about personalities. This is the logic thatunderlies the majority of spiritual spaces, especially those that are prosperity gospel allied, wherethe church founder’s main concern is not to build a community, but to make money.

Second, Kenyan churches are generally small and crowded in mostly poorly ventilated buildings andsemi-structures. Except for mosques, and the more established mainstream churches, the majorityare in bad condition. Many Pentecostal/evangelical church services, for example, are held in tents orshelters made of iron sheets and with poor sanitation. These are hotbeds for the spread of thedisease.

Why are the majority of Kenya’s popular churches in such dilapidated conditions? Why don’t tithersdemand for safe and healthy spaces of worship? Don’t the poor tither have dignity? These arequestions that the Kenyan religious population need to interrogate!

Church spaces in Kenya are not about people; they are about the church founders whouse the tithes and offerings to enrich themselves and live a life of luxury. They are neverabout people-centred theologies or a gospel of social justice, but about personalities.

The majority of Pentecostal clergy rarely invested in building decent churches because they don’tthink about the comfort and welfare of their members, but only about offering and tithes. ProphetOwuor of the Ministry of Repentance and Holiness, for example, hires school venues and tents,where his followers meet on Sundays. The reason he has given his followers for not building apermanent sanctuary is that Jesus Christ is coming back to rapture the church, hence there is noneed for a physical church. However, he built himself a palatial home, complete with a bunker,where he can self-quarantine himself, while the millions of his followers who live a life of squalourcan easily die from the coronavirus infection. Many other big and smaller churches have notinvested in building decent spaces of worship yet their founders live in opulence and luxury. It isabout them, not the people.

Yet the behaviour of the clergy in Kenya is hardly surprising. Rather, it mirrors class divisions in acountry where religious elites, just like their political counterparts, have created heaven on earth forthemselves, while ordinary Kenyans live in hell. The Kenyan clergy, just like our politicians, does notcare for its members. It uses them to ascend to power (political and religious) and respectability.

This is why the status of our churches mirrors the status of our public hospitals and schools andinformal settlements. Many of our public facilities, just like many houses of worship, are in terriblecondition, with no running water and poor sanitation. Yet pastors rarely raise the issue of the sorrystate of our broken healthcare systems, even though some churches have built a semblance of healthclinics to provide some form of medicare.

More importantly, religious leaders do not want to call off church services because they will berendered irrelevant. Many a clergy use the pulpit, not just to mint money, but also to prop up theiregos and advance their social status. The clergy are in the business of making money. Manychurches in Kenya, particularly those of Pentecostal and charismatic church inclinations, are run likebusiness enterprises, so closing a church has serious financial implications. In Africa, the church isan enterprise, just like the stock market: and their owners are afraid that their business empires willcrash like stock markets.

Third, there is a fear that COVID-19 will expose the clergy’s dark underbelly and call to questionAfrica’s faith-healing and miracle industry. For so long, religious leaders have trafficked in miraclesand faith-healing. COVID-19 has rendered them incapable of healing the sick and incapable ofpraying away the coronavirus. In fact, the virus has rendered them impotent and fragile; they haveno power to pray away the disease or perform dubious miracles.

Fourth, the clergy has been averse to scientific discoveries because science makes their miraculousshenanigans questionable. Prayers for healing have not calmed a shocked and scared populace.Many a clergy has frowned on science, medicine and theological education, instead spiritualisingeven non-spiritual matters as serious as the coronavirus pandemic. Science shakes the foundation oftheir spiritual teachings. After all, and in the case of this pandemic, science has proved to be morepractical and reliable than faith.

Watch: Religion in the Age of Coronavirus: Dr Damaris Parsitau Speaks

These fly-by-night pastors have also trafficked in guilt and false prophecies to shock people into aparticular way of being religious. Self-proclaimed Prophet Owuor has trafficked in fear-mongeringthreats, and has even claimed that he had prophesied the pandemic. He also said it would kill peoplein Asia because the continent rejected his prophecy. In Kenya, a section of the public has cajoled himto unleash his “mighty prophetic powers” to fend off the virus. They have also called on him to prayit away.

Apostles James Maina Ng’ang’a’s video on coronavirus – where he is unable to pronounce the wordcoronavirus – showed not just his sheer ignorance, but also how ill-equipped he and his ilk are whenit comes to offering solutions to such complex 21st-century problems.

A Meru-based Pentecostal clergyman with a huge following angered many Kenyans when he saidthat coronavirus is a global hoax and that God has instructed him not to cancel church servicebecause there is no coronavirus.

Fifth, many of the clergy have not built an infrastructure that would enable them to continue theirministry in times of crisis like this. While many pastors have invested in TV stations, radiofrequencies, social media pages, YouTube and websites, the intention has always been to win soulsand tithes that will make them more powerful. Investing in sound infrastructure that would haveallowed them to go online or on radio or televised church services at times of crisis like this wasnever part of their plan because their short-sightedness does not allow them to rethink aboutministry for 21st-century challenges, including climate change and its links to our health. The

available infrastructure has been mainly directed at international audiences, not localcongregations. It has also never been about their congregations but about how they can use suchplatforms to minister to gain respectability, online audiences and donations.

The question is, where is that spiritual power to perform miracles and heal people of coronaviruswhen we really need it? Prophet Owuor, who claims to have caused the virus because the world hasrejected his gospel of fear and threats, is impotent. A couple of Sundays ago, he preached without aninterpreter, as many of his followers wore masks and kept a safe distance from each other for fear ofcatching a disease he supposedly brought to the nation for rejecting his message. His sermons havealways been fear-inducing. He preachers about a dreadful God who kills people on a whim. It isinteresting that a man who claims that the clouds clap for him and the glory of God descends on himwhile preaching cannot pray away a global pandemic that can infect him and his retinue ofthousands of followers in Kenya and beyond.

More importantly is that religious leaders are no longer the voice of the voiceless, the conscience ofthe nation and defenders of social justice. It is about them and not the vulnerable. I have not seenany statement or press conference by the interreligious forum or the National Council of Churchesof Kenya (NCCK) or the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya or the Conference of Catholic Bishops toassure a nation in a moment of deep fear and frustrations.

Yet, many leaders have the audacity to force members to go to church. Where is the voice ofreligious leaders in Kenya? Who will call out the government’s bluff for putting the lives of Kenyansin extreme danger? Where is Prophet Owuor, Kenya’s “spiritual president” who “resurrects thedead” and claims to have prophesied about COVID-19? Where are the miracle workers who claim tohave the powers to delete HIV/AID, cancer, and diabetes? The refusal of many churches to cancelchurch services must be questioned by all. But even more importantly, the Kenyan religiouscommunity must defy their clergy and stay at home for their own health and that of their familiesand communities. I suggest that in light of this moment of great social anxieties, all religiousactivities must be cancelled to help contain the spread of the disease.

Exposing the sham

If there is anything we have learned from this experience, it is that the miracle and faith-healingindustry is nothing but a sham. No religious leader has the power to heal you. Science is our onlyhope. Going to church right now is not just the height of spiritual carelessness, but also an act offoolishness. When the virus is under control, we can all troop back to our houses of worship.

In developed countries, pastors have been at the forefront of ministering to their congregations athome. Many have come up with innovative ways of being Christian in the age of the coronavirus.They have asked communities of faith to change not just their usual religious practices, but theirworship as well. Parishioners are not only conducting mass online but offering online prayer supportand educating congregations about the scientific ways of mitigating the virus.

More importantly, they have come up with spiritual resources to help their followers remainspiritually connected during such times. These clergy and churches are institutions that arecongregation-centred, not individual-centred. They have invested in infrastructure for a coronaviruspandemic and 21st-century challenges. For such churches and congregations, God is not found in aphysical church, but everywhere and God does not speak to the clergy alone.

There is need to deinstitutionalise the church and question our high dependence on the so-calledmen and women of God. We must re-evaluate their moral and intellectual standards, and we mustcritically debate the theological foundations of the church in Kenya.

In developed countries, pastors have been at the forefront of ministering to theircongregations at home. Many have come up with innovative ways of being Christian inthe age of the coronavirus.

The Kenyan Christian needs to be socialised not to depend so much on the clergy. God does not livein church but is everywhere. No clergyman has the monopoly and direct line to God. God lives in ourminds and hearts. We can have church with ourselves and our families. The pastor has no magic toward off coronavirus. He is as afraid as you are. But he can be a voice of hope and reason.

Many churches and clergy have denied science and climate change. The evangelical and Pentecostalchurches, which are the fastest growing churches in Africa, Latin America and Oceania, have alwaysbeen at odds with science and climate change. One of the effects of climate change is the spread ofpandemics like this. As human beings, we share the world with viruses and they attack us. Yet wehave refused to be good stewards of the environment and we have denied climate change despitetremendous scientific evidence about its links to our human body.

The sheer magnitude and fast spread of the virus has paralysed the world and caused huge fear andconfusion. For many religious people, it has caused an ecclesiological conundrum. Fear andconfusion have taken over reason. Yet scientific data available calls us to do things differently; washhands, minimise unnecessary travel, stay home while sick to reduce infecting others, keeping socialdistance, avoiding large crowds, such as church services, and maintaining social distance.

Different ways of being religious

What does it mean to be church in the age of coronavirus? How much should it matter that wecontinue to physically gather in spaces of worship in the midst of a pandemic that by its very natureis anti-crowding? Isn’t it the wise thing to do that the clergy should call off all religious activities tosave lives and avoid mass spread of the pandemic? Is it not a death sentence to encourage people togo to church at such a time as this? Does it make any sense at all for people to continue to troop tochurches, and other spaces of worship for prayer, fellowship and community making, when suchactions put people in serious danger? Why do pastors have such a hold on peoples’ abilities to think?Is God only found in churches and mosques? Why are Kenyan churches clergy-centric and notpeople-centric? Can the African and Kenyan clergy spring to action and guide their congregationsand provide the much- needed leadership in an era of crippling fear and uncertainties?

For many religious people, this time calls for many ways of being. It calls on us to deinstitutionalisefaith and rethink innovative ways of being spiritual communities. It calls on us to decentralise therole of a clergy that does not think about us but about themselves. It calls on us to give science achance, even as we continue to pray and hope and take care of each other. Taking care of each otheris a spiritual exercise. This is the time to be good neighbours. This is the time for us to think aboutcompassion and empathy, After all, science and faith are not in contradiction with each other.

Now is the time to ground ourselves in a gospel of social justice, not fake miracles and questionablecures.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their societyby interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Follow us on Twitter.

Race and Revival: A Posture of Protest for aNew Pentecostal MovementBy Christine Mungai

While churches in the wealthy democracies are emptying or folding up, those in the global South –Africa, Latin America and the Oceania – are full to capacity. Similarly, Pentecostal and charismaticchurches have mushroomed all over the African continent. Alongside the explosion of these spirit-filled churches, the so-called “Men of God” have become doubly influential, not just in the politicalsphere, but also in the socio-economic sphere, including in women’s and gender issues. Few of thesechurches are engaged in the gospel of social responsibility, such as building hospitals and schools(which the state has neglected); rather, the majority of these churches preach a life of spiritualabundance and prosperity.

These powerful men – and women – of God live a life of abundance and opulence, even as their manyfollowers wallow in abject poverty. Many of these church leaders, who come with many fancy titles,such, as overseers pastors, prophets, and more recently, “God’s generals”, and “the oracles of God”,are benignly referred to as “Men of God”. They are immensely powerful politically and have

perfected the art of preaching about prosperity, otherwise known as the health and wealth gospel.Their preaching and teachings have wide reach that is not limited only to Sunday mornings and mid-week services; their sermons are often broadcast live on national TV and radio to hundreds ofthousands of people.

To supplement the TV and radio broadcasts, they also package audio tapes and books – many ofthem ghost-written – alongside other imported spiritual books, church magazines, websites andsocial media pages that equally reach a wide range of audiences beyond their congregations. Thebulk of their sermons are uploaded on YouTube.

Pentecostal churches on the African continent are male-dominated institutions, especially inleadership, even though thousands of women and youth fill their pews or tents every Sunday.

Self-proclaimed Prophet David Ujiji Owuor frequently holds humungous crusades that attractthousands of people. His sermons and healing crusades are often streamed live on TV and uploadedon YouTube. In his thousands of churches (also called “altars” to distinguish them from ordinarychurches), not much preaching takes place. Owuor, like many “Men of God”, talks about apatriarchal and masculine God.

My research on the gendered discourses of Pentecostal and evangelical Christianity shows howthese Men of God promote a particular brand of “Masculinity Christianity” couched in African andChristian patriarchal forms of dominance. Here, I adopt Akosua Adomako Ampofo’s understandingsof masculinity, which refers to a cluster of norms, values and behaviour patterns expressing explicitexpectations of how men should act and represent themselves to others.

In his thousands of churches (also called “altars” to distinguish them from ordinarychurches), not much preaching takes place. Owuor, like many “Men of God”, talks abouta patriarchal and masculine God.

And while some types of masculine brands espoused by the Men of God encourage a sort of “softmasculinity” (behavior that can be beneficial to women, such as eschewing violence, advocatingmonogamy and love and care for the family), many also preach that women are the weaker sex bothemotionally and intellectually. As Akosua Ampofo aptly points out when referring to GhanaianPentecostal and charismatic churches, “many sometimes emphasise women’s limitations, leading toa devaluing of women, re-inscribing male domination and undermining female autonomy”. Thoughthere are female-founded and female-led Pentecostal and charismatic churches in Kenya, themajority of these outfits are led by men and the dominant voices on the religious sphere are male.Their prominent focus and value judgments are, however, directed at female bodies.

They are also increasingly portraying themselves as experts, not just on spiritual matters, but alsoon women’s and gender issues, including female sexuality, advising women and youth on how to dealwith their intimate and sexual lives, for instance. Their teachings and theologies are not justtroubling but are also sexist. Yet, these so-called Men of God remain highly influential voices ongender issues.

The good wife

These preachers have carved a niche for themselves as the go-to specialists for people seeking toimprove and renew their relationships, hence reconstructing sexual and intimate citizenships,gender, sexuality and women’s reproductive health rights. In fact, many of their pulpits, whichattract thousands of female followers, are spaces where women’s and gender issues are

constructed/deconstructed and assigned new meaning.

In many of these churches, a monogamous marriage is portrayed as the ideal achievement that everywoman and girl must aspire to. It is a privilege to get married, women and girls are taught. In onesermon at a Pentecostal church in Nakuru and attended by this researcher, the pastor said to anecstatic crowd:

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful you are, how educated you are, how big your boobs andbackside are! If you are not married, if no man has seen you, you are going to stay single andmiserable for the rest of your life. And it’s not funny being an old spinster! Just ask that bunchof old unmarried women in your neighbourhood! The Bible says, he who finds a wife finds agood thing! Sister, don’t be influenced by these crazy feminists who hate men! Without the loveof a man, you will grow old and die a miserable spinster! And for those who are married, pleaseunderstand that you are highly favoured of God. Take care of that man! Please remember thatthere are more women than men in Kenya according to the latest census.”

The pastor then mocked young girls who did not know how to cook ugali, a popular staple food inEast Africa and beyond.

“If you are here and you can only cook spaghetti, shame on you! Your husbands will return youback to your mother to teach you how to cook and look after a man! Don’t feed your husbandwith rubbish. Sister, go back and learn how to cook proper food from your mum. And when youhave learned how to cook, also learn to how to serve him like a king! Treat him well otherwiseyou will lose him to someone who can cook and treat him better! Am I talking to somebodyhere? Please shout halleluiah!”

Such messages are replicated in many Pentecostal churches where I have carried out research, aswell as in public and private discourses. These messages reinforce women’s position in society assubordinate domestic workers. In many Christian churches, marital violence is considered un-Christian behaviour yet scores of women I spoke with told me that they have endured violence andwere badly treated by their Christian spouses. One woman told me that her being “saved” or “bornagain” has not insulated her from intimate partner violence, which has reached alarming proportionsin Kenya and globally, according to recent data from the United Nations, which suggests that thehome is emerging as the most dangerous place for women and girls.

Yet, such religious messages can further reinforce violence against women. In his book, Till DeathDo Us Part, Bishop Charles Agyin-Asare, the founder of one of Ghana’s mega churches, had this tosay about abuse in marriage:

“You are not the first woman to be beaten by your husband and you will not be the last…Rise upwith the word of God and use your spiritual weapons…Keep going to church, listen to tapes,pray, notice the blessings around you, and keep your vows.”

