Jesus birth, life show that cause of the poor is God’s cause for all

Mombasa is awash with not just tourists but hawkers of every description. One of the latter caught my eye as he peddled one of those huge wall posters meant to brighten up even the humblest of structures. His was a picture of a luxurious mansion with the caption ‘God’s plan for you’ and underneath it read, ‘All is possible with Jesus’. The message itself was pretty sacrilegious stuff but what made the whole affair so grotesque was that the hawker was selling his wares in one of the most overcrowded, impoverished settlements in the whole city.

Folks condemned to occupy such dehumanising spaces are mostly street wise enough to reject such simplistic, escapist, materialistic messages propagated by preachers of a prosperity Gospel narrative. Yet, as this year has revealed, there are just as many charlatans and opportunistic conmen posing as preachers in the religious sector as in the political arena. In both cases it is the poor who in their innocence and desperation are most likely to fall prey to their tricks.