Every human being born in this planet earth would spend over half their life looking for the truth. A higher power that can not only explain the complex nature of life events like natural disasters, deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS, cancer and now the Ebola -epidemic threatening to decimate the entire populations in western Africa. This emptiness is born out of desperation from reality.
The capitalist system doesn't help much where greed takes over as man aspires literally to eat his/her fellow man. Governments are held hostage by powerful cartels and ghosts controlling global trade and commodity prices while multinationals display their dominance through monopolies, oligopolies and government tenders.
The hoi pollois of the modern world struggle each day to eke out a living and as a consequence, reducing them to pathetic and hopeless beggars leaving from pay-check to pay-check, while debts keep mounting as they try to chase that elusive dream home funded through a 30 year mortgage plan whose interest rates alone eat up to 90% if their pay check.
So where does one turn to in such desperate and trying times. History has shown that drugs and religion lie at the very top. The former would turn you in to a junky who sells all his little property and wipe out lifetime savings just to satisfy that need. Before you know it you are so hooked and your system begins to deteriorate before eventually shutting down all the critical organs in the body leading to a slow and painful death.
The latter on the other hand, presents hope in the sense that one is promised about good things to come. This is mainly from religious organisations and sects. Muslim jihadists are promised seven virgins while Christians believe in heaven. Some unscrupulous preachers have discovered this gap and have established churches in almost every corner of the city.
This proliferation of churches has seen almost every house/hall in informal settlements like Kibera turned in to a church on Sundays. The situation is so bad such that multiple churches operate under the same roof with only iron sheet walls separating them, each with blazing speakers spewing a cacophony of deafening praise songs. One even wonders whether the congregation gets anything out of that pandemonium at the end of the day other than a pounding headache.
The preachers in those churches have turned them into money minting enterprises through the "selling of anointing oil" and miracles. Some have even mustered the art of trickery by faking miracles and coaching unemployed and desperate youths to give false witnesses as recorded by the Jicho Pevu crew in Nairobi. The pastors like Victor Kanyari have gone high-tech, broadcasting their fiery preachings on both television and radio stations while collecting 'seeds' electronically using the mobile money transfer technology like Mpesa and Airtel money. The unsuspecting victims-largely women- keep flocking his church with problems ranging from terminal illnesses, poverty, rocky marriages, unemployment and witchcraft to name but a few.
The prophet- as he (Victor Kanyari) likes calling himself- would instil fear using the now-so-popular scripture verse found in the book of Malachi 3:10, from which he coined his 310 shillings tithe message.
In the meantime, Kanyari and his army of conmen and women laugh all the way to the bank, collecting money in the upwards of 200,000 shillings (USD 2,235) untaxed money per day. Soon people like him are spotted driving SUVs and relocating to leafy suburbs while their victims continue to languish in abject poverty waiting for their miracles.
The question that begs therefore is, what is the Truth and how does one find it? That's the one million dollar question that every human being strives to find the answer to every single day they wake up. But the answer lies somewhere if one looks hard enough...
While searching for this truth, we should be weary of the false prophets in these last days as outlined in the book of Matthew 24:11.
The capitalist system doesn't help much where greed takes over as man aspires literally to eat his/her fellow man. Governments are held hostage by powerful cartels and ghosts controlling global trade and commodity prices while multinationals display their dominance through monopolies, oligopolies and government tenders.
 |
The controversial Nairobi preacher
Dr. Prophet Victor Kanyari
of the Salvation Healing Ministry
Church
|
So where does one turn to in such desperate and trying times. History has shown that drugs and religion lie at the very top. The former would turn you in to a junky who sells all his little property and wipe out lifetime savings just to satisfy that need. Before you know it you are so hooked and your system begins to deteriorate before eventually shutting down all the critical organs in the body leading to a slow and painful death.
The latter on the other hand, presents hope in the sense that one is promised about good things to come. This is mainly from religious organisations and sects. Muslim jihadists are promised seven virgins while Christians believe in heaven. Some unscrupulous preachers have discovered this gap and have established churches in almost every corner of the city.
This proliferation of churches has seen almost every house/hall in informal settlements like Kibera turned in to a church on Sundays. The situation is so bad such that multiple churches operate under the same roof with only iron sheet walls separating them, each with blazing speakers spewing a cacophony of deafening praise songs. One even wonders whether the congregation gets anything out of that pandemonium at the end of the day other than a pounding headache.
 |
A map showing the distribution & concentration of religious organisations in the popular Kibera slums
in the Nairobi. |
The prophet- as he (Victor Kanyari) likes calling himself- would instil fear using the now-so-popular scripture verse found in the book of Malachi 3:10, from which he coined his 310 shillings tithe message.
In the meantime, Kanyari and his army of conmen and women laugh all the way to the bank, collecting money in the upwards of 200,000 shillings (USD 2,235) untaxed money per day. Soon people like him are spotted driving SUVs and relocating to leafy suburbs while their victims continue to languish in abject poverty waiting for their miracles.
The question that begs therefore is, what is the Truth and how does one find it? That's the one million dollar question that every human being strives to find the answer to every single day they wake up. But the answer lies somewhere if one looks hard enough...
While searching for this truth, we should be weary of the false prophets in these last days as outlined in the book of Matthew 24:11.