Many pastors in Pentecostal churches preach that God hates divorce. They encourage women whoseek advice about what to do when they experience domestic violence to keep praying and keepwaiting for God to change the man. Some women I interviewed told me that their pastors advisedthem to change and become good wives – a message that suggests that women are abused by theirspouses because they are not behaving like good wives.

This idea is embedded in Proverbs 31 Woman, a biblical verse that embodies the qualities expectedof every good Christian woman/wife. A lot of discourse on Proverbs 31 focuses on marriage, andpreparing women to be good wives, good mothers, and pure girls. The Proverbs 31 woman rises

early to fend for and feed her family. Such teachings and discourses on women’s domestic roles arerepeatedly replicated in many church pulpits, suggesting that women have no value outside ofmarriage and family life. And they also have no value within it beyond providing domestic services.

Kenyan women, like all other women in Africa and in other parts of the developing world, carryincredible responsibilities for keeping their marriages and families intact, even if it meanssacrificing their own personal well-being and safety. Scores of women I interviewed appeared tohave internalised the teachings of these churches and many blamed themselves for the violence theyendured in their homes.

Sexual sin and the purity culture

However, it is the sexualised view of women’s bodies and the purity culture espoused by ProphetDavid Owuor and his Ministry of Repentance and Holiness (MRH) that I find most disturbing.Prophet Owuor, whose key messages are centred around repentance and holiness, as reflected in hisministry’s name, seems to be mainly concerned about sexual purity, morality and immorality. Theseteachings occupy much of the teachings in MRH, which border on obsession. Prophet Owoursquarely places women’s bodies at the centre of an erotic economy.

The sexual purity gospel espoused by Owuor is akin to the evangelical purity culture popularised inevangelical circles in the USA in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. In this purity culture, men and boysare viewed as sexually weak and women and girls are seen as the upholders of sexual purity. Womenare also responsible if men fail to observe sexual purity and for the sexual thoughts and feelings ofboys and grown men. Followers are taught that men and boys are visually-oriented and are thuseasily aroused by the site of women’s flesh. Women must, therefore, keep male sexual desires incheck by covering up lest they provoke men who can’t control their sexual urges. For the samereasons, Owour has prescribed a dress code for his female followers that explicitly forbids thewearing of sleeveless tops, hemlines at or above the knee, slit skirts that expose the knees andthighs, open shoes, bare legs and make up. In his church, women dress in heavy curtain-likematerials that flow from the neck to the tips of the toes. Every part of the women’s bodies is coveredexcept for the face.

These messages reinforce women’s position in society as subordinate domestic workers.In many Christian churches, marital violence is considered un-Christian behaviour yetscores of women I spoke with told me that they have endured violence and were badlytreated by their Christian spouses.

Women are further urged to adopt certain mannerisms and practices that are deemed appropriatefor a religious holy life. Speaking about women’s bodies and dressing, Owuor often quotes biblicalverses, such as Hebrews 12:14: “Make efforts to be holy, for without holiness, no one will see theLord!”, and 1 Corinthians 6:19, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit,who is in you, whom you have received from God?”

Applying these verses to his female followers while speaking at a prayer rally, Owuor said: “Whenyou cover your body, you are saying: I respect and honour my body which is the temple of the Lord.So make sure you do not defile the house of the Holy Spirit by dressing indecently.”

In a series of sermons titled “Purity in the Church and How God Looks at Sexual Sin”, as well as innumerous interviews with his followers and non-followers, Owuor frequently depicts women asprostitutes and temptresses, and as the chief cause of “men’s sexual sins” and “lack of sexualcontrol”. He often evokes biblical narrative and paraphrases, some like the book of Proverbs,

Chapter 6: 24-26: “Keep yourself away from the immoral woman and from the smooth tongue of thewayward wife. Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes. Forthe prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread and the adulteress preys upon your very life.”

According to Owuor, “The Bible says that based on the way a woman is dressed, she can be called aprostitute.” (There is no such verse in the Bible.) “This is how God looks at sexual sin,” he adds.“Look, men are affected by what they see. Some women dress to get the attention of the pastor.”

Followers are taught that men and boys are visually-oriented and are thus easily arousedby the site of women’s flesh. Women must, therefore, keep male sexual desires in checkby covering up lest they provoke men who can’t control their sexual urges.

Owuor’s preaching makes fluent transitions from biblical texts to the contemporary context and backagain, reinforcing negative images of women as adulterers and prostitutes and as dangerous andpotentially fatal sources of temptation. I have even heard prophet Owour telling women not to usegood old Vaseline on their bodies. (This is preposterous. Vaseline is a popular balm for cracked lipsand is also used to moisturise legs and hands.)

The purity culture espoused by Owuor is about how a woman needs to be a good Christian byprotecting men from the threat of women. This message suggests that women’s bodies and sexualityare a threat to Christendom and men. Therefore, it is women’s and girls’ responsibilitiy to dressright, and in an acceptable manner. They must also sit right, talk right and not reveal themselves soas not to tempt men. If they don’t, then they risk being called prostitutes and impure harlots. Womenare responsible not only for their own sexual purity, but that of men too. As such, gender andsexuality are deeply intertwined in MRH.

In MRH, women’s bodies are depicted as locus of impurity, lust, sin, and temptation. The burden ofproof of holiness appears to lie primarily with women. Of course, from a gender or feministperspective, it is easy to see in MRH’s teachings the workings of patriarchy, with women’s bodiesbeing made sites of surveillance, regulation, control, and power. Indeed, Owuor’s project of moralregeneration echoes wider patterns in colonial and post-colonial Africa, in which women’s bodies, inparticular, have become symbolic sites of contestation over authenticity, decency and purity. AsSouth African feminist scholar Desiree Lewis points out: “The centrality of patriarchy in the controlof women’s bodies is evident in the policing of women’s gender roles in many African countriesrequires a highly visible and explicit performance of prescribed gendered behaviour.” Owour’ssermons on women bodies are not just disturbing but they are also sexist and aim to controlwomen’s intimate lives.

Ironically, Prophet Owuor’s ministry has been embroiled in sex scandals. Even his personal life hasbeen the subject of controversy, including rape and domestic violence allegations against him raisedin the United States. On his own admission, he has also fathered a child in Israel and abandonedboth the mother and son in unclear circumstances.

Recently, one of his close associates was expelled from his ministry and the altar was burned downbecause he sexually molested three female followers who he used to invite to his house for “prayerand anointing with oil”. Apparently, he did more than just “anoint” the women. Three of thesewomen gave harrowing testimonies of sexual abuse at the hands of a pastor of a church where themajority of sermons are about sexual sin.

These insidious pastors preach a dangerous and sexualized view of women’s bodies, as if women donot exist outside of their reproductive roles. In many of his rambling sermons that are also uploaded

on YouTube, Prophet Owuor promotes an extreme form of purity culture and sexualisation of womenbodies that is ultimately harmful to women and girls. According to Galia Sabar, a distinguishedProfessor of African Studies and the President of the Ruppin Academy Centre in Tel Aviv, Israel,Prophet Owour’s sexualised view of women’s bodies might have been influenced by an extreme formof ultra-Jewish orthodoxy in Israel that polices and requires women to keep off from everything andanything when menstruating, including being checked by an old woman to determine if there areany blood stains in their vaginas after menstruation. Only when it is determined that they are nolonger menstruating are they allowed to touch anything and get intimate with their spouses.

Owuor’s preaching makes fluent transitions from biblical texts to the contemporarycontext and back again, reinforcing negative images of women as adulterers andprostitutes and as dangerous and potentially fatal sources of temptation. I have evenheard prophet Owour telling women not to use good old Vaseline on their bodies.

This influence is not far-fetched considering that Owour spent a considerable amount of time inIsrael for his post-graduate studies and by his own admission nearly converted to Judaism and had achild with a Jewish woman. Influences of Judaism are evident in his ministry: he obsesses aboutkosher food and the state of Israel.

Like Catherine Woodiwiis, who grapples with many questions in her article, “In the Image of God:Sex, Power and ‘Masculine Christianity”, I also ask myself many questions around these teachings.Why are women so devalued in Kenyan society? Why do women subject themselves to this kind ofcontrol? How can young men learn to respect women when their popular and influential pastorsconsistently preach about women as the weaker sex whose value is only reproductive and domestic?How can boys and girls think positively about female leadership when women are said to be unfit tolead a church or preach in public? How can young men support women’s aspirations to serve inpublic offices when they have been bombarded with messages of women’s place as being in thekitchen? How can young men learn not to abuse women when they are simultaneously modelled onthe behaviour that leads to it? How can young men become leaders of integrity when the likes ofNganga and Owour are celebrities? Why have women, both young and old, internalised andnormalised abuse not just in the home sphere but also in church spheres? Do Christian clergy evenrethink their sermons and the impact that their teachings have on women? More fundamentally, isthe notion of women’s bodies, religious authority and how the so-called “Men of God” control,regulate, construct, and deconstruct women’s bodies being challenged?

Body shaming

In many Pentecostal and charismatic churches in Africa, the female body is portrayed as the site ofdemonic attacks, immorality, sexual sin, tension and violations and one that is trapped in secrecyand shame. It is a locus for sexual sin, impurity and uncleanliness. The purity culture advocated byOwour not only body shames women but is unhelpful and damaging in a country where gender-based violence is rampant. The purity culture does not celebrate women as human beings who aredeserving of dignity, respect, protection, love and care. The church and the purity culture dictatehow a woman ought to be. Yet, the policing and the objectification of women’s bodies must beunderstood within the context of not just a patriarchal Kenyan society, but also within a particularmasculine brand of Christianity in which “Men of God” continue to perpetuate and espousebehaviour and theologies that are disadvantageous to girls and women.

The purity culture shames women and in countries like the US, it has fuelled an exodus of youngwomen from evangelical churches. It aims to sexually control women’s bodies and creates deep and

long-lasting shame among women who internalise such teachings. Many young women (universitystudents) I interviewed who left Pentecostal churches have narrated to me how the purity culturehas created deep shame in how they view their bodies and has made them suffer sexual anxieties intheir current relationships. Linda Kay, author of Pure: Inside the Movement that Shamed aGeneration of Young Women and How I Broke Free, shows how damaging this purity culture is forwomen and young girls. It is paramount that the clergy rethinks the impact of such toxic theologies,even as they seek to reconstruct society and hopefully help create a better country in which womenare respected not shamed.

Recently, one of his close associates was expelled from his ministry and the altar wasburned down because he sexually molested three female followers who he used to inviteto his house for “prayer and anointing with oil”. Apparently, he did more than just“anoint” the women.

After all, sex is not the biggest sin in Kenya. The country is riddled with massive corruption, poorgovernance, greed, poisonous food, poverty, food insecurity, and poor social services. In a countrywhere women experience tremendous discrimination and violence, I have never heard Owuorcondemn any form of violence against women, including forced prostitution of women, sextrafficking or even sex tourism. Neither have I heard him speak up against any social injusticesrampant in Kenyan society that deny women their humanity and justice.

Often Kenyan women and girls have been publicly stripped, even sexually abused, because theywore tight jeans/skirts, dresses. And a section of the public has justified this by saying that thewomen asked for it because they were skimpily dressed. Yet my experience working with womenwho have suffered years of sexual abuse and violence suggests that dressing is not the cause ofsexual and gender-based violence. In fact, it is a lazy and weak explanation that is not backed by anyscientific evidence but has however been used to justify violence against women. This isunacceptable especially in a country where one out of every three women has experienced sexualand gender-based violence. Sexual and gender-based violence is about fear of losing control. Moreimportantly, it is about power.

It is also a symptom of a crisis of masculinity and social and religious control of women. Thankfully,the ongoing global media coverage of clerical abuse of children and nuns in the Catholic church hashelped to shift the narrative to the perpetrators.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their societyby interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Follow us on Twitter.

Race and Revival: A Posture of Protest for aNew Pentecostal MovementBy Christine Mungai

In the midst of the 2008 US presidential election, both sides of the campaign faced a pastor problem.For Barack Obama, it was Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the man who had officiated his wedding withMichelle Robinson, and baptised both their daughters. The future president had to distance himselffrom Rev. Wright when clips of the pastor saying “anti-white, anti-American” things became thesubject of national conversation.

For the John McCain campaign, it was Bishop Thomas Muthee, a Kenyan pastor who had prayed forMcCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, in 2005. Muthee came up in the campaign after Palin startedreviving Obama’s connection to Wright, which had come up in February that year.

There were two videos. In one, from 2005, the Kenyan pastor prays for Sarah Palin, who was thenthe Mayor of Wasilla. He “anoints” her political ambitions, and “rebukes every form of witchcraft”.Two days later, Palin announced her candidacy for the governorship of Alaska, which she ultimatelywon. In the second video, shot in mid-2008, Palin recalled the 2005 encounter and attributed herpolitical successes to the anointing.

In the typical fervent opposition research of American presidential contests, details of Muthee’swork and claims over the years came up in different publications. Most of them centered around a

foundational claim of his ministry – that he had chased away a witch in Kiambu, bringing down thecrime rate, alcoholism, and boosting the economy. He had made the claim many times before, and ithad been covered extensively as early as 1999.

This story caught my attention not just because we were all invested in the Obama campaign, butalso because I spent a significant part of my childhood in Muthee’s church. I’d heard the story of thewitch numerous times, repeated as fact. The characters in the story, including the alleged witch,Mama Jane, but excluding the pet python (this comes up somewhere in the many retellings), were afamiliar aspect of my short-lived experiment with faith. Mama Jane lived somewhere on the outskirtsof the town in what looked like a walled commune for Akorinos.

As a child, it was easy to miss all the nuances that drove the success of the narrative of the witch-hunt. The events described supposedly took place in the late 80s and early 90s, a time when theworld was in flux. Kenya was an economic mess grappling with structural adjustment programme(SAP)-triggered reforms, a new multiparty era, and just about every possible disruption imaginable.

As if that wasn’t enough, the last surviving safe space of the tired citizen – sex – was no more.HIV/AIDs had taken that away, bringing fear and panic to one of the most basic of human activities.What society needed, and what many churches were built on from the mid-80s, was a source of allanswers. A simple solution for complex questions.

The Owuor brand

A few months ago, an opinion piece by Njoki Chege on Dr. David E. Owuor, one of several in recenttimes, triggered a monumental backlash, at least online, mainly in defence of the bearded tunic-donning preacher. It even included a response from Daily Nation’s public editor essentially sayingthat the opinion piece should not have been based on opinion.

Owuor has been the subject of media attention for the last decade or so. Recently there was a 37-minute investigative documentary by Mark Bichachi that aired in December last year. At the heart ofthe interest (and controversies) are Owuor’s prophecies and supposed miraculous powers, whichinclude doomsday predictions and (a) resurrection. Buried a layer beneath are questions about hissource of wealth and seemingly insurmountable hold not just on his followers, but also on politiciansand businessmen. It is a question of the role of religion in modern life, and why, despite ourseemingly high literacy levels, we still seem beholden to what amount to fantasy and spectacle.

But nothing Owuor does is essentially new in the religio-political sphere of Kenyan life. Othersbefore him have built similar movements on almost similar frames of thought, with a specific focuson going beyond psychological comfort and belonging. They’ve offered families beyond a bloodlinemeaning, where marriage is, for example, a carefully curated experience that drives bothrecruitment and loyalty.

As if that wasn’t enough, the last surviving safe space of the tired citizen – sex – was nomore. HIV/AIDs had taken that away, bringing fear and panic to one of the most basic ofhuman activities.

The attention and publicity of such religious figures and groupings tends to focus on their dogmaticquirks, ignoring the socio-economic roles they play. Religion also fulfills an economic role asemployer or reference, a social one as friend and family, and a political one as a place to explain themeaning of divine authority and other complexities. To get here though, it needs to first distinguishitself from others pushing essentially the same message. It is not enough to fight Satan as a concept,

but also his supposed personification in human and social form.

