Growing up, Anthony Kahuro and his family would go to church on Sundays and attend midweek evening services. At the age of 13, his mother, a protestant then, changed denomination, and they became Catholics, reducing the number of church days to Sundays only.
He got used to this routine, but later his attitude towards it changed after he joined high school at the age of 15.
“I joined a Catholic high school, and church was compulsory every Sunday. I went to church every Sunday while in school, but during the holidays I would skip because it felt forced in the school,” he recalls.
Anthony Kahuro praying inside a temple in China. He was a Christian before he converted to Buddhism. He no longer worships in any of the religious buildings.
Photo credit: Pool
After high school, as he waited to join university, Anthony found a new religious path.
“I had a friend whose dad was a Buddhist, and I became very interested in Buddhism. At that time, the internet was not very accessible, and we did not have phones as we do now. I went to a nearby library, and luckily, it had books on various religions. I got very excited about reading, mostly about religions in the East,” he tells Lifestyle .
His friend did not mention where they used to worship, and they had lost touch.
“I could not differentiate between the Hindu and the Buddhist temple. I walked around searching for the right one, and eventually, I found the Nairobi Buddhist Temple. I really loved the space,” he says.
After studying the religion for about six months, he officially became a Buddhist through a monk ceremony. None of his family members attended, although he invited them.
“I told my family about the ceremony, but they were sceptical about my new religion. Back in the village, when the grandparents heard, they asked if I no longer believed in Jesus. Anytime something bad happened, like maybe they fell sick, they would say it was because of my new religion.”
Anthony practised Buddhism for around six years, going to the temple every day.
“When I joined university, I would manage twice or thrice a week, but slowly, it became like a Sunday thing. During the week, I was alone in the library reading books from the great Buddhist teachers and those about meditation.”
His lifestyle also changed. “I became a vegetarian because the religion preferred this. I didn’t mind it at all because I don’t like meat anyway. At some point, two of my siblings also became vegetarians, but a year later, they both went back to the meat diet,” he says.
However, in 2018, Anthony decided to stop practising Buddhism. Since then, he hasn’t been to a temple or a church. His reason?
“I have a different perspective about religion. I don’t see it serving any purpose in my life. I think what matters is how I live with people and how I treat everyone around me,” he says.
That decision, he says, has helped him to live well with people regardless of their religion.
“I have not been to church for almost 15 years. Initially, my mum was not okay with my decision, but I helped her understand that, at the end of the day, it is about the kind of person I am; character-wise, I am a good person.”
Although Anthony is not yet a parent, he remains open-minded about the religious direction his children will take when that time comes.
“I will not mind if my wife is a Christian; she can take our children with her to the church, but I would also want them to have the freedom of choosing the religion they will want for themselves after they become adults.”
For the better part of her childhood, Marion Bwari went to Catholic church with her parents. However, when she joined high school, she discovered the Christian Union (CU) and started attending their services.
Marion Bwari is a mother of two. She stopped going to church over twenty years ago after her dad opposed her decision to switch denominations.
Photo credit: Pool
“My high school was also a Catholic school, so I still maintained that. In between, I would attend CU, and I liked how the SDAs conducted their services. When I came home for the holiday, I tried attending the SDA churches, but my dad was not happy about it. It brought a lot of friction, and I could not understand why he was against it, yet I was still praying to God, so I stopped going to church,” Marion narrates.
“In my 20s, I moved with my husband to Saudi Arabia; it’s an Islamic country, yet we practised Christianity. I tried going to different churches, but I didn’t quite agree with the teachings. Sometimes the songs felt off.”
“Even my husband is not very church-going, but he grew up in a very religious household, and he knows the Bible back-to-back. We did marriage counselling sessions through a pastor recommended by our parents because they knew one another.”
Their parents wanted a marriage ceremony, and so they did a traditional one to fulfil their wish. Contrary to how she was dedicated and baptised in church while still young, Marion says that she did not do either for any of her children; it did not sit well with her in-laws.
"At first, I would go to church out of fear of what other people would think of me, but with time, I became confident in not going to church because I have my own beliefs,” says the mother of two.
