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Kenyan iconoclasts threaten cathedral
By Bill Bowder
The Church Times
LONDON (12/19/2004)-- THE Anglican Archbishop of Kenya, the Most Revd Benjamin Nzimbi, has warned Presbyterian reformers who have destroyed millions of pounds’ worth of stained-glass windows and tapestries that they may be seeing demons where there are none.
Archbishop Nzimbi was reacting to a spate of iconoclasm that threatens to spread to Anglican churches in Kenya, among them the cathedral in Nairobi.
"The issue of symbols should be studied carefully without any emotions. It is good to have a clear understanding before we pull down any symbols or artefacts. You may look at a tree and see a demon where there is none," Dr Nzimbi said in the Kenyan newspaper The Nation.
The iconoclastic attacks began after the Presbyterian Moderator, the Revd David Githii, appointed a commission to look at the symbols used throughout its historic churches. The 14-man team, chaired by the Revd Eustace Kabue of Loresho, Nairobi, concluded that 56 art works in churches, including stained-glass windows and other furnishings, were not Christian.
The report makes a link between the early Scottish missionaries and Freemasonry, and claims that their churches were filled with Masonic symbols.
The team wants animal symbols, such as snakes, lions, tigers, jaguars, dragons and frogs, removed, since Freemasonry is associated with devil-worship by many East African Presbyterians.
In consequence, 30 stained-glass windows, tapestries, and memorials have already been removed from the Presbyterian Church of St Andrew, Nairobi. One senior member of the congregation has put the value of the destroyed artefacts at more than £3 million.
Presbyterians are deeply divided over the issue. Police have had to intervene on at least one occasion in the dispute between two factions at St Andrew’s. Worshippers in the Presbyterian Church of the Torch, Kikuyu, were last weekend planning a sit-in to prevent a feared attack from the Presbyterian Church of East Africa in Nairobi.
The Anglican Cathedral in Nairobi is also under threat. The Presbyterian report says that All Saints’ was built on a Maasai shrine of "death and burial" .
It goes on to claim that the cathedral was of particular Masonic influence, "representing the York Rite masonry that flows from it to the rest of the churches that embrace the Scottish Rite Freemasonry".
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