For early Christians in Kenya, it was the concepts and practices of traditional religions. Then itmoved to witches, poverty, and demonic possession, which were also common pivots in the wave ofnew evangelical churches of the 1980s. They didn’t leave established churches behind, as thecomposition of the infamous Devil Worship Commission proves. But they went a step further inseeking new platforms, abandoning the traditional pulpit, at least initially, for new ways of reachingaudiences. These included open-air crusades, evangelical missions in public spaces, such as marketsand buses, and eventually televangelism.

Unlike traditional clergy, they shunned ceremonial robes and chose smart, professional attireinstead. They also added even more spectacle to the rituals that older churches had stopped doingfrequently – baptism in a river or a pool, for example. If an early Christian time-travelled to ourmodern age, a lot of what these new churches are doing would look very familiar, including the totalimmersion baptism.

In the tumultuous 90s, in both urban and rural areas, they explained away social ills asmanifestations of a dark force. Anything from crime waves to drug addiction and political corruptioncould be explained away simply on this basis. The case of the Kiambu pastor is interesting because itwas not just dressed as warfare for spiritual health, but for social good – reduced traffic accidentsand crime. It also spoke about “powerful people” who had been visiting the witch, implying a directconnection between the socio-economic carnage and politics. Even more importantly, it wasgeographical pivot for the church itself, and its subsequent growth in Kiambu, its links withinternational ones, and the centering of this new breed of church as a “meaning maker” replacingthe public intellectual in society.

Other churches designed their messaging in a similar way, focusing on issues affecting their primaryaudience and tailoring spiritual solutions for them. The model encouraged personal testimony led byreligious leaders who spoke frequently about their own transformation and “calling”. Many of thesechurches would try to create a niche for themselves while trying to maintain a respectableperspective of others in the business. It was essentially an oligopolistic market where open conflictwas discouraged. The familiar threads also encouraged a form of cross-pollination that hadn’t beenpossible with the stricter distinctions within older forms of Christianity.

As the economy improved and things eased a bit, the messaging in the most successful churchesshifted more towards a liberal theology, emphasising prosperity and purpose-driven lives, withclergy men and women exemplifying such success. Their suits got sharper, their cars got bigger,their homes got grander, and the competition for souls exploded.

By 2007, there were 8, 520 registered churches, 6, 740 pending applications, and 60 newapplications being filed every month.

Owuor unsettles this uneasy calm that has existed among different Christian denominations. Todrive recruitment and differentiate himself, he routinely riles against sin, specifically sexual sin. In2015, Owuor was in the midst of an open-media war with Margaret Wanjiru, the epitome of the waveof preachers who emerged in the 80s and the 90s. Wanjiru exemplifies everything that has helpedOwuor distinguish himself by fighting rich, preacher-politician identity with a self-confessed “witch”past. She also exemplifies the established clergy that Owuor says shunned him when he begunpreaching in 2004/5, although there’s no evidence the two ever crossed paths. This period isimportant because, as Dauti Kahura rightly observes, it marked the beginning of the end of thecommon (wrong) view that the church was a neutral arbiter. Within no time, the church would be inthe thick of the referendum debate, a short-term battle it won without realising it was losing a much

larger one.

Despite this open declaration of war, Owuor’s brand is still rooted in established religious practices.He preaches nothing new and similar movements and doomsday cults are a dime a dozen eventoday. The difference between him and others is that he has capitalised on the disillusionment of hiswould-be followers. He keeps his message simple, as exemplified by the name of his organisation –The Ministry of Repentance and Holiness. His primary enemy is not necessarily the concept ofSatan, but his fellow preachers and other churches. He uses the same pivots that they did, butdisagrees, at least in his sermons, with the direction they took their faith and lives. In the things hestill does (that they also do), he goes for spectacle. Whether it’s the motorcades or the open-aircrusades or even the things he says.

As the economy improved and things eased a bit, the messaging in the most successfulchurches shifted more towards a liberal theology, emphasising prosperity and purpose-driven lives, with clergy men and women exemplifying such success. Their suits gotsharper, their cars got bigger, their homes got grander, and the competition for soulsexploded.

But even beyond this is his ability to create and push a personality cult, one rooted in Christianitybut spirited in a way most other denominations haven’t been since the 90s. It is more the spirit andspectacle of the man than the actual content that makes him who he is today. He is a modern brandthat has become more familiar in the age of Donald Trump; one built not on substance, but onopposition and display. Owuor’s brand also demands exclusivity from its followers, and then workslike a niche, complete with a sub-economy as well as socio-political networks.

Owuor initially rooted his churches in open-air, accessible locations. He himself, however, mostlydrives his message and influence through well-choreographed, much-publicised public rallies. In thisway he works like a politician in fervent campaign mode. The rallies are not novel, like many thingsabout the Owuor brand, but they are different in the way they are marketed and executed. They areoften preceded by weeks, at times months, of marketing in every conceivable social space (evenpushed by police officers in uniform), and then aired live for maximum effect. Even this isn’t new, asit was introduced in Kenya by foreign preachers in the Moi era who got similar publicity, policeprotection, and political networking.

Fresh sermons are given at rallies, with his churches (known within as “altars”), and media housesairing his sermons. Owuor’s organisation also runs a website, a magazine and a radio station. Allthree run his content almost exclusively, with a heavy bent on his rallies, prophecies, and “miracles.”He has become what scholars see as a “religio-political figure”, a “multi-disciplinary phenomenon.”

Other than this Digital Age aspect of his brand’s growth and protection, Owuor is really an ElijahMasinde or an Onyango Dunde, or a Mary Akatsa for the modern age. His brand combines both themythical influence of traditional beliefs with the modern opportunities of technology and access. Heoccupies the helm of his fringe movement as a spiritual figure rooted in Christian beliefs, but withthe added advantage of being a living, breathing, intelligent man. In his work he combines social,spiritual, political and moral narratives with which his followers can reinterpret world events.

Whether this is a good thing is as controversial as the man. Different schools of thought, even fromrandom comments on Twitter, show a general discomfort with the power he wields.

Weaponising intimate citizenship

While intimate citizenship – a concept that seeks to explain the conflicts of personal decisions – is anaspect of most religions, there’s something more pronounced about how fringe movements use andweaponise them. Religious leaders and the movements they build tend to seek power over who andwhen people meet, date and marry. The centrality of this core aspect of the individual is anextension of the family, and used over a period of time – a brilliant way of shoring up numbers andmaintaining an in-group.

Intimate citizenship became particularly important after the mid-1980s as HIV/AIDS ravaged societyand the political class refused to respond effectively. Politicians and clergymen, faced with aproblem for which there was no direct answer or cure as there had been for sexually-transmitteddiseases before, at first shied away from the topic. At one point, President Daniel arap Moi evenasked why people couldn’t abstain from sex for two years, and Cardinal Maurice Otunga burnt pilesof condoms at Uhuru Park. The vacuum that the destruction of social structures had createdwidened, and there were no easy, obvious answers.

At the Jerusalem Church of Christ (JCC), led by Mary Akatsa, congregants were encouraged to marryoutside the church, with approval of course. The design here is that Akatsa christened herself“Mummy” and her followers became “Children of Mummy”. Intermarriage between them wouldtherefore be equal to incest, a crime which she once used to launch a hostile takeover of theleadership at her previous church.

In contrast, in Owuor’s church, members are encouraged to marry fellow believers. Owuor has alsoswitched some of the inherited norms of the church marriage, for example, by making the bridearrive at the church before the groom.

To standardise the ranks even more, such fringe sects also insist on uniforms. Such uniforms andother church materials provide for a sub-economy since they can only be bought directly from theorganisation or from ordained tailors. The tailors who dress Owuor’s congregation, for example,cannot dress any outsider. Owuor’s church, like Akatsa’s, bans miniskirts, high heels, trousers,shorts, make-up, and a litany of other things.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of adulthood is the idea that we are all, past a certain age,independent, free-thinking beings, that we desire choice in every aspect of life, and always know wecan decline. But basic sociology on the power of in-groups in the life of an individual, defined bycodes, uniforms and familiar rituals, shows it’s not that easy.

At one point, President Daniel arap Moi even asked why people couldn’t abstain from sexfor two years, and Cardinal Maurice Otunga burnt piles of condoms at Uhuru Park. Thevacuum that the destruction of social structures had created widened, and there were noeasy, obvious answers.

In Akatsa’s church, lateness is punished on the spot. Lewdness in any form, even implied, is a no-no.She also regularly humiliates her congregants by insulting them, slapping them, making them kneel,and punishing them for indiscretions.

The question then is, is it dangerous?

There have so far been few signs that what Owuor preaches is outrightly dangerous to anything oranyone except perhaps other versions of charismatic Christianity. One sign is that the hold Owuor

has on his followers, and the amount of weight he places on his persona and mortality, make hisdemise a dangerous prospect.

Like many others before him, he routinely refers to his own mortality, casting aspersions that otherswould/will kill him for his message. By doing so, Owuor inadvertently sets his followers on thewarpath with anyone who challenges his legitimacy, whether from a religious or non-religious angle.At times, he directly leads these crusades. In 2016, for example, he held “repentance prayers” for“evil media”, borrowing from a government-led onslaught on the media (and civil society) that beganwith Jubilee’s election in 2013. That year, his followers also wrote an open letter to The Wall StreetJournal. In 2015, a man was sued for hacking Owuor’s email and in 2018, his subordinates sued twobloggers for defamation.

All these attacks come at a time when Owuor, and by extension his followers, have been receivingunprecedented coverage for use of state resources, fraud, drama, exile, an attempted suicide and awarning against environmental degradation.

Another more pressing danger is just how much damage his faith-healing crusade can do not just tohis congregation, but to the societies they live and work in. The rise of charismatic faith-healers inthe 80s is linked, although not entirely, to the carnage that HIV/AIDS caused in almost all aspects ofsocial life, beginning with intimate citizenship. Having a cure for the virus, whether in the form ofspiritual or medical cures, such as Prof. Arthur Obel’s series of failed cures, meant speaking tosomething that knew no socio-economic distinction.

Owuor understands modern medicine more than anyone else by virtue of his past as a moleculargeneticist. He has also among his ranks a retinue of trained doctors and scientists who routinely“confirm” his miracles. Doctors and police officers use their credibility to defend his miracles. Hissecond-in-command, Dr. Paul Onjoro, is a lecturer at Egerton University’s Department of AnimalScience.

One social fear is that the church has the building blocks to mutate into something more potent, andperhaps even dangerous to its followers and those they interact with. East Africa still carries thetrauma of the mass murders of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, aUgandan doomsday sect formed in the 80s. In February and March 2000 the church leadershipsystematically murdered between 500 and 1,000 people in a secret campaign that culminated in achurch inferno. It was the second worst mass carnage of its kind after the infamous Jonestown masssuicides of 1978 where 914 people died in Guyana.

What in the world is happening?

The democratisation of the media (and the economy) has reduced the monopoly that political leadersonce had on national spectacle. Preachers know that, to paraphrase Howard French, “Africans love aspectacle”. The spectacle offered by politicians is infrequent or repetitive, as any cursory glance of aweek’s headlines shows, while preachers can satisfy it in some way every week, and cap it off with amajor display every once in a while. The best part is that they don’t have to reinvent the wheel; theraw materials are already in place.

But there’s something else at the heart of this rise in spectacle – boredom. Research shows thatboredom renders people more positive to their in-groups and more negative toward out-groups.Human beings built social groups out of a need for common survival when it was mostly to satisfythe needs of nourishment, security, and procreation. In a world where democracy is on the decline,economies are struggling, and everything feels like its about to explode, all these needs are underthreat. And just like it happened in the 1980s, human beings are seeking the safety and belonging of

in-groups, and religion has more experience than anything else in how to build and shape them.

These trends are all over the world, and personalities like Owuor are a dime a dozen in manysocieties. What’s even truer is that they count among their followers even people you would assumewould not be easily swayed by charismatic individuals. Former Malawian President Joyce Bandamade seven trips in 20 months to TB Joshua’s church in Nigeria, which she has since equated to apilgrimage. Joshua’s hold also includes Tanzanian President John Magufuli, whose son wassupposedly healed of asthma in 2011. And Frederick Chiluba, the former President of Zambia, saidin 2009 that he watched Emannuel TV-TB Joshua’s television channel daily.

It is a precarious time to underestimate the power of religious groups, particularly evangelicals.They voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in the US, and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Traditionalcentres of power, especially religio-political ones, are on a fast decline as others rise to take theirplace. But that previous statement is only true for developed, aging societies. The Catholic churchgrew by 238 percent in Africa between 1980 and 2015, and only by 57 percent across the world.Africa and Asia now export priests.

The democratisation of the media (and the economy) has reduced the monopoly thatpolitical leaders once had on national spectacle. Preachers know that, to paraphraseHoward French, “Africans love a spectacle”.

While politicians like Trump and Bolsonaro, among many others, have benefitted from Christiansupport, there are some who are seeking to upend it. In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte has made ahabit of pissing off the Catholic church. More than 80 per cent of Filipinos are Roman Catholic,making the Phillippines the most predominantly Christian country in Asia. In any other context,Duterte’s attacks on the church would be suicidal. Yet despite calling priests “sons of bitches”,threatening to behead one, calling the Christian God “stupid” and the doctrine of the Holy Trinity“silly”, he remains immensely popular.

The reasons are multiple. First, the Roman Catholic Church is facing its biggest threat to itsmillennia of success with multiple clerical sexual abuse scandals across the world. Duterte is avictim of such abuse, which he openly talked about as he campaigned for the presidency in 2015. Hebrought it up again several times, and in 2018, confessed that as a teenager, he tried to molest amaid as she slept.

Second, his primary war on drugs and upending of traditional centres of power is a relief to apopulation that is dealing with many problems. “At a time when democracy is in retreat in manyparts of the world, this case illustrates how popular harsh punishment can be in states that havefailed to meet their citizens’ hopes for freedom, economic growth, and security,” two University ofHawaii scholars wrote late last year.

It is a precarious time to underestimate the power of religious groups, particularlyevangelicals. They voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in the US, and Jair Bolsonaroin Brazil.

Fear is perhaps the most deeply wired reaction we living things possess. It is not just that it evolvedas a survival mechanism, but that it is so emotionally consuming and confusing. If we feel the safetywe so deeply desire, and deserve, then the same things that fear triggers in us become a heightenedarousal state. If our fundamental fears are solved by someone else, like the zoo owner who builds a

cage for a lion, then instead of being afraid we feel other strong good things, like curiosity and risk-taking.

The independence generation, which is in power today in politics, religion and almost every otheraspect of organised life, understands this quite well. Collective fear is a thing to be deployedstrategically, to keep a young population in check, to bring them out to vote, to keep them from thestreets. Instead of the witches, miracle healing, and other foundational stories that built careers inthe 80s, we now have too many things to be afraid of, including ourselves. The solutions though, donot lie in finding a firm hand to guide us in our adulthood, whether it is an autocrat or the rituals ofreligion.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their societyby interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Follow us on Twitter.

Race and Revival: A Posture of Protest for aNew Pentecostal MovementBy Christine Mungai

“Get out, let her loose in Jesus name,” Pastor James Maina Ng’ang’a of Neno Evangelism yelledrepeatedly in one of his many violent “deliverance orgies” that have sadly become a common featureof the many Pentecostal and Charismatic churches’ services in Kenya and beyond. In fact,deliverance ministries have not only proliferated in Africa in the last four decades, they have nowalso been commercialised and turned into big business in some of the evangelical churches.

As deliverance theologies become increasingly popular, they are also increasingly becoming violent.People are raising concerns about the disastrous and violent consequences of such theologies.Deliverance beliefs, teachings and practices are based on the assumptions that both mental andphysical illnesses are the result of demon possession and, as such, ought to be treated through aviolent expulsion of the demon.

In the recent past, for example, scores of disturbing YouTube videos have been widely shared onsocial media platforms where the notorious Pastor Ng’ang’a, acting as the leading “exorcist” in thecountry, frequently carries out bizarre deliverance services in his church. In nearly all of his churchservices, Ng’ang’a conducts deliverance services that are often streamed on national TV and socialmedia. In these streams, he violently slaps and pins people, mostly women, to the ground. In a fewinstances, he has been seen behaving obscenely towards the women, like fondling their breasts orobjectifying their bodies. In the act of casting out the demons, Ng’ang’a slaps and assaults his“victims” to rid them of the demonic attacks in a performance that is stage-managed and well-choreographed. In one episode, he violently slaps and knocks down an old diabetic man with kidneyfailure to the ground ostensibly to slap out the demon of diabetes.

