Who is God in the context of political power and social wellbeing? I confront this question not as a theologian or a scholar or a politician or a lawyer but as a Kenyan born in a poor middle-class family in Kakrao village, Suna, Migori county. My initial interaction with Christianity was first through the Sunday School classes where we sat on the papyrus mat as the teacher narrated to us biblical stories. I was to later encounter the power of faith more profoundly through the midnight prayers of my mother shortly after my father’s demise.

The central theme of the summons of my childhood and teenage years was “love your neighbour as you love yourself”. It was a brand of faith that was premised on the greatest good, for the greatest number of people. It is the type of faith that opened my parents’ heart to open an orphanage for children who had lost parents at the time when HIV/Aids was the biggest existential threat in our side of the world. As I grew older, my inquisitive mind pushed me to attempt to appreciate God in a more logical and intellectual standpoint. I must admit that I was struck by contradictions but certain things became clearer. One is that God is more than just the god of guilt, of prohibition, of dogmas and punishment. After a sustained effort to scour through the main religious books, I got to the understanding that God is certainly more than John Calvin’s chilling conclusion that God loved Jacob but hated Esau. As a Christian, my appreciation of God is that of mercy, grace, redemption and to make sense it must encompass love.

In the background of Shakahola tragedy, a man purporting to be a minister of gospel but preaching despondency is perhaps not a minister of Christ. I am making that statement with abundance of caution lest I am assailed with “Thou shall not touch the anointed.” But the enduring question about the Good News International fellow is “where is his Christian optimism?” Matthew 7:16-17 tells us that we will know the those who claim to be of the LORD by their fruits. It says Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. The bible tells me that God loved the world so much that He created man in his own image and likeness to rule over it and to enjoy it. The other pressing question is, what is the role of the State in this?

Whereas the Constitution provides that there shall be no state religion it must be understood that the government is our own creation through the social contract to promote our general welfare, including keeping us safe from predators in the name of God. That includes deliberately engaging in programme of social uplift that does not leave a huge swathe of the populace anxious and without a sense of direction that leaves them easy preys to predators of whichever shade or colour.

It is indeed an indictment to the mindset of tenderprenuership and influence peddling that rests on the premise that if the rich, the fortunate, the politically connected have access to Government opportunities, then personal charity will induce them to take care of the rest of us.

For those who died and were buried without the law enforcement agencies’ knowledge, we owe it to them that we stamp out religious outfits that operate in our country with neither a soul nor conscience.

In a country where 80  per cent of the population is said to be Christians, have we been consumed by the sin of negativity so much so that like the Israelites in their sojourn to the promised land, we are willing to believe in anything? Faith, we must all remember is not a call to escape the world but to embrace it. To maintain God’s order and to let God’s love reign supreme. This is attainable if we embrace life of love, other pressures of life notwithstanding.

— The writer is a governance and policy expert