When Ruto and the Church began reading from different scriptures

President William Ruto’s climbdown on the multibillion-shilling State tenders that were earlier awarded to the scandal-riddled Adani Group of Companies marks the lowest moment for a troubled regime, after the June-July Gen Z uprisings.  

The sobering retreat comes in the wake of a spirited onslaught against the Kenya Kwanza regime by the faith-based community in the country, following widespread citizens’ restlessness with the regime on a wide berth of issues.

Dissatisfaction with the State within the religious community has simmered beneath the surface for a while now, with subtle dropping of hints every so often. With the State failing to pick the cue, this disaffection has in recent months begun breaking through the integuments, starting with a tirade by a former Ruto ally, Bishop Margaret Wanjiru of the Jesus Is Alive Missions (JIAM), on March 6. 

On that day, State operatives invaded her shrine, intending to demolish it. An irate Wanjiru regretted having campaigned for Ruto, his UDA Party, and Kenya Kwanza in 2022. She labelled them land grabbers who do not respect the rule of law.

Wanjiru’s harangue against the Ruto regime was only an inoculation against what was to follow. 

Biblical story  

Last week’s excoriation by the Kenya Catholic Bishops Conference was the proverbial sucker punch. The blizzard on Thursday, November 14, descended like a tonne of bricks. It caught State propagandists unawares, leaving them breathless, and sending them scampering for a dozen, or so, kneejerk rebuttals that just as soon went into the backpedal.

The initial response by the State was to fly into a flurry of personalised invective against Bishop Anthony Muheria, whom State spin doctors painted in appalling colours. Among other things, they accused him of joining the Opposition and playing tribal politics. President Ruto himself accused the Church of telling lies.

But with other Christian fraternities chiming in, in rhythm with the 29 Catholic bishops who signed the scathing statement, State House soon realised that it was spinning itself into a complex spider’s web, out of which it would be hard placed to disentangle itself. It has since embraced a more conciliatory approach. Accordingly, President Ruto admits the “possibility of making mistakes sometimes”, and of “sometimes living below expectations.” He says that he welcomes criticism and correction from the Church. However, all this comes in the wake of an ever-expanding terrain of criticism against what are seen as sins of omission and commission against the electorate by what is perceived to be a self-serving government, out of tune with the people and their plight. The bishops’ press release of November 14 spoke of a happy-go-lucky regime, whose philosophy of government is at odds with common mandates for which individuals and political parties seek election.  

READ: Clergy turn up the heat amid debate on Ruto’s rejected millions

It is instructive that as part of his effort to right the situation, President Ruto joined worshippers at a Sunday service in Nairobi’s Soweto Catholic Church, where he made a generous cash donation to the choir. He promised to give millions more within the ended week. If the President’s strategy was to excite base instincts of craving for funds, the plan hit a snag. While it has worked well with other denominations, he was in for a rude shock when, two days later, the church, through Bishop Philip Anyolo, rejected the largesse. They termed it unlawful and against the ethics of the Catholic church. But in a fashion that resembles the biblical story of Naaman who was healed of leprosy (2 Kings 5 – 27), some in the laity of the church gloated for the largesse, like Gehazi.

Gehazi was a personal assistant to Prophet Elisha who healed Naaman. He gloated for money that the prophet rejected after the healed leper offered it to him. Naaman’s leprosy was transferred to him. It will be interesting to see where the Soweto leprosy ends up. 

Meanwhile, however, one thing remains clear. All is no longer well between the Church and the State, or more correctly, between Ruto and the mainstream Church in Kenya. So, what has gone wrong between Ruto and the Church?

Personal churches

It will help to clarify that it is not the entire Christian fraternity in the country that supported Ruto’s election in 2022. While it is true that significant swathes of this fraternity vouched for him, it is inaccurate to state that mainstream churches as a whole rooted for Ruto.

The Catholic Church, the Anglicans, the Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and the Salvation Army, among others, have clearly defined and regimented methods and forums of deciding on critical issues of public import.

The position of an individual prelate may not, therefore, be taken as the position of the church. Like the Catholics, the Anglican church reaches its official position on issues through the House of Bishops.

The other denominations have their forums that mirror the Anglican House of Bishops and the Catholic Conference of Bishops. At no time did these forums resolve to vote for Ruto during his 2022 presidential bid. Some individual primates, however, may have covertly, and some even overtly, identified with his cause.  