In one particularly disturbing video that went viral, Ng’ang’a literary beats up and slaps a youngman violently and several times, knocking him off the ground. In normal circumstances, this type ofassault would have called for police action. This video attracted both local and international outrage,prompting the US celebrity rapper Snoop Doggy Dog to tweet, “When you are late on the offeringmoney, the Rev needs his money.”

That YouTube video attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers before it was deleted. Odiously, itled to a debate on the pros and cons of deliverance theology. Meanwhile, Ng’ang’a response to therap musician was to suggest that Snoop Dog “sniffs a lot of stuff”.

As the video caught the attention of both local and international audiences, and generatedopprobrium, neither Ng’ang’a nor his congregations thought it was a big deal at all. Instead, hisfollowers continue to cheer and watch in amazement as the supposedly “demon-possessed people”roll on the ground until the “demons” are forced to flee and the possessed calm down. Thedeliverance practice is characterised by the violent throwing of people to the ground, ostensibly toimmobilise the possessed so that the exorcism can ably take place as the “exorcist” Ng’ang’a coaxesout dark forces. This act points to the immense (spiritual) powers of the exorcist and the bestowedpower he commands over his hapless and helpless victims.

Violent deliverance practices are commonplace in Ng’ang’a’s ministry. That has been so, and hasbeen a defining feature of Neno Evangelical Centre since its inception in the early 1990s. This, nodoubt, is a ploy to attract huge crowds to his church.

The focus of deliverance ministries is to shift the agency from the “victims” in a way that keeps themconstantly dependant on the pastors to make important decisions on their behalf. This manufacturedpower is the stuff of legends and in the case of many Pentecostal pastors, such as Ng’ang’a, isalways well-crafted for manipulation purposes. Ng’ang’a has presumably convinced his followersthat he engages the supposed demons in conversation, commanding them to depart forthwith fromthe person.

According to the “exorcist-in-chief” himself, many of the demons that enter his followers are meantfor him and supposedly have been sent to destroy Pastor Ng’ang’a, the man of God himself. Why?Ostensibly because demonic forces don’t like him because he is the arch-enemy of the kingdom ofdarkness and a “general” of God’s Kingdom. Neither the pastor, nor the congregation or even the so-called demon-possessed persons, see anything wrong in these violent deliverance orgies.

A core part of Ng’ang’a’s sermons include weekly deliverance sessions that are often aired onnational TV on Sundays. Their main focus is demon exorcism of believers, who are paraded in frontof the church and who often appear to be “possessed”. According to Ng’ang’a, his deliverancesermons are rooted in the book of Mark 6:13 that says: They drove demons out and anointed manysick people with oil and healed them. Never mind that there is no anointing of the sick with oil. JesusChrist simply commanded the demons.

From the nebulous Ng’ang’a, what we see is an intense, loud, malodorous, violent melodrama, inwhich, as if he himself is demon-possessed, yelling into the microphone “fire, fire, fire” as he“assaults” the demon-possessed flock.

Health, wealth and the prosperity gospel

The deliverance theologies must be understood within the larger context of the health and wealthprosperity gospel prevalent in all of Africa, as well as the collapse of healthcare systems. There wasan explosion of hundreds of deliverance churches and ministries in Africa in the 1980s and 1990sthat were first popularised by the proponents of the health and wealth gospel from North Americabut which were later localised. Both the health and wealth gospel represent a rather controversialstrand of global Christianity that is now popular in many parts of Africa, especially in Nigeria,Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, among many others.

While both Christian men and women seek deliverance, many of the possessed are often women,which in itself is unsurprising, given the fact that the majority of Pentecostal and charismatic churchfollowers are women. It is also a fact that women of varied educational, demographic and socio-economic backgrounds seek deliverance services. In November 2018, in a video widely circulated,Apostle Ng’ang’a is purportedly shown casting out demons from the famous Tanzanian gospel singer

Rose Muhando at his Nairobi church. In that video, demons in Muhando’s body and mind areallegedly “heard” bragging that they were the cause of her misfortunes and that they had placed anominous object on her that intended to completely kill her musical career.

The deliverance theologies must be understood within the larger context of the healthand wealth prosperity gospel prevalent in all of Africa, as well as the collapse of thehealthcare systems.

After the violent deliverance orgy, in which she is seen spinning out of control and reeling on thefloor screaming before she is pinned down by Ng’ang’a, Muhando “thanked God” for coming to herrescue and delivering her from the powerful demons that have tormented her for a long time. Sheclaimed that all her wealth, fame and talents had gone, leaving her extremely poor and vulnerable,thanks to the destructive demons. Before this deliverance orgy, friends and colleagues in the gospelmusic industry had raised the alarm that all was not well for the popular gospel songbird, pointingout that she had been broke, depressed, sickly and in need of medical and spiritual help.

In yet another video, Rose Muhando is seen being “delivered from the clutches of the demon” byNairobi’s flashiest self-proclaimed prophetess, Lucy Natasha of the Prophetic Latter Glory MinistriesInternational, an indication that one deliverance session is probably not enough, or that one pastoris not as powerful as another, or, as a patient would do in the medical world, followers are simplyseeking a second opinion.

This “Muhando experience” lends credence to the fact that deliverance ministries are always incompetition to attract followers to their healing services, hence creating stiff competition betweenvarious churches. This competition has necessitated the creation of niche ministries where aparticular pastor or pastoress will emphasise certain special powers to woo members. So, some willteach deliverance, others will teach money and prosperity, while others focus on sexual purity andend-time theologies.

In the case of Ng’ang’a, he teaches an extreme form of deliverance, as well as the health and wealthgospel. To keep his followers glued to his ministry, he has to practise deliverance as a way ofdisplaying his “spiritual prowess”. Ng’ang’a has always distinguished himself as an exorcist parexcellence since he established his Neno ministry and may have been influenced by the 1980sproponents of the deliverance theologies, such as the Nigerian Emanuel Eni and others.

Many people were baffled to see Rose Muhando spinning out of control and rolling on the floor inthe most undignified manner as Apostle Ng’ang’a purportedly, stubbornly, drove out the demons inher. Christians and non-Christians posed many questions, not just about the meaning of deliverance,but also about the easy resort of African Christians to “prayers for deliverance”, even for non-spiritual everyday mundane things that do not require spiritual interventions.

“Spirit husbands” and sexual anxieties

Why do people subject themselves to the indignity of such violent acts that include falling, reeling,spinning uncontrollably, foaming in the mouth and sprawling wildly on the ground to receivedeliverance? Why do Christians see the devil and demons in everyday, mundane day-to-day mattersthat could easily be resolved through non-spiritual means? Why is demonic exorcism conducted in aviolent manner? Why are more women than men prone to demonic attacks? Why are women’s bodiesportrayed as the locales for demons and evil spirits and witches? How come women seem not tohave no value for their dignity and bodily integrity? Are not women and their bodies also children ofGod, made in the image and likeness of God? Does not the idea that women’s bodies are locales for

demonic spirit and temples of the devil and satanic practices negate God’s love for women and denythem God’s grace and love? Why are women’s bodies the homes of bad spirits, sins, impurity, deathand everything that is bad? Do Kenyan women have no regard for their bodies as beautiful and cleanand pure and instruments that bring life to the world? Why do women view themselves as temples ofdemons and not the Holy Spirit? Are there not other available means that Christians could use toseek deliverance? What kind of desperation drives people to open themselves to this kind ofindignity, violence and abuse by charlatans like Ng’ang’a? How should Christians offer solutions topeople in need of answers to their existential problems? Why do women allow the self-declared “menand women of God” pastors to have power over their lives, bodies and minds?

These questions always run through my mind every time I see these violent practices. WhilePentecostal churches generally stress that the world is a place of spiritual warfare between God andevil forces, for many women frequenting such churches, this strange but now accepted andnormalised spiritual practice is increasingly becoming violent and borders on the absurd.

Many women have also sadly come to uncritically accept that everything that is wrong in their lives –whether it is absentee husbands and fading spouses, marital anxieties or infertility, business failureor stagnation, financial insecurity, stress, sickness, job insecurity and poverty, wayward children,fear of witchcraft, among many other social and moral panics – is as a result of demonic possession.

Several interviews with born-again Christian women revealed that many have internalised the beliefthat their bodies and spirits are spaces where demons reside and are the cause of the many spiritualissues they grapple with. A number of women I spoke to suggested that many women believe theyare possessed by demonic spirits, including “spirit husbands”. Two women told me that theybelieved that demons and evil spirits would visit them at night and have sex with them. Thesewomen talked of the torment, the shame and the helplessness they feel when these “spirit husbands”or “night husbands” come to claim their conjugal rights. The told me that they frequently have sexwith demons whose physical presence cannot be seen, and do not have human form. When I askedthem to describe these experiences, they painted pictures of handsome but mean men, who appearlike in the movies to just rape them and then vanish.

I corroborated these claims in an episode in which Ng’ang’awas apparently conducting deliverancesessions for women who allegedly have sex with demons at night. This scary and unimaginablephenomenon has also been documented by social scientists in other parts of Africa.

Some theologians have suggested that some of these disturbing experiences could potentiallypersonify women’s “sexual anxieties and fantasies”, as well as exemplifying their sexual ambiguities.They could also be hallucinations. But they could also be suggestive of extreme emotional,psychological and mental health struggles that these women are grappling with. Yet narratives ofthese women leave no doubt that they seriously and honestly believe that they actually have sex withdemons at night and are helpless about their situation. Some women seem to truly believe that theyare possessed by the spirit also known as “night husbands” and “spirit husbands” forces.

To that extent, women who have accepted this fact turn to spiritual exorcism and deliverance orgiesperpetuated by the likes of Ng’ang’a and his ilk. While deliverance theology is an indication ofpeople and specifically women’s anxieties around sex, relationships, marriage, children, security,money, fear of witchcraft and other social tensions, such as bodily integrity, rejection by spouses,marital infidelity, depression and mental health issues, spirit spouses are an indication of theentanglement of reproductive issues, such as sexuality, marriage, procreation, in-laws and spousalviolence.

Rose Muhando, for instance, it has been suggested, had long been grappling with bad business,

financial challenges, drugs, relationship issues, fears of witchcraft and mental health issues beforeshe sought deliverance from Ng’ang’a. When women speak about their lack of sexual pleasure,sexual violence, complex relationships, irresponsible fathers, infertility, tensions with in-laws, spirithusbands and others, they are essentially and indirectly speaking about social anxieties and theirpersonal security. This is not difficult to see given that Kenyan society is faced with huge challenges,including violence against women, which has become a defining feature of life. This explains whyeven seemingly upward mobile women such as Rose Muhando are also experiencing tensions aroundtheir lives.

SAPs and African cosmologies

Scholars and researchers have theorised that desperation stress, family break-ups, financialconstraints, poverty, and unemployment, are some of the drivers of the deliverance industry. This isimportant given that the emergence of Pentecostal churches is directly linked to the impact of the1980s Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) in Africa. Other factors that have contributed tothe spread and popularity of deliverance ministries and beliefs include trauma, despair, and health-related anxieties brought about by the collapsed healthcare facilities in African countries. Butdeliverance theologies also find explanation in African cosmologies where sickness or disease isoften thought to have been caused by witchcraft or the “evil eye” or other unseen forces.

Nevertheless, the whole phenomenon of deliverance theologies can be understood as an attempt tomake meaning to the social and health challenges that people grapple with, a sort of theology ofsurvival. However, charlatans like Ng’ang’a have seized this to make a name and money and to planthimself as a leading exorcist.

When women speak about their lack of sexual pleasure, sexual violence, complexrelationships, irresponsible fathers, infertility, tensions with in-laws, spirit husbands andothers, they are essentially and indirectly speaking about social anxieties and theirpersonal security.

In his recent article, Prof Makau Mutua argues that African people are fatalistic because they haveendured so much trauma brought about by three important historical epochs: slavery, colonialism,and the Cold War. He says that these three evils deeply traumatised Africans and spurred despairand deep spirituality. As such Africans often resort to religion and spirituality to explain away theirtrauma and despair. In this sense, he posits that religion could be used as a clutch to lean on or acomforting intervention to minimise pain and to “live one day at a time”, a common phrase used byChristians when they think about an insecure future. The promise of a better tomorrow in thehereafter can allow one to endure a brutish existence on earth in anticipation of a better tomorrow.Therefore, religion can be an opiate that eases and dulls the pain of everyday existencecharacterised by poverty, sickness, and many vagaries brought about by a predatory state.

The easy resort to prayer and the spiritualisation of everything stifles pragmatic interventions, suchas, seeking medical attention, including socio-psychological support and care. But it also raisesquestions about churches that are increasingly becoming spaces of violence instead of spiritual andearthly liberation.

Should churches not develop and expand educational programmes that assist the identification ofnatural causes for different phenomena so as to deter people from believing in witchcraft anddemons? Deliverance beliefs and practices are based on the assumption that both mental andphysical illnesses result from possession of the sufferer by demons and that the sufferer should,

therefore, be treated through expulsion of these demons. Deliverance theologies enslave people tothe delusional belief that it is only through the casting out of demons that they can be healed.Hence, deliverance ministries shift blame for sin, addiction and other human struggles to thedemonic world and not to the government that fails to provide sufficient healthcare to its citizens.Similarly, deliverance theologies prevent people from demanding better from their governments; thecharlatans of the deliverance industry take the government’s place. The not only take agency fromthe individual to the pastor, but create and foster paranoia.

Yet deliverance theologies also raise critical questions about abuse, bondage, peoples’vulnerabilities, exploitation, freedom, liberation, moral and ethical issues, personal responsibilityand violence. They also raise questions about power dynamics and deliverance as a business tool forthe Pentecostal clergy.

Scholars and researchers have theorised that desperation stress, family break-ups,financial constraints, poverty and, unemployment, are some of the drivers of thedeliverance industry. This is important given that the emergence of Pentecostalchurches is directly linked to the impact of the 1980s Structural AdjustmentProgrammes (SAPs) in Africa.

More importantly, they raise questions about regulation of churches, as well as church taxation.Churches in Kenya are exempt from taxation because there is the assumption that they do social andpublic good. My research on Pentecostal and charismatic churches tells me that fewer Pentecostalchurches venture outside of strictly spiritual issues to preach a social gospel grounded in socialjustice and human dignity. What we have are religious outfits led by the proponents of thedeliverance and wealth ministries that are focused on creating opulent lives for the men and womenof God and their immediate families, and propping up a cadre of an opulent clergy, who then becomea law unto themselves.

Yet, the blame also rests squarely on the Government of Kenya that has left its citizens to themercies of spiritual charlatans who impoverish and manipulate vulnerable Christians in the guise ofproving spiritual blessings and healing to the oftentimes dazed folk. The government has failed itspeople, the majority of whom are Christians, because it cannot offer them sustained publichealthcare, a core mandate of a responsible state. It has failed because it has shirked from itsresponsibilities of regulating these spiritual charlatans.

But even as we think of church regulation, there should be, at the very least, minimal requirementsset for the operation of such churches, both new and established, including having pastors properlytrained in a recognised theological institution.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their societyby interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Follow us on Twitter.

Race and Revival: A Posture of Protest for aNew Pentecostal MovementBy Christine Mungai

The country has just gone through a population census conducted by the Kenya National Bureau ofStatistics (KNBS) that was conducted in the last week of August 2019. The results of that census areyet to be analysed, but in 2009, the census found that more than 80 per cent of Kenyans identifiedthemselves as Christians. The same proportion of Kenyans also indicated that faith was a central cogin their everyday life, that faith and prayers, not only ruled their daily lives, but also influenced theirdecisions and shaped their moral values.

In Kenya, as indeed is the case elsewhere in Africa, religious leaders enjoy high levels of public trustand respect, more than politicians, government bureaucrats, judges, magistrates, and evencorporate leaders. This is not the case in the developed countries of the West especially (except inAmerica) where religion is considered a private affair.

