A Kenyan Queer Prophet: Binyavanga Wainaina’s Public Contestation of Pentecostalism and Homophobia

Abstract

This chapter explores the ways in which Wainaina develops and expounds his critique of Pentecostalism and homophobia. It discusses Wainaina as one prominent example of African agency, courage, creativity and authority in the struggle for sexual diversity and gay rights in contemporary Africa. The chapter presents Wainaina as a queer prophet and as a critic of religion in Kenya's public sphere. It interests in how Wainaina as a queer prophet Johnson and Anderson is contesting the established authority of other prophets in the country. The chapter reveals the fundamental divergence between different forms of socio-political imagination represented by the respective prophets. The chapter interests in prophecy, the role of Prophet Dr David E. Owuor, the leader of the Ministry of Repentance and Holiness, whose long beard reminds one of the typical images of the biblical prophet, deserves attention. In recent years, demonology has shaped the way that Pentecostals in Africa have responded to issues of homosexuality.

Full text

4 A Kenyan queer prophet
Binyavanga Wainaina’s public
contestation of Pentecostalism and
homophobia
Adriaan van Klinken
‘I am a homosexual, mum.’ Under this title, Kenyan writer and one of Africa’s
leading literary  gures, Binyavanga Wainaina,
1 on 19 January 2014 published what
he called ‘A lost chapter’ from his 2011 memoirs. As the title indicates, the chap-
ter includes an intimate revelation:Binyavanga, in the weekend of his forty-third
birthday, comes out as gay. He does so in a literary style, reimagining the last days
of his mother’s life and telling her, on her deathbed, the truth about his sexuality.
For those confused by his literary style, he tweeted a day later:‘I am, for anybody
confused or in doubt, a homsexual [ sic ]. Gay, and quite happy’ (Wainaina 2014a ).
Not coincidentally, Wainaina’s public coming-out came shortly after the controver-
sial passing of anti-homosexuality legislation through the Ugandan and Nigerian
parliaments– Uganda being the country his mother originates from, and Nigeria a
country he frequently visits.
2 ‘I see my coming-out as an intervention, in a moment
in time’, Wainaina explained in an interview, in almost messianic language (Reuters
2014 ). Thus, on 21 January 2014, he published a six-part video documentary, We
Must Free Our Imaginations , on YouTube, in which he re ects and comments on
the recent manifestation of social and political homophobia in Africa as ‘the bank-
ruptcy of a certain kind of imagination’, and underlines the need for Africans ‘to
free our imaginations’ (quoted from Chang 2014 ).
As might be expected, Wainaina’s coming-out has generated public debate and
controversy in Kenya and more broadly in Africa and beyond. Many people showed
their support for what they considered to be a bold and courageous move, but
others expressed their disgust and condemnation. In the Kenyan parliament it was
even asked why openly homosexual people such as Wainaina were not arrested
by the police in spite of the country’s laws prohibiting same-sex practices. This
has not prevented Wainaina from becoming one of the most prominent and vocal
African critics, not only of homophobia in Africa, but also of the religious forces
that incite and fuel it. In interviews and through social media, particularly Twitter,
Wainaina has publicly voiced a strong critique of popular forms of Christianity in
Kenya and more widely in Africa. His particular target of criticism appears to be
Pentecostalism, which he claims to be a major factor in the spread of homophobia
and the recent politicisation of homosexuality in many di erent African countries,
including Kenya. As Wainaina put it when appearing in the popular Kenyan televi-
sion talk show Je Koinange Life , following his January 2014 coming-out: ‘What
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 659781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 65 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

66 Adriaan van Klinken
Idon’t like, and this is where my anger comes from, what Idon’t like is how public
space has been squashed by Pentecostal demon hunters’ (KTN Kenya 2014 ).
In this chapter Iexplore the ways in which Wainaina develops and expounds
his critique of Pentecostalism and homophobia. The case of Wainaina as a public
critic of religious homophobia is important because it allows the foregrounding of
African agency in the  ght against anti-homosexual politics and the struggle for
the recognition of gay or LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex)
human rights and sexual diversity in contemporary Africa. This political struggle
too often is framed by its opponents, both in Africa and in conservative American
circles, as a form of Western cultural imperialism (see Cheney 2012 ), while in the
discourses of Western gay rights movements homosexuals in Africa are sometimes
presented as victims in need of liberation from ‘African homophobia’– the idea of
‘white gays saving brown gays from brown homophobes’ which is so problematic
from postcolonial feminist and queer perspectives (Rao 2010 , 182). As a challenge
to such representations, the African LGBTI Manifesto resulting from a roundtable
session held in Nairobi in April 2010 states:
As Africans, we all have in nite potential. We stand for an African revolu-
tion which encompasses the demand for a re-imagination of our lives outside
neo-colonial categories of identity and power. For centuries, we have faced
control through structures, systems and individuals who disappear our exist-
ence as people with agency, courage, creativity and economic and political
authority. As Africans, we stand for the celebration of our complexities and
we are committed to ways of being which allow for self-determination at all
levels of our sexual, social, political and economic lives. … We are speci cally
committed to the transformation of the politics of sexuality in our contexts, as
long as African LGBTI people are oppressed, the whole of Africa is oppressed.
(African LGBTI Manifesto, in Ekine and Abbas 2013 ,52–53)
In African contexts where religion is predominantly used to reinforce and legitim-
ise homophobia and anti-homosexual politics (Van Klinken and Chitando, forth-
coming), it is particularly important to draw attention to counter-discourses
and -practices emerging within these contexts. In other publications Ihave, there-
fore, discussed how in the context of Zambia, a local faith-based NGO contested
popular understandings of Zambia as a Christian nation that exclude LGBT people,
presenting an explicitly Christian rationale for its pro-LGBT rights stance (Van
Klinken forthcoming), and Ialso explored how a group of self-identi ed gay men
in Lusaka, Zambia, negotiated their sexual and religious identities and were able to
reclaim Christianity and somehow reconcile it with their sexuality (Van Klinken
2015 ). In the present chapter I discuss Wainaina as one prominent example of
African agency, courage, creativity and authority in the struggle for sexual diver-
sity and gay rights in contemporary Africa. More speci cally, Ipresent Wainaina as
a queer prophet and as a critic of religion in Kenya’s public sphere. Referring to
him, a publicly out and proud gay man who is not ashamed of performing gender
ambiguity and challenging the conventions of masculinity, as a prophet– generally
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 669781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 66 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