Yet, it is also true that many evangelical churches, and other family-owned churches as well as personal churches, openly supported his bid. They also received huge cash donations from him, possibly in exchange. His opponents, led by Raila Odinga, scoffed at these donations, averring that they were proceeds of corruption. But Ruto retorted that he was a generous man. He was doing God’s work, he said.  

Ruto’s amity with evangelicals can be traced back to the constitutional debate of 2010. Then, Ruto joined the evangelical Red Cards (as opposed to the Green Cards). The Reds voted against the draft that became the Constitution of Kenya (2010).  

The Reds were hostile to the articles that spoke to matters of abortion and marriage. They often spun them out of both fact and proportion.

Their amity survived the times and spaces, to contribute to the 2022 Ruto victory. Yet, this did not include support from the Catholic church, or even the Anglicans, whom Team Ruto often openly accused of being antagonistic to his presidential bid. Still, the question remains, what has gone wrong between Ruto and the Church? Remarkably, even some of the most ardent evangelicals who supported him have openly regretted lending him their voices. Apart from Bishop Wanjiru, other notable criticisms have been from Teresia Wairimu (Faith Evangelistic Ministries) and Tony Kiama (River of God Church). 

What went wrong? 

The answer perhaps resides in the people’s reminder to church leaders in July that the people are the Church. In the wake of the Gen Z protests, Kenyans accused church leaders of silence in the midst of oppression by the State. They also accused them of complicity in the plight of the people. Gen Zs took umbrage with religious leaders who turned their pulpits into political platforms for politicians, “in exchange for money.” 

Showy class

They were concerned that while the cost of living was skyrocketing, an oppressive ecclesiastical class was hobnobbing with a corrupt and showy political class. Together, they were enjoying the fat of the land, while the rest of the nation languished in penury and indigence. The youth went as far as picketing in places of worship and barring politicians from speaking at Sunday services.  

READ: No, thank you, Catholic bishops reject Sh5.6 million donation from Ruto

But then the Gen Z protests gradually petered off, after Ruto reconfigured his Cabinet, to bring on board ODM stalwarts. Besides, the Executive completed the process of taking into hostage the Legislature. It has also made significant progress towards capturing the Judiciary, as a wide range of confounding court decisions attests. It is a matter that has openly shocked the Law Society of Kenya (LSK). With ODM, Parliament and the Judiciary more or less subdued, the Executive was beginning to enjoy a cosy place when the Catholic bishops struck. This should not surprise me, however. For, history shows that the mainstream Church in Kenya is in its element as the watchdog of society when everyone else has been conquered.  

In 1967, the National Christian Council of Kenya (NCCK) (later the National Council of Churches of Kenya) declared that it was going to play the role of the Opposition in the country. This was after President Jomo Kenyatta’s government had traumatised and neutralised the Opposition, following the political machinations of the period 1964– 1966. Although Jaramogi Oginga Odinga formed the Kenya People’s Union (KPU), following the infamous Limuru Conference of March 12–13, 1966, Kenyatta and the mercurial Tom Mboya had all but killed the Opposition in Kenya. 

Hence, NCCK became active, with Bishop Henry Okullu as the pivot around which the burning questions of the day were articulated. NCCK published the fiery Target and Lengo periodicals that made life uncomfortable for the Kenyatta government. They survived into the mid-1980s when the Moi regime banned them, alongside other critical publications like Bedan Mbugua’s Beyond, Pius Nyamora’s the People, and Salim Lone’s Viva. But the mainstream Church remained vigilant against State excesses, even now.

Besides Okullu, other strong critical voices were Anglican prelates Alexander Muge, Manases Kuria, David Gitari and Peter Njenga. Elsewhere, in the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, Timothy Njoya resonated in a lonely voice against the State. Twice, his church defrocked him for what they said was playing politics. Also active in PCEA, however, was John Gatu. In the Catholic fraternity, there was Bishop Ndingi Mwana a Nzeki of Nakuru, and Father Kaiser. These voices did not, however, constitute the official position of their denominations. Still, NCCK on the one hand, and the Episcopal Conference of Catholic Bishops on the other, would issue formal positions every so often.  

