Church should feel warmth of their folly

It’s barely two and half years since the church came out with full chest making public pronouncements that for the first time in the history of Kenyan elections, God had spoken to them of His presidential candidate of choice.

At that time, some grey-haired men and women who have a foolproof history of drinking from the well of wisdom sent an advance warning that God would never choose sides in a political contest that involves those who were created in His own image, as we were all His children.

The oldies were quickly dismissed as being jealous of not having God’s phone number. They slowly slithered back to their shells and helplessly watched as the greed that had checked into the church eat their own children.

Kenyans are saying that they have no intention of interfering with the holy alliance that was forged during the 2022 political campaigns between the church of Christ in Kenya and the regime which they not only took to the altar for anointing, but they also declared to be the greatest miracle to ever happen to the body of Christ since Satan refused to take responsibility for the Covid-19 pandemic.

The initial reaction to the latest cry by the Kenyan clergy has been that of indifference by the general public who have felt betrayed by an institution whom they have invested the little God has been blessing them with, consistently and prayerfully. Until someone asked why they haven’t been quick to launch a brand new line of holy handkerchiefs as an entry fee to a nearby crusade asking the public to invest in helping them crying for God to intervene.

Either they have run out of business ideas to wring out the remaining coins left in the pockets of their jobless congregants desperate for a made up prophetic announcement, or they’ve finally come back to their senses and are guilty for misleading the flock to the slaughter.

There used to be a time in Kenya when anyone who wore priestly robes and carried a golden walking stick was held in angelic reverence and considered in near immortality.

Those days, men of God carried themselves in humility and grace, preaching the word out of spiritual conviction, and spending time with their congregation at their darkest hour of need.

It was a time when the church had a powerful voice in the affairs of the country because they derived their authority directly from the people who saw them as their honest representatives.

Instead of nurturing this public goodwill that made them untouchable in the heat of government oppression, the church of Christ in Kenya decided to see their members in the form of votes and went to the auction to meet the political class halfway.

They would be comforted to hear that Kenyans are not entirely keen in meddling in the affairs of two consenting parties who were brought together by the love of God during the 2022 elections. “What God has put together”, we’re reminded in the Book of Mathew 19:6, “let no man put asunder.”

Kenyans have to be the most downtrodden people on earth. If they’re not being beaten by punitive taxes, they’re being abducted for raising their voices against bad governance.

When you add to the pileup of historical injustices that has messed up the efforts towards building a cohesive nation, you get a toxic mix of traumatic overload that can only be mitigated by running to the cross of Christ for spiritual reserves of individual fortitude.

You would expect the church to stand in the gap for those suffering mental breakdown occasioned by the prevailing socioeconomic circumstances, but the only gap they seem to recognise is that one between a pile of bank notes.

Learning is painful, but learning has to occur for a nation to separate chaff from wheat, good from evil, and those who mean well for their welfare from those who are complicit in their suffering.

The events leading up to the June protests showed clear indications that Kenyans have finally discovered that there are no longer prizes for those wearing suffering as a badge of honour. Since then, only those who are afraid to face their fears have been encouraged to keep going to church.

There comes a time when those who contributed to the installation of the current mess Kenyans have to raise up their hands and lead the way towards national healing and reconciliation.

The churches in Kenya are lucky that the virtue of forgiveness is still engraved in the hearts of Kenyans who are still willing to entertain the discussion about the way forward out of the mess they put us in. In other countries that take the welfare of their people seriously, a blanket ban on places of worship would have already been demanded as a price to pay for betrayal of public trust.

While arguments have been made that this is not the right time to point fingers at who did what, where and when; there is need for the church to understand that while Kenyans can forgive the political class for playing tricks with their minds and abandoning them in the high seas after getting what they wanted, there is absolutely no excuse the church had in using the name of God to earn money by false pretense.

If there is a memorandum of understanding the church signed with their God chosen government and for which they feel is being reneged upon, all we can inform them is that they should iron out their differences with the same smiles and hi-fives they treated us to when they were solemnizing their pre-election marriage in 2022.

Kenyans are no longer interested in investing their emotions in people who blackmail them with the word of God to follow a predetermined political path that was negotiated in the dark and without the best interest of the congregation at heart.

At the very least, leave us out of your wrangles with your political bedfellows. At the very best, apologize to the nation for using the name of God in vain.

We have burnt their fingers once, and it’s now the turn of those of who led us to this fire to also feel the warmth of their folly. This is the word of the Lord.