A Kenyan queer prophet 67
thought of as a pious, zealous and holy man of God– might seem unusual and for
some even inappropriate. Indeed, Isuggest a queering of the  gure of the prophet
as a socio-political critic– appropriating this  gure for queer politics.
3
A queer among the prophets
Kenya has a long tradition of prophets. That is, there are many  gures in Kenya’s
history as well as in contemporary Kenya that have been called, or call themselves,
‘prophet’. As a category of self- or other-identi cation, the term ‘prophet’ is rather
imprecise. In anthropological literature, a variety of religious characters– such as
diviners, oracles, spirit mediums and witch-doctors – that can be found in dif-
ferent ethnic groups in the Eastern African region have been described with the
ancient/biblical term ‘prophet’. Reviewing this literature, Douglas Johnson and
David Anderson conclude that ‘the variety of “prophets” thus found in eastern
Africa is indeed bewildering and de es easy amalgamation within a single analyti-
cal category’ (Johnson and Anderson 1995 , 6). This variety becomes even greater
when one takes into account the manifestation of self-declared prophets in Kenyan
Christian circles, both in twentieth-century independent churches, such as the
Arathi or Roho churches, and in twenty- rst century (neo)Pentecostal churches
and movements.
4
In their attempt to come up with a more precise use of the term ‘prophet’,
Johnson and Anderson de ne the prophet as an ‘inspired  gure’ who ‘must be con-
cerned with the wider moral community at a social or political level’ and whose
moral authority is believed by the community ‘to be inspired by a divinity or other
source of spiritual or moral knowledge that in uences the destiny of the commu-
nity’ (17–19). When Irefer to Wainaina as a prophetic  gure, my intention is not
to suggest that he perceives himself, or is perceived by others, as a divinely inspired
 gure (which, alternatively, is not to preclude the possibility that he might receive
and convey divine inspiration). Raised as a Catholic (and later, after his mother’s
born-again conversion, as a Pentecostal), Wainaina recently confessed that he does
not know whether he is ‘an atheist or a lapsed believer’ (Ndibe 2014b ), but he
made clear that he is ‘dedicated to a rational, secular life’ (Wainaina 2014d ). Thus,
in his case ‘prophet’ is not likely to be a term of self-identi cation and neither
would it be a term by which he is likely to be identi ed by others. Referring to
him as a prophet, then, might be a queer, unexpected move, and indeed requires
a queering of the  gure of the prophet itself. In using this term, Iforeground the
above-mentioned aspect of the prophet being concerned with the wider com-
munity at a socio-political level over the notion of the prophet as a religious  gure
with divine inspiration. As Abraham Joshua Heschel ( 2001 , 12)famously stated
with reference to the biblical prophetic tradition, ‘the prophet is an iconoclast, chal-
lenging the apparently holy, revered, and awesome. Beliefs cherished as certainties,
institutions endowed with supreme sanctity, he exposes as scandalous pretensions.’
As a socio-political critic, the prophet thus stands up and speaks out against
the powers that be. In this sense, prophets can generally be thought of as inher-
ently queer, if we keep in mind David Halperin’s ( 1997 , 62)famous capturing
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 679781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 67 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

