In the Bible is an incident in which a furious Jesus entered a temple in Jerusalem, turned everything upside down and chased away merchants and petty traders who had turned the place of worship into a market.
That event depicts a side of Jesus that is far removed from the popular liberal and forgiving persona in which he is mostly portrayed in the scriptures, and demonstrates the importance of protecting the sanctity of the church as a place of devotion to God. It also amplifies a need for vigilance against a creeping acceptance of the absurd as normal in the way man relates to God.
On the surface, there was nothing wrong with what the merchants and money changers were doing in the temple. The money helped convert Roman and other foreign currencies for the Tyrian shekel, the only currency through which believers could pay the annual temple tax.
The merchants vended livestock, such as lamb, doves, and oxen for sacrifices, as required for worship under Jewish law at the time.
But, even as facilitated temple rituals, these activities become decadent, exploitative and a contradiction of the temple’s sacred purpose.
Jesus’ violent activism, was therefore as much a cleansing of the temple as a critique of the debauchery and mercantilism that had taken the church hostage.
Although they are separated by millennia, the unusual steps taken this week by the Archbishop of Nairobi Philip Anyolo, when he issued a statement denouncing and banishing cash donations to the church by politicians, mirror Jesus’ turning the tables against places of worship degenerating into vehicles for mercantilism and corruption.
For long, it had become normal, nay, almost obligatory, for politicians and other prominent people in Kenya to earn social capital through conspicuous donations to the church.
The Church rarely cared to know the source of the wealth from which these donations came, even as governance and politics sank deeper into corruption.
In happily accepting “tainted” alms from about anybody who came giving, the Church was getting sucked into and becoming complicit in the state’s conspiracy against the people.
Bishop Anyolo’s belated rejection and returning of the cash and material donations by Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja and President William Ruto should therefore be seen an attempt by the Church to regain the moral high ground.
Until Kanu’s fall from power in 2002, the Church had been a powerful force in standing up for the downtrodden. President Ruto himself has risen to the pinnacle of political power in Kenya with the support of the Christian church.
Yet the church had since been lulled into a docile acceptance of a status quo in which impunity reigned. Archbishop Anyolo’s letter, decree or whatever you call it is a welcome Damascus moment.
The Catholic Church is leading the onslaught against the administration’s corruption and sloppy management of public affairs. It is setting pace for the return of power to the people and should not be left to act in isolation.
The clergy across East Africa, and in all denominations, should rally around Archbishop Anyolo to advance the cause of justice and political freedoms across the region.