In the 1970s, through to the 1980s, till the beginning of this millennium, a crop of religious leadersin Kenya identified themselves as the “conscience of the nation” and the “moral voice of thevoiceless”. They were regarded by the public as the “epitome of integrity”. Dubbed as “firebrands”,religious leaders, such as Bishop John Henry Okullu, at one time the provost of All Saints Cathedral

in Nairobi, Bishop Alexander Muge, the soldier-turned-cleric, Archbishop David Gitari, all from theAnglican Church, plus Timothy Njoya of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) andArchbishop Ndingi Mwana ‘a Zeki of the Catholic Church, who served for long as the archbishop inNakuru diocese, not only spoke truth to power, but also held to account former dictator PresidentDaniel arap Moi and the ruling Kanu party hawks.

These architects of social justice condemned rampant institutional state corruption, abuse of humanrights, the instigators of ethnic land clashes and faced Moi and Kanu’s monolithic one-party rulehead-on, without fear. The constant harassment and death of some of these icons of democracy andpillars of social justice coincided with the explosion of evangelical/Pentecostal Christianity in thecountry. This type of Christianity prides itself in the democratisation of charisma, in which anycharlatan, without any theological education or training whatsoever, simply emerges, starts a one-man church, ordains himself and thereafter, creates a business empire run solely by his familymembers.

This calibre of evangelical/Pentecostal leaders usually frown upon theological training and areimpervious to any institutional systems of control because they would like to remain accountableonly to themselves. This is not to state that there is indeed evangelical/Pentecostal clergy that iscomposed of men and women of integrity.

Social scientists theorise that this kind of behaviour by some of these religious charlatans isencouraged by the moral decadence of the political class and a corrupt state. The Kenyan state, ascurrently constituted, is characterised by wanton corruption, theft of public coffers, exclusion ofminorities and certain regions of the country, rampant tribalism in the government, all of which haveimpoverished the masses and left them extremely vulnerable to these religious charlatans who havespawned a multi-million shilling industry.

Kenyan politicians are some of the highest paid public servants in the world, whose sole concern, itseems, is self-aggrandisement and primitive accumulation of riches. It is no wonder that religiousleaders seem to gain trust in situations where the population is highly susceptible to political andsocio-economic vulnerabilities. This, today, is the stark reality of many Kenyans. Unemployment isrife among the youth, the healthcare facilities across the country are wanting and cancer, amongother life-threatening diseases, are claiming scores of Kenyans, while the government has yet tocome up with effective policies that can mitigate these problems.

In situations like this, people become desperate and look to supernatural powers to find meaningand solace, hoping for divine answers to their pain and frustrations. Research in the global Southpoints to similar scenarios, especially in Latin America where evangelical creed has been spreadinglike the Amazon forest fires that have been wreaking havoc in Brazil and Bolivia in the past severalweeks.

SAPs and the proliferation of Pentecostal Christianity

The infamous structural adjustments programmes (SAPs) of the late 1970s and 1980s led to thecollapse of social infrastructure, particularly in the education and health sectors, which puttremendous strain on public service delivery. The impact of SAPs was felt across the Africancontinent. It also, in a manner of speaking, heralded the proliferation of evangelical/Pentecostal andcharismatic churches that many politico-economy observers have directly linked to the SAPs crisis.Impoverished by the debilitating effects of SAPs, many Kenyans and Africans in general turned tothe deliverance and faith healing ministries to cater for their daily existential problems and to dulltheir socio-economic sufferings.

Kenyan politicians are some of the highest paid public servants in the world, whose soleconcern, it seems, is self-aggrandisement and primitive accumulation of riches. It is nowonder that religious leaders seem to gain trust in situations where the population ishighly susceptible to political and socio-economic vulnerabilities.

Since then, Pentecostalism has become a thriving business and the shortest route to wealthaccumulation and influence in a continent teeming with a population explosion, environmentaldegradation, climate change, ethnic conflicts and internecine wars, disease, massive unemploymentand grinding poverty.

Evangelical pastors turned to employing all manner of tricks and techniques to exhort money fromtheir gullible flock. They built costly magnificent churches, bought luxurious cars and houses, andgenerally continue to live opulent lives while their church members languish and wallow in grimpoverty, misery and squalor.

The pastors tell the faithful to give money to God so that God can bless them in return. They dupethe flock by telling them that divine favours come to those who pay their tithes and offeringsregularly. Often, they use the biblical injunctions such as “givers never lack” to squeeze money outof people. Pentecostal pastors also claim to have healing powers that can make the deaf hear, theblind see and the lame walk. Self-styled archbishop Gilbert Deya (of the babies’ disappearance scamsaga) has been one such pastor.

In a continent with crippled medical facilities, often plagued by lack of medicine and medicalequipment, claims of divine healing and miracles by some of the duplicitous evangelical/Pentecostalministers have abounded, with disastrous effects. These pastors have always preyed on theimpoverished masses that cannot afford proper medical care. They take advantage of the brokenhealthcare system and the helplessness of poor people. They offer ineffective prayers and supposedhealing crusades to enrich themselves. The healthcare crisis in Africa has bred desperation andfomented the desire for miracles, faith healing and deliverance sessions in the hope of getting cured.

At prayer healing services in some Pentecostal churches, pastors invite people infected withHIV/AIDS to the pulpit for public healing prayers. After the dramatic prayers, the infected people areasked to throw away their antiretroviral medications and consider themselves healed.

The presumed healing prayers of the pastors are not free, and many desperate people spend afortune paying for those prayers. These prayers continue to be administered, even as the believers’conditions worsen and some eventually die. Desperation, stigma, family rejection and fear ofwitchcraft drives people into a never-ending search for miracles and cure from healing crusades andprayer rallies.

Moral failure of leadership

The growing rise of political influence and power among the Pentecostals has made them almostuntouchable. Many have weaved their way into politics, becoming political influencers who shapedebates and drive policy. Hence, anybody critical of the Pentecostal pastors is faced with theirwrath, resistance, and condemnation from their enthusiastic members who are in government andpolitics.

When the former Attorney General Prof Githu Mugai published a proposed regulatory framework tocontrol rogue clergy and religious organisations in Kenya, certain politicians, both from the rulingJubilee party and the opposition, claimed that the government wanted to muzzle freedom of worship.The Religious Societies Rule published by the Attorney General Office in 2016 required, among

other things, religious bodies to have a constitution that explicitly showed their doctrinal belief. Italso required these bodies to be registered by the government, to be open to scrutiny, and above all,that pastors to have as a minimum a theology certificate from a credible and recognised institutionof higher learning. Yet, the truth of the matter is that many Kenyans are still opposed and reluctantto see religious bodies regulated by the government, their public outcry about the pastors’waywardness notwithstanding.

At prayer healing services in some Pentecostal churches, pastors invite people infectedwith HIV/AIDS to the pulpit for public healing prayers. After the dramatic prayers, theinfected people are asked to throw away their antiretroviral medications and considerthemselves healed.

The question of the day then has always been: are our Christians that gullible or are they justdesperate? There is no doubt that many Christians are searching for a moral vocabulary whengrappling with social and economic hard times. This is what makes them gullible. For many, churchis a space to be in community with one another – a space for healing – both emotional and physically.It is a space for spiritual fellowship, for easing pain and negotiating identities and relationships.Peoples’ involvement in these type of churches cannot be exactly pinned on any particular issues.Instead, it is a function of a complexity of issues that are not just spiritual, but that are also personaland communal. During times of crisis, people turn to the church to be in community.

In many parts of Africa, the majority of the people are perpetually living in moments of one crisisafter another. They feel lost, alone and in need of moral guidance. They look up to their clergy toprovide a moral universe and leadership and space for healing. Indubitably, some rogue clergy havetaken advantage of this perilous situation to speak the language that the gullible Christian wants tohear.

It is a challenge that many African governments grapple with every day. In 2004, the NigerianBroadcasting Commission (NBC) banned the broadcasting of “miracles” on national television. Faithhealing happens to be the greatest threat to scientific medical advancement and healthcare deliveryin Africa. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda deregistered nearly 8,000 churches and demanded thatthe clergy get theological education before they open a church.

The greatest threat of Pentecostalism is its unregulated clergy and the moral failure of itsleadership. Although other Christian denominations also suffer from this moral crisis, Pentecostalismseems to have been affected the most. Deeply embedded within the Pentecostalism’s ethos is apersonality cult. Evangelical charismatic leaders are often virtually worshipped by many of theirfollowers. Averse to proper theological education, they instead claim to have the power of the HolySpirit as their sole teacher. Oftentimes, supported by their fanatical followers, these leaders, becomesmall gods who cannot be questioned. In a “Christian” country like Kenya, these type of churchleaders become very powerful and attractive to influential political elites.

In 2004, the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) banned the broadcasting of“miracles” on national television. Faith healing happens to be the greatest threat toscientific medical advancement and healthcare delivery in Africa.

It is this power and godlike behaviour that leads many of the Pentecostal pastors to deal with thechurches’ coffers as their personal money and church properties as their family business. Whilethere are Pentecostal churches, such as Christ Is The Answer Ministries (CITAM), that have

instituted structures and policies to handle cases of financial and pastoral misconduct, ineptitudeand impropriety, many of these “personalised” evangelical churches find it hard to work withinsystems.

In Kenya, evangelical/Pentecostal and charismatic churches are under the Evangelical Alliance ofKenya (EAK), but it is not clear whether they have a system of checks and balances to regulate theirchurches. To the best of my knowledge, there is no body that regulates the so-called independentchurches in Kenya and their ministers. A favourite Bible verse favoured by these pastors that says,“touch not my anointed” (Psalms 105:15) is always flashed by these ministers to fend off and stiflecriticism of any kind.

Pastors Kanyari and Ng’ang’a are a power unto themselves. Many well-meaning Christians havedecried such rogue religious leaders in Kenya, prompting observers to ask if religion is indeed thebane of Kenyan society. This is because of their recklessness, waywardness, lack of moral rectitudeand their nefarious activities, not to mention the source of their wealth, which they always flauntwith abandon.

Kenya and Nigeria, comprise some of the most highly religious societies in Africa, but they are at thesame time two of the most corrupt countries in Africa, if not in the world, according to TransparencyInternational (TI)’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Since it was launched in 1995, Kenya has alwaysbeen ranked in the bottom half of the countries surveyed – a paradox but one that we have tocontend with.

The same is the case with South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. An authentic church leadership hasbeen always critical in fighting political and socio-economic ills in society. Yet, once it is co-opted bythe state, it ceases to identify itself with the people and their societal struggles and finds itself silentin the face of wanton corruption perpetrated by the state’s aficionados.

The making of cult leaders

Ever since he burst into the public limelight in 2004, Prophet Owuor of the Repentance and Holinessministry travels like the President of Kenya, his “presidential-like” motorcade complete with sirens,chase cars and top-of-the-range fuel guzzlers. Meanwhile, his fanatical followers clean the roads heis passing on with soap and detergent. Never mind that his members have never engaged in a publicdrive to clean the environment, even as a religious corporate responsibility.

In fact, Owuor’s rallies leave heaps of garbage at crusade venues, where tree branches are cut incelebration of purported miracles performed by the “Lord of the mightiest…mightiest of prophets,”of Yehovah, as Owuor is referred to by his followers. He is always received on a red carpet and hispodium is decorated like that of a president, complete with a “presidential chair” called the “Lord’sChair” that is always carried around wherever he goes. Prophet Owuor is clearly a man obsessedwith temporal powers, even as he apparently flaunts his supposedly spiritual powers.

Ever since he burst into the public limelight in 2004, Prophet Owuor of the Repentanceand Holiness ministry travels like the President of Kenya, his “presidential-like”motorcade complete with sirens, chase cars and top-of-the-range fuel guzzlers.

His retinue of security people (some of whom are believed to be from the disciplined forces) providehim with state-like security. A body count of his security detail revealed up to 24 armed men.Prophet Owuor’s religious high-handedness has led observers to wonder about the “securitisation ofreligion” and “religionisation of the state” in Kenya. His motorcade often causes a stir as ordinary

motorists are forced off the road to make room for Kenya’s spiritual president.

The reasons for such overt displays of extravagance, opulence and power by these religiouscharlatans are ostensibly to pump up their egos and prove to ordinary mortals that they areextraordinary. This show of imagined “spiritual” power is obviously manufactured by peoplesuffering from megalomania and a false sense of deep personal importance and self-love thatimplicitly suggests that they would like to be treated as demigods.

The tragedy of this crude display of raw power and ostentatious wealth is that it is all derived frommanipulation, and very often through excessive and unsustainable debt. Followers who question theprofligate lifestyle of Prophet Owuor have been known to be intimated and threatened with the curseof catching terminal ailments such as cancer and being involved in freak fatal car accidents.

The other cultish manifestation is the tendency towards the supernatural and the spectacular. Thesigns and wonders of “miracles” include healing, raising people from the dead, prophesying, andsharing of visions. Never mind that the majority of these miracles are frequently stage-managedusing actors and actresses, psychological tools or modern technologies. Owuor has often circulatedtens of images of him being transfigured, doubled and tripled. Similarly, he has circulated images ofthe sun clapping at him, the glory shining on him and other such theatrics. All these serve to attractand keep his members intact, and to maintain the hierarchical power structure. There is nomistaking that Owuor considers himself as the only “true” prophet.

His ministry was recently been embroiled in a sex scandal, in which his most trusted lieutenant andright-hand man was accused by several church women of cunningly sleeping with them. The womendescribed Owuor’s acolyte and bishop of Kasarani area as a deceitful man who lured femaleworshippers to his house in Nairobi, oftentimes in the ungodly dark hours, to have carnal knowledgewith them. The excuse he would use to entrap them was always prayers to cast out the demons thatwere hiding in their bodies. Why those demons needed to be chased away in the dead of the nightand when the women were completely nude, only the bishop can explain. Until, the exposé in the lastweek of August 2019, the issue of sex pests within Owuor’s closely-knit inner circle was the worstkept secret.

The adoration and veneration of these so-called “men of God” is another distinguishingcharacteristic of cultism. The “Apostle,” “prophet” and “messiah”, is imaged as the chosen one,God’s messenger, the dispenser of blessings and curses, grace, health and even wealth. In the caseof Owuor, he is the beholder of the golden keys to heaven, and he alone has the powers to blesspeople to eternity or lock them out completely. These spiritual elites also supposedly have one-to-oneconversations with God, not once, but sometimes several times in a day. For Owuor, Jesus Christactually comes down from his throne to lie and sleep on his feet.

Read Also: For the Love of Money: Kenya’sFalse Prophets and Their Wicked and Bizarre

Deeds

In seeking to display their cult-like tendencies, these type of leaders catastrophically end up dividingand isolating church members from their family, friends and even their community. Some of theProphet Owuor’s followers that I spoke to recounted harrowing experiences and heart-wrenchingstories of isolation of members who were portrayed as evil and sinful. Stringent control of churchwomen on what they should wear, how they should wear it and even how to comport themselves aresome of the control measures that afflict Owuor’s followers. One time as he held his crusade inNakuru, I asked one of his adherents why some men and women were wrapped in curtains and hetold me, “They are not to engage in sexual intercourse before and during the crusade. The Prophetdemands that they abstain from connubial activities until he is done with the crusade.” Some ofProphet Owuor’s members have resorted to not shaking hands with non-church members.

Owuor’s ministry has a long list of do’s and don’ts for his followers, which include among otherthings, what to wear, how to speak and who to speak to. This exclusionism of members in his churchhas generated tremendous interest from a bewildered public. Testimonies of families breaking upare common in the church.

Another tell-tale sign of a cultist movement is the craze about possessing high-sounding titles.Owuor has more titles than any other religious charlatan I know of. Yet, followers of such leaders,educated or not, are always awed by such grandiose titles. They always seem to be intrigued byreligious power and sometimes some just want to have a new religious experience.

Prophet Owuor has attracted a significant number of academics, civil servants and professionals wholegitimise his cult-like image. Apparently, they are attracted by their leader’s lofty education status.It is through such obeisance of deep faith and trust, a great need to belong, sincerity, spiritualmanipulation and vulnerability and isolation that gives rise to this kind of spiritual abuse.

Rogue clergy and religious charlatans are increasingly becoming a national crisis in Kenya. Therehas been pressure from the public for the government to tame this wayward “Christian industry” byintroducing stiff regulations. Yet, the question of the people’s apparent gullibility cannot be wishedaway.

