Politics and Justice

And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day. (Matthew 28: 12 – 15)

I have decided to venture into politics kidogo (in a small way) to help us understand the workings of the world as it could help us understand some tricky issues the Bible warns us to keep off.

Why are believers advised to keep off the worldly justice systems?

Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? (1Corinthians 6: 1, 2)

The first reason is that we serve another kingdom, a higher one.

It therefore means that the justice we can get from the earthly kingdom is inferior to the one we subscribe to. Our kingdom’s justice system is incorruptible whereas the world’s system is subject to many variables.

Let me talk about some recent cases in Kenya to help us understand.

There was this rich and influential man who caused death by dangerous driving and that caused a raucous when it happened. There were even eyewitnesses to the occurrence. Imagine the judicial officer concluded that there was insufficient evidence to convict him?

And the victim’s father may now be living on borrowed time because he refused to agree to be talked to nicely to drop the case. Yet a traffic offense, especially involving death, is the domain of the state.

If my memory serves me right there is a friend who was on the docks for probably five years because a person run into their car in the inner lane of a highway at night and fell back to be ran over by another motorist. The impact was on the door and so there was no reason anyone could accuse them of knocking somebody down. Incidentally, even the driver who ran over the victim was used as a witness in the case of dangerous driving. The case was only thrown out because the witnesses dried out (probably because of prayer). But five years of painful litigation which in my eyes was nonsensical. All this torture because they refused to speak nicely to the officers involved.

We have many people who have been jailed for professional negligence for the slightest error.

Yet do we remember this guy whose structure killed dozens and misplaced thousands? Yet nothing has so far been done to him. Imagine that even the police are waiting for him to go to record a statement?

That is the world’s justice for you.

The chicken thief is given seven years with hard labor when the drug merchant who deals with containers and warehouses gets a suspended sentence or small fine. The mega saboteur may many times not even see the inside of a courtroom.

That is not new, however.

The incident we see in Matthew is one such instance.

Christ has risen and the evidence is irrefutable. Unfortunately, the evidence threatened the authority and position of the rulers. Accepting it meant that they surrender their positions to the new order. That is why they used money to shift and sway the evidence in a way that suited them.

They paid the witnesses and the courts (governor). In other words they manufactured a new narrative with not a shred of truth to hold on to safeguard their status.

And this is where it leads me to talk politics.

Unlike what many Kenyans opine, Kenya does not have two tribes, the rich and the poor. We have two tribes, alright. But it is the rulers and the ruled. And it is the rulers who control everything, even the ones who think they have.

The unfortunate fact is that the rulers have not earned their positions. They were born into them. And of course they have money, tons of it, and therefore believe they can buy anything and anyone they want.

They therefore disdain the others because they know them only as pawns in their grand scheme of things. They behave like monarchies because they are a creation of the same. And they were created to sustain the same monarchy especially when we wanted to get our lands back.

They changed the narrative of the war so that the masses forgot what took the Mau Mau to the forest. The battle for land became one for independence, independence without the land.

I can say this because my father was in the forest and we were squatters and later evicted from land that was his before the war. Incidentally, this was the norm as most of the people who were in the forest lost their lands to the former home guards and their cohorts.

It was the same enemies of the war who were given the rulership, and of course the lands the queen’s subjects left, the ones who decided they would not live in a land on an equal level with their former subjects.

These rulers are above the law because they really are subject to the monarchy that gave them the leadership.

A case in point; recently someone swore himself, mock or not. He was invited for the famous handshake. Yet the people who swore him in were harassed to no end.

Incidentally, the rulers negotiate with blood, the blood of their subjects. And they do not feel the smallest hint of guilt when their subjects are dying, unless of course for the cameras. Remember in the Bible a king who sacrificed his crown prince to avert being overrun by a stronger army?

The ruling class does not admit new members. And this is where Kenya’s dilemma is.

Someone outside the class is the front runner to get a position the rulers know belongs to them. To the rulers that comedy must be stopped at all costs. A commoner cannot take what belongs to royalty.

I think that is the same reason the Nairobi governor is under siege. He decided to be accountable to those who elected him instead of the rulers and so must be brought down. And that is the reason he has been talking of cartels since he took his position. He has people who are accountable to the rulers instead of him and his agenda.

You see, populism is supposed to take someone only so far, and not anywhere near the rulers. You must therefore watch your steps least you overstep your position.

You are not supposed to get to the top position because of hard work according to the rulers. You are either born there or you can forget it.

That may be the reason for the push to change the constitution. It might be to make sure that even if a commoner gets the top position, he will not have the power the position should have as he will be subject to the rulers. And they can then bring him down when they want.

