Religion and Politics in Kenya

Religion and Politics in Kenya Religion and Politics in Kenya Essays in Honor of a Meddlesome Priest Edited by Ben Knighton religion and politics in kenya Copyright © Ben Knighton, 2009. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-61487-1 All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States - a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-37861-6 ISBN 978-0-230-10051-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230100510 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. Religion and politics in Kenya : essays in honor of a meddlesome priest. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Christianity and politics–Kenya–History–20th century. 2. Christianity and politics– Kenya–History–21st century. 3. Religion and politics–Kenya–History–20th century. 4. Religion and politics–Kenya–History–21st century. 5. Gitari, David M.–Political and social views. 6. Anglican Church of Kenya–History. 7. Kenya–Church history. 8. Kenya–Religion. 9. Kenya–Politics and government–1963-1978. 10. Kenya–Politics and government–1978-2002. I. Knighton, Ben. BR1443.K4R45 2009 322’.109676209045–dc22 2009003949 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Macmillan Publishing Solutions. First edition: September 2009 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Wanja, Rachel Nyawira, Charis Makena, Joel Munene, and Rosh Murimi Contents List of Tables and Figures ix Preface and Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xv Notes on the Contributors xix 1 Introduction: Strange but Inevitable Bedfellows Ben Knighton 1 I The Religious Background to Politics in Kenya 55 2 Compromised Critics: Religion in Kenya’s Politics John Lonsdale 57 3 Faith Engaging Politics: The Preaching of the Kingdom of God Paddy Benson 95 II The Bishop Meddling in Politics 4 “Was There No Naboth to Say No?” Using the Pulpit in the Struggle for Democracy: The Anglican Church, Bishop Gitari, and Kenyan Politics Galia Sabar 5 6 123 Meddling on to 2008: Is There Any Relevance for Gitari’s Model in the Aftermath of Ethnic Violence? Julius Gathogo 143 The Church and Islam: Vyama Vingi (Multipartyism) and the Ufungamano Talks John Chesworth 155 III The Churches’ Involvement in Contemporary Issues 7 121 The NCCK and the Struggle Against ”Ethnic Clashes” in Kenya Jacqueline Klopp 181 183 viii Contents 8 Christianity Co-opted Paul Gifford 201 9 Muingiki Madness Ben Knighton 223 Bibliography 251 Index 281 List of Tables and Figures Tables 1.1 Religious Affiliations in Kenya, 1970–2025 41 6.1 Results of the Referendum for Each Province 175 9.1 Market Share of Kenyan National Newspapers 228 Figures 1.1 Bishop Gitari conducting a service of confirmation and communion at St. Andrew’s Church, Kabare, on 3 April 1994 15 1.2 President Moi speaking at Kitale stadium at the enthronement of Bishop Stephen Kewasis by Archbishop Gitari on 20 July 1997 34 6.1 An Orange rally led by Musyoka Kalonzo, now Vice-President, at Kapenguria, Transnzoia District, on 10 October 2005 175 Preface and Acknowledgments First of all, I must thank all the contributors to this volume, without whom it would not have been possible. All of them have long experience of Kenya and have published in the area of this topic before, as the bibliography bears witness. They have endured my editing with great fortitude and support. Special thanks are due to John Lonsdale, who committed himself early to a large contribution and gave me some very helpful advice. A joint paper by two Kenyans was to have been included, but given the emotionally disturbing events in their home country during 2008, it is not surprising that they were not able to produce their chapter in the end. Between them, the contributors have set out an intriguing balance of tensions, for each part presents a case for and against the contribution of religions in Kenyan politics—for them making a valuable difference on behalf of people and nation or for them being sucked in to the venality and elitism of state politics. It is left to the reader to learn and decide from this appropriate dialectic. Are the churches compromised and co-opted or are they reforming and transforming politics? In which direction is the trend now moving? Of course a religion that was not rooted in contemporary culture would not have the leverage to affect it, but a church that has lost its saltiness will not stop the rot. Where is the balance to be drawn and who is to regulate it? Again this book would not have happened but for the “famous four” Protestant clergy, who put their heads above the parapet when many refused to do so and faced the onslaught of the powers that be. There are all too few in their own denominations and in Africa who have had such a ministry as Henry Okullu, David Gitari, Timothy Njoya, and Alexander Muge. Gitari’s Episcopal Roman Catholic contemporary, Archbishop Ndingi Mwana’a Nzeki, also deserves a mention, though I personally never had the opportunity to enter his sphere during my nine-year service of the Anglican church in East Africa. Between them they have made a difference in Kenya’s history, especially when compared xii Preface and Acknowledgments with Uganda’s. Each had a burning concern arising out of their faith that justice be done in the world, which transcended personal ambition or gain. They knowingly risked much, and in a different time or place, could have paid a higher penalty than they did. Many would say that Muge paid the highest price with his early death on the road. While the book is centered on issues and processes rather than personalities, the topic’s focus is given by the work of the former archbishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya, David Gitari, who of the four has had the longest-running influence and the most structural. Though he retired in 2002, the contributors have taken their analysis forward to the traumatic events of 2008. I am particularly grateful to David Gitari and the Church Mission Society for giving me seven years in which to watch this process at close quarters and to encourage