Rogue regime  

It is instructive that these voices reigned when every other institution and voice in the country had been rendered mute. Hence, when the question of where the mainstream churches are emerging from is raised, the answer is that they are the ultimate firewall as the people’s gatekeepers. They emerge from the woodwork when everyone else is either beaten or compromised. That was how, in the 1990s, they emerged to constitute the Ufungamano Constitutional Review Forum, very much against the wishes of the KANU hawks who straddled the place with draconian energy. For close to 15 years, they stood their ground, until Kenya got a new Constitution in 2010. They then retreated into their sanctuaries, to continue preaching the Gospel.  

That they are getting out of the woodwork today indicates that all is not well. Indeed, the issues raised in the Catholic bishops’ press statement are still playing out in the country. Only a few days after their statement, the world woke up to the shocking news that Ugandan Opposition leader, Kiza Besigye, had been abducted in Nairobi and secretly ferreted to Kampala. Angry Ugandan politicians have been seen in video clips in social media, berating the Kenya government as “a rogue regime that has surrendered its security to Uganda.” They also accuse the Uganda government of being another rogue regime. The two regimes have been accused, on both sides of the border, of constituting themselves into an axis of evil, that is liaising to abduct, torture and traumatise citizens. 

It is within this environment that the Catholic church in Kenya has emerged to decry the human rights situation in the country.

“We are appalled by the blatant recurring incidents of reported abductions, disappearances, torture, and killings of Kenyans. We also decry the increasing murder of women,” the bishops said.  

They also note that those who have suffered at the hands of the State had raised legitimate concerns about “rampant corruption within and outside the government.” They then asked, “Who is abducting these people, and is the government unable to stop these abductions and killings?”  

Worship Plutus  

Then there is the issue of the culture of lies. The Church is concerned that lies have become the most common currency in government in Kenya. “It is swiftly replacing the integrity and respect that Kenyans deserve  . . . Kenyans have helplessly tolerated the lies told to them constantly by politicians.”  Now, in Christendom, lies are ranked among the very worst of mortal sins. The Bible says of the devil and the liar, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44).”  

It is within this context that the scathing remarks on lies in the Ruto government have been made. According to the Church, by embracing what the bishops see as a culture of lies, the Ruto government has prepared itself to commit all the other sins against the people of Kenya. There are misplaced priorities and unkept promises that keep shifting with every new public pronouncement from on high. President Ruto has become the master of telling Kenyans how many billions of shillings have been set aside now for this project, and then for that project. About these promises, the Church has said to the people, “Kenyans must learn not to applaud or validate the lies that the politicians tell them, but rather resolve to be led by the truth.” 

The concerns, accordingly, spill over to address the plight of the people amidst failed promises around social health insurance under various alphabet soup formations under the Social Health Authority (SHA). Kenya is losing lives on a daily basis, out of the confusion that the demise of NHIF and the arrival of SHA has generated. There are challenges in a myriad of taxes. They speak to what can only be described as an uncaring regime. Then there is a failing education system that the State seems to be giving up on, and above all, the idolatry that is the worship of wealth.  

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But if politicians worship Plutus, the god of money, do some sections of the Church seem to worship the same god, too? The preaching of the Christian Gospel has steadily morphed from the Gospel of Salvation to the Gospel of Liberation, and today the Gospel of Prosperity. Christendom in Kenya is in full-blown pursuit of something called blessings.  

Line drawn  

The illusion of blessings leads millions every day to shrines and to cultic formations, to make obeisance to a god called Juno Moneta. Here, they “bless the pastor” with gifts. In turn, Moneta will be expected to bless them. In the process, a greedy population of people calling themselves Christians have opened themselves up to the kinds of lies that the Catholic church is now decrying. It takes a lot of moral courage to reject Naaman’s six million shillings. For, Naaman is likely to raise the figure, to make it more tempting. Or it might find its way back through Gehazi.  

Whatever the case, the mainstream Church has drawn the line on the ground. It will be of major interest to see whether they will protect the line, or if they will blink. President Ruto has blinked on Adani, after pouring so much praise on the sullied tenders to the Indian. Shamefully, Parliament, whose members had been neutered and tongue-tied on the scandalous Adani affair, gave Ruto a standing ovation when he announced the cancellation of the deals. This speaks to a dud legislature.

It would appear that the Church has its assignment cut out. It will have to do its spiritual work, as well as the representation and surveillance responsibilities of the Legislature. Very soon, too, the Church may have to stand in for a dying Judiciary, whose point of least resistance Kenya Kwanza has established. But, the political class will do well to know that we have been here before. And those who stood in the way of the Church eventually lost. Their replacements would seem poised to lose again.  

Dr Muluka is a strategic communications advisor