Church’s dilemma: to receive or reject politicians’ money?

A story is told of how one Sunday the then Bishop of the Church of the Province of Kenya (now Anglican Church of Kenya) Maseno South Diocese, John Henry Okullu, held the annual thanksgiving service at the St Stephen’s Cathedral in Kisumu Town and invited all the provincial and district government heads.

Being a mere thanksgiving, the civil servants saw no harm in going to the church that to many in the eyes of the government was the bastion of the then non-existent opposition.

All was well until the late Bishop Okullu, in his characteristic no holds barred style, tore into the one party state saying it was not good for Kenya. .

The senior civil servants soon made a beeline for the exit, lest their presence be seen as indirectly supporting Okullu’s views.

ACTIVISM

This cat and mouse relationship largely defined the working arrangement of the government and the church before the repulsion of Section 2 (a) of the Constitution, paving the way for multiparty politics.

In those days politicians feared association with church leaders, especially of the protestant stripes.

Outstanding in this fiery brigade were Bishop Okullu, the late David Gitari who rose to be archbishop, Timothy Njoya of the PCEA and Mutava Musyimi of Nairobi Baptist Church.

Fast forward and the church-state relationship is back in sharp focus with the marriage looked at through the lens of the vice of corruption that is threatening the very existence of the country and the very Kenyan tradition of fundraising.

HARAMBEE

It is against this milieu that the head of the Anglican Church of Kenya, Archbishop Jackson ole Sapit, on Tuesday brought the debate to the fore when he declared:

“If you are to come to worship, come with your resources. And let us, as the church, also learn to mobilise resources for our development agenda and do it quietly, not with the hype that takes us off the pulpit. Let us not allow harambee money to become a subtle way of sanitising corrupt leaders.”

The primate decried what he termed the “hype” with which the clergy received money from politicians.

Furthermore, Archbishop Sapit said his church would in future look into the whole matter of fundraisers being held in churches.

What many observers will be left asking is whether the new rule would be enforced seeing that many churches are faced with the ever present reality of shortage of resources.

GRAFT WAR

It was instructive that Archbishop Sapit’s caution came just a day after a clergy from his own church, Bishop Timothy Gichere of the ACK Mt Kenya Central Diocese, said that no one should label or condemn others as corrupt as one is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

“When leaders come to church and contribute money with clean hearts, we can’t decline because we are not in a position to know if the money is gotten [through] corruption, and we are not there to rebuke and label people as corrupt because that is the obligation of the courts.”

As calls for a more vicious fight against corruption reach a crescendo, the church is finding itself in an awkward situation, with constant accusations that it is supporting the vice.

As politicians invade church pulpits with sacks of cash for one project after another, they are tearing into each other over whether the money is clean or dirty.

SUCCESSION

If you throw into this cauldron the small matter of the raging Uhuru Kenyatta succession debate then you have in your hands an explosive situation.

Coming under intense scrutiny with each passing day is Deputy President William Ruto whose generosity to churches is legendary.

Mr Ruto’s deep pockets are always dripping with cash which he shares with whichever church invites him for fundraising.

Many of his detractors accuse him of using these fundraisers to launder money. Not that anyone has come up with proof of these allegations, accusations which the DP attributes to his opponents whom he says would rather channel their wealth to ungodly enterprises.

Perhaps the DP’s background contributes to this. While at university, Mr Ruto and a host of others formed what is known as the North Rift Evangelistic Team (NORET) whose work was to traverse the expansive region in their evangelism missions.

MONEY LAUNDERING

Perhaps it was during those missionary journeys that Mr Ruto saw firsthand the dire straits the Kenyan church was in, hence the call to donate.

If there is one man who will be overjoyed by Archbishop Sapit’s latest stand, it must be ODM leader Raila Odinga, who has sparred with Mr Ruto over almost every topic under the sun.

He has been in the forefront calling on Mr Ruto to account for his largesse to the church.

Mr Odinga, a proclaimed Anglican, has always insisted that his former protégé turned foe has a suspicious source of money which he dishes out liberally to churches.

“Churches are being used to launder money acquired through corruption. Those who launder money come to churches on weekends for harambees and people clap for them without questioning where the money is coming from.

"We know that his salary is only Sh1 million per month while he goes ahead to give out up to Sh100 million per month,” he said.

CHURCH PROJECTS

But in a swift rejoinder, head of Episcopal Church in Kenya Bishop Joshua Koyo and the head of the Anglican Church of Kenya, Maseno South Diocese, Bishop Charles Onginjo, told Mr Odinga to respect institutions.

The two pointed out that churches have development projects to undertake that need financial support from well-wishers.

“We have a forum to speak against corruption, but we do not have the power to apprehend the culprits and take them to court. Therefore, we should not be blamed,” said Bishop Koyo.

Perhaps for now the church leaders should borrow a line from Archbishop Gitari’s autobiography, Troubled But Not Destroyed, in which he says the relationship between church and state should be like that of human beings and fire — if you stay too far away you might freeze and if you move too close you might get burnt.