it in a younger generation of clergy who are yet to rise to the top, though several have already become bishops or doctors of the church. The dearth of prophecy will not be forever. I am grateful to those former students, and others who knew me less, for enabling my access to rich oral evidence, though not much of it has been brought into this book. I heartily thank the sometime members of St Andrew’s College, Kabare, particularly my faithful colleague Justus Mbogo, for energizing my activity in Kenya and for their welcome on my repeated returns since. In producing the book, I was helped by Caroline Mose, now embarked on her doctoral studies in University College, London, who performed some copyediting work. Thanks are due to Luba Ostashevsky, Colleen Lawrie, Laura Lancaster, and the production team of Palgrave Macmillan for selecting this project, holding on to it, and enabling its completion. The Oxford Centre for Mission Studies allowed me reading time and its library resources for me to continue my education in the topic of this book while being employed by them. My students there may have found us discussing Kenyan affairs not directly related to their research topic. Above all I must give gratitude to the one who led me most unexpectedly to Africa in the first place, through the agency of Philip Price and John Stott, obliging me to attend to, and so to understand, the other. The African Studies Centre in the University of Oxford, where my wife, Wanja, serves as Administrator, has attracted many “Kenyanists” over the last decade to Oxford. They are represented by name in the bibliography, but their ideas have been an aural stimulant of the highest quality! Last, but no means least, I express my appreciation to my family who bore most of the cost of this nocturnal vigil. If they read this book, Preface and Acknowledgments xiii they might come to understand why their father or husband was so preoccupied with matters on the computer when not attending to their worthy interests. However, they too are learning to study and to think for themselves. Dr Ben Knighton St Crispin’s Day 2008 (According to legend, Crispin and his brother were beheaded on account of Roman imperial politics on 25 October 286) Abbreviations AASR African Association for the Study of Religions ACK Anglican Church of Kenya (previously known as CPK) ACNS Anglican Communion News Service A-G Attorney-General AIC African Inland Church AICs African Instituted Churches AIDS Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome BBC British Broadcasting Corporation BCMS Bible Churchmen’s Missionary Society (now Crosslinks) CCK Christian Council of Kenya CITAM Christ Is The Answer Ministries CKRC Constitution of Kenya Review Commission CMI Chr. Michelsen Institute (Bergen) CMS Church Mission(ary) Society CPK Church of the Province of Kenya (now known as ACK) DD Doctor of Divinity DP Democratic Party EAK Evangelical Alliance of Kenya EATWOT Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians ECK Electoral Commission of Kenya EFAC Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion xvi Abbreviations EFK Evangelical Fellowship of Kenya FGC Female Genital Cutting FGM Female Genital Mutilation FOCUS Fellowship of Christian Unions FORD-Asili Forum for the Restoration of Democracy-Asili FORD-Kenya Forum for the Restoration of Democracy-Kenya GEMA Gikuyu Embu Meru Association GSU General Service Unit HE His Excellency HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus IDP internally displaced person INFEMIT International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians IPK Islamic Party of Kenya ISITA Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa KADU Kenya African Democratic Union KAG Kenya Assemblies of God KANU Kenya African National Union KAYO Kenyan Anglican Youth Organization KBC Kenya Broadcasting Corporation KEC Kenya Episcopal Conference KENDA Kenya National Democratic Alliance KENYA Kenya National Youth Alliance KGGCU Kenya Grain Growers Co-operative Union KNC Kenya National Congress KPCU Kenya Planters Co-operative Union KPU Kenya Peoples’ Union KSC Kenya Social Congress KSCF Kenya Students Christian Fellowship Abbreviations xvii MBS Moran of the Burning Spear MEWA Muslim Education and Welfare Association (Mombasa) MoU Memorandum of Understanding MP Member of Parliament NAMLEF National Muslim Leaders Forum NARC National Alliance of Rainbow Coalition NCC National Constitutional Conference NCCK National Council of Churches of Kenya (or Christian Council of ) NGO non-governmental organization NTV Nation TV ODM Orange Democratic Movement PAFES Pan-African Fellowship of Evangelical Students PCEA Presbyterian Church of East Africa PICK Party of Independent Candidates of Kenya PNU Party of National Unity PROCMURA Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa PSC Parliamentary Select Committee RC Roman Catholic RGC Redeemed Gospel Church SDA Seventh-day Adventist SUPKEM Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims TEE Theological Education by Extension UECK United Evangelical Churches of Kenya UK United Kingdom UMA United Muslims of Africa UNDP United Nations Development Programme US(A) United States (of America) WCC World Council of Churches Notes on the Contributors Paddy Benson After reading Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at Oxford, Paddy Benson worked for some years for a publishing firm, before taking a BD degree at Trinity College, Bristol. Following missionary training at All Nations Christian College, he worked for the Anglican Church of Kenya with Crosslinks and became Acting Director of Communications to Bishop David Gitari at a time of vigorous engagement between church and state. Presently Vicar of Christ Church Barnston on the Wirral, he values links with the worldwide church, especially in Kenya. For ten years he was part of the planning group of the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion (EFAC), convening theological seminars for some of the rising stars among Evangelical Anglican theologians from the majority world. He has published “The Church’s Witness to the Living God in Social and Political Structures in Contemporary Africa,” in Gitari and Benson The Living God and “Ideological Politics versus Biblical Hermeneutics,” in Hansen and Twaddle, Religion and Politics in East Africa. He is married to Eleanor, who is head of a church secondary school and they have three adult children. John Chesworth John Chesworth spent almost 20 years working in theological education in Tanzania and Kenya and established an MA course in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at St. Paul’s University, Limuru. He has just completed a doctoral thesis on the use of the Bible and the Qur’an in Swahili in Muslim and Christian outreach in East Africa. Now based in Oxford, he is working as a lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies. His recent publications include: “Challenges to the Next Christendom: Islam in Africa,” in Wijsen and Schreiter xx Notes on the Contributors Global Christianity: Contested Claims and “Fundamentalism and Outreach Strategies in East Africa: Christian Evangelism and Muslim DaÝwa,” in Soares, Muslim-Christian Encounters in Africa. Julius Gathogo Dr. Gathogo is a full-time lecturer in Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Mombasa Campus of Kenyatta University. He also lectures in Theology in the postgraduate program at Daystar University, Nairobi Campus. He completed his Ph.D from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2006. Since then, he has published over a dozen journal articles in various parts of the world. This includes his publications in Swedish Missiological Themes; Black Theology Journal, UK; African Theological Journal, Tanzania; Journal of Theology for Southern Africa; and Churchman, UK, among others. Paul Gifford Paul is Professor of African Christianity at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London. In the early 1990s, he did research for the All Africa Conference of Churches in Nairobi. He has written extensively in publications on churches in Africa with Christianity and Politics in Doe’s Liberia; African Christianity: its Public Role; Ghana’s New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a Globalising African Economy, and this year, Christianity, Politics and Public life in Kenya, as well as widely read, edited volumes. JACQUELINE M. KLOPP Jackie is Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Her research focuses on the connections between democratization, violence, internal displacement, and corruption around land. Klopp is the author of articles for Africa Today, African Studies Review, African Studies, Canadian Journal of African Studies, Comparative Politics, Forced Migration Review, and the International Peace Academy. She is currently working on a book “Land, Violence, and Democratization in Kenya.” Klopp received her BA from Harvard University and her Ph.D in Political Science from McGill University. Ben Knighton Ben was born on a farm in England, and read for degrees at the universities of Nottingham and Durham. He first went to Africa in January 1984, out Notes on the Contributors xxi of which arose his doctoral thesis on a pastoralist people of East Africa, his monograph on traditional Karamojong religion, and his Fellowship in the Royal Anthropological Institute. From 1991, he was a Tutor, Director of Academia, Vice-Principal, and Principal in St. Andrew’s College, Kabare. Since 1998 he has been involved in leading the Research Programme in the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, enabling church people from the Two-Thirds World churches to read for their Ph.D and MPhil., while also conducting personal research among the Gikuyu of Kenya. Among his publications are: “The State as Raider among the Karamojong: ‘Where there are no guns, they use the threat of guns,’” Africa; a monograph, The Vitality of Karamojong Religion: Dying Tradition or Living Faith; and “Multireligious Responses to Globalization in East Africa: Karamojong ~yu ~ Compared” in Transformation. With Prof. Terence Ranger and Agi~ku he teaches the MSc. course in “Gods, Kings, and Prophets” for the Africa Studies Centre in the University of Oxford. He is Honorary Treasurer for the African Studies Association of the UK. John Lonsdale His father having served as a chaplain in Kenya, John Lonsdale has never ceased observing and studying the country over the course of his subsequent life. He retired as Professor of Modern African History at the University of Cambridge in 2004 and continues as Fellow of Trinity College. He has served as President of the African Studies Association of the UK. With Bruce Berman he published Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa, and, with Atieno Odhiambo, Mau Mau and Nationhood. He put great care into writing “Kikuyu Christianities: A History of Intimate Diversity” in Maxwell and Lawrie, Christianity and the African Imagination: Essays in honour of Adrian Hastings. Major publications are expected on modern Kenyan history. Galia Sabar Dr. Sabar is Chair of African Studies in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University. She has two major fields of research. One focuses on the processes leading to the establishment of African communities in Israel and on their sociopolitical characteristics. Special interest is devoted to their religious life and on the significance and position of specific forms of African religion in non-African societies in the context of present waves of overseas migration. The other concerns state, society, and religion in East Africa, where xxii Notes on the Contributors she has analysed the interaction between politics and religion in various African countries. The main focus is on the role of churches in East Africa’s sociopolitical arena and how the churches established themselves as central forces in society and in the state by assuming responsibility for education, health care, and economic-oriented services to citizens. Her monograph, Church, State and Society in Kenya—From Mediation to Opposition, 1963–1993 is most pertinent for this volume.