The church is the new battleground, where politicians have set camp in their hunt for votes with less than a year to the August 2022 polls.
Deputy President William Ruto, Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga, Amani National Congress (ANC) leader Musalia Mudavadi and his Wiper Democratic Movement counterpart Kalonzo Musyoka all made political pronouncements from the pulpits of different churches on Sunday, making light of the Covid-19 public gathering restrictions that have made it difficult to host open campaign rallies.
The top politicians have brazenly shifted their 2022 vote-hunting mission to churches, totally blurring the line that separates the State from religion.
So predictable are these weekly church addresses, that it has become the norm for the biggest political stories of the day to emerge from the pulpits, just as they would in public rallies.
Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit, the head of the Anglican Church in Kenya, says this trend must stop.
“It is a worrisome trend. We must safeguard the pulpit for its sole purpose, which is worship. Sadly, we have collapsed the boundaries between the pulpit and the pews; the profane and the sacred. We must rededicate ourselves to protect the sanctity of our sanctuaries and refuse to hand microphones to politicians inside the church. Let them do their politics out there,” said archbishop Sapit in an interview yesterday.
The archbishop is not alone, the PCEA church only two months ago also tried but failed.
In July the Presbyterian Church of East Africa secretary general, Robert Waihenya, in a statement said the PCEA church altar would not be used by politicians to advance their interests.
“Politicians should not be given any forum in our pulpits to do any politics and should attend services just like other members,” Mr Waihenya said in a guideline to all PCEA churches.
Archbishop Sapit admits it is difficult to enforce such a rule, which churches have attempted but failed time and again in the recent past.
“The sad thing is that pastors have now realised that this is the harvest season. They will use the chance to invite politicians in the pretext of greeting the congregation, but it never just ends at that; they will want to politick,” said Archbishop Sapit.
The Jubilee government’s closeness to the church has been documented as being a stark contrast to the past abrasive relationship between the church and the State during the clamour for constitutional governance and political reforms of the 1990s.
Back then, the church supported the opposition to fight for multiparty democracy during President Daniel Moi’s one party rule.
And even though President Moi and his successor, President Mwai Kibaki, attended church functions, deputy president Ruto, and the other 2022 presidential hopefuls, appear to have made the pulpit an integral part of their campaign platforms.
Dr Ruto and his boss, President Uhuru Kenyatta, have in their eight years in office used the church to galvanise government supporters, warn rebels within its ranks to toe the line, as well as penetrate Opposition strongholds.
Theology professor, Joseph Galgalo, says cases of the pulpit being used for political purposes—now worsened by the ban on rallies due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is “a sad continuation of the misuse of religion”, with many examples in history.
“Unfortunately this falls under utilitarian uses of religion. The religion gives the scheming political class a platform to lure the faithful into electing them,” Prof Galgalo, the former vice chancellor of St Paul’s University, and an ordained Anglican priest, said in a past interview.
But while religion has been used to offer a platform for politicians to sell their campaign agenda, Prof Galgalo, who earned his PhD in theology from Cambridge University, says the faithfuls are still not a strong political constituency in the Kenyan context.
“In the unfortunate event a pastor was to use the pulpit to shepherd the believers to a particular political direction, they would easily obey the ethnic voice especially if the ethnic call is not in tandem with what the pastor wants. That is the reality,” Prof Galgalo argues.
For the church, the shift to being seen to be working with government is a monumental transformation from its place in the 1980s and 1990s.
This was the time of pro-change voices that took on former President Moi and who included prominent clergy such as Rev Timothy Njoya, the late archbishops Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki, Henry Okullu and David Gitari, and Bishop Alexander Muge.
“In the ‘90s, it was about more parties and constitutionalism. More parties have come and we have a new Constitution, so the church asked what next? And we settled on reconciliation and unity,” Archbishop Philip Anyolo of the Kisumu Archdiocese told the Nation in a previous interview when asked about the change in approach.
Yesterday, Archbishop Sapit suggested that the only way for the church to rid itself of the accusations of going to bed with the politicians was to deny them a chance to speak during worship.
“The church finds itself in a precarious position. We cannot turn away anyone who comes to worship with us, but we need to make a determination that the pulpit will not have politicians. The only way for the church to be the salt and light of the world is safeguard its sanctuary from people who have a different agenda. Let them come worship and if they want to speak to the people, let them follow them outside the church,” Archbishop Ole Sapit said.
The ACK head thinks the media should play a role in this, too.
“The problem is when they come to these churches, the media will pick the political statements and nothing on what the sermon was about. If the media gave these politicians a blackout for a month when they come to church to politick, they might just stop coming to church,” said Archbishop Sapit.
