In The Zeleza Post, Wandia Njoya comments on the upcoming referendum on a new constitution in Kenya, where the Christian churches have sided with the opposition. She argues that the reasons given by churches for opposing the draft constitution are specious and, worse yet, sexist and racist; the churches’ stance evidences their failure to buck western evangelicalism and craft a liberating theology.

It goes without saying that the case of the churches against the draft Kenya constitution does not make sense. On one hand, they argue that the Kadhi courts in the constitution make Kenya an Islamic state, and yet Kenya should be secular. On the other hand, the leaders want that same secular Kenya they are fighting for to adopt the Christian position on abortion. But worst of all, they have blackmailed Kenya by saying that the country should arrive at a “consensus” with the church in which Kenyans have no choice to acquiesce to the church’s position.

What is surprising about this whole scenario is not so much the contradictions as much as the audacity with which the church flaunts the contradictions in public. It is this audacity that leads one to the conclusion that the case of the Christians against the constitution is not about right, but about might – numerical, masculine and, let’s be honest, Western. If Christianity wasn’t a Western religion, the conversation would be a lot different.

Read the rest of her essay here.