How religion is poisoning everything in Kenya

‘Si uchawi, ni maombi.” That chorus, first made popular during the last presidential campaign, is making an appropriately jarring, off-key comeback after the ICC failed to find evidence against President Uhuru Kenyatta for crimes against humanity.

Apparently, the president’s great run of good fortune is all thanks to prayer.

And the whole nation has been spellbound as the Magu family tragedy unfolded, praying for the safe return of the family’s three children and all heartbroken when the bodies of their two sons– Ryan and Allen – turned up at Tatu City.

The calamity acquired Biblical proportions when it was revealed that Paul, the patriarch who kicked off the chain of events, had been in constant communication with a Pastor Anne Wanyoro, who had held prayers with him for four consecutive days.

Anybody who has ever watched the “mighty prophet of the Lord” Dr David Owuor can’t help getting impressed. I mean, how does the man manage to wear white from head to toe (we assume) and still make it so dignified?

Also, what are the daily care tips for that outlandishly fabulous beard of his? As one who lives vicariously through the good man of God’s facial hair, these questions bother me.

But not nearly as much as his claim to prophet-hood and his ministry’s less-than-orthodox means of honouring and glorifying him, almost as if he were a small god himself.

He performs to huge rallies of mostly impoverished believers and arrives in a convoy of high-end cars and over-the-top security.

You know who else calls himself a prophet? T. B. Joshua, the Nigerian preacher. Their styles might differ from that of noted chemist, sorry, preacher Victor Kanyari’s, but the ends appear to be the same.

Why someone isn’t shooting The Real Preachers of Africa, a hit reality series with these characters, is an indictment of our creative industry.

“These young men are taking over the mosques around the coast,” a senior police officer told me in Diani a fortnight ago.

He was referring to a wave of radicalisation that has the government running scared at the coast, especially in Mombasa.

Guns, grenades and assorted dangerous materials have been found in those places of worship. Some are “returnees” trained by Al-Shabaab in Somalia and now readying for their mission the clever people with interesting titles proclaim, breathless on TV.

Others, armchair analysts declare, are young Muslim youth with nothing to lose after the system set them up for failure – poor, largely uneducated and increasingly fanatical.

“Nowhere else in the world have I seen faith abused as I have seen it done in this country,” a Western ambassador remarked a few months ago.

As a Christian, he was horrified by the ways in which politicians, crooks and preachers (sometimes one person is all three) were stretching Christianity to justify whatever mischief they were up to.

But then again, if you can turn a charge of crimes against humanity into a prayer item and a campaign item to win an election, anything is possible. You see, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

I read eminent atheist Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything with considerable delight.

He argues that all religions are essentially man-made, with some being no more than poor copy pastes of others and have caused too much suffering in the world to be taken seriously.

He dismisses Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Eastern religions as hogwash, advocating for secularism.

I am a Christian, even though I could have been a much better one if I had made it to the priesthood and I don’t completely buy Hitchens’ argument.

The British-born author and journalist died in 2011, just four years after he wrote that book, but it couldn’t be more appropriate for Kenya today.

Too much killing, stealing and deceiving is being done in the name of God today. If He were really God, I think He would fight His own battles.

Madowo is the technology editor, NTV. Send your feedback to [email protected]