Why is it that they do not seem to learn from past experiences of busted rogue pastors? The Kenyagovernment is, therefore, caught in between protecting freedoms of expression and putting a stop toreligious malevolence. The government regulating the religious organisations is one thing, it isanother for these faith-based organisations to also put their houses in order and regulate themselvesas well if they hope to reclaim their integrity and respect.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their societyby interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Follow us on Twitter.

Race and Revival: A Posture of Protest for aNew Pentecostal MovementBy Christine Mungai

In the last couple of weeks, several bizarre YouTube videos of the self-proclaimed “Apostle” JamesMaina Ng’ang’a of the Neno Evangelism Ministry, located at the junction of Nairobi’s Haile SelassieAvenue and Uhuru Highway, have been doing odious rounds in cyberspace. In these videos,Ng’ang’a has been captured haranguing his congregation in the most despicable and vilest oflanguage a man of God can possibly utter.

In most of these videos, shot during a Friday night kesha (Kiswahili for vigil) service (kesha),Ng’ang’a – a convict-turned-televangelist who runs one of the largest deliverance and healingministries in Kenya – is shown abusing everybody, from his partner pastors (who he refers to asbishops) to the men and women who fanatically and religiously attend his church, in the foulest oflanguage.

In one of the videos, he virulently rails against his own bishops, accusing them of ingratitude,ostensibly after making them important and rich. Like a man possessed of the Lucifer himself, heswore he would finish them by October 2019 after closing their “kiosks” [churches]), that is, threemonths after he allegedly accused them of apparently being gleeful for his police problems and of“disrespecting” his wife (a euphemism for flirting with his wife, according to some members of hischurch). As the “chief commander” of the Neno Evangelical Ministry and all the other appendages of

his ministry spread across the country, he hollered at the congregation, demanding of them theunconditional respect due to him from them, failure to which, anybody who disrespected him wouldface dire consequences.

Angered by the behaviour of certain men in his church, he lectured the congregation for 20 minutesbefore threatening those men with castration. “After I’ve castrated you…you’ll be left just admiringyour wives impotently,” he said. He called the men “these cows” as he walked back to the pulpit.Bizarrely, the congregation applauded his abuse and insults.

In another of these disturbing videos, he dares a woman follower to fight him while placing hishands on her breasts and telling her that there was nothing she could do to him. In this violent well-choreographed video, Ng’ang’a slaps the woman several times while pinning her to the floorostensibly to exorcise demons that invariably have been sent to kill him. The woman finally calmsdown, gets up and mumbles in mumbo jumbo about her demon-possessed life. The video attractedmass outrage, where the public questioned Ng’ang’a’s sanity.

Angered by the behaviour of certain men in his church, he lectured the congregation for20 minutes before threatening those men with castration. “After I’ve castratedyou…you’ll be left just admiring your wives impotently,” he said.

The chief commander has not only threatened his followers, he has also threatened journalists andwhomever else he deems is against him. In all the while that Ng’ang’a has abused, humiliated,objectified, patronised, slapped, threatened, and vilified his enemies (within and without his church),his fanatical followers have seemingly stood firm with him. “The servant of the Lord can get angry –just like the prophets of yore – and when he’s angry, he’s bound to ruffle feathers with hisutterances, but trust me, the spirit of the Lord is always with him,” one of his devoted supporterssaid to me. “You know the devil is always working overtime to bring the true servant of the Lorddown, we can’t allow him to do that.”

Why do Christians all over the world fall for religious charlatans? Kenyans, like millions of Christiansin Africa and elsewhere, are irredeemably susceptible to religious abuse. Over the last couple ofyears, social media has been abuzz with a litany of shocking acts committed by fraudulent pastorslargely from of the evangelical/Pentecostal movement. This is a question that we shall come back toin a jiffy.

Fake pastors and their gullible followers

Born in 1954 to a poor family that was not able to give him a stable upbringing or a propereducation, Ng’ang’a, 67, moved to Nairobi in 1970 in search of a livelihood. He found a job as ahouse servant. In no time, he joined criminal gangs, a move that soon led to alcohol and drug abuse,a spiral of criminal escapades and many arrests and jail terms.

Over time, Ng’ang’a mutated into a hard core criminal and served time at Kamiti, Naivasha andShimo-la-Tewa maximum prisons. In total, he stayed in prison for 21 years. At Shimo-la-Tewa,Ng’ang’a, met the Lord Jesus Christ and was converted to the evangelical/Pentecostal Christianfaith.

Soon after he was released from jail, he founded Neno Evangelism Ministry in 1992. In 1997, heopened his Neno Evangelism Centre, strategically located in Nairobi’s central business district. Astrong proponent of the health and wealth prosperity gospel, he has grown immensely wealthy andis estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of Kenyan shillings. He has, over time, also become

arrogant, careless, flashy, proud, uncouth, and vulgar. He likes to court controversy. His lavishlifestyle reveals a story of a man who has grown from grass to grace, rags to riches, thanks to agullible congregation and the growth of the expanding evangelical Christian industry.

In September 2015, his wife, in court papers, alleged that Ng’ang’a was not only a drunk, but also aserial adulterer, and abusive husband and father. It is believed they later reconciled after Ng’ang’aheaped blame on the devil for wanting to ruin his family. The “Apostle” who, on several occasions,has retreated into the “wilderness” dressed in rags like a shepherd of the Lord to fast and communewith God, incidentally, walks around with a gun and has been photographed drunk and rowdy.

In July 2015, Ng’ang’a was driving presumably drunk on the Nakuru-Nairobi highway when hecaused a fatal accident at Manguo, near Limuru town that killed a middle-aged woman and seriouslyinjured her husband. Ng’ang’a apparently quickly jumped into a vehicle that was driving behind himand left the scene immediately after a young man appeared and claimed that he was the one drivingthe red SUV Range Rover Sport.

In September 2015, his wife, in court papers, alleged that Ng’ang’a was not only adrunk, but also a serial adulterer, and abusive husband and father. It is believed theylater reconciled after Ng’ang’a heaped blame on the devil for wanting to ruin his family.

The pastor, through his lawyer, denied that he was drunk on the day of the accident. But the exposécirculated on social media led to a public outcry that ultimately saw him arrested and charged in acourt of law. In May, 2018, the court acquitted Pastor Ng’ang’a, but after another outcry from thepublic, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Noordin Haji, revived the case after an appeal by theKiambu Law Courts. Nonetheless, Ng’ang’a. continues to preach in his church every Sunday, and hisfollowers still patronise his church in search of miracles and deliverance.

But Ng’ang’a is not the only evangelical pastor known to manipulate his followers. There is the self-proclaimed Bishop Victor Kanyari of potassium permanganate fame. In November 2014, Kanyari, atelevangelist and pastor at the Salvation Healing Ministry and the son of disgraced Prophetess LucyNduta, was exposed on Kenya Television Network’s (KTN) Jicho Pevu, an investigative televisionseries, for performing dubious miracles, faking healing, and coaching his staff to tender phonytestimonies of, among others, healing- and prayer-induced prosperity.

The series exposed Kanyari as selling fake miracles and duping believers into giving money andother gifts to the church with the promise that God would look into their issues. Kanyari was,allegedly, further revealed to be a con artist who preyed on his trusting followers for financial gains.This harrowing video exposé laced with shocking confessions from part of his team revealed howKanyari deceptively obtained money from worshippers on the pretext that they would receivemiracles.

The exposé, dubbed Makri ya Injili (Prayer Predators), contemporaneously showed the deceptivemethods that the Salvation Healing Ministry used to lure and exploit the gullible and trustingfollowers over a period of 15 years in order for Kanyari to enrich himself. The exposé includedwitness testimonies given by paid members of the church who falsely testified that they had beenmiraculously healed of AIDS through Pastor Kanyari’s prayers.

Kanyari also washed the feet of his followers with water laced with potassium permanganate. Whenhe stirred the chemical (just like one would do in a chemistry lab), the water turned into a deep red.In a bizarre incident, straight out of a children’s folktale, he told his adherents that this was bloodoozing out from their feet as a result of healing miracles from his prayers. The tragedy of this

“healing” performance is that his followers seemed to believe in his “miracle” abracadabra.

In yet another exposé, Kanyari paid women, mostly sex workers, to come forth for faith healingservices with twisted mouths and faces, which would miraculously be realigned during prayerservices that were telecast on KTN. Kanyari was exposed not only as a con man who used paid sexworkers to perform for him, but also as a drunk who routinely cheated on his gospel musician wife.

A story aired on KTN’s prime time showed footage in which Kanyari appeared to be falsifying phonecalls on his radio programmes recorded from his house. Audiences were urged to send as much asSh500,000 (US$5,000) after a single prayer episode. Church members and anybody else who neededprayers had to send him a mandatory Sh310 (US$3). This charge was a clever manipulation ofMalachi Chapter 3, Verse 10, in the Scriptures, which talks about the importance of tithing andGod’s abundant blessing.

Kanyari also washed the feet of his followers with water laced with potassiumpermanganate. When he stirred the chemical (just like one would do in a chemistry lab),the water turned into a deep red.

After the exposé, an unrepentant Kanyari bragged that he had become an instant celebrity since hewas the subject of discussion in Kenya’s public and private discourses. He further bragged of his risefrom a mere secondary school drop-out and a former manual farm labourer to a prophet who was thetalk of the town.

His mother, Prophetess Lucy Nduta, also of Salvation Healing Ministry and host of a weekly TVprogramme, was arrested in mid-2006 for extorting money from the faithful, including requiringHIV/AIDS patients to plant a seed of between Sh200,000 (US$2,000) and Sh400,000 (US$4,000) forher to cure them through powerful prayers. Upon receipt of the payment, church elders wouldallegedly take the AIDS patients to a local AIDS clinic where they would be issued with false medicalcertificates giving them a clean bill of health. The prophetess claimed that she had cured 200HIV/AIDS cases.

Evidently, some of the patients sold their properties or borrowed money from friends and family toraise the seed money. According to Paul Gifford, emeritus professor of religion at the School ofOriental and African Studies (SOAS) and author of Christianity, Political and Public Life in Kenya,one woman gave a car worth Sh300,000 (US$3,000), to the prophetess so that she could pray for herailing daughter. Another gave Sh1 million (US$100,000) for prayers to conceive. Yet anotherSh21,000 (US$210) to obtain a visa to the Netherlands. Another follower gave Sh20,000 (US$200)for a prayer to become rich.

The prophetess tried to have the case against her dismissed, arguing that matters of faith and spiritdid not fall within the court’s competence. But her plea was rejected and she was jailed for twoyears in 2008. It seems that the son learnt well from his mother and took over the church’s reignswhile his mother was cooling her heels at Langata Women’s Prison.

The stories of Ng’ang’a and Kanyari have caused much public outrage, with many people calling fortheir arrest and prosecution, even as they plead with the government to rein in the rogue pastors.Expressing their angst on varied social media platforms, some of the Kenyans have been appalledthat their kith and kin can be so gullible as to fall for religious manipulation and trickery.

However, these scandals have not stopped the flow of the followers from drying out; on the contrary,their respective flocks always blame Satan and the dark forces of evil, which manifest themselves in

the ungodly media that is always ready to be used to bring down the fishers of men.

The self-proclaimed Prophet Owuor

Enter the self-proclaimed “Prophet” David Edward Ujiji Owuor, whose record-breaking titles arelegendary. He is considered to be the master of spiritual and emotional manipulation. “The TwoMightiest, Mightiest Prophets of the Lord,” “Beholder of the Golden Keys,” “The Two FerociousWitnesses,” are among some of his grandiloquent titles.

Never in the history of Christianity in Kenya has there been a man as controversial as Owuor. The“prophet”, a schooled man by all standards, is an end-of-time preacher man who apparently isobsessed with the coming Armageddon. He never ceases to preach repentance and holiness, as wellas rapture, whenever and wherever he holds his melodramatic crusades.

In June 2017, Owuor allegedly faked a widely circulated purported “resurrection” of Mama Rosa, afrail, poor, and sickly rural woman, which led to nationwide celebrations by his thousands offanatical followers. Mama Rosa, as she was known, became “a resurrection trophy” who wasshowcased at every humungous crusade that Owuor held. Her frail frame pierced the conscience ofevery right-thinking Kenyan, as she was paraded and forced to endure long hours in the crusades forpeople to see the miracles and powers of Prophet Owuor. Three years later, on 22 January 2019,Mama Rosa died and was buried at Talau, village in West Pokot.

In March, 2019, Owuor and his Ministry of Repentance and Holiness (MRH) was embroiled in ascandal involving a lady lawyer, Jane Muthoni Njagi, a dedicated follower and real estate tycoon. Thepresumably rich lawyer, who supposedly owns high-end real estate in Nairobi’s leafy suburbs, andwho apparently bankrolled many of the MRH’s activities, was allegedly not only treated shabbily byOwuor and his bishops, but also financially exploited and spiritually manipulated. According to someMRH followers, she was also isolated from friends and family. At some point, she looked weak anduncoordinated.

Her family members revealed how she was constantly abused, denied food and appeared dazed anddrugged. She was also allegedly moved from managing her real estate properties, and put up in asmaller apartment while an MRH female worker took charge of her properties. With the help of thepolice, her family were able to “rescue” her from the cult-like grip she seemed to have been trappedin. This story, highlighted by local media houses, explicitly brought to light the apparent abuse,intrigues and manipulation of MRH followers. Yet the disturbing and shocking thing is that she cameout to defend Owuor and to claim that her own family members were thoroughly misinformed abouther plight.

Speaking to scores of members and ex-members of MRH in the last nearly five years, during which Ihave been researching this church, what emerges is a grim picture of extreme emotional andpsychological abuse and financial exploitation. The MRH’s theology on women’s bodies and thesexualisation of the female form remains the most disturbing to me. The ministry’s sermons andteachings about sexual purity have, for example, ostensibly led to family tensions and break-ups.

Tens of people I interviewed spoke of myriads of families that have been broken by this church. Ifound out that some family members spent so much time following the prophet wherever he held hiscrusades that they literally abandoned their family and work. Some employers have been known tocomplain about work absenteeism among members of the church, while scores of high school anduniversity students have abandoned their schools and played truancy, all in the name of the prophet.In a bizarre move, some students have reportedly burned their educational certificates anddocuments, because, anyway, according to the prophet, rapture is soon coming.

****

The phenomenon of bizarre pastors is not a preserve of Kenya; elsewhere in Africa, we havewitnessed macabre behaviours of the “men of God”. In February 2019, a video of Pastor Alph Lukaufrom South Africa showing him resurrecting a “dead” man went viral. In another video that alsowent viral, a flamboyant Zimbabwean preacher man, Paul Sanyangore, is seen talking to “God” onhis mobile phone.

British sociologist Eileen Barker, author of The Making of the Moonies: Choice or Brainwashing?”has grappled with the disturbing issue of gullible and vulnerable flock. Why is it that reasonable menand women of sound mind always fall prey to religious charlatans? How is it that some of the mostgullible men and women also happen to be the most educated academically and professionally? Whatpossible credible explanation can one give to explain the fact that mature men and women willsacrifice their all – career, family, friends, civil liberties, property and personal responsibility – tofollow a charlatan who has no family of his own? How is it that right-thinking beings are easilypersuaded to abrogate their individual rights of personal choice of what career to pursue, who tomarry, when to have or not to have sex, when and how to be intimate with your spouse?

Speaking to scores of members and ex-members of MRH in the last nearly five years,during which I have been researching this church, what emerges is a grim picture ofextreme emotional and psychological abuse and financial exploitation.

Like Barker, I have also grappled with the depressing issues of religious bondage andphantasmagoria. How is it that some of the most learned Kenyans of exceptional academic prowessaccept Owour’s extreme quiescent religious beliefs? How is it that some of his adamant andstringent followers and supporters are these “men and women of the books?” How is it that theyseem to be “brainwashed” into believing that Prophet Owuor’s “truth” is the only truth?

How is it that they are prepared to follow his every command, his every utterance, and are eagerand ready to sacrifice everything – materially or otherwise – for him, while they themselves struggledaily with the basic necessities of life? How is it that women will expose their children to thevagaries of freezing temperatures, exposing their young ones to cold nights, sleeping in open aircrusades, while Owuor and his bishops snuggle their nights away in deluxe hotels? How is thatmedical professionals accept to validate non-existing miracles, totally oblivious of the ethics thatundergird their vocation? All in the name of legitimising and validatingthe miscreant behaviours of apampered and pumped-up ego? How is it that physicians allow patients to be plucked out of hospitalbeds to later die after being prayed for at mass crusades?

