Church rooted in the cross refuses to be silenced by unchecked power

The church is built on One whose death the state authorised. The church was not born in a prayer meeting. It was born at a crucifixion. The charge nailed above his head — King of the Jews — was not a theological statement. It was a political indictment. The state killed Jesus because the state found him dangerous. A church that has forgotten this has forgotten everything.

The church is not a competitor in politics. It is a corrector of politicians and a protector of the people. It does not promote a party position, it takes the truth position. Jesus did not join a political party,he announced a Kingdom that judges all parties. He is not one option among many; he is the allegiance that reorders every option. A church that “keeps off” politics therefore does not become neutral. It becomes complicit.

If politicians were doing their job, we would be about ours. But they have made merchandise of the people and the people have had enough. We did not invite ourselves into this arena. We were dragged here. And we will not leave until the business is done.

When All Saints Cathedral opened its doors for a public forum on the national budget, it was doing what the church has always done, gathering people around truth. The system’s response was force. That tells of what the state fears most: citizens who understand what is being done to them. A government that scatters knowledge is a government that depends on ignorance. We note that. We name it. And we will not be moved by it.

Seasons ago, the police themselves desecrated All Saints, entering the sanctuary, beating worshippers and ordained clergy alike. The nation recoiled. To violate a national shrine is to announce that no boundary is sacrosanct. A people who profane their own altars should not expect to evade the consequences. But we have since moved to a darker chapter. The police no longer do this work directly. Now they summon and command hired goons. The state has outsourced its intimidation.

We want a zealous government. Kenya deserves one—zealous for good, not goons. Goons do not arrive alone. They are never self-commissioned. Behind every hired thug is a financial architecture — a system that recruits, pays, deploys and abandons. The goon is the visible face. Mammon is the invisible hand. This distinction is urgent political literacy for Kenyans today.

The attack on the church is not an isolated incident of thuggery. It is political instruction funded by invisible money. It is designed to communicate one message – dip your lights. Notice which pulpits are frequently visited – and never targeted. In the arithmetic of goonism, immunity does not signify innocence—it signals allegiance.

The goon is not the problem, the goon is the symptom. Goonism is the system, the architecture of hired intimidation. It hires the poor to terrorise the prophetic. The motorcycle, a lifeline for many in the economy, goonism converts a bridge of hope into an instrument of intimidation.

Goonism’s weaponises the survival of the poor against the voice of the righteous. To treat goonism, we must confront mammonism. Mammon does not only buy loyalty, it manufactures fear. Tax obligations weaponised. Debt and financial access weaponised.

Kenya has been reacting to each incident of hired violence with outrage, then returning to business as usual, leaving the financial architecture of intimidation entirely intact. That is how Mammon survives: by making each episode look isolated, while the system continues undisturbed.

Theological signal

This is Mammon’s oldest script. It is the same proposition made in the wilderness: bow to me and I will give you wealth and power. What is unspoken is: refuse and I will show you what refusal costs. Sending goons to disrupt the gathering at All Saints is a theological signal

When Mammon dispatches soldiers against the pulpit, it is because the pulpit has been saying something Mammon does not want the public to hear. The attack is a confirmation. Darkness does not mobilise against irrelevance; it mobilises against light shining too bright. The goons are the scream made physical: kill the lights.

A government that invokes God at the prayer breakfast while its proxies descend on a cathedral has not practised Christianity. It has practised the faith of Herod: building the tombs of the prophets while persecuting their successors.

If All Saints falls silent, the instruction will have been sent to every pulpit in Kenya. The rural pastor considering a sermon on land-grabbing should be afraid. The urban congregation preparing to host a forum on police brutality should hesitate and cancel. The seminary lecturer developing prophetic preaching should feel the air change and revise toward safer homiletics. This is how Mammon governs the church: not by occupying it, but by making it occupy itself. Goonism’s highest ambition is not to destroy the cathedral. It is to hollow it out, leaving the building standing while evacuating its courage. The cross will not permit the prophetic voice to be negotiated away in exchange for security. The cross is a made-up mind, nothing less than pure conviction.

The cross is not a symbol of victimhood, it is a declaration of voluntary defiance. Jesus was not dragged to Calvary. He staggered there with full knowledge of what awaited him. The church exists, at its very genesis, as the community formed around a man the government killed. For it to now pretend it has no politics is not piety. It is amnesia.

And here is what the goons must carry back to whoever sent them: the church was born of a cross. And the cross has an exit. It is called the empty tomb. Mammon has no answer to the resurrection. Thirty pieces of silver are devalued to nothing. Mammon can buy compliance. It can hire intimidation. It can weaponise fear. But it cannot purchase what comes out of an empty tomb. The church that knows this does not negotiate with goons, it outlasts them.

So, read the agents of darkness from a distance. Learn their script before they knock on your door. And when they arrive, give them the only refrain that has ever moved mountains, parted seas and emptied tombs: let my people go.

The goons will come and go. But the church that stands on the cross and walks out of the tomb will still be standing when every hired thug and every financial architecture of intimidation has turned to dust.