68 Adriaan van Klinken
of the term ‘queer’ as demarcating ‘not a positivity, but a positionality vis-à-vis
the normative’. As will become clear below, Wainaina certainly is such a queer
prophetic  gure, in the sense of him presenting a radical social, political and reli-
gious critique of certain norms and power structures in society, as well as open-
ing up an alternative, transgressive space of socio-political imagination. However,
Wainaina is also queer in a more speci c way, as his prophetic contribution is
rooted, in the words of Sokari Ekine and Hakima Abbas ( 2013 , 3), in ‘a perspec-
tive that embraces gender and sexual plurality and seeks to transform, overhaul
and revolutionise African order rather than seek to assimilate into oppressive
hetero-patriarchal-capitalist frameworks’. This political perspective was the major
reason for him to come out as gay and not being apologetic about it, he explained
in an interview:‘I had to come out to be useful. In the closet Icould not be use-
ful. Icould not think of myself as a writer in the closet while harbouring queer
concerns’ (Mwachiro 2015 ,99).
As with the biblical prophets, Wainaina’s name can be read as an indication of
his prophetic vocation. The name Binyavanga– which he as second-born son, fol-
lowing the Gĩkũyũ
5 tradition of his father, inherited from his Ugandan maternal
grandfather– is a queer one. As he writes in his memoirs, this name ‘has something
to do with mixing things up’, further noting that among the Gĩkũyũ, ‘your name is
a kind of fate’ (Wainaina 2011 ,160).
Being Binyavanga is to me also exotic– an imaginary Ugandan of some kind
resides in me, one who lets me withhold from claiming, or being admitted into,
without hesitation, an unquestioning Gikuyu belonging.
(Wainaina 2011 ,161)
Though for a while preferring his English name, Kenneth, he now proudly
uses Binyavanga and, indeed, likes mixing things up, as became clear from his
coming-out. Having an ‘imaginary Ugandan’ residing in him, and not being able
to indisputably claim a Gĩkũyũ belonging, Wainaina somehow seems to pos-
ition himself at the margins of the society he is part of – a relative outsider
position that is typical of the prophet critiquing the socio-political culture and
structures of his society. Another aspect of queerness, which applies to prophets
more generally, relates to their appearance and performance. In their alternative
dress, language and actions, prophets often stand out from the community. Again,
Wainaina is doubly queer in this respect, as his prophetic performance is not
simply di erent from what is mainstream but also distinctly queer in the sense
of challenging heteronormative conventions of style– such as at the occasion of
his TEDxEuston 2014 talk which he delivered in a red skirt while talking about
traditions of tolerance and sexual diversity in Africa.
6 Moreover, like many a
contemporary Pentecostal prophet, Wainaina actively uses modern media, such
as YouTube, Facebook and especially Twitter, to spread his message and reach an
international audience.
Two further aspects of Johnson and Anderson’s de nition of prophets are useful
in thinking about Wainaina as a queer prophet. First, the notion that the authority
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 689781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 68 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

A Kenyan queer prophet 69
of a prophet depends on ‘a community who is willing to listen and prepared to
respond’ (Johnson and Anderson 1995 , 19). In other words, a prophet needs to be
given a certain platform to be granted a legitimacy and authority. In Wainaina’s
case it is clear that he received such a platform, not only internationally, as might
be expected, but also nationally with Kenyan newspapers and other media report-
ing about his coming-out and Wainaina being invited on several television shows
and other podia to talk openly about his experiences and views. In as much as he
was given a platform, he also generated public debate and received much response,
both positive and negative. Second, prophets always risk being contested, as their
message can be rejected by ‘dissenters or disbelievers within the wider community’
(ibid.) or can be challenged by emerging rival prophets– the age-old contest-
ation between ‘false’ and ‘true’ prophets (Vengeyi 2013 ). This applies to Wainaina
in two ways. Of course, his message received a mixed response and was rejected
by many Kenyans. Yet in the context of this chapter, Iam particularly interested in
how Wainaina as a queer prophet himself is contesting the established authority of
other prophets in the country. This contestation, Isuggest, reveals the fundamental
divergence between di erent forms of socio-political imagination represented by
the respective prophets, in this case a divergence between a Pentecostal and a queer
political imagination.
Pentecostals prophesying against homosexuality
In his 2009 book Christianity, Politics and Public Life in Kenya , Paul Gi ord states
that for most Kenyans, homosexuality ‘hardly seems a burning issue’ (Gi ord
2009 , 249). This observation might have been correct at the time, but things have
since changed considerably. In recent years, Kenya has witnessed intensifying
public and political debates about homosexuality and ‘gay rights’, in line with
the broader politicisation of homosexuality in Africa. Ihave no space to explore
this in detail (see Macharia 2013 ) but will focus here on the contribution from
Pentecostal circles.
Pentecostal-Charismatic forms of Christianity have grown rapidly in recent dec-
ades in Kenya, as all over sub-Saharan Africa. The new churches are often said to
attract the urban middle-class population in particular, allowing them to consciously
opt into modernity (Gi ord 2009 , 112, 135). Yet as much as Kenya’s Pentecostal
churches may be associated with modernity, there are some modern developments
they fervently oppose, and the global discourse of recognising same-sex relation-
ships and gay rights is one of them. The in uence of these churches and their
leaders ‘has invaded all aspects of Kenyan civic life and their presence is now being
felt in the realm of politics, economics, cultural and socio-religious  elds’ (Parsitau
and Mwaura 2010 , 5). The strong Pentecostal involvement in public debates and
politics is apparent, among other things, from the process towards the 2010 con-
stitutional referendum where Pentecostals unsuccessfully campaigned against the
draft constitution (Deacon and Lynch 2013 , 126). In their campaign they put a
strong emphasis on issues such as abortion, Islamic legal courts and homosexuality.
Generally, Pentecostalism has contributed to the politicisation of homosexuality
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 699781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 69 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

