The upcoming general election is billed to ape those of the USA,where the evangelicals carry a greater influence than their numbers would suggest they should. 

There has been an open and defiant display of religion, more than the customary presidential Church visit that we are accustomed to.

Have you of lately wondered what happened to the church being the moral pillar of the community? Have you wondered about the current transformation to it being a stepping stone for political office? Are you disgusted? I am, and it is painful to realize that I missed such an opportunity by refusing to take a more conspicuous role in my local church.  If I only had known it would lead to the large salaries that Members of Parliament earn. then I would have taken a different approach.

Each one of us professes some kind of religious affiliation, and for the atheists, well, it is a free world. The reason I bring this up, is that I have waited to see if someone more eloquent than myself will point out the attempts of the churches and their disciples hijacking the political process in Kenya. The politicians are at least at some level elected and represent the interest of the constituents, unlike the religious leaders who are appointed in various ways and definitely not through democratic representation.

I disdain the public display of religion, especially by politicians; it is hypocritical, to say the least. Religion has played  the biggest role in most of the atrocities committed throughout history. The control of Europe by the Catholic church, the massacre of the Aztec by the Spanish who were spreading the Christian gospel, the Christian crusaders who killed and plundered the Near and Middle East, the colonization of Africa and the spread of Christianity and its evils. 

In the last year or so, we have seen an encroachment by the Church into previously virgin territory. We have seen the election of church officials into political positions (parastatals) the declaration of Pastor Pius Muiru's desire to run for the Presidency, Bishop Margaret Wanjiru aspiring for Starehe constituency, the open practice and profession of Kalonzo Musyoka’s Christianity however subtle and finally the joke that was the National Prayer Day.

Christians around the world are becoming bolder as they attempt to copy the success of the evangelicals in the United States who were able to propel the current president to two terms with relative ease, even after the Iraq fiasco. For all their success however, the problem with openly religious figures is that they try to influence government policy in their favor leading to religious discrimination.  

"God told me..."

The government of Kenya is a secular institution by constitution; we should strive to keep it that way. The fact that these people are (ab)using their positions in the church to propel them into political office should be condemned. This idea should be nipped at the bud, least we head the way of Saudi Arabia or worse back into the 13^th-15^th centuries, where civic freedoms that we take for granted as Kenyans now, were not existent because of radical practice of religion.