Christianity, Politics and Public Life in Kenya (review)

Christianity, Politics and Public Life in Kenya illustrates the strengths of qualitative studies based on "thick, rich, description"—in this case, of the colorful characters who make up the Kenyan urban Pentecostal church scene. It also illustrates the limitations of such studies: lack of supporting data; acceptance of conjecture and hearsay (e.g., "He is said to own three homes, even a jet and helicopter." [157]); reliance on opinion and commentary. Meticulous in footnoting, Gifford refers to sermons, pastoral letters, church newsletters, government reports, and newspaper articles as his main data sources, but the secondary sources weaken his conclusions.

In establishing the context, Gifford takes the short view of history and blames Africa's plight on "its elite" (250), a position that forms the subtext of most of his discussions. Like similar views of the impact of slavery on today's African Americans, the argument ignores the historical context of Kenyan elitism: the colonial political structures that enabled the elite to plunder the country's resources; the colonial socialization system that bred the elitist attitudes prevalent today; the inheritors of colonial privilege who form today's elite. (The book's "context" chapter devotes only two pages to colonial history.)

Civil society promotes democracy by acting as a countervailing force to government and by inculcating democratic values in citizens. Gifford concentrates on the former role, focusing on the actions of individual church leaders, and the (reverse) role of political influence on churches. He underestimates, however, the impact on public life of mainline Protestant churches and the Catholic Church. These churches command huge followings that take political and social cues from their leaders. Additionally, the mainline churches are largely responsible for the subservient citizenry and other conditions that have been conducive for colonialists and postindependent dictators.

Gifford concentrates on the organizational and preaching styles of the Western-influenced Pentecostal churches but discusses only tangentially perhaps the most important public policy influence of all—that of the American religious right. With its anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, and sometimes anti-Islam message, the movement has found a receptive audience among the new Pentecostal churches and willing agents among the churches' leaders, thus helping (and threatening) to derail Kenya's constitutional review process in 2005 and currently.

The old narrative of the selfless foreign missionary and the helpless native is clearly evident in the author's discussion of the role of churches in development. He completely dismisses the contributions of local Catholics, harkening back to the colonial period when the Church ran many of the schools and hospitals. (Catholic institutions are now either publicly funded or else private and expensive). Also, as highlighted by the priests' sexual scandal in the U.S. and elsewhere, the larger question of the Catholic hierarchy's ownership of the assets that its followers help to accumulate is salient.

Gifford's discussion of the role of modern-day "short-term missionaries" (52) is particularly revealing. While correctly branding the new Pentecostal Kenyan leader as a "religious entrepreneur" (171), Gifford sees no such motive in foreign missionaries. On an unnamed missionary's unspecified "development activity," he writes that he "met one European missionary who, with funds provided by 'family and friends at home,' had been able to build a block of flats. . . . With the rent from those apartments, he had been able to embark on a whole range of development activity" (48). On an American evangelical organization's motive for opening a theology school: "Shocked by the statistic that 80 percent of pastors in Africa are untrained, ICM opened a seminary in Kitale . . . " (147). On the workings of Cordaid: "So a Dutch tourist visiting, say, the Masai Mara, who en route comes across a Maasai community needing a school roof repaired, can apply for matching funds up to 10,000 euros" (54-55). Additionally, Gifford scoffs at the suitability to poor Kenyans of the new Pentecostal churches' message of personal achievement. Perfected...