Jephthah Kiara Gathaka
The Bible and Democracy in Africa:
How Biblical Science can contribute towards the
Establishment of Plurality and Democracy, the Bible as
a relevant tool in the quest for engendering Plurality
Introduction
This presentation examines how biblical science can contribute towards
the establishment of plurality and democracy in Africa. We do not wish
to indulge in theory but want to demonstrate how the bible has been
used as a relevant tool in the quest for engendering plurality in Africa
and especially in Kenya. We also want to demonstrate how it is being
used not only for converting souls but also as sustaining the physical
body by liberating humanity from those issues that make it not to have
“life in its abundance.”^1 Further we want to demonstrate that despite the
fact that Christianity and its scriptures are foreign religion in Africa they
have been entrenched in the African soil to an extent that they have
shaped the majority of lives in Africa and continues to influence and
shape the socio-economic and political life in many African countries
and especially Africa South of the Sahara.
Christianity having been embraced by Africans as Prof. John Mbiti
points out
is not just statistics...It is a total way of life, a world view, a religious ideology
(if one may phrase it that way), an existence and a commitment – by indi-
viduals, peoples, cultures and nations. It involves reflection and practice,
institutions and attitudes; and the creation and adoption of traditions. It
means an eventual domestication of the gospel, in its wider sense, within
the total milieu of a people. The gospel grows into the people they grow into
it. While the gospel is essentially constant and unchanging the people are
constantly changing and transitory.^2
We therefore understand why most people in Africa would be influenced
by the bible in their total life. As Mbiti had argued in an earlier work,
(^1) John 10:10 quotations from the bible will be taken from the Revised Standard Version
unless stated otherwise.
(^2) Mbiti, John S. Bible and Theology in African Christianity, Nairobi, Oxford Univ. Press,
1986, p 7.