70 Adriaan van Klinken
in Kenya much as it has in other African countries. Two Pentecostal contributions
particularly standout.
Given this chapter’s interest in prophecy, the role of Prophet Dr David E.Owuor,
the leader of the Ministry of Repentance and Holiness, whose long beard reminds
one of the typical image of the biblical prophet, deserves attention. Owuor has
become an enormously popular, though controversial,  gure on Kenya’s religious
scene, especially after the post-election violence in 2007, which he claimed to
have predicted in 2004. Interestingly, in the YouTube compilation video claiming
the ‘stunning ful lment’ of Owuor’s prophecy of the ‘horri c bloodshed’, refer-
ence is made to ‘sexual sin’ as one major category of which Kenya has to repent,
without any further speci cation (Repent and Prepare the Way 2010 ). Although
homosexuality does not seem to be a primary concern in his ministry, Owuor has
recently raised the issue on a number of occasions, clearly taking a strong nega-
tive stance. First, he has expressed a concern about the compromising stand of ‘the
church’– without any further precision– on issues of sexuality, referring to min-
isters sexually exploiting church members as well as to some churches accepting
or tolerating pre-marital cohabitation and homosexuality (MmegiOnline 2014 ).
This reference possibly capitalises on the crisis over homosexuality in the global
Anglican Communion in order to suggest that the Anglican and other mainline
churches are tolerating, or even promoting, same-sex sexuality. Second, more dir-
ectly interfering in politics, Owuor was invited by President Uhuru Kenyatta at
State House to pray for the country, on which occasion he reportedly reminded
the president that ‘righteousness must thrive in order to clear out evil, corruption,
homosexuality, immorality and terrorism in the mighty name of Jesus’ (quoted
in Wesonga 2014 ). The suggestion here is that homosexuality is a major national
threat, comparable even to things like terrorism. In the same way as Owuor and his
ministry use women’s bodies and female sexuality as ‘sites of debates and discourses
about moral decay in Africa and [as] purveyors of social and moral lapses’ (Parsitau
2015 ), apparently also homosexuality is used as a site of morality, not just at an indi-
vidual level but also at a national level. The strong suggestion is made that the moral
fabric of Kenya as an African and Christian nation is under threat.
The latter concern is even more apparent from the discourse presented by
the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya (EAK), an umbrella body of Pentecostal and
evangelical churches and organisations in the country. In 2014, EAK published
a booklet, Kenya Let’s Pray! , with a hundred-day prayer schedule. As Richard
Burgess ( 2012 , 35) has noted, ‘prophetic politics is often linked to prayer in
Pentecostal practice’. This is illustrated in the booklet’s foreword, where EAK
chair, Bishop Mark Kariuki, uses prophetic language:he expresses the hope that
the prayer campaign will ‘serve as a turning point’ because Kenya as a nation is at
‘a crisis point’ facing serious threats, and calls upon all Christians in the country
to mobilise and join in prayer against ‘the spirits of the age antagonizing against
the calling of God in this land’ ( Kenya Let’s Pray! 2014, 1). Reading through the
booklet, it becomes clear what the major threats are:they are as varied as terror-
ism, tribalism, corruption, economic challenges, as well as, indeed, homosexuality.
On day forty-six of the campaign, the prayer theme is ‘Homosexuality, sexual
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 709781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 70 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

A Kenyan queer prophet 71
perversion, drug and alcohol abuse in our children’s schools’, introduced with
the followingtext:
Pray for exposure to public scrutiny those who are covertly working to advance
the homosexual indoctrination of our children through the educational sys-
tem. Pray that God would raise up righteous leaders to successfully contend
against the encroachments of the homosexual activists upon our nation’s edu-
cational system. Pray that defenders of family and protectors of our children’s
welfare remain strong and courageous and true to their calling. … Pray for
protection of our children’s minds and hearts as they sit in school, college and
university classrooms.
( Kenya Let’s Pray! 2014,19–20)
Elaborating on this theme, on day sixty-one the booklet reads:‘The family unit is
under attack from the spirit of the age as men sink further into depravity. Pray that
against the so called gay rights (sad wrongs); that these will never be entrenched into
our laws’ (24). Furthermore, on day eighty-four the praying Kenyans are instructed
‘to decree and declare … that the  nancial funding supporting the pro-abortion,
anti-family-marriage and homosexual agenda would be cut o . The Lord exposes
and thwarts the plans of these evil men’ (30). The prayer booklet clearly suggests
that issues of homosexuality and gay rights are a major concern of EAK’s– with
the reference to ‘these evil men’ suggesting that it is male homosexuality, in par-
ticular, that gives rise to anxiety, perhaps because of its association with anal sex
(see Mbembe 2006 , 167). As in Ugandan Christian discourses about homosexu-
ality, children– as the future of the nation– are represented in the EAK material
as ‘a particular locus of social vulnerability’ (Sadgrove etal. 2012 , 121). The lan-
guage of ‘family values’– not unlikely to be inspired by the American Christian
Right– further demonstrates how this Christian rhetoric serves the construction of
a strictly heterosexual national identity, re ecting a broader pattern of the nation-
alisation of sexuality in African Pentecostal settings (Van Klinken 2014 ). Clearly, if
the Kenya Let’s Pray campaign successfully inspired Kenyan Pentecostal Christians
to engage in intercessory prayer against ‘the threat of homosexuality’, such prayer
is a form of political-prophetic praxis (Kalu 2008 , 219)and it re ects an enormous
concern with the moral purity of the nation.
The cases discussed above, of Prophet Owuor and the Evangelical Alliance of
Kenya, show that in recent years homosexuality has become a major concern in
Kenyan Pentecostal circles and subsequently also in the public sphere. The emerging
prophetic Pentecostalist discourse re ects the belief that homosexuality is a threat
to the moral purity of the nation. It also demonstrates the mobilisation of political
energies to resist this threat– energies that, in a typical Pentecostal worldview– are
believed to come from the power of God and Christ through which believers can
 ght against the tricks and strategies of the devil. The underlying political imagin-
ation is that of Kenya being a Christian country that will prosper if it adheres to
‘biblical principles’, hence the fervour against a seemingly ‘unbiblical’ practice such
as homosexuality.
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 719781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 71 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

