Prophetic Christianity in Kenya: A call for the renaissance of critical pulpit theology

Abstract

In the 1980s, mainline Christian churches and clerics were regarded as the vanguards of democracy. Employing critical pulpit theology (CPT), they challenged authoritarian one-party misrule and ushered Kenya into a multi-party democracy. In South Africa, notable clergy relied on the pulpits in declaring a Kairos against the apartheid dictatorship. Despite these remarkable contributions of mainline churches, there is growing concern about the decline of prophetic witness in the post-democratic transition period. This study reviews the prophetic witness of the mainline church clergy to democratic transition politics in Kenya. The study is conducted through a qualitative literature analysis of the prophetic witness of the clergy. It argues that the mainline church clerics employed CPT as public theology in addressing authoritarianism, leading to the 1990s concession for multi-party democracy. In examining the development of church and state in post-colonial Kenya, this study nuances complementary theologies such as Kenya’s Kairos document and African reconstruction theology by African theo-philosopher Jesse Ndwiga Mugambi. The Kenyan Kairos motif emerged 3 years after its birth in South Africa, but its impact was short-lived because Mugambi launched his reconstruction project. Although Mugambi received global attention from theologians, it lost steam with the democratic regressions recorded in Africa. It is argued that the Kairos and reconstruction motifs were complementary projects.

Contribution: This article calls for an urgent renaissance of CPT as a practical public theology to address persistent contemporary challenges, including climate change, political and economic catastrophes, xenophobia, and ethnic and political violence.