[11.04.08] As millions of evangelicals cast their votes in today’s U.S. presidential election, a pastor from Nairobi, Kenya, is warning Christians to at all costs avert a Barack Obama presidency.
“I’m really worried,” said the Rev. Mbijiwe Mwenda, founding pastor of Nairobi-based Glory Cathedral Church. “If something goes wrong in America, the rest of the world goes wrong.”
Mwenda, author of America: Fear No Evil, told Charisma that Americans are unwise to disregard Obama’s ancestral ties to Muslim and other non-Christian elements of the Luo people—the Kenyan tribe his father belonged to.
He said in addition to tremendous Islamic support for Obama in Africa and worldwide, local pagans in western Kenya are sacrificing goats in a bid to see Obama gain the White House.
The pro-Obama sentiment is so strong in Kenya among Muslims that on Sunday, a native Kenyan pastor pleaded with U.S. Christians in an e-mail to pray for his safety. The veteran evangelist said he’s been threatened with violence by local Muslims who told him if Obama doesn’t win they would hold Christians, especially missionaries with ties to the U.S., responsible.
Mwenda said traditional pagan practices often mix with biblical teachings and create a syncretistic Christianity in the villages from which Obama’s family comes from. “That’s why Christians can go to the mountain to sacrifice,” he said.
“All the hype in Kenya about Obama [centers on] the village of Kogelo, out far in the western part of the state, where Obama’s father lived,” Mwenda said. “Out there, Luo practice a lot of witchcraft and really do communicate with the spirit world. Luo cults worship a snake named Omweri,” he said, referring to a legendary python in the area.
Amid the area’s looming witchcraft activity one prominent leader, a self-professed Pentecostal, believes God is on Obama’s side. Bishop Washington Ogonyo Ngede, a church network leader in East Africa and a member of Luo, told Fox News that his church is engaged in “spiritual warfare” on behalf of Obama, and hopes the young African-American will avert “evil plots” in the spiritual realm to ultimately be victorious on Tuesday.
In 2006, Ogonyo appeared on the welcoming committee alongside Kenya’s current prime minister and Luo tribe celebrity, Raila Odinga, to help welcome Obama to Kenya, according to Fox News. Observers later criticized Obama’s trip to Kenya to publicly appear with Odinga—who has been described as a Marxist.
Mwenda said that of the 45 or so tribes in Kenya, Luo is the third largest. He described its long bitter history and claimed that Odinga manipulated his way into power earlier this year by quietly inciting class warfare among his fellow Luo tribesmen when he fell short of the votes needed to become president. It took an internationally brokered deal that gave Odinga the premiership in order to quell violent outbreaks across Kenya.
Mwenda, who was in Baltimore on Monday warning Americans about Obama right up to Election Day, believes spiritual forces are at work this election cycle and that only Christians praying will turn the course of current events.
“In western Kenya, when goats are sacrificed, it’s to a demonic principality,” he said. “Once spiritual entities are offered a sacrifice, they’re bound to act on its behalf. It’s not just a show; it’s real.”
