Who knows what to believe and how to get to heaven with any certainty?

“You know there’s a Bible verse that only I can use but you can’t?” this friendly stranger asked me at the Doha Airport the other week.

Intrigued, I nodded to my colleague, Ephy Mwangi, and we gave him audience as we walked to our gate. “The people in Italy send you their greetings,” he said with a belly laugh, quoting from Hebrews 13:24 (Greet all your leaders and all the Lord’s people. Those from Italy send you their greetings - NIV).

Giovanni then proceeded to tell us that he was a Jehovah’s Witness and a missionary in Ghana and Nigeria. His name was probably not Giovanni, but I’ve forgotten it.

He explained how West Africans were so religious that many insisted on praying before you even evangelised to them. “In Italy, nobody wants to hear about God,” said the man, who can do a startlingly entertaining Nigerian accent. So his church concentrates on converting “African people” from other brands of Christianity to theirs.

ENOUGH OF ROUTINE

I thought about Giovanni and his stories about western Africa as I watched the beatification of Sister Irene Stefani Nyaatha.

Like her, I’m being merciful because the full name of the event that brought two dozen bishops and an endless number of sisters to the Dedan Kimathi University of Technology and Gikondi Parish in Nyeri was “Eucharistic celebrations and beatification ceremony”.

Catholics love a good ceremony. They sing well. They perform a bunch of rituals with deep piety and the seriousness of a brain surgeon. They sing some more. I know because I was one for 20 years.

Then one day I woke up and could not stand it anymore. Also, I couldn’t bear to stand and sit and kneel ad infinitum as a priest chanted the same lines the entire congregation had memorised.

It was routine and I had discovered that I didn’t like routine. Growing up does that to you. My grandmother was heartbroken. She was already planning my ordination ceremony in her head.

After all, I had spent four years in a minor seminary and was on the fast lane towards a lifetime of religious vows as a Catholic priest.

I questioned whether I even wanted to be a Christian at all, and if there was life after death. In any case, I argued, what brand of faith did we subscribe to before the missionaries got here?

“Did our ancestors simply discard their beliefs without a fight, or did the holy miracle of gunpowder and economics play a role?” blogger Chief Nyamweya wrote recently. After months of agnosticism, I found my way back to the church and faith but to a more evangelical strain, where I remain.

“I would like to know where in the Bible the Catholic Church read that a man can declare another a saint,” posed Zachariah Masinde on my Facebook page. “Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven,” Rev Prof John Lukwata reminded him of Matthew 18:18 in response.

The beatification itself was an oddly fascinating event with a decree from the Holy Father (Pope Francis) read in Latin to an audience of mostly Kikuyu speakers. Her remains and relics were transferred and everyone made a big fuss over them.

UGANADAN MATYRS

That Blessed Irene Stefani lived an exceptional life is not in doubt. However, the miracle water appearing in Mozambique attributed to her is open to scrutiny and doubt.

The Catholic Church has always topped my unofficial ranking of drama value in mainstream churches, excluding Dini ya Msambwa, Roho Maler and other lesser sects. I’m sorely lacking in the theological chops to dissect the Biblical basis of the process to sainthood.

It is, however, a television event that ticks all the right colour and music boxes producers love to air.

Can someone be accepted into heaven and gain favour with the Lord when such a ceremony is held in their honour?

I have no idea but wonder why a person who is still living cannot be considered for sainthood.

Years ago, a much younger and impressionable version of me in the first year of high school made the journey to Uganda to visit the shrine of the martyrs in Namugongo.

It seemed so unfair, these people who were willing to die for Christianity, and God let it happen.

Consider that against the backdrop of the Christian Union students at the Garissa University College who woke up at 5am to pray and were the first to be killed by terrorists.

I spoke to their colleagues who were stunned by the evident unfairness of that situation and feel God should have spared them.

I didn’t know what to tell them.

Giovanni doesn’t believe in the Trinity — the idea of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as one — and says it has its roots in ancient pagan traditions.

But who knows what to believe and how to get to heaven for sure?

We do have a knack glorifying the absurd

WHAT DO SALMA MBUVI, Laura Oyier, Joyce Omondi and Ange Kagame have in common? Nothing, actually.

Sonko’s daughter almost blew up the Internet when she casually showed off a gun on her Instagram page, while Laura, who’s claim to fame is still inexplicable, launched a luxury line of water that goes for Sh800 for a 750ml bottle.

The singer and TV presenter, Joyce ,graduated with a Master of Science in foreign affairs from Georgetown University in Washington DC while President Kagame’s daughter also graduated with a degree in political science from Smith’s College in Massachusetts.

If you were a little girl looking for a role model, who would you be following closely? My guess is, Salma and Laura are probably getting more attention than Joyce and Ange.

What does that say about a society that glorifies theatrics and unpaid hotel bills over actual accomplishment?

The media gets a bad rap for shining a spotlight on the wrong people but this one was not the doing of the media.

Kenyans just seem to be attracted to the shallow and the myopic over the inspirational and the extraordinary.

Best to end with the Bible’s wisdom: “If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.”

Nkurunziza plays football while Burundi burns

WATCHING BURUNDIAN PRESIDENT Pierre Nkurunziza play football reminded me of Emperor Nero, who “fiddled while Rome burned.”

Demonstrations continued in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, and the BBC even reported that a protestor had been shot dead that very same day. But the qualified football coach-turned-president is hellbent on running for a third term and won’t be bothered.

Even a failed coup and his fortuitous return to the helm hasn’t softened him the least bit. Nkurunziza is a living stereotype of the African president who just won’t leave, even when his people have long since lost interest in him.

His argument for a third term may hold water on a technical level, but isn’t the voice of the people supposed to be the voice of God?

To mark the 10th anniversary of the last civil war, which lasted 12 year, Nkurunziza seems keen to plunge the country right back into civil war. Proceed.