Speaking truth to power not enough in dealing with excesses of the State

President William Ruto when he was given instruments of power after his swearing-in as the fifth President at Kasarani Stadium. [PCS]

The pulpit is the clergy's canon. The message is the clergy's explosive. Using the pulpit to peddle an exaggerated prosperity message is to misuse it. To use the pulpit to present a mechanical, hurriedly assembled soulless sermon is to underrate it. To use the pulpit as a pacifier that keeps worshipers docile in the midst of State oddities is to misunderstand it.

The pulpit must provoke the people to alertness and call them to action. The pulpit is endowed with a transcendent status that no State ear can ignore. A distracted pulpit is a politician's joy. An awakened pulpit keeps the politician awake at night. When the pulpit is short of divine salvo, the State is likely to supply it with its "friendly fire" since pulpit capture is an unspoken but significant ambition of the State.