Worhippers at a church.
Jesus Christ will be born again on the night of Tuesday next week, to a venerated humble virgin and an unostentatious village carpenter. The breaking news will be greeted by rejoicing and merrymaking by Christians all over the world excited by the safe delivery of their saviour and the renewal of their faith.
Domestic animals will die an unnatural death to pay for the happiness bravely borne from the sacred story of the Immaculate Conception. Barely a day later, we will all be back to factory settings doing unchristian things to each other while waiting for Good Friday to praise the same Baby for dying for our sins.
Kenya has northwards of 85 per cent of her citizens identifying themselves as Christians. These are official datasets from the 2019 census which drew its responses from the primary data collection tool approved and rolled out by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).
The census questionnaire is interviewer-based: meaning, the KNBS scientist coming to your house gets to ask you the questions and after you’ve answered to the best of your individual knowledge, the expert gets to tick the appropriate boxes after which the completed questionnaire is sent back to base for data processing and analysis.
The question of which religion you ascribe to is, therefore, not only subjective but also personal. In 2019, a combined total of 922,128 Kenyans informed the KNBS census team that they belonged to no religion, with a further 61,233 responding to the religion question with a candid, “I don’t know.”
In all honesty, these two categories of Kenyans are the ones who should be trusted with managing public affairs going forward. Not only did they follow in the actual footsteps of Christ by staying sincerely forthright, they also embodied the true spirit of humanity by appreciating their Adamic sin of fallibility.
Gospel of Jesus Christ
A country that has 85 per cent of its citizens proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it was written to us in the Scriptures, should at the very least show commitment towards observing the three cardinal characteristics of Christianity; love, humility and forgiveness.
Love, according to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8; “is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.” For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
When you meditate over those deeply meaningful words in the scriptures and juxtapose them against the reality of a country whose 85 per cent of their citizens profess the Christian faith, what do you see flashing across your face in your divine vision? You see a general citizenry lacking the moral authority to swear by the Bible and its teachings on love, rendering the Bible a mere tool for the advancement of personal, political and partisan agenda.
The kind of love practised by Kenyan Christians can be said to be the direct opposite of what the scripture requires of a card-carrying, self-professing Christian. The Kenyan version of love is impatient and unkind, is green with envy and manifestly boastful; that love is also glaringly arrogant and in-your-face rude. Our love insists on having its own way; is irritable and resentful; rejoices at wrongdoing and sacrifices truth at the altar of personal greed. That version of love is not only what defines us, it is who we are.
The second fundamental characteristic of Christianity is the virtue of humility. The book of Proverbs defines humility as the fear of the Lord which means acknowledging that God is all-powerful and deserves all the glory and honour. It goes ahead to prescribe a litany of rewards for those who proclaim humility in word and in deed, including but not limited to; a bottomless treasure trove of endless wisdom and divine exaltation before God and man. On the contrary, the Bible warns Christians who go out of their way to fail the humility test that the God whom they abandoned after lifting them up in front of their enemies, is the same God that will punish their arrogance with a vengeance, deflate their prideful balloon and destroy them with finality.
Despite the grave dangers they risk exposing themselves to by refusing to be humble, Kenyan Christians have for generations declared total war on the modest and meek in their society; trampling upon them at the slightest opportunity whether at a high school dining hall queue or at a Huduma Centre service lane near them. While humility was supposed to be a desired Godly virtue admired for its exemplification of personal integrity and individual honour, Kenyan Christians would rather die than be seen to be softening their elbows for minority groups to feel the warmth of the immediate environment where they belong. In Kenya, therefore, blessed are the arrogant and boastful, for they shall inherit the spoils of war.
Forgiving each other
The third, and last, foundational characteristic of Christianity is that of forgiveness. The Bible reminds all practicing Christians that bearing with one another and forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven them, so they must also forgive – for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, and so will your Heavenly Father also forgive you. Try preaching the gospel of pardon and absolution to anyone calling themselves Christians in Kenya and all you’ll be left with will be first hand narrations of explosive backlash in the hands of the mob baying for revenge.
The Kenyan Christian has, over the years, evolved with the changing world and adopted a particular personality trait that confers competitive advantage to those slagging it out in the ruthless job market where cut-throat competition is the name of the game and dog-eat-dog cannibalism is the face of the players. In a toxic capitalistic environment which has no legroom for sentiment, the ethics of forgiveness is an unwelcome baggage that every Christian must shed off. It goes without saying – the end justifies the means.
The derogation of these three basic principles of Christianity remains the chief reason why the Christmas festivities is more popular for its corruption of morals than for the welcome of baby Jesus into the hearts of Christians to facilitate the renewal of our faith and the return of humanity into our country’s body politic.
Mahatma Gandhi was bang on the money when he famously remarked, that “I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
