A pastor, patriarch and gender activist

President Uhuru Kenyatta addresses mourners during the funeral service of Rev John Gatu at PCEA Muteero Church on May 19, 2017. Rev Gatu was eulogised as a patriarch, but he was also a gender activist at heart and in practice. PHOTO | SAMUEL MIRING'U | PSCU

What you need to know:

  • Their idea was that women would bring to the church leadership something that men could not.
  • The Rev Gatu was deeply saddened by the deadlock on the two-thirds gender rule, a year beyond deadline.

The Reverend John Gachango Gatu was laid to rest on Friday in one of the largest recent gatherings of mourners.

The four-and-a-half hour service was not without its share of drama, with two armed thieves being gunned down in a car chase after they were caught red-handed breaking into mourners’ motor vehicles.

It is a statement on how low we have sunk as a people when even such a sombre moment, with the President, no less, in attendance, is robbed of its dignity.

WOMEN LEADERS
Having interviewed the iconic cleric nine months ago on a wide range of issues for The Way magazine, I know that he would have been deeply saddened by the near-invisibility of women in his funeral programme.

Fine, some two women members of the family were given a slot to recite a poem.

However, for a man who set a precedent for the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) by ordaining Nyambura Njoroge as the first female minister in 1982, I thought the funeral committee would have done better for the venerable church patriarch.

The many young and not-so-young Presbyterian women ministers at the funeral may take their positions for granted; but it took the Rev Gatu’s astuteness to go against the grain and get the church constitution changed to allow women’s ordination.

THEOLOGY STUDY

During last August’s two-hour interview with me, he revealed the behind-the-scenes struggle that preceded the 1976 PCEA General Assembly resolution to allow women to study theology and be ordained as church ministers.

“There was a long quarrel,” the Rev Gatu, who had just been sworn in as general secretary, said.

It is a mark of his profound humility that he did not hog the credit for opening up space for women.

He told of how he whispered to “a man with a very soft heart called Jeremiah Gitau” that there were young women crying to be allowed to study theology and become pastors.

That man was the Moderator of the General Assembly.


The subject was unpopular; “not even the Church of Scotland — the PCEA’s mother church — had ordained a woman.

Therefore, getting the General Assembly to vote for the ordination of women demanded strategy and audacity that only the Rev Gatu could muster.

What the moderator might not have known is that the Rev Gatu had already lined up two women — educationist Eddah Gachukia and Mrs Naomi Gatere — to address the assembly even though they were not its members.

They approached the issue gingerly: “We’re not claiming to be men; we are still women, (but) we are peculiar… there are things we can do, which you men can’t do. Every woman is very happy when suckling a baby. None of these people here can suckle one.”
Their idea was that women would bring to the church leadership something that men could not, just because of their peculiar nature as women.
“From that time, the climate changed and it was agreed that we could now ordain women,” said the Rev Gatu.
Isn’t it, therefore, scandalous that it was not seen fit to have a woman — even if not Dr Nyambura Njoroge — eulogise a man who had catapulted Presbyterian women to the ordained ministry?
The Rev Gatu was deeply saddened by the deadlock on the two-thirds gender rule, a year beyond deadline. “Our Constitution says that any group should not exist without a third being women. Now they’re kicking them out, even where they’ve had them.”
The Rev Gatu was eulogised as a patriarch, but he was also a gender activist at heart and in practice. He set the tradition of having both parents present the bride to the groom on their wedding day. We should never forget his contribution to respect for both sexes.

Ms Kweyu is a freelance writer and consulting editor. [email protected]