In the second part of this article, I seek to answer these worrisome questions.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their societyby interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Follow us on Twitter.

Race and Revival: A Posture of Protest for aNew Pentecostal MovementBy Christine Mungai

Set on a 20-acre piece of land in the Athi plains, the Mavuno “Hill City” Church (a Kiswahili wordmeaning harvest) looks like anything but a church: its mega dome tent resembles one huge dancehall – complete with discotheque-type revolving multi-layered and multi-coloured strobe lights thatflash on and off, and a soundtrack system that would rival sound system proprietor DS Njoroge’s,10,000-watts sound system equipment. Kendrick Lamar, the American hip-hop mega star rapperwould have no problem holding a concert here. As a visiting Anglican Church cleric commented:“There’s nothing to suggest this is a holy sanctuary: a rap reggae artist could as well find his footinghere. The tent could also be used to hold a conference for businessmen or entrepreneurs discussingmulti-billion-shilling investments.”

Hill City, which can hold up to 4,000 worshippers, is one of the symbols of the growing influence ofAmerica’s evangelical religious culture of giant churches, whose preaching is beamed in real time onbillboard-sized LED smart screens. The church precincts are no longer referred to as a compound,but a campus.

It is the kind of church where testimonies warm and cheer up the worshippers. Testimonies of

success abound. “Since coming to this church, I cannot keep up with the growth of my company…myproducts are moving faster than I can replenish them.” Or “After I started attending this church, myprayers were answered – I got a job, which flushed the anxiety from my heart. The job gave me arelaxing feeling, the kind of feeling you have when you know you’ve a big bank account somewhere.”

Surrounded by Chinese-themed mega estates, Hill City is 35km from Nairobi city centre. Located offthe Nairobi-Mombasa highway, it is a 3.5km walk from Stage 39, the nearest bus stop forworshippers intending to trek to the church. It would really take an inspired Christian to attend thischurch – the scorching sun and choking dust is not made for trekking. In short, it is not your typicalwalk-in-walk-out church. Its parking bay can easily hold 500 vehicles.

“Mavuno Church’s relocation of its headquarters to a location just beyond the city limits in 2014resulted in a number of members moving to other churches, as well as to other Mavuno campusescloser to their areas of residence,” said Pastor Linda Ochola-Adolwa, who oversees MavunoCrossroads Church, which meets in the Lavington suburbs.

Mavuno Crossroads was started in June 2016. Its worshippers are the remnants of the originalMavuno Church that used to meet at Bellevue in South C. Reluctant to move to “Hill City”, theyfinally found a suitable location where they could pray and worship: at the Lavington PrimarySchool. They refurbished seven classrooms and gave a face-lift to the primary school. Today, thecongregation is made up of nearly 400 worshippers.

“The people who formed Crossroads were the well-heeled Christians who had been supporting theMavuno Bellevue Church with their big tithes,” said a Mavuno church-goer. “The Crossroads Churchworshippers are all professionals and affluent and they meet in a rich suburb, away from the pryingeyes of the less privileged Christians.” It was just a matter of time before Mavuno Crossroads’leadership and the headquarters at “Hill City” were at crossroads over the issue of control of moneyallocation and tithe contribution, whispered a Crossroads Mavuno worshipper.

“Pastor Muriithi Wanjau [founder of Mavuno] is upset about the fact that Crossroads, which is amuch smaller congregation, has a lot bigger slice of money than the huge congregation at Hill City,”said a Mavuno Church Athi River worshipper. “He has always wanted control of the Crossroadsmoney, but he seems to be encountering headwinds. It is a public secret that Pastor Muriithi hasshown displeasure with Mavuno Crossroads Church’s leadership over his inability to oversee itsfinances.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth”, retorted Pastor Muriithi. “In fact Hill City, with its bigcontribution of tithe is able to fund other churches that are not as endowed as Mavuno Athi River.Every church (independently) controls its finances and its choice of projects, even as they contributetheir share to the central operations of the Mavuno Church,” posited the pastor. The biggestoperation of the church is planting Mavuno churches where there are none.

“Hill City contributes 42 per cent of its finances to the centre, Crossroads about 15 per cent, thesame as Downtown, but generally churches give between 5 and 20 percent of the finances toMavuno Church, of course, depending on their financial capabilities.” There has been a lot ofrumours and misinformation out there about Hill City and me, said Pastor Muriithi.

“It is true, there was a disagreement between Pastor Linda and I”, the soft-spoken Pastor Muriithitold me, “but let me not disclose what the disagreement was about.” Pastor Muriithi said he andPastor Linda agreed to engage “a trusted resource person,” in the person of Oscar Mureu, who isconsidered to be the titular bishop of Mavuno/Chapel group of churches. “We sat down with Oscarand he agreed to arbitrate our pressing issues and, we all agreed to leave the matter with him, so

it’s an ongoing matter because he is currently looking into it.”

There are seven Mavuno churches in Kenya, “but because of planting churches along the logic ofcolonial lines within the city, the outcomes of this has been a subtle segregation within the Mavunocongregations,” said a Downtown Mavuno church-goer. Downtown Mavuno meets at Ufungamanobuilding near the University of Nairobi. “Crossroads is the best example of a group of people forwhom class and space are more important than just being called Christians.”

Mavuno Church encourages the starting of satellite churches based on specific area’ needs to caterfor specific Christians, said the worshipper. In Eastlands, for instance, there is Mavuno Mashariki(Kiswahili for east). For long Mashariki used to meet in Donholm estate, but now meets at Naivassupermarket’s premises, where they erected a tent off Rabai Road opposite Buru Buru Phase V.“That church is for people from Eastlands…that’s just it,” said the worshipper.

There are seven Mavuno churches in Kenya and, in addition to their apparent intra-competition over which among its branches has the most money, “Mavuno is a churchthat practises subtle segregation,” said a Downtown Mavuno church-goer.

Mavuno Churches are led, presumably, by pastors influenced by the American televangelists fromthe south and mid-west who preach the message that success comes to those who pray. Forty-nine-year-old Senior Pastor Muriithi, takes no prisoners and pulls no punches in his preaching. In themonth of October, he aptly called his preaching, “Wakanda Unchained – The Financial Liberation”series. “It was one of my boldest preaching,” confessed the pastor. “I will tell you something – ourchurch looks rich…many are in debt…Christians give the illusion of success, you know, the idea is tofake it until they make it.”

In one of his Sunday sermons (which the church uploads online and which are available for all toview), Senior Pastor Muriithi rankled some of his congregants by talking about Jews and them beingGod-inspired money geniuses. He claimed Jews were successful because they understood thelanguage of money and that is why they continue to attract hatred from other races as theirblessings get multiplied.

“In a country riven with deep ethnic passions and where Kikuyus refer to themselves as Jews, it wasdeeply inconsiderate and insensitive to use the analogy of the Jews as God’s chosen people, whosesuccess is seen as money-driven in a heterogeneous and multi-ethnic congregation,” said a Hill Cityworshipper to me. “Pastor Muriithi was preaching about Uthamaki theology in the guise of extollingJews’ money virtues.”

“Let me say this, I regret the comments made afterwards by one of my congregants on my Jews’analogy,” surmised Pastor Muriithi. “She misinterpreted my choice of Jews as people who havesucceeded financially and otherwise as the biblical people of God. I could as well have used theexample of the Ismailis. What I was saying is this: Jews are successful because they have stucktogether, they are there for each other and, unlike some of our people who are socially andeconomically envious of one another, Jews help each other.” The pastor pointed out that after Jewswere persecuted and suffered immensely, they learned that their success and survival lay in hangingtogether and not separately.

“I’m not a career pastor,” Pastor Muriithi reassured me as we concluded our somewhat difficultconversation suppressed by muttered breaths from both sides. He told me tithe- giving has beenabused no doubt by many pastors, who are out to make money from their churches. “But thatdoesn’t invalidate the fact that Christians must not offer their tithes as commanded in the Bible. It is

scriptural, it isn’t Pastor Muriithi’s command.”

‘Poverty does not glorify God”

“Africa suffers from [a] deficient money idea,” sermonised Senior Pastor Muriithi in one of hisWakanda series (the title is taken from the runaway success Black Panther movie about a mythicalEast African country). “Poverty does not glorify God,” boomed the pastor. Fired up like an Americanprototype televangelist, some of Senior Pastor Muriithi’s biblical pronouncements have been puttingsome of his worshippers on edge: “By God, where did he get that one from?” asked an exasperatedHill City church-goer.

“All what Pastor Muriithi seems to be preaching about is money, money and money,” said thechurch-goer. When does he get to preach about theological foundations?” As the presiding andfounding pastor of the Hill City Church, one of the first sermons he preached at the newlyinaugurated church in Athi River in 2014 was “financial plan for couples and money.”

As he preached in one of his Wakanda series, Pastor Muriithi plucked his authored pamphlet –“Financial Foundations” – and waved it to the crowd, saying it was the key to unlocking financialsuccess. In an unflattering comment, a worshipper confided to me: “Pastor Muriithi is lessconcerned with spiritual matters, but with making money. How I wish he could write on thetheological foundations to understanding the Synoptic Gospels,” bemoaned the worshipper.

“All what Pastor Muriithi seems to be preaching about is money, money and money,”said the church-goer. When does he get to preach about theological foundations?”

“Mavuno Church is run like a business,” said one of its pastors, who asked for anonymity for fear ofantagonising his congregation and upsetting the church’s leadership. “It has a business plan modelthat must fit its expansion plans – in the country and elsewhere in Africa.” The church’s grandmission is to conquer and evangelise to African cities’ urban wannabes, “hence money is at the coreof its expansionist manoeuvres,” said the pastor.

It is true Mavuno has an ambitious plan: “to plant culture-defining churches across the capital citiesof Africa and the gateway cities of the world,” observes Pastor Linda.

Other than preaching about their favourite subject (money), “evangelical pastors have becomeexperts in everything and anything,” said a Mavuno church-goer. “From investments and wealthcreation, to sex and sexuality. From marital issues and parenting, to what type of people you shouldbe associating with and who to invite in your house.” Senior Pastor Muriithi has been advising anddiscussing how to set up a business and how to avoid the pitfalls of incurring debt by not going to abank to borrow money, said the Christian. “Is Pastor Muriithi an investments banker or aneconomist?” queried the churchgoer.

“It’s true I teach about saving and investing,” said a confident Pastor Muriithi. “And it is my desireto teach about money, because I consider it to be part of my obligation to preach on socialtransformation as a way of uplifting the Mavuno Church. I am raising a church to bring changeamong the younger generation, the so-called millennials and Generation Z. It is important for ourpeople to understand why poverty exists amidst us and for the blessed to use their blessing to upliftthe less privileged in society.”

“It is very strange that some people would accuse me of preaching about money,” said a somewhatmiffed Pastor Muriithi. “My Wakanda series came after two years of not talking about money…I

think I spoke about money one other time in those two years.” The pastor reminded me that thisyear alone, he preached for only three months “and out of those three months, I only spoke aboutmoney for four weeks out of 52 weeks. It is not as if my preaching is all about money,” the pastorsaid.

In 2012, Fr Ambrose Kimutai described some of his colleagues as church ministers who put the loveof money above everything, in essence, “bastardising the holy shrine of God.”

“The new churches of the evangelical type are in the business of promoting capitalism and neo-liberalism through their prosperity teachings and have nothing to do with spiritual nourishment orcontemporary societal problems facing Kenyans,” said Njonjo Mue, the Oxford-educated lawyer witha theology degree from the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST), today knownas African International University (AIU). “These pastors are just careerists, advancing their owncauses of enriching themselves in the churches.”

“The church in Kenya is still colonial in form and structure,” said Njonjo. “After the exit of thecolonial church, presumably with the colonial government, it bequeathed its reign of power to the‘white community’ of Kenya – the Kikuyus. Is it any wonder that the former Attorney General, ‘Sir’Charles Njonjo (no relation), in his heydays would decide, for instance, who was going to be theAnglican Archbishop in Kenya?” he posed. “The majority of Kikuyu church leaders fought formerPresident Daniel Moi, not because he was dictatorial and oppressive, but because he was aKalenjin,” said Njonjo, a born-again Christian.

“The new churches of the evangelical type are in the business of promoting capitalismthrough their prosperity teachings and have nothing to do with spiritual nourishment orcontemporary societal problems facing Kenyans,” said Njonjo Mue, the Oxford-educatedlawyer with a theology degree…”

The reference to picking Anglican archbishops by Charles Njonjo cuts back to the 1980 elections ofthe second Anglican archbishop. Archbishop Manasses Kuria, who died in 2005, was the secondAnglican Church of Kenya (ACK) Archbishop after Festo Olang’ who retired in 1979. In line tosucceed him was the fiery Henry Okullu, the Bishop of Maseno South. The elections became acontest between ethnicities.

In his autobiography, The Quest for Justice, Okullu wrote: “The Luhya and Kikuyu ethnic sentimentsenforced by political tribalism blocked my way, such that a third person, out of the 25 electors couldnot be found to sign my nominations.” Okullu said that Bishop David Gitari told him, “SinceArchbishop Olang’ was from Western Kenya (Olang’ was a Luhya), this time, you people fromWestern are to be prepared to support an Archbishop from Central Province.” Okullu shot back:“This time the election of the Archbishop must be geographically decided?”

In the ensuing cacophony – of who should succeed Olang’ – Olang’ himself asked Okullu to throw hissupport towards the Assistant Bishop of Mombasa, Crispus Nzano, a nondescript auxiliary bishop,but a bishop nonetheless. Okullu declined. To break the impasse, Nzano had been nominatedalongside Mannases Kuria, an equally unknown bishop from Nakuru. On the eve of the election,Attorney General Njonjo telephoned Nzano and prevailed him to step down for Kuria and he obliged.James Hamilton, the then Chancellor of ACK, declared Kuria the second Anglican Archbishop ofKenya unopposed.

“The Christianity Kenya received from Western missions seemed to have emphasised personal pietyat the expense of public and social implications of the Christian faith,” said Pastor Linda. She

described the Mavuno congregation as largely middle class, professional, and young: “Hill City is ayoung congregation having started in 2005. This middle class congregation, which is multi-ethnicand sometimes multi-racial, tends to be apolitical in its approach to socio-economic and politicalmatters.”

These types of Christians have come to view politics as anathema to their well-being: cushioned andshielded from the vicissitudes of real politik because of their privileged class backgrounds andprofessional lives, their economic largesse has also afforded them the luxury of ignoring the politicsof the day around them. But after the post-election violence of 2008, many middle class (Mavuno)Christians woke up to the crude reality that politics was part and parcel of their lives and, even if itdid not affect their lives directly, they had friends and relatives who had suffered because of politicsgone awry.

Living in a ‘Christian bubble’

“Middle class Christians are aware of the corrupt political system, the socio-economic breakdown ofour institutions and ethnic chauvinistic politics, but they seem to be exasperated and worn down byall these societal ills,” says Pastor Linda. “The greater temptation for this class of Christians is tolive in a ‘Christian bubble’ of donating Christmas gifts to the poor and children’s homes, hencebelieving they have done their bit of civic and societal obligations.”

Yet, according to Pastor Linda, the church’s greater dilemma seems to lie in how it views its definedprophetic role: Does it obey the secular rules here on earth as stated in Romans 13 and just preachfor peaceful co-existence as St Augustine proposed, or does it engage in the politics of the day andhope not to be muddied by it or shun politics altogether?

“Middle class Christians are aware of the corrupt political system, the socio-economicbreakdown of our institutions and ethnic chauvinistic politics, but they seem to beexasperated and worn down by all these societal ills,” says Pastor Linda. “The greatertemptation for this class of Christians is to live in a ‘Christian bubble’ of donatingChristmas gifts to the poor and children’s homes, hence believing they have done theirbit of civic and societal obligations.”

“Although the majority of Kenyans are Christians – more than 80 percent – they have relegated theirchurch sanctuaries to politicians,” said a senior Anglican Church cleric. “Nowadays, it is thepoliticians who are crafting and dictating what messages the pastors and priests are to preach totheir congregations.” The result: church leadership has become impotent and obsolete.

