Church, State and Society in Kenya: From Mediation to Opposition

During the 1980s, religion was widely assumed to have lost its dominant position in Western culture and to be losing ground throughout the world. This has not been the case. Today we see an upsurge in religion worldwide, which has affected people's spiritual, cultural, economic and political lives. Much has been written about the expanded role of religion in the socio-political arena of Islam in the Middle East, of the Catholic Church in countries formerly under Communist control, and of the rising neo-Pentecostalism in Latin America. Similary, much has also been written about the colonial evangelism and the expansion on the role of Christianity in post-colonial Africa. This book joins the debate on the role of Christianity in coloniality, and more so, in post-coloniality and neo-coloniality in Kenya. It traces the process of transformation in which the church, state and society in Kenya took part, and attempts to construct new understandings of the relationships between the three. It demonstrates thecrucial role of the church in shaping Kenya's emerging civil society and in developing an alternative politics.

Galia Sabar is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University, Israel.