Freedom in Speech

Written by Gienah Monday, 23 April 2012 19:48

A friend of mine asked me to search on YouTube for a certain spoken word piece done by an individual called Jefferson Bethke; I obliged and the moment I got time, I rushed to the cyber café in my neighborhood and checked it out. It was titled ‘why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus’. It had over six million hits and counting. What caught my attention was the line in which he asked why big churches were being built while millions were facing starvation around the world. In my opinion, it was a great piece of art. After listening to it, I could not agree more.

A few weeks back, there was news that a certain prominent televangelist wanted to get married but the wedding was cut short by another woman who claimed to be married to the same bishop. As expected, the wedding did not take off as this would have been bigamy which is an offence punishable by law. As the journalists went to cover this story, the clergyman hired some mean looking bodyguards to keep the press away. At the parking lot, the journalist spotted a sleek looking vehicle that purportedly belonged to this “servant of God”. Right next to that beautiful piece of engineering were hundreds of ordinary folk and by the look of things, they were who the Bible referred to “the meek and lowly”. They had all come to receive their miracles as this particular televangelist is renowned for doing so.

I have a Christian name though I have never been baptized but what I am sure of is that I am spiritual. This incident reminded me of a certain rally that happened at Uhuru Park just before Kenyans were to go to the polls for a referendum on the new constitution. Yet another televangelist came into the meeting in a state of the art vehicle, a Range Rover Sport to be specific. He went ahead to brag about how as a “servant of God” he had to get the finer things in life. The crowd, which was mostly filled with poor Kenyans cheered wildly as the “Apostles” came in their flashy cars. These two incidences reminded me of my CRE lessons back in primary school and in particular, one that was titled ‘Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem’. My memory is a bit sketchy but I can recall that upon arrival at the gates of Jerusalem, Jesus was offered a white stallion to signify royalty. True to his nature, he declined; he chose instead to ride into the city as a sign of humility. This got me thinking of how ‘humble’ some of our pastors are.

The good book says that happy are those are poor for they shall inherit the kingdom of God. Some of these servants of God are not that poor but it is good to know that they too shall inherit the Kingdom of God. Oh how lucky they are.