Can evil actions be used to do good? Can money looted from public coffers be used for a good cause like supporting religious work? As children, we always asked; can bad people do good?
Thomas More's life and great reflection on utopia cannot be more relevant for our African countries looking at how our leaders are colonising religious spaces. Utopia, commonly understood as aiming at what does not exist and will never be achieved, has a more profound meaning than that.
The roots of building a country are very well laid in the Holy Book, the Bible. There are also other well founded Books, but let me stick to the one I know best for the purpose of developing my point.
What is the problem? We have cheapened Christian faith as if it has no cost to it. We have decided to place faith goal posts wherever we want as if Christian faith has no rules, no end goal, no present and future. Christian faith, sadly, is continually reduced to associations run by social workers.
It all begins with idolising secular leaders in worship places. Using religion for undue advantage. Very simply put, using religion to displace the voice of God in people's everyday life. God is relegated to play a secondary role in society.
The reason I argue that Kenya, a predominantly religious country, is increasingly becoming a dystopia is because, as Sir Thomas More, an English intellectual, saint, a man killed by his advisee, King Henry VIII, would say, utopia is a standard to aim at. As More correctly says, evil continues to exist among us even as we aim at that utopia.
Precisely, an indicator that faith is losing ground in our African countries is when the symbols of value in any society are devalued, demeaned or used as a means to a personalised end.
If I were to devalue the Kenyan flag to the extent that when it is being raised, I just ignore it as if it were some piece of cloth someone is hanging to chase away birds, surely my patriotism and connection with my motherland would be in question. Similarly, if our national anthem were played during an official function and I do not show respect, someone will be right to doubt my loyalty to my own country of birth.
Looking at how the Bible is nowadays used to exploit the goodwill of uninformed citizens including the majority poor, when its very symbolism is for the universal good, I shudder because faith practice is systematically being undermined to eventually lose meaning as has happened elsewhere in the world.
Many elected leaders use the Bible, for instance, to take oath office symbolising their desire to live by the values the Holy Book .
I am talking about leaders whose one singular decision impacts on thousands of lives. Leaders, whose actions can deny or provide for millions of citizens. Leaders who ask for 10 per cent of $500,000, $1,000,000 essentially put the lives of at least a million children at risk of lacking education, healthcare, feeding programme, and hiking prices, among other things.
Many of the thousands of elected men and women who swear by the Bible, have no religious alliance to the very foundation of that Bible, which is a symbol of that utopia (Kingdom) it talks about and to which Christians should aspire. That is, utopia as a perfect place where dreams come to fruition. This is a deeply founded thought Thomas More is widely known for.
That bad people, hinder economic growth and prosperity for all, does not mean the end of searching for a utopia - a place where equality, equity, care for the Earth, justice and mercy embrace. To the contrary, bad people exist because the structures of society embed evil.
We must push ourselves to differentiate and defend good from evil. Governments have potential to kill our faith in God.
Dr Mokua is executive director, Loyola Centre for Media and Communication
