Our churches are full of false prophets

There was a certain innocuous piece of news doing the rounds last week that many of us could have missed. Apparently, according to the registrar of companies, there are more than 60 new churches registered every month. Sixty, for heaven’s sake! That’s 12 every working day of the week.

As much as Kenya is ranked highly among the easiest countries to register companies, if these are the statistics used to rank us, then we are in a dark space. It is not the right kind of businesses that we should be registering.

I have nothing against churches. In fact, we have a few churches that do good by providing health and education to those who cannot afford these services. There are a few that provide succour where such is needed.

But most of these briefcase churches being registered daily are nothing more than government-sanctioned businesses to relieve poor people of the little that they might have. They are run by people who, were we in the Middle Ages, would have been perfect candidates for the stake.

These numbers of new applications are a stark reminder that there are many opportunists who can sniff where money is, the kind of overnight riches that, for some reason, the government has decided should not be taxed.

With this kind of registration frenzy, no wonder churches are running out of names and resorting to the most ridiculous names — we have Helicopter for Christ Church, Laboratory Church of God, Jehovah Missile Ministries, Run for Your Life Chapel, etc. Even exercising a little creativity in choosing a name for their churches is mentally taxing to these wannabe apostles.

The fact of the matter is that churches have become the refuge of scoundrels and charlatans. We have miracle workers who dupe Kenyans that they can perform all manner of miracles on those whom scientifically proven cures have failed to provide relief. In Kenya, we have a preponderance of these false prophets — and I have in mind a particular bearded one who claims that, with the right belief and tonnes of faith, he can cure all known and unknown diseases, including those that science has failed to crack. He can make cripples walk. The blind to see. The deaf to hear. What nonsense!

This particular ‘prophet’ (I feel that I am doing an injustice to this word by referring to him as such) recently claimed that he regularly holds a tete-a-tete with the good Lord, perhaps over a cup of tea, where they discuss worldly and extra-terrestrial matters.

“He has feelings and emotions and he can grieve,” this delusional fellow told us the other day. Really? And people buy this crap?

These are the things that make me think that we are a cursed lot. Somebody listens to this Owuor fella, sells his earthly belongings and decides to follow him. Yet, such a follower doesn’t ask themselves a simple question: Why can’t the good prophet also denounce things of the earth, and live a monk’s life? Why does he move around with bodyguards if he doesn’t fear death? Why use high-octane SUVs and choppers to criss-cross the country while his followers walk barefoot for lack of shoes?

Why, ooh Lord, does he travel overseas for treatment while his sheep are doomed to die in local dispensaries for lack of medicine?

When this false prophet gets sick, why can’t he just ask his buddy — the good Lord — over a beverage of their choice, to heal him there and then

As much as these charlatans deserve to go to hell (if there is one, the hottest cauldron should be reserved for them), the flock of sheep that follow them without thinking need to be caned in public.

There is another clown who calls himself commander who has a habit of abusing and chastising his followers. He demands money from his miserable followers to buy an airline ticket while taunting them that they will never see the inside of an airport, poor souls.

We should go the Rwandan way and institute strict guidelines on who can run a church, not just any layabout with pretensions of getting rich quick.

- The writer is a communications consultant