Turning the pulpit into a political stage

It is a Sunday afternoon and I am attending mass at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Ongata Rongai.

The church is packed. Those who could not make it inside are standing outside, peeping through the windows, or sitting by the staircase, following the proceedings on loudspeakers.

It is not your typical Sunday at this church. A quick glance at the parking lot explains the sudden surge in attendance.

The hot afternoon sunlight bounces off the shiny surfaces of fuel guzzlers bearing government number plates. Deputy President William Ruto and his wife are here.

After the main service, the priest asks the congregation not to leave because the special guest has something to say. But he might as well have saved his breath because no one wants to leave, not when the Deputy President is around.

SACRED SHRINES

Mr Ruto walks to the pulpit, greets the congregation and is soon telling them that the Jubilee government will not be derailed by the then impending Saba Saba rally.

About 400 kilometres away, President Uhuru Kenyatta is telling members of AIC Baraka Church in Trans Nzoia County that the government will not spend time politicking with the Opposition as if it were campaign season. He asks those questioning his presidency to wait until the next election.

It seems as if there is an unwritten rule in Kenya — and in many African countries — that whenever a politician or government official visits a church, he or she must be given VIP treatment.

He/she gets the senior pastor’s parking lot, a VIP seat in the front pew, and after the service, a chance to address the congregation. In fact, it is considered odd for a politician to attend a church service and leave without addressing the congregation.

So the leaders come prepared to speak in churches, and even at funerals. They carry prepared speeches and their public relations officers send press invites to media houses in advance.

What might appear like a purely spontaneous invitation by the pastor is a pre-planned press conference to the reporters and cameramen accompanying the politician to church.

Recently, columnist Rasnah Warah questioned this trend: “In Kenya, the vilest, most corrupt politicians are allowed to stand in houses of worship and preach to congregations.

“In our highly unequal country, not all believers are equal in the eyes of God. Politicians have a special place in our churches, mosques and temples,” she wrote.

But the question that arises, and often remains unanswered, is, how did we get here?

When did houses of prayer become political playgrounds? Indeed, it is remarkable that churches, which do not allow ordinary members to address congregations, have no qualms about letting politicians use the same “sacred space” to criticise their rivals?

“We will not find the explanation by looking at politicians,” Barrack Muluka, a political analyst, says.

“It is the responsibility of the church custodians to protect the sanctity of their shrines. A politician is a person who is always looking for any opportunity to vent, no matter how sacred the platform.”

Mr Muluka insists that if we must look at politicians for an answer, then we are more likely to find an explanation in their pockets.

“It started during the Nyayo era,” he offers. “Church leaders opened their doors to political leaders because they always came with tokens. Whenever former president Daniel arap Moi visited a church, he would give a sizeable amount of money to the church.”

These “offerings” were described as “a donation for the stalled church project” or “ for the furtherance of the Gospel.”

BOWING TO POLITICIANS

During the service at St Mary’s Church, the DP presented Sh200,000 in cash to the priest. The applause that followed literally shook the building.

He explained that the money was for a church project or something to that effect. I can’t remember the details.

The practice cuts across denominations. From the most liberal churches to the most conservative, the shift in the leaders’ behaviour before a VIP is the same.

The usually fiery and no-nonsense pastor will become as meek as a mouse in the presence of a Member of Parliament.

He will give up his seat, Bible, and even bottle of water, to please the politician.

“Isn’t it scandalous how, in the one place where the political leader is supposed to be equal to the mwananchi, the one place where the leader is supposed to bow, we find church leaders instead bowing to the politician?” asks Muluka.

Perhaps the financial gains might explain this temporary abandonment of church tradition. Yet this doesn’t seem a sufficient reason, especially in churches where money is not a major challenge.

Pastor Mwangi Muchiri of Mamlaka Hill Chapel says what we are seeing is a phenomenon embedded in who we are as human beings. The culture of hero-worship might be especially visible in Africa, but it is a universal problem.

“It is rather strange how easily we submit to the symbols of power in our society. The fact that church leaders, and I am speaking as one of them, would be awestruck by a politician visiting his church is merely incidental.

“It happens everywhere, in our homes, at our offices, on the streets. Hero worship is in our blood as Kenyans,” he argues.

Pastor Mwangi directs me to a verse in the Bible showing that this problem is not unique to the church in Kenya, or Africa. It is not even unique to the 21st Century church.

“Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in,” says Apostle James in the New Testament,

“If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there’ or ‘Sit on the floor by my feet, have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

It is in the light of these and similar biblical teachings that some African church leaders strongly oppose politicians who want to desecrate the pulpit.

But their protests often go unheard and their lament is overshadowed by colleagues all too eager to have the politicians “gracing” their pulpits.

For most religious leaders, though, this opposition seems to be in principle rather than practice.

THIRST FOR POWER

Earlier this year, Nigerian Catholic Archbishop of Jos, Ignatius Kaigama, told politicians to take their war of words to the villages, not the churches.

He said politicians in the country had converted pulpits into battlegrounds for firing their oratory bullets while the average villager was drowning in poverty. 

“All we want are politicians who are ready to serve Nigeria. The people have suffered enough. The politicians who get into power concentrate their whole energy on helping themselves,” he said.

In his rage, he revealed a possible explanation for the connection between the pulpit and politics.

The primary means of communication from the pulpit is the spoken word, and that is the domain in which politics thrives best.

A reverently attentive crowd, a microphone and an elevated podium is every politician’s dream, as Mr Muluka pointed out earlier on.

Political leaders thirst for power more than anything else (plus of course, the money that comes with it), and the church provides a perfect venue for leveraging both.

First, the atmosphere of reverence that comes from being in a “house of worship” means that people are much more likely to be persuaded.

Many people cannot imagine anyone lying in church. Politicians know this and use it to their advantage.

Politicians also seem to have this ability to transcend denominational restrictions.

In a month, you will see the same leader caressing the rosary the first Sunday, speaking in tongues the next, and singing hymns on the third. Some even convert from Christianity to Islam and back within a week.

And isn’t that what makes a good politician – the ability to adjust and fit into different contexts and situations and use them to their advantage?