72 Adriaan van Klinken
Wainaina’s critique of Christianity inAfrica
As a queer prophet, Wainaina since his coming-out has actively and publicly criti-
cised the role of Christianity in the recent politicisation of homosexuality in Kenya
and more widely in Africa. In particular, he critically examines popular rhetoric
opposing homosexuality because it would be ‘un-African’ and ‘un-Christian’.
Asked in an interview by Nigerian writer Okey Ndibe, published on the online
forum This is Africa , how he would respond to the argument that acceptance of
homosexuality is not part of Africa’s cultural heritage, Wainaina points out that ‘it’s
kind of di cult to talk about an exceptional Africanness when the phenomenon
is widely documented in every human society, Africa included’ (Ndibe 2014a ).
In other words, he challenges the strategic representation of homosexuality as
‘un-African’ by referring to the history, or better histories, of same-sex sexualities
on the African continent – a continent that according to Wainaina ( 2015 ), in a
talk entitled ‘Conversations with Baba’, is ‘the moral reservoir of human diversity,
human aid, human dignity’. In the interview, he then goeson:
And the argument itself has always been made under the banner of the church.
They start the conversation with ‘it’s not African culture because it says XYZ
in Leviticus.’ But nobody has sought to document any arguments [besides
what they read in the Bible]. Ithink it’s a church conversation; it’s a conversa-
tion that has come into the African space via the church.
(Ndibe 2014a )
Blaming the church for the way homosexuality has been politicised and homopho-
bia has become endemic, Wainaina appears to be particularly critical of those argu-
ments con ating ‘African culture’ with Christianity. Thus, in an interview published
in newspaper The Nairobian , he states:
People always talk about homosexuality and the African culture but when you
ask them to quote they quote the Bible. Is the Bible/Christianity part of our
African culture? … People who say that Africans must be governed according
to Leviticus, as far as Iam concerned, should not be in any serious podium
discussing any seriousthing.
(Ngunjiri 2014 )
The fundamental question raised here, though not further elaborated on, is about
the place of Christianity and the Bible in a postcolonial African society like
Kenya. Several African theologians have argued that Christianity is, principally, a
non-Western and indeed an African religion (see Bediako 1995 ). Yet Wainaina seems
to suggest that because Christianity originally came from the West, it cannot func-
tion as a source of moral authority in Africa. The argument of the famous Kenyan
writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, about Decolonising the Mind (Ngũgĩ 1986 ), is directly
applied by Wainaina to the sphere of religion. For example, in a tweet on 4 February
2014, he stated:‘Show me one decolnised [ sic ] African christian church, and Ishall
join it’ (Wainaina 2014b ). How Wainaina envisions such a decolonisation of the
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 729781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 72 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

A Kenyan queer prophet 73
church and of Christianity in Africa does not become clear in these texts. Yet he
strongly suggests that Christianity can no longer be used to reinvent a strictly het-
erosexual ‘African culture’ in a Victorian guise, but rather should come to appreciate
the diversity and tolerance that, he believes, are typical of Africa’s cultural heritage.
In addition to this fundamental critique of African Christianity, Wainaina also
questions the hypocrisy in the church that undermines its moral authority. Here he
particularly (but not exclusively) mentions Pentecostal churches. Referring to the
fervour with which their pastors have spoken out against homosexuality and gay
rights, Wainaina remarks:
I documented, just in the African media since January, 335 cases of gross mis-
behaviour by Pentecostal pastors. 335. You have documented cases where, in
London, there’s research showing that the spike in HIV transmission among
African women is due to pastors. It’s crazy! So Idon’t understand why we are
having a religious, moral conversation around people who harm nobody when,
as a continent, [we] are in a grip of something so insanely self-serving, a sin
against everybody’s moral platform and against everybody’s code of goodness.
(Ndibe 2014b )
The ‘something’ that keeps the continent in its grip refers to Pentecostalism. One
of his criticisms of Pentecostal pastors is that their ministries are a pro t-making
industry. This point is made in the joke with which he responds to the sugges-
tion of one interviewer that he came out as gay in order to receive funding from
international donors for gay rights advocacy. Wainaina– reportedly with a smile–
said: ‘Oh! There is a lot of money in gay business. But if Iwanted real money
Iwould start a church’ (Ngunjiri 2014 ).
Not only are Pentecostal pastors in his opinion hypocritical, but Wainaina also
suggests they are missing the essence of what the Christian faith is about. Here, he
engages in religious thought in order to criticise the church in Africa in general
for singling out homosexuality as the major moral concern, and gay people as the
major category of sinners:
We are all sinners. That’s the contract Iknow from every church Ihave ever
heard of. We are all sinners, and we all seek sanctuary in the eyes of the Lord.
And the sanctuary is a right given to all human beings. And that sanctuary is
the sanctuary that the church gives. Its job is not to judge, condemn, in uence
law or such– it’s to give that sanctuary. There is zero noise from any of those
churches, even on the back of that law, to just stand up in the media and say,
if you are homosexual and you are going through stress, love is in my parish.
Come and speak. Not one. Ihaven’t heard one. Ithink it’s extraordinary. So the
question becomes:where did the crazy rightwing-ness comefrom?
(Ndibe 2014b )
Thus, Wainaina suggests that the church, instead of being preoccupied with the
‘sin’ gay people might be involved in, should provide a safe space and demonstrate
love to people marginalised because of their sexuality. The question of where the
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 739781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 73 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

