Kenya: State to regulate religious activities?

Ours has long become a country where anything that comes in God’s name is never subjected to scrutiny. And whenever questions and concerns get raised relating to religious issues, men and women of the cloth easily take umbrage. The recent religious delegation to State House to lobby President Uhuru Kenyatta to shelve proposed regulation of religious activities is certainly part of that reaction. The fact that the state has come to embrace religion to the point where it is unable to disentangle itself from the shackles of the bad, the negative and even the obnoxious in the name of religion is not in doubt. As the guardian of the common good, the state should independently scrutinize all religious activities and decide which pass as acceptable divine actions and those that are in breach of religious tenets.

Lobbying the state to withdraw the proposed regulation of religious activities is tantamount to blackmailing the government to allow the church have its way on matters that it has no power or capacity to control in the name of self-regulation. In a country where religion has also become a serious secular occupation and a source of income for so many people, it can no longer be left to self regulation

Lest I be misunderstood, there are genuine churches that engage in divine as well as secular activities that have had a profound bearing on shaping the country’s profile as a God fearing nation. But let us face it. We have all been witness to acts of religious betrayal by people in our midst who profess to be servants of the Lord. Ordinary folks have and continue to be robbed in daylight in the name of planting divine seeds and getting molested and misguided by people who daily prey on them in God’s name.

Kenyans watch live on television screens as characters with dubious religious credentials force, push, shove and wrestle worshipers to the ground in the name of exorcising demons. For a long time, the state has cohabited with the church to a point where it has become difficult to divorce one from the other. When it has suited it, the church has gone to the state to seek and secure favours. That is why the church has been listed as one of the institutions involved in illegal acquisition of land. It is also for the same reasons that the state has, over the years, given special attention to all manner of pilgrim preachers and evangelists from all corners of the world with many of them easily gaining access to state house.