Rulers do not require rules. They are the rules as they are only meant to serve their interests. That is why some are jailed for corruption whereas others appear to be rewarded for the same, even when we are talking about the same incident. Of course we remember in school when students would organize a strike yet some ringleaders would become witnesses in the expulsion of their colleagues.

What am I saying?

Christian, you have no business putting your trust on this worldly system. You serve one with an infinitely superior level of fairness and justice and truth than this world and its systems. Should you not rather invest in knowing better the workings of the kingdom of heaven? Should you not rather build on the establishment of that kingdom in your life?

This is the reason I am appalled to see ministers of the Gospel lowering themselves and contesting political seats in such a system. They always make fools of themselves by the time they realize that the system has no place for values like theirs after they get swallowed into the mire of the world.

Sadly, even much of the church has started making dynasties of its leadership. And I am not talking about the Anglican church whose head is the queen, or whoever is the monarch in the kingdom.

How many ‘spiritual’ churches have the wife as the deputy of the pastor or bishop? How many make sure that the family is evenly spread to the whole leadership structure? Why then are we blaming political dynasties when we are wrong models? I believe this is the reason we are so fond of calling men father and mother. It is a method of entrenching the said dynasties.

The Holy Spirit flows in the church of Christ. It is true a father will pass his spiritual heritage to his children. However, it is important to remember that it is Christ who will choose where to deploy that spiritual investment. He is the one who dispenses (if you allow me to use that term) the gifts and callings for His own purposes. A pastor’s son could therefore be called into missions and you are forcing him into administration.

But you will realize that such churches have owners. Christ is only there as the brand or bait for the money to flow.

Why are the dynasties scared of someone who has risen from down there taking charge of a state? The same reason pastors are scared of the gifts and callings of people outside their circles.

They understand life differently and so will react to issues differently.

You see, the rulers have no conception of need. Hunger is therefore an academic topic for them. Insecurity is another topic.

A person dying because they couldn’t afford or access medical intervention is a concept for their minds, however passionate they may appear to speak about it. Children being unable to access free education because they can’t afford uniform or food is way beyond their capacity to understand. People dying because drugs were stolen from public hospitals makes no sense because they had personal doctors and had an expressway should they need to get to hospital. People walking because they can’t afford to pay hiked fares doesn’t make sense because they have never used public transport all their lives, unless for the fun of it.

But this other group understands life because that is how they grew up. They have walked barefoot because they couldn’t afford shoes. They have studied on empty stomachs because even being able to go to school was a miracle.

Let me give a Biblical example. David was king raised from down there. You do not fail to see him in touch with his subjects. We even see him pleading with God to let judgment fall on him instead of his subjects.

His son, however, though he takes over a rich kingdom, seeks to expand its glory by taxing them heavily to the extent that the secession of the northern kingdom is greatly due to that taxation. Yet he is immune to that suffering.

We see Hezekiah failing to appreciate the captivity, even emasculation of his offspring because those were things that to him only happened to the others out there.

We are bound to see a more concerted effort from the entitled against those who have risen from down there for that reason. They simply will not risk someone who understands the masses taking power from them because then their power will be at risk, of course because it is not justly theirs. Justice favors them because they are the peddlers of the same.

It is like they say so and so discovered Lake Victoria. You wonder whether the communities living around it were blind until then. But they are the ones with the narrative. They own the media outlets, the publishers, the transport companies. In short, they make sure that no other narrative survives. And that is how they killed the Mau Mau story by creating another narrative as the heroes, completely obliterating the actual struggle, its victims and heroes.

What is the aim of this post? You might be wondering.

Let us pray for this country of ours. There are very strong undercurrents of animosity, though basically between the two classes. And the entitled would not mind war as they not only have enough, but they also have enough places to run to. Their families are safe. In fact even if war broke, they are insulated enough from the same that they will only be seeing it in the media houses they run as they skew it to support their narrative. Sadly they will use the populace to fight their battles and not even recognize them, let alone reward them after the war ends. Or we have forgotten 2007? Or the people who were dying in demonstrations before the handshake?

People will be bought. Witnesses will be created to mire some names by the ruling class to kill the competition. Systems will be sabotaged to get rid of obstacles, men who are strong because they will not be corrupted to serve the rulers blindly. And sadly, lives will be lost in this class war as the rulers will stop at nothing to achieve their ends.

But let us preach the Gospel and live it. This world is passing away anyway.

Do not believe any political narrative. The Bible is the only word with God’s guarantee. Read it. Believe it. Live it.

Forgive me if I have disappointed you in dabbling in a political narrative. I just felt that it is important to let us know a few things that are happening amidst us. Sadly, the same happens in churches with a great regularity that some will not look at it unless I take it to politics. I am also using this post to challenge us to examine the way we run our churches to see whether they align with what Christ has revealed in His word. Treat this as a parable.