We began building the concept of Christian Political theology.
This concept is important because it lays the foundation for born again
Christians to fully engage in politics at all levels of governance. (The
assumption is that Christians still are afraid in embracing politics as part of
our God given divine mandate on earth. I believe this is a hangover of 'this is
not our home, we are just passing by, have nothing to do with it' philosophy,
which has effectively been debunked.)
We dealt with the concept of God as the source of our political
opinions and man as the object of these opinions. We did say that the welfare
of man and his environment is the object of this theology.
Let us go further into the concept of man and delineate the
genders. It is evident we have a lot of work to do to bring in the woman fully
into the political life of Kenya. Last week, Kenya got three women governors.
This was a great step forward. We would like to see a situation where women
engage in competitive politics as equals with men and where their chances are
equal to men. (For the sake of clarity, let us make it clear man and woman are
different in terms of their sexual composition and function.) KTN ran a
documentary entitled 'against the grain' where women detailed the sexually
explicit harassment meted against them. It is clear that though we say we want
the advancement of women, in actual fact the big men are at the center of
oppressing women. Millie Odhiambo Mabona's testimony at the hands of male
parliamentarians attests to this. There is a lot of cataloged testimony of
women who have tried to advance in politics but they have been intimidated by
the androcentric nature of our politics. (Sophia Abdi Noor's win in a strongly
patristic area as Ijara shows that there is still hope for more women to be
elected in other competitive seats outside of the County Women Reps.)
Christian Political ideology incorporates scriptural feminist
theology. We believe that man and woman were created equal and given a divine
mandate over creation equally. Sexual construction in no way is a factor for
preference of the male over the female.
In fact, gender difference is another reason why women ought to
be fully involved in politics. Since man (as a term for both male and female)
was created in God's image, the fact that God further made a distinction
between the male and female proves that the two are the fullest representation
of God's image. Without a woman, the world would be dystopian. A woman in her
physical and psychological makeup fully represents God's image as much as a man
does in his entire construction.
To discriminate a woman because of her figure and accoutrements
is to malign and dishonor the image of God. (In fact, it is an attempt to
attack God.) This applies to those who issue sexually suggestive threats,
intimidate women by their bigger and stronger physical stature and deride
women's delicate emotional nature. All forms of sexually explicit and implicit
violence against women(again Millie Adhiambo Mabona serves as a sad example) is
not in any way Christian Political Theology.
At this point, congratulations are in order for the three women
governors (H.E Charity, H.E Laboso and H.E Waiguru), and 22 women MP's elected
to the National Assembly (begining with Millie Grace Akoth Odhiambo Mabona, MP
elect for Suba North) as wel as the 2 senators, Isiolo's Dulla Fatuma Adan and
Nakuru's Susan Wakarura Kihika.
In Christian Political Theology, women are indispensable if we
are to execute God's mandate of redemption of our political culture in Kenya.