Marion noticed that her firstborn son was performing poorly in Christian Religious Education, one of the compulsory subjects in school.
“Fortunately, he developed an interest in reading the Bible. He asks us to explain the parts he doesn’t understand. I have noticed that he can be doing something, but then stops in the middle to pray.”
“My daughter has not developed strong feelings about attending church, but when people are praying, she is respectful, and she prays once in a while,” Marion shares.
She adds that the last time she looked forward to going to church every week was over 20 years ago. She is currently getting spiritual nourishment through different online services.
“Nowadays, I just pray when I feel like I need to. I find some people’s sermons very uplifting and very insightful, so if I come across one like that, I watch it. In fact, if they are consistent with their message and I see it resonating with me, then I start following them. I listen to gospel music that resonates with me.”
Marion also reveals she was an atheist before becoming agnostic. Is she worried about what will happen after she dies, who will bury her, given that in Kenya most interments are conducted by religious institutions?
“I don’t think I want to worry about it that much because I will be dead already. I have informed my immediate family members that I would like to be cremated, but it is not concrete yet because I hope I will not die soon.”
Samuel Gatere, 25, was a staunch member of the ACK church in Laikipia.
Samuel Gatere, 25, was ordained by the Archbishop of ACK Church Laikipia in 2011. He has never worshipped at a church in Nairobi since he relocated to the capital city for his university studies in 2012.
Photo credit: Pool
“In 2013, I moved to Nairobi, and it doesn’t feel the same even when I go to other churches here,” Samuel tells Lifestyle.
“My mum can’t do a thing about me not going to church because I think she is used to it. In fact, I always tell her that it is her prayers that protect me.”
He adds, “When I die, my mum’s church and the pastor will bury me. She lets me know when there are contributions to be made at church, and I send money, but I don’t go to church myself. ”
According to Prof Martin Njoroge, a Professor of Languages and Linguistics, mentor and family coach, and also the executive director at AENI International, many Kenyan churches on a Sunday morning are not as full as they used to be in the early 2000s. He attributes the trend to the majority of Kenyans saying they still believe in God, but do not see the point of going to church anymore.
“I'm a born-again Christian, and my own walk with Christ has been shaped as much by gathering with others as by anything I've read or prayed alone. So, when I hear this trend described, I don't just find it sociologically interesting; I find it personally concerning,” says Prof Njoroge.
He adds that while faith is a private matter, communal worship has mattered historically across traditions and still matters.
“Within Christianity specifically, the practice traces back to its central figure: the Gospel of Luke describes a young Jesus so engrossed in temple discussions that his parents had to go back to Jerusalem to find him, and later notes that attending synagogue on the Sabbath was simply "his custom." Whatever one makes of the theology, the historical pattern is clear: communal gathering wasn't an add-on to early Christian practice. It was the normal practice.”
“Sociologists who study religion have found that what people get from congregational life isn't only - or even mainly - doctrinal instruction. Robert Wuthnow, who has researched American religious communities for decades, argues that congregations function as rare social spaces where people are shaped by sustained relationships, not just information.
You can absorb ideas alone, watching a sermon on your phone, but being known, questioned, comforted, and occasionally corrected by other people - that happens through repeated, physical presence, not content consumption,” he says, adding that this is not unique to Christianity.
“Anthropologists have long noted similar effects in Islamic congregational prayer, Jewish communal worship, and traditional African communal rites - the shared gathering does something that solitary devotion doesn't: it builds mutual obligation. You show up for others; they show up for you. That's a social good with implications far beyond theology,” adds Prof Njoroge.
His sentiments are echoed by Bishop Mathews Nyende, from Baraka Church.
“Not going to church is not a sin, but it is an isolation. Church is God’s building, and going there strengthens a person’s relationship with God, but many people in the current world look at God as a normal thing,” says Bishop Nyende.
“Mostly, people are happy hanging around you when you are alive, and that is also how many friends are, but when you die, people start asking about your church. Church is good; it is the church members who will be with you even when you die. The danger of not going to church comes when you are dead; that is when people who know you will give your testimony because they walked with you when you were alive.”