“After the poll violence of 2008, it became increasingly difficult for the Catholic Church to speakcollectively in one voice,” said an Archdiocese of Nairobi priest. “The post-election violence hadexposed the deep running ethnic fissures within the church. The Church had taken political sides,and one of its clergy members had been killed because of the ethnic mayhem and the dangerousethnic and political emotions,” said the priest. “The Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB)meets nowadays to preach bland messages, such as the need for Kenyans to keep peace. It hasceased to have the moral compass to direct and guide the people.”

The priest told me that it was implicitly agreed among the bishops who form the episcopalconference that the church would not “impose” its collective stand on the politics of the day, or evenpretend to inform it on the individual priests. “Politics became an individual priest’s responsibility –so long as he did not purport to speak on behalf of the Catholic Church of Kenya.”

“You cannot fight the government,” the priest said. “Even a powerful church like the CatholicChurch is bound to be on the receiving end.” The priest confidentially told me that the governmenthad allegedly sent a subtle message to the church’s leadership that if it pushed it too hard, it wouldimpose taxes on its land and other properties it owns. The Catholic Church is the largest landownerin Kenya outside of the government. The cleric informed me that the government had even“threatened” to repossess some of the land it owned controversially, or land it had given the church.

The church and the state

Instead of effecting these threats, the government had done the opposite: Three weeks ago,President Uhuru Kenyatta, officiating at the funeral mass of the retired Archbishop John Njenga,asked the Principal Secretary at the Ministry of Land, Nicholas Muraguri, to return to the CatholicChurch land that could have been appropriated or otherwise from the church. It is obvious that theCatholic Church leadership has been playing ball with the Jubilee Party state and hence the reward.

Although most of the Catholic Church’s land was acquired before Kenya attained its independence in1963, “once Jomo Kenyatta became president, he gave the church a plot of land in the poshLavington area,” said the priest. In Nairobi County, the Catholic Church’s land is concentrated in theLangata/Karen area, leading to the area being referred to as the “Little Vatican”. The other primeland is the Lavington property, where they have built posh schools, convents and even have acemetery for their priests.

“If the state turns on the church it would be the worse for it and it will lose big time,” said the priest.“The church has never contemplated paying taxes, it would never pay taxes and therefore, it woulddo anything to avoid creating such a scenario.” The Catholic Church imports tonnes of drugs for itsclinics and hospitals across the country, all tax-free. It is exempt from paying land rates. More thanthat, it has a large expatriate workforce that works in hospitals, schools and universities. “The lastthing the church would want is for the government to make it difficult for the foreigners to work forthe church,” pointed out the priest.

“When President Moi vacated office in 2002, and his former VP Mwai Kibaki stepped into his shoes,relations between the church and the state altered dramatically,’ wrote John Githongo in 2013. “Thevisceral antagonisms of the prior era melted away. A number of church leaders, includingsignificantly, the National Council of Churches of Kenya’s (NCCK) Mutava Musyimi, were elected toParliament. President Kibaki, not one for direct confrontation, cultivated a close relationship withthe Catholic Church, whose national leadership seemed to share his conservative instincts,especially, in regard to property and acquisition.”

A senior Anglican cleric, who was a close friend of Archbishop Gitari, told me, “Once Kibaki becamepresident, the archbishop ceased any fiery attacks against the state. He even subtly cautionedcriticism of the new NARC government from fellow Anglican clerics.” It would seem the upshot ofArchbishop’s Gitari’s pullback from finding fault with Kibaki’s government, unlike his constantattacks on Moi’s government, was that their man a (Kikuyu) had re-captured state power and that isall that mattered.

“When President Moi vacated office in 2002, and his former VP Mwai Kibaki stepped intohis shoes, relations between the church and the state altered dramatically,’ wrote JohnGithongo in 2013. “The visceral antagonisms of the prior era melted away…”

So was the Catholic Church – which had tested Moi’s patience by its stinging episcopal pastoralletters, which talked of social justice, political accountability and morality, among other pressing

socio-economic and political issues – compromised?

Raphael Ndingi Mwana’a Nzeki, the Catholic prelate who had been at the forefront of demandingpolitical transparency and of fighting against state corruption, which was rife in Moi’s KANUgovernment in the 1990s, suddenly went mute, as did the church leadership, when his friend MwaiKibaki became the president. It was not lost on Kenyans and keen observers that Kibaki shared thearchbishop’s faith. Even more noticeable was the decline of the “sharp” pastoral letters that spoketruth to power.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their societyby interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Follow us on Twitter.

Race and Revival: A Posture of Protest for aNew Pentecostal MovementBy Christine Mungai

As the world marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, it is a good time to reflect on thepresent schism between the clergy and the congregation in the Kenyan church. If the clergy is theproverbial shepherd and the congregation is the flock, then this shepherd has passively abdicatedhis duty and we need to discuss this.

First off, if you are one of those dogmatic Christians who cannot stomach any criticism levelled atthe church, you may want to stop reading now, lest your delicate sensibilities are needlesslyoffended. This is not a conversion exercise; it is a shameless sermon to the choir. Conversions whileappreciated are purely incidental.

Matters religion are always a sensitive subject and in a country where Christianity is the dominantfaith, calling out the church is asking for a double dose of trouble. Then again, 500 years ago, in theMiddle Ages, a young Jesuit priest faced a similar moral dilemma under worse circumstances. OnOctober 31, 1517, he called out the Catholic church on its misdemeanours and changed the courseof Christianity. The Ninety-Five Theses, or if you prefer, Disputation of Martin Luther on the Powerand Efficacy of Indulgences, was the religious Pandora’s box of the Middle Ages.

Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion argues that religion is rarely critiqued because it isheld as a sensitive and personal issue; hence it is shielded from overt demystification and criticism.Despite this perception, we can’t deny that religious arguments hold great sway in normative andeven legal arguments that guide behaviour in our societies. For example, debates on issues of accessto birth control, arguments on abortion and arguments on euthanasia are passionate and intensebecause religious arguments heavily influence these conversations that take a contrary position toscience.

Matters religion are always a sensitive subject and in a country where Christianity is thedominant faith, calling out the church is asking for a double dose of trouble.

In circumstances where prevailing religious dogmas have been successfully questioned,ramifications of these have been felt in the public sphere of human lives. Jesus Christ questionedJudaism’s religious practices and established his ministry with societal outcasts whom he sought “to

seek and save”. His disciples, the Pharisees (teachers of the existing dogma) and other followersinterrogated his ideas, posing all sorts of tricky questions, which he skilfully and relentlesslydeconstructed.

The Pharisees weren’t too pleased with this. For being such a pain in the posterior, they put out acontract on Jesus and Judas Iscariot took the bait, kissing and outing Jesus. Jesus was crucified, andhis death became the martyrdom that made way for Christianity to become a new and more inclusivefaith than Judaism, accepting of previously excluded people and practices. Jews were punished forkilling Jesus, and they have been persecuted through history (even Luther had anti-Semitic views)till they found reprieve in 1948 through the formation of Isreal.

What Martin Luther did

In the same vein, Martin Luther’s move to call out the Catholic’s church’s moral excesses set off aseries of domino waves that affect us to date. Two key things stand out. First, Luther’s actionsignited the movement that eventually resulted in Protestantism, which reduced the influence of theCatholic church. Luther’s second influence was more profound. By translating the Bible intodifferent languages, he removed the monopoly of knowledge of scriptural teachings from thepriesthood, diffusing it to the people. In a move reminiscent of the temple curtain tearing at Christ’sdeath, Luther brought the people closer to God by bringing his word closer to them. Of course, thereis an element of serendipity here that we must acknowledge; the Gutenberg Press and theRenaissance.

Then Europe was coming out of the Middle Ages and there was a renewed thinking about therelationship between man and God. The prevailing dogma was a pessimistic one – that man was acreature that had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and thus worthy not of his grace. In itsplace, a new school was emerging, arguing that man was created in God’s image and reflected God’sgenius. As such, it was man’s duty to use all his abilities as bestowed by God to express dominionover the earth. The Renaissance Movement, which included science and innovation that marked theend of the Dark Ages, was partly inspired by this dogmatic shift on the image of man.

The technological invention of the Gutenberg printing press was the perfect medium to allow Lutherto disseminate Christ’s teachings to the public and to translate them into local languages. So nexttime you read your Bible in Latin, thank Luther for it and feel free to buy your local Jesuit priest adrink in Luther’s honour.

Many Kenyans are nostalgically remembering when some within the church fearlesslycalled out the moral and legal inconsistencies that characterised the excesses of the Moiregime in the 1980s and early 1990s. Many, such as Bishop Alexander Muge and FatherAnthony Kaiser, paid with their lives.

So, 500 years later, we need to have a conversation about the church in Kenya. First things first.This is not about the spiritual relevance of the church in its congregants’ lives. Dawkins will call mecowardly, but I will avoid that; God knows my views on the church and as an actor in public spaces Ioffend enough sensibilities as it is. What I want us to reflect on is the role and influence of thechurch in our public spaces and outside of our churches on Sunday. The Kenyan state is goingthrough turbulent political times in which the church has barely weighed in. Where it has made itsvoice heard, it has made statements that are largely ineffectual, offering very few solutions that arein themselves escapist.

The country is experiencing political uncertainty that has seen the credibility of the electoral

management body questioned over and over, lending the recently concluded elections a legitimacycrisis that refuses to go away. While courts can give legal direction on aspects of law and process,the law is but a tool of politics, subject to and vulnerable to political whims and machinations. Thus,it can only help us so far given that this is a moral rather than a legal problem. The opposition hascalled for civil disobedience, relabelling itself a movement (which is perfectly legal, by the way).Which is why the law can do only so much to save us from this political crisis.

Many Kenyans are nostalgically remembering when some within the church fearlessly called out themoral and legal inconsistencies that characterised the excesses of the Moi regime in the 1980s andearly 1990s. Many, such as Bishop Alexander Muge and Father Anthony Kaiser, paid with their lives.That’s why when the current Kenyan clergy acts like the biblical church of Laodicea (to the chagrinof St. John), going all lukewarm on us, we the congregation are confused. This shepherd has turnedhis back on his flock and we need to understand why. Then we need to ask how we deal with thisshepherd who is guilty of desertion.

Initialising Project Genesis

When one can’t make sense of the present, one goes back to the history of the problem. To whatextent is the church separate from the state? Where the church extends itself, and becomes an actorin affairs of the state, then it must be called to accountability and scrutiny just like other institutions.

The Kenyan story with the church begins with colonialism. The missionaries came to spread thegospel and change our lives for the better. They built schools, hospitals, and churches where theytaught us that we must be obedient to our masters, aka the colonialists. (Anecdote, depending onwho you believe, they also instructed natives in Polynesia how to have sex in acceptable civilisedpositions, hence the missionary position, but I digress).

The church, being in bed with the colonial government, had access to large tracts of land, wherethey could do their missionary work. It’s instructive to note that the early church in Kenya nevercalled out the colonial government for its forced displacement of Kenyans from fertile highlandareas and neither did it call out the use of forced labour, introduction of taxation (hut tax) or thekipande system. Why bite the hand that feeds you? With the ownership of land, a key scarce andhotly contested resource, the church in Kenya adopted multiple identities. While it serves the role ofspiritual shepherd, by owning land, it is also an economic actor, which makes it an interest groupwith great political influence.

Now to the fight for pluralism. The church spoke with one voice for the cause for pluralism. One ofthe reasons that much, though not all, of the clergy was united about this was because the fight forpluralism did not compromise the economic interests of the church. Thus, the shepherds rose to theoccasion and guided their flock, using captive audiences every Sunday, issuing pastoral letters, andusing their spiritual influence to influence the political decisions of their flock. As the clergy spokewith one voice against the Moi regime, we the congregation saw that it was good and wereimmensely pleased with our shepherds.

The land question

With political pluralism came freedom of expression, creating space for many voices hithertounheard. Naturally, the land question, a question as original as colonialism, came to the fore. Callsfor constitutional reform wanted to contain an all-powerful executive in Kenya as well as resolve theland question. From issues of displacement to land tenure to taxation on land, all these touched anerve among the owners of large tracts of land in Kenya, including the church. As such, while thechurch was united in opposing Moi as a powerful executive, they were less singular in supporting a

new constitution whose reform was based on revising and checking executive powers to avoid arepeat of Moi 2.0 in the future. Why the inconsistency? Because the land question affected thechurch as landowners.

In an ironical twist, an unholy alliance even, the mainstream churches teamed up with large-scaleland owners in opposing the draft constitution of 2010. While the landholding elite were obviousabout their reservations about land reform, including issues around community land and leasetenure, the church cloaked its opposition to the new constitution in congregation friendly positions,such as half-baked arguments on abortion, gay rights and Islamic courts. Cheap and dirtypropaganda tactics were not beneath the moral etiquette of the church; it was survival time after all.From leaflets with outrageous interpretations of the Bible to parading prepubescent girls in front ofcongregations and alleging that the draft constitution would allow them access to contraceptives,the church employed every weapon in its bag of tricks. Never has the moral compass of the churchfaced south as it did then.

In an ironical twist, an unholy alliance even, the mainstream churches teamed up withlarge-scale land owners in opposing the draft constitution of 2010.

Which brings us to the present. The church in Kenya today cannot speak with one voice on politicalissues that threaten its status quo. And this has nothing to do with our souls. The stairway to heavenhasn’t changed; it’s still all about fat camels and tiny eye needles. It’s not even about remorse aboutthe church’s diminished moral authority after the position it took in the 2010 constitutionalreferendum. It’s the congregation numbers, stupid. When the politics is about issues that are a livewire threatening church power dynamics and the loyalty of congregations, making politicalstatements is hara-kiri. Being no brave samurais, the church avoids this scenario by simply nottaking a side. Hence the feeble and mostly ineffectual statements we have been subjected to in theface of this political crisis.

To pick a side, even a moral or ethical one, in the current political debate would mean taking aposition and risking alienating half of the flock. The flock and its spiritual dependence on the churchis what keeps the church relevant. The flock’s loyalty to the church is what provides a modicum ofdecency to the economic interests of the church, especially where they concern land. It is not in thechurch’s interest to take a political position that will see it lose sections of their congregation. Sorather than alienate its money maker, the shepherd, aka the church, is sitting this one out (sorryflock).

The case of the Catholic church in Kenya is particularly illuminating. It is certainly not in the realmof outrageousness to imagine that the Catholic church wants a Catholic president, especially if thepresident comes from a family that is the largest landowner in the country. Why would you chide thisbloke? You are taking care of his spiritual needs now (and his soul in death) and he is safeguardingyour material possessions on earth, quid pro quo, neat. Sounds sordid? Maybe, then again, mostrealpolitik is that; sordid, dirty, self-serving, amoral, inward looking, forget Bentham andutilitarianism. Besides, the shepherd needs to be well fed and rested and comfortable to take care ofhis flock, right?

Lost sheep

Which brings us to our current dilemma. What do we do with the shepherd who has absconded hisduty? That is the question the congregation must deal with. What must be made clear is that to theextent that the church has a political voice that it exploits through action (and inaction), it must be

held accountable for it political positions. In the same light, the church must come clean about itseconomic grip on the country, if for nothing else than for purposes of disclosure.

To pick a side, even a moral or ethical one, in the current political debate would meantaking a position and risking alienating half of the flock. The flock and its spiritualdependence on the church is what keeps the church relevant.

The church and state are far from separate; they are joined at the hip. In the meantime, the churchhas failed the country by failing to speak up, to take a position and to provide direction in this timeof crisis. The church has failed the country by putting itself and its interests before those of itscongregation.

In the Divine Comedy, Inferno, Dante Alighieri famously said, “The darkest places in hell arereserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” Feel free to take a momentto ruminate on the irony of the Kenyan clergy having a special place in hell, if Dante is to bebelieved.

Meanwhile dear flock, the shepherd is not reporting for duty. The flock can choose to wait allrudderless till the shepherd resumes duty or, like Martin Luther some 500 years ago, the flock canrevisit its relationship with the shepherd. For what good is the church as a leader when it offers uspromises of spiritual riches while watching from afar as the vices of the flesh consume us here onearth? Not to put a fine point to it, but perhaps we should be asking ourselves, what would MartinLuther do?

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their societyby interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Follow us on Twitter.