74 Adriaan van Klinken
‘crazy rightwing-ness’ of homophobia and anti-homosexual politics in Africa did
come from is answered by Wainaina with reference to Christianity, in particular its
Pentecostal version. Pentecostalism, and its belief in demons, therefore, becomes the
particular subject of his prophetic critique.
A queer satire of Pentecostal demonology
In the African Pentecostal imagination, demons play a central role. Awide range
of social, economic, relational, psychological and medical problems tend to be
framed in a spiritual framework where they are explained with reference to
demonic spirits and/or the devil and are dealt with through deliverance and spir-
itual warfare.
7 Take, for example, the belief in the ‘Spirit of Poverty’ that David
Maxwell ( 1998 , 358)found to be central among Zimbabwean Pentecostals. This
belief entails the idea that ‘a believer remained poor because of their spiritual con-
dition’ and that ‘misfortune is passed from generation to generation via demonic
ancestral spirits’. Through deliverance– ‘a drama acted out on the body’ with pas-
tors invoking the name and/or the blood of Jesus while praying over and touch-
ing or shaking the bodies of those kneeling down before them– Christians can
be delivered from these evil spirits and then access God’s blessings and become
prosperous (361). This demonological strain in African Pentecostal Christianity, as
Rosalind Hackett ( 2003 , 62)points out, ‘is sustained both by local understandings
of human misfortune and spiritual agency as well as the teachings of foreign evan-
gelists’. In recent years, demonology has also shaped the way that Pentecostals in
Africa have responded to issues of homosexuality. In public and political debates,
international as well as local  gures and bodies promoting gay rights have been
‘discerned’ as agents of the devil participating in a satanic conspiracy to impose
homosexuality on Africa (see Van Klinken 2013 ). Individuals believed to be homo-
sexual themselves are increasingly targeted by so-called healing and deliverance
ministries, or prayer camps, to deliver them from the ‘spirit of homosexuality’ that
purportedly possessesthem.
As a critic of Pentecostalism, Wainaina has made the Pentecostal concern with
demons a focal point of his critique. In his 2011 memoir, One Day Iwill Write
About This Place , he writes in a dry, slightly sarcastic style about the outbreak of
Pentecostal fever in Kenya in the 1980s, directly a ecting his family. He writes
about his mother leaving their ‘polite middle-classCatholic church’ for a new con-
gregation, Deliverance Church, which makes her believe that she is cured from her
diabetes. In the meantime, at his sister’s posh high school:
Last term girls went hysterical when one girl was possessed by demons. Avery
handsome preacher, who had a Ray Miaw Miaw and looks like Jermaine
Jackson, came and cast them out. Much of the school gotsaved.
(Wainaina 2011 ,66)
How Wainaina felt about all this is evident from his following comment:‘Chiqy, my
baby sister, is too young to be threatened by allthis.’
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 749781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 74 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

A Kenyan queer prophet 75
In part two of his Let’s Free Our Imagination videos, published after his
coming-out, Wainaina discusses the growth of Pentecostalism and the widespread
concern with demons in Kenya in the 1980s in more depth, under the telling title
‘This Ecstasy of Madness’. He explains the outbreak of ‘panic fever’ with refer-
ence to the social, economic and political context in Kenya at the time:the dic-
tatorial one-party state under Daniel Arap Moi, the collapsing economy and the
manifestation of a new disease, with many young people dying of AIDS. Against
this background, Wainaina suggests, it is explicable that people might ‘start getting
the feeling that there are these forces’ and take refuge with ‘these brokers of the
forces’– pastors.
The brokers basically are pastors. Their job was to say, ‘Listen– me, Icontrol
these forces, and I’ve been given power because Iwent to Nigeria for Bible
study, and inside Nigeria there are demons who run it like a kingdom, which
is ruling the whole of Africa. And so Icame back and I’ve been taught how to
handle these forces.’ … So people go demon-hunting. People bring their chil-
dren to remove the demons. Your heart needs solace–  ne. Guys needed the
solace. It was a terrible, terribletime.
(Wainaina 2014d )
Though he is able to explain and somehow understand the preoccupation with
demons in that period of time, Wainaina has little sympathy for Pentecostal pastors
capitalising on and pro ting from people’s fear and anxiety. Instead, he became
‘dedicated to a rational, secular life’ (ibid.) and recently has started using satire to
ridicule Pentecostal demonology.
Of particular interest here is a series of messages that Wainaina tweeted on 6
January 2014, just a few weeks before his public coming-out. These tweets have
been compiled and edited by Aaron Bady into a singular piece of text with the title
‘ “African Homosexual Deamon” – Binyavanga’s Brief Treatise on Demonology’,
published on the weblog BrittlePaper:An African Literary Experience (Edoro 2014 ).
This series of twenty-one tweets– part of a longer tweet series sent that day in
which Wainaina ranted against Pentecostals– opens with the question:‘So the dea-
mon for homosexuality, is it French? Coz many Pentecostals say it is not African.’
Obviously, Wainaina here seeks to address and interrogate the popular perception
(not only among Pentecostals) in Kenya and other African countries that homo-
sexuality is un-African and is a Western invention. The style he uses is satire, as is
obvious from his further tweets in which he writes:
Bible Scientists who know the  eld very well have deeply researched ALL
African knowledge and are sure Gay deamon DID indeed come from the West.
Scientists and experts on Bible Africa are sure Homo deamon was imported. I’m
not sure though whether by plane or ship. Container number? Homosexuality
deamon could very well have arrived, not in a container (carrying Friesian
bulls maybe?), it could have come with passengers.
(Edoro 2014 )
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 759781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 75 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

