There was an interesting letter from Archbishop Gilbert Deya in yesterday’s East African Standard. The bishop at the centre of child trafficking allegations “cursed” the President of this nation, the Attorney-General and the people of Kenya for what he would like the world to believe is his persecution as a man of God. It read like a passage from the book of Prophet Isaiah, except that it was much more insulting and tactless.
Why should anyone bother about curses? What is the morality of curses? They are basically an antiquated method of ventilation in which an aggrieved party purports to invite damnation on the aggressor. The prophets of old resorted to this method quite frequently. But they made it clear that they were speaking on the authority of the Almighty and they were doing the Almighty’s battle.
But whose battle is Deya doing? The Almighty’s or his own? Here is a man who comes up with an outrageous claim about miracle babies. The claim is questioned and variously dismissed. Some allegations of wrong doing on his part are levelled and the police, the lawful arm of enforcement in this country, get on the case. For this, Deya believes he is being persecuted. Who by? Even so-called men of God are subject to the laws of the lands in which they operate.
When doubts have been raised about their operations, they should not co-opt God into their personal battles and use his name to brand others Satanic or to bring upon illegitimate collective curses on a people whose only mission in this matter is to seek the truth.
Deya should face the facts: If he is in deed truthful in his mission, he shall be eventually vindicated.
If he is not, he shall be condemned, irrespective of the curses he issues upon this nation. Even the Bible that he so liberally quotes says that no wrong shall go unpunished. He should come home, face these facts and clear his name instead of shouting from thousands of kilometres away and casting himself in the mould of an aggrieved innocent. In any case what makes him think that God can only be on his side and not ours?