Kenya, like other countries, has many religions and a scarcity of faith

Kenya suffers from many things. Among them is indulgence in excessive religion, built on shaky faith. Religion is, however, different from faith. While religion is collective and organisational, faith is individual and spiritual. Religion is a grouping that tends to give people social identity. Although it is a derivative of faith and supposedly serves faith, it is not and can never be a substitute for faith.

Instead, religion is an organisation that serves to buttress governance. As an instrument of governance, religious and governance centres tend to be next to each other or, in case of theocracies, are two rolled into one. Thus, palaces and cathedrals or palaces and grand Mosques are not far apart.

Colonial Kenya had a liberal attitude towards European missionaries. At the 1884 Berlin Conference on the Partition of Africa, participants had adopted an ‘open door policy’ for all sorts of Euro-Christian missionaries to compete in spreading different versions of Euro-Christianity.  

The competition was so intense that it led to religious zoning in such ways that some areas are predominantly Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Seventh Day Adventists, Roman Catholic, Salvationists, Baptists, or the Africa Inland Church. That rivalry, however, was heavy on religion and shallow on faith. As a result, Kenya has thousands of religions and a large scarcity of faith. It is not the only one.

The signal fire

The scarcity of faith in the world is evident in the various religious abuses, including invoking the Divine in war. Several American pastors went to the White House to ask God to protect Donald Trump in his war on Iran, which was supposedly “part of God’s divine plan”.

There were claims that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to earth.” Such claims led American-born Pope Leo XIV to condemn the Iran war as “a scandal to the whole human family” and asserted that Jesus rejected war.

In pressing a reluctant Britain to support his war, Trump made British General Sir Richard Shirreff dismiss the US president as simply a “gung-ho nutter”. Unlike Britain, Israel was “gung ho” and invoked the Divine in attacking Iran, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likening the Iranians to the biblical Amalekites that God supposedly ordered to be destroyed.

Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new Supreme Leader, talked of martyrdom, defence as a “sacred duty”, and the possible return of the Twelfth Imam to lead to the judgment day.  

When not using religion to justify violence and wars, internal wrangling over institutional power wielding, finances, and social standing dominate religion. Accusations of officials pilfering resources cut across denominations and religions.

At times, the wrangling culminates in physical engagements among the ‘pastors’ and their followers or church closures, with one group trying to lock another one out. In the process, they amuse onlookers by engaging in insults and hymn shouting contests.

The abuses are clear in religious cultism, which manipulates the faithful into material and psychological poverty. Some preachers accuse churches of devil worship. Others, particularly those spreading the prosperity gospel, gain fame and finances, while some congregants become delusional and cease to be normal.

Despite investigations showing various international mega preachers to be thieves, fraudsters, pyramid-schemers, miracle manufacturers, or sexual predators, they still command a following, especially in Africa. When Texan Benny Hinn flew to Kenya to preach and raise money in 2024, for instance, Pastor James Ng’ang’a termed him fraudulent and demanded the return of his money.

The Hinn saga exposes two problems: first, the friction between religion and faith and second, the challenge of cultural dependency, which, in the 1970s, led John Gatu to call for a moratorium on Euro-missionaries in Africa.

Although Hinn and his followers were religious, they had little faith or spirituality. Gatu attacked religious dependency, but not the faith, because dependency undermines faith. While religion relies on faith, it is not faith.