76 Adriaan van Klinken
A satirical blend of irony, exaggeration and ridicule, this passage makes the popu-
lar idea that homosexuality came from the West look absurd. Elsewhere Wainaina
makes more explicitly the point that the widespread view of homosexuality as
un-African is not based on any historical or anthropological research into African
sexualities. But here he continues in the mode of satire:
Homosexuality deamon must have sat around bored for a long long time occu-
pying one or two people, until the internet arrived. When the internet arrived,
the homosexuality deamon went digital, and was able to climb into optic  b-
ers. Homosexuality deamon learns fast. Full of trickery. Read a lot and decided
to convert from simple analogue deamonhood, to an actual ideology.… They
called it Gayism and Lesbianism.
(Edoro 2014 )
The humorous account of how ‘homosexuality deamon’ became ‘Homosexuality
ideology’ ridicules the popular perception of homosexuality as an ‘-ism’, a political
ideology that presents a major threat to the world. Wainaina’s tweet-story becomes
fantastic when he goes on and writes about his personalised homosexuality demon
possessing the son of a pastor who goes to The Netherlands on a scholarship.
Returning together to Africa with the new-found homosexual ideology, when  ying
over Sudan their plane is attacked by ‘a chariot of male African homosexuality dea-
mons’ (ibid.), consisting of Wolof- and Azande-speaking demons, as well as two kings,
Zulu King Shaka and Buganda King Kabaka Mwanga. This reference is signi cant,
as in anthropological and historical literature the Wolof and Azande ethnic groups as
well as these two kings have been associated with pre-colonial traditions of same-sex
or ‘dissident’ sexuality. In other words, Wainaina invokes the memory of these tradi-
tions to counter the idea of homosexuality as un-African. In his rich fantasy narrative,
the imported European homosexuality demon and the pastor’s son, together with
the African homosexuality demons and the two kings, spend two weeks in Entebbe
where ‘they used social media to spread Afro-homosexualism everywhere with a few
dutch techniques’ (ibid.). Wainaina’s fantastic tweet-story continues when he refers to
Museveni and Martin Ssempa– Ugandan president and prominent Ugandan anti-gay
pastor respectively– and writes that they ‘wanted to make some contacts with some
crazy Bush type southern Baptist ex-slave owning types’, implicitly insinuating that
the anti-homosexual politics and legislation in Uganda are inspired by American
Christian Right evangelicals or, in Wainaina’s words, are fuelled by ‘Pentacostal bull-
shit deamons’ both from within and from outside Africa (ibid.).
The tweet-story is humorous and bizarre– it is not a coherent piece of  ction
at all, but rather a satirical rant full of ridicule and fantasy. It is not clear whether
Wainaina deliberately intended to mimic some of the wild, speculative discourse
of many Pentecostal preachers. Yet it is obvious that this piece of satire is his ironic
response to popular Pentecostal views in which homosexuality is associated with
the devil, is considered a sign of the end times and is presented as a threat to the
nation as serious as terrorism. As the editor of BrittlePaper , Ainehi Edoro puts it,
the text is the result of ‘storytelling [tipping] over the edge of prophecy’ (ibid.).
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 769781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 76 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

A Kenyan queer prophet 77
Theprophetic aspect of the story can be found in the exposure and interrogation of
popular arguments while creatively opening up a space for new imaginations, such
as of ‘Afro-homosexualism’. It is a queer prophecy for that matter, because of its
creative and absurd style as well as the way it subverts Pentecostal demonology and
shifts the focus from the demon of homosexuality to the demon of Pentecostalism.
Conclusion
An interesting comparative remark on Pentecostalism and the emerging gay move-
ment in contemporary Africa has been made by Africanist scholar KevinWard:
Like Pentecostalism, gay identities are shaped by participation in a global culture
and are almost unimaginable without that participation. Yet both Pentecostal
and gay identities struggle to assert their ‘Africanness’, and to receive public
recognition as ‘authentic’ Afr ican modes ofbeing.
(Ward 2006 ,132)
The relationship between Pentecostalism and ‘Africanness’ is rather complex, but
one way in which African Pentecostals have dealt with the problem identi ed by
Ward is by reinventing an ‘African culture’ that is compatible with their own under-
standing of Christianity and which therefore is strictly heterosexual. Publicly pro-
 ling themselves as guardians of ‘African tradition’ and ‘Chr istian values’, pastors
and prophets seek to rea rm their own ‘Africanness’ by labelling homosexuality
and gay people as ‘un-African’. With their strong public presence, this rhetoric has
become widespread and has shaped public opinions and political debates in vari-
ous African countries. Where emerging gay groups and other sexual minorities in
these countries for a long time were hardly visible and their voices hardly heard,
Wainaina has become one of the most outspoken public  gures who is openly
and proudly gay and speaks out against popular, religiously inspired homophobia.
Making Pentecostalism the focal point of his critique, he deals with the problem
identi ed by Ward in a way that mirrors and counters the Pentecostal strategy:he
accuses Pentecostalism of an imperialist ‘hindsightisation of [African] culture’
(Ndibe 2014a ) and argues that it should decolonise itself and rethink its Victorian
and Puritan values. Referring to himself as a pan-Africanist and Afropolitan,
8 he
invokes the history of same-sex sexualities on the African continent to legitimate
his own African gay identity and claim a space for African gay people. Whether
this will lead to public recognition of gay identities is yet to be seen in the longer
term, but at least Wainaina has created a public platform from which he has moved
the debates on homosexuality in Kenya and more widely in Africa in new direc-
tions. On that platform he prophetically challenges the powers that be, interrogates
popular norms and contests the moral authority of his opponents, the Pentecostal
pastors and prophets preoccupied with the ‘demon of homosexuality’. Criticising
Pentecostalism for its colonialist cultural and socio-political agenda and reclaiming
African traditions of diversity and sexual plurality, Wainaina through the power of
language and imagination emerges as a prophet, postcoloniallyqueer.
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 779781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 77 2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM2/24/2016 7:31:30 PM

