Why the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ Thrives in Africa
On a cool Sunday afternoon at Nairobi’s Uhuru Park, thousands of worshippers have gathered for a well-publicised open-air evangelical service, or crusade, by a popular city preacher.
Author: Henry Makori
What were the gospel writers up to?
Why did the writers of the gospels choose to publish the many insults hurled at Jesus Christ? Why did they give publicity to those who contradicted him? Didn’t they see that negative publicity would...
Church lost an opportunity
Weeks ago, when those haunting images of starving women, children and the elderly began flooding the Kenyan media, the secretary-general of the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), a Protestant grouping, issued a...
New realities in pastoral care
My friend Zachariah once shocked me when he said that he wanted to be a catechist. Zach had completed his degree months back and embarked on a career in banking. I couldn’t figure out...
A prostitute’s redemption
My former editor at a Catholic magazine, Fr Gigi (his nickname), once asked me to interview a certain young woman who, he said, had a very interesting story. More Stories: Catching the Past over...
The loneliness of priests
Some weeks back, a friend who is an official of a diocese invited me to talk to Catholic school children about the hottest topic in Kenya today: the expected trial of six high profile...
Which Jesus do we know?
In rural western Kenya, some apparently sane people purport to worship an elderly polygamous man. He has nearly a hundred children and calls himself Jehovah Wanyonyi. More Stories: Catching the Past over a Fire
Its good to know I’m mortal
I think I had excellent preparation for Lent this year. My sister rang me up the other day to find out if I was alive. Well, I hadn’t been sick. I hadn’t travelled on...
People’s spiritual hunger
Someone recently hit out at priests. Well, that is not news. Pillorying priests goes back to the days of the prophets. More Stories: Can Widowed Deacons Remarry? What were the gospel writers up to?...
I’m sure Mary and Joseph bickered
I don’t know why Professor William Ochieng’ threw that huge tantrum the other day. Prof Ochieng’ is a respected Kenyan historian, one of those who cut their teeth in academia several decades ago by...
A crisis in communication
A few years ago, I attended a meeting of senior Church officials where a priest with many years of experience as a journalist suggested an idea which, if adopted at the time, could well...
Silencing the Church
Our guide led us through the quiet and sombre Genocide Memorial Centre in Kigali. He explained every step of the official history of Rwanda’s 1994 apocalypse, from the days of Belgian colonialists and Catholic...
