Last week, President William Ruto apologised to the church for an incident where police lobbed teargas outside a church in Kenol, Murang'a, two years ago, which left one person dead and others seriously injured. Ruto reiterated that places of worship are sacred, and government will respect all places of worship.
Faithful find comfort and peace as they seek their Maker in places of worship. However, some places of worship do not portray the image of peace and integrity. Cases of fights and malpractices have been reported in churches. The main causes of wrangles are thirst for leadership, negative ethnicity, property tassle and other vices.
In the last 10 years, many church leaders have trooped to courts to seek redress on leadership wrangles. For instance, in July 2021, the Seventh-day Adventist Church went to court in Nairobi seeking to stop Nairobi Cosmopolitan Conference splinter group using trademarks of the SDA church.
In 2018, a group of clergy after losing the bishop election for Anglican Church Diocese of Mombasa, went to court to stop the enthronement of the elected bishop. The court dismissed their petition.
These and many other cases in the public limelight portray a church that is losing its biblical role of being the salt of the earth. Instead, the church is fast becoming the disgrace of the earth.
Stories of church members being told to plant seed in the form of money in return for miracles are on the rise. Many members have fallen for this trick. The church members do not see or hear any evil. It’s only after seeing the light that the members speak out, when it’s too late.
Some of the churches are quickly fitting into German philosopher Karl Marx's description of religion as being the opium of the masses.
There are more than 14,000 registered churches in Kenya. It was not until 2014 that the government regulated the registration of the churches against complaints from many churches.
Despite having umbrella bodies such as the National Council of Churches of Kenya, the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya and the Kenya Conference of Pentecostal Churches, these have not helped weed out rogue religious leaders and briefcase churches.
In 2018, the Rwanda Governance Board, which registers faith-based and civil society organisations, implemented rules on the registration and operation of churches following an increase in fraud incidents in the churches.
President Paul Kagame was shocked to hear that there were more than 700 churches in Kigali that he asked whether they were boreholes that gave people water.
All the stringent measures put in place in Rwanda for church registration have not stopped members from worshipping God. Interestingly, Rwanda with its fewer churches is ranked the 52nd least corrupt country out of 180 countries. Kenya, with its many churches, was at position 128 out of 180 in the corruption perceptions index 2021.
To make the church sacred, the government should encourage the umbrella bodies to insist on integrity requirements for preachers to avoid individuals who call themselves bishops, pastors or apostles without having got the training.
Additionally, as the Pope apologised on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church in Chile for sexual abuse, the Kenyan church should be bold enough to apologise for its many wrangles. Without that, it will be a tall order for the church to be perceived as sacred.
Principal, Bishop Hannington Institute of Theology
