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AANA Bulletin						Bulletin APTA
Acting Editor - Mitch Odero				Acting Editor -
Silvie Alemba

ANNUAL	SCHOOL	OF  THEOLOGY

Regional Theological Forum Reviews Social Issues

BUTERE, Kenya (AANA) September 9 - Church leaders, scholars and 
professional theologians meeting in western Kenya during the second Annual 
School of Theology have called on the Church to play a frontline role in 
fighting corruption, poverty and tribalism, while promoting democracy in 
political leadership.
	
Attending a four-day theological lecturers under the theme A Biblical 
Response to Select Social Issues, participants acknowledged that the Church 
needed to play a more central part in facilitating good governance.

The annual lectures were hosted by the Butere Diocese of the Anglican 
Church of Kenya at the African Institute for Contemporary Mission And 
Research  AICMAR during August 27- 30. The diocese is headed by Bishop 
Horace Etemesi.

A keynote address by the Vice Chancellor of Uganda Christian University, 
Rev Prof Stephen Noll set the tempo of the conference. After he spoke at 
length on the practicality of Bible teachings in modern society, the 
delegates pinpointed a number of social ills that have afflicted the 
present world.

In a communiqui adopted at the end of the conference, the delegates 
asserted that corruption was an offence against God and a crime against 
humanity.

They said that to effectively deal with corruption, governments needed to 
enact strict regulations against the vice. They called upon the Church to 
preach the gospel of transformation and enforce structures that will 
discourage corruption.

Closely linked to this, the delegates urged both the Church and state to 
change their structures to accommodate democracy. They said: "Democracy 
demands that governance promotes human dignity, encourages social 
solidarity and ensures the realisation of basic needs as citizens seek to 
improve their lives".

The subject of poverty was also tackled. The delegates called upon 
governments to involve the Church in formulating strategies for addressing 
poverty. On that note, they underscored the need for the Church to develop 
"biblical theology of poverty and wealth".

Noting that ethnic differences were creating tensions in society, delegates 
called upon the Church to create a "theology of inclusiveness and break 
barriers that tend to separate humanity".

In relation to gender dynamics, they recommended that awareness be created 
to enable women participate at all levels of decision making in society.

The Bible expositions were centred around dependence on God for sober 
direction. The expositions were presented by the Presiding Bishop of the 
Methodist Church in Kenya, Rt Rev Prof Zablon Nthamburi.

The theological lectures attracted scholars, clergy, students and laity 
from the Anglican Church, Meeting of Friends (Quakers), Methodist Church 
and Baptist Church, Church of God.

Also represented were the African Instituted Churches, Presbyterian Church 
of East Africa, Fellowship of Christian Unions in Kenya, theological 
colleges as well as public and private universities in East Africa.

Main speakers included the Chairman of AICMAR Prof Watson Omulokoli, 
Missions Director of the Fellowship of Christian Unions in Kenya FOCUS 
Duncan Olumbe and the Anglican Bishop of Maseno West Rt Rev Joseph Otieno 
Wasonga.

Reported by Joyce Mulama

Making A Case For 'Clean Your House First' Moral

BUTERE,Kenya (AANA) September 9 - Christian ethics and moral theology can 
play a fundamental role in elimination of corruption from society, a Kenyan 
Anglican clergyman has advised.

Bishop Joseph Otieno  Wasonga of the Anglican Diocese of Maseno West said 
Christian teachings provided proper guidelines necessary for people to 
transform their hearts, saying corruption was "a disease" of the heart.

Wasonga noted that the way out of the snare of corruption was for churches 
and educational institutions to embark on a concrete moral education 
curricula that target people's thoughts and behaviour.

"The Church as the custodian of Godliness should in its catechism, and 
educational institutions implement a holistic moral education programme 
that will enable individuals to develop to the fullest, their potentials 
for moral competence and proper conduct," he said, adding that such a plan 
must target the inner life of the individual as well as the outer behaviour.

The bishop was speaking during the second annual theological lectures under 
the theme A Biblical Response to Select Social Issue.

Wasonga said corruption was a bad disease that destroyed people's 
confidence in the their leaders and institutions.  He observed that the 
Church and governments had key roles to play in ensuring a corrupt-free 
society.

Citing the Kenyan experience, the bishop regretted that the government had 
failed to embark on eradication of corruption seriously. "Corrupt officials 
are taken to courts but the cases are not concluded. Anything done towards 
elimination of corruption is just window dressing for IMF and World Bank," 
he said.

He pointed out that most of the corrupt practises were perpetrated by 
already wealthy people, meaning that the problem was not 'need' but 'greed'.

Wasonga deplored Kenyan politicians who had failed to facilitate 
development in their constituencies and were now bribing people to vote 
them back to parliament during the next general elections. He cautioned 
voters not to be cheated but instead ask their members of parliament to 
account for the five years they have been in parliament.

He said there was need for strict legislation against corruption with clear 
enforcement procedure, and a willingness among law enforcement officers to 
be concerned about the well-being of Kenyans rather than their own selfish 
ends.

He emphasised the importance of creating "corruption-surveillance groups" 
who would spot corruption and raise alarm immediately.

Sharing the same view, the presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church in 
Kenya, Prof Zablon Nthamburi added: "We need to set an independent body 
with independent investigators, who are not answerable to the government: 
People who are able to act whenever informed of a corrupt deal. This way, 
people will have confidence in them and will report to them on suspicion of 
any corrupt deal".

Nthamburi admitted that the Church had not done enough to address 
corruption, and that it (the Church) was part of  "corrupt projects".	He 
emphasised that for the Church to successfully get rid of corruption from 
society, it must "clean its own house first". He said the Church had a role 
of pin-pointing corrupt practices and telling people how to live without 
being corrupt.

The Vice-Chancellor of Uganda Christian University, Rev Prof Stephen Noll 
said the government and Church had a responsibility under God to exercise 
transparency and accountability, and challenged the two institutions to 
work as a team to achieve this.

Reported by Joyce Mulama

  'Christians Are Forming Churches To Make Ends Meet'

BUTERE, Kenya (AANA) September 9 - The rapid growth of Christianity in 
Kenya has been attributed to rising levels of poverty.	But the increasing 
number of Christians has been described as "nominal", with many claiming to 
be Christians but not living within the tenets of biblical teachings.

Mr Duncan Olumbe, the Missions Director of the Fellowship of Christian 
Unions in Kenya FOCUS, observed that Christianity enjoyed a 78.64 percent 
majority and was growing at a rate of 2.0 percent.

Addressing participants at the annual theological lectures, Olumbe noted 
that many people were resorting to "prosperity gospel" as a way out of 
poverty. "Those who are poor are promised prosperity provided they 'plant a 
seed'- give whatever they have to church in anticipation of a ten-fold, 
even hundred-fold multiplication of what they give," he said.

In his paper titled Poverty: Catalyst or Impediment for Church Growth; A 
Kenyan Perspective, Olumbe pointed out that many Christians were forming 
churches not ready to deliver the Gospel but to seek to "make ends meet."

He regretted that some churches were tackling poverty by depending on 
donors, a notion displaying Kenyans as too poor to meet the needs of their 
churches. "

Some church leaders spend months abroad raising funds for the cause of the 
Gospel. This school of thought is hardly different from the government, 
which keeps running to the Western donors for aid and so long as the dollar 
keeps coming, Christians in these churches end up with a beggar mentality," 
he said.

He criticised charismatic churches for not reaching out to the poor 
population, most of who are in the rural areas, saying they tended to focus 
more on the middle class where the possibility of better cash flow was
likely.

"The presence of charismatic churches are hardly there in slums, street 
families, among others. Where they have attempted to be involved, the 
resultant projects tend to be poorly managed and narrow in focus," he said.

In his incisive presentation, Olumbe further pointed out that the Church 
was failing in its responsibility of giving hope to disadvantaged groups in 
society.

"Time had come for the Church to consider income generating projects and 
offer entrepreneurial skills to its members as a way of getting out of 
poverty".

Olumbe underscored the need for churches to form critically evaluated 
partnerships without the negative tendencies of paternalism and dependency.

He underlined the need to develop a "Biblical theology of poverty and 
wealth" in order to combat prosperity gospel which was rapidly sweeping 
over the country.

He further said that the Church in Africa and in Kenya in particular, 
seemed challenging. "This is because people are continuing to discover that 
prosperity gospel holds empty promises which might result in 
disillusionment with the Church," he explained.

Olumbe observed the need to address the "mega-church syndrome", whereby 
affluent churches competed with each other for prestige rather than 
evangelisation, and come up with genuine church planting strategies that 
would stem the awkward growth.

To get poverty fully on the agenda of public policy, Olumbe suggested that 
good governance was needed to enhance the capacity of government and church 
to deliver and to be accountable for resources at their disposal.

Reported by Joyce Mulama

Ethnicity, Identity Blamed For Increasing Tensions In Church

BUTERE, Kenya (AANA) September 9 - Ethnicity and identity has been blamed 
for increasing tensions in the Church in Kenya.

Delegates to the Annual School of theological lectures heard that the 
Church had succumbed to tribalism, with leaders showing open hostility 
towards members of other ethnic communities.

A Kenyan university don Mrs Constance Shisanya regretted that violence in 
churches had become the trend of the present church leadership, which 
seemed interested not in spreading the gospel but in having special 
dealings with certain members of the congregation it served.

"Such fights among Christians in God's household demonstrate that the 
ethnic affiliation among people in Kenyan churches is so entrenched that it 
supersedes the Christian call for brotherhood and non-violence," she said.

Citing the 1992 and 1997 ethnic clashes in Kenya's Rift Valley Province, 
Shisanya, who is a lecturer in cultural and religious studies at Kenyatta 
University, pointed out an interesting dimension of the Church, saying some 
offered support to members based on ethnicity. For this reason, she said, 
some Christians who attended the same church were unattended to simply 
because of their ethnic backgrounds.

She noted that ethnicity was deeply entrenched in the lives of many Kenyans 
and came into play in determining actions of adherents even when the 
actions contradicted Christian teachings of love and unity.

The don also pointed out the phenomenon had caused some Kenyan tribes and 
sub-tribes to feel superior to others, leading to injustices among the 
marginalised groups.

"There have been omissions and deliberate denial of justice of the minority 
ethnic identities. As a result, there has been denial of opportunities for 
employment, marriage, education and political leadership including the 
presidency".

Shisanya underlined that ethnicity gave birth to stereotypes and negative 
attitudes that reflected the manner in which different ethnic communities 
perceived others. She pointed out that certain tribes were seen as 
untrustworthy in business and prone to crime, and this hindered people from 
other ethnic tribes from doing business with them.

"Others were looked at as lazy, others giants in witchcraft and others as 
temperamental, making it very difficult for interaction," she added.

She called on the government to address stereotypes of beliefs, attitudes 
and suspicion existing between people of different ethnic communities, 
through civic education, whereby people should be taught to respect one 
another and to co-exist to achieve harmony.

Shisanya underscored the need for the church to create a theology of 
inclusiveness and break barriers that tend to separate humanity.

Reported by Joyce Mulama