78 Adriaan van Klinken
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Ezra Chitando, Benjamin Kirby and Silas Mukangu for their help-
ful comments on a draft version of this chapter. Ialso gratefully acknowledge the
conversation with Binyavanga Wainaina, about this chapter and many other things,
when Ivisited him in Nairobi in July2015.
Notes
1 Among other achievements, Wainaina is the winner of the 2002 Caine Prize for African
Writing, is the founding editor of Kwani? (a Kenyan-based literary network estab-
lished in 2003), was nominated by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global
Leader in 2007 (but subsequently declined the award) and was until recently director
of the Chinua Achebe Center for African Literature and Languages at Bard College,
NewYork,USA.
2 The Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda passed through parliament on 20 December
2013, while the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act in Nigeria was signed into law by
President Goodluck Jonathan on 14 January2014.
3 In this chapter Iwill not engage with the debate on whether the term ‘queer’ is appro-
priate in African contexts, but Isimply acknowledge that a growing number of African
scholars, writers and activists have recently adopted the term (see Ekine and Abbas
2013 ) and consider it a useful lens for their scholarship and activism. For an account on
Africanising the  eld of Queer Studies, see Nyanzi 2015 .
4 Kenya is not unique here. For example, in the context of Zimbabwe some scholars have
observed that the country recently has been ‘under the grip of a prophetic craze’, espe-
cially thanks to the emergence of young Pentecostal prophets (Chitando, Gunda and
Kügler 2013 ,9).
5 The Gĩkũyũ are the main ethic group inKenya.
6 For this talk, see Wainaina 2015 . In this chapter Ido not have the space to analyse the
performative aspects of Wainaina as a queer prophet in any detail, but Ihope to do so in
a future publication.
7 Pentecostalism here continues and at the same time transforms (through a Christian
dualism) traditional African ontologies in which the spirit world is believed to be closely
associated with, and have direct e ects on, the human realm. For a discussion of this
dynamic, see Lindhardt 2015 .
8 He uses and identi es with both terms in the We Must Free Our Imaginations videos
(Wainaina 2014c , 2014d ), though previously he had dissociated himself from the term
Afropolitanism (in his 2012 lecture at the African Studies Association UK conference at
the University of Leeds, entitled ‘I am a Pan-Africanist, not an Afropolitan’.
References
Bediako , Kwame ( 1995 ). Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion .
Edinburgh : Edinburgh UniversityPress .
Burgess , Richard ( 2012 ). “ Pentecostals and Political Culture in sub-Saharan Africa:Nigeria,
Zambia, and Kenya as Case Studies ’, in Michael Wilkinson (ed.), Global Pentecostal
Movements:Migration, Mission, and Public Religion . Leiden : Br ill , 17 – 42 .
Chang , Wah-Ming ( 2014 ). ‘Binyavanga Wainaina on Coming Out, Homophobia, and the
Powers of the Imagination’ (transcript of the We Must Free Our Imaginations videos), Melville
House [online], 27 January. www.mhpbooks.com/binyavanga-wainaina-on-coming-out-
homophobia-and-the-powers-of-the-imagination/ (accessed 25 October 2015).
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 789781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 78 2/24/2016 7:31:31 PM2/24/2016 7:31:31 PM

A Kenyan queer prophet 79
Cheney , Kristen ( 2012 ). ‘ Locating Neocolonialism, “Tradition,” and Human Rights in
Uganda’s “Gay Death Penalty” ’, African Studies Review 55/ 2 , 77 – 95 .
Chitando , Ezra , Masiiwa Ragies Gunda and Joachim Kügler ( 2013 ). ‘ Introduction ’, in Ezra
Chitando , Masiiwa Ragies Gunda and Joachim Kügler (eds), Prophets, Pro ts and the Bible
in Zimbabwe . Bamberg : University of Bamberg Press , 9 – 14 .
Deacon , Gregory , and Gabrielle Lynch ( 2013 ). “ Allowing Satan in? Moving toward a Political
Economy of Neo-Pentecostalism in Kenya ’, Journal of Religion in Africa 43/ 2 , 108 – 130 .
Edoro , Ainehi ( 2014 ). ‘ “African Homosexual Deamon”: Binyavanga’s Brief Treatise on
Demonology’, Brittle Paper:An African Literary Experience [online], 8 January. http://brittlepaper.
com/2014/01/african-homosexual-deamon-binyavangas-treatise-demonology/
(accessed 25 March2015).
Ekine , Sokari , and Hakima Abbas , eds ( 2013 ). Queer African Reader . Dakar, Nairobi and
Oxford : PambazukaPress .
Gi ord , Paul ( 2009 ). Christianity, Politics and Public Life in Kenya . London : Hurst&Co .
Hackett , Rosalind I.J. ( 2003 ). “ Discourses of Demonization in Africa and Beyond ’, Diogenes
50/ 3 , 61 – 75 .
Halperin , David ( 1997 ). Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography . Oxford and NewYork :
Oxford UniversityPress .
Heschel , Abraham Joshua (2001 [ 1962 ]). The Prophets . NewYork : HarperCollins .
Johnson , Douglas H. , and David M. Anderson ( 1995 ). ‘ Revealing Prophets ’, in D.M.
Anderson
and D.H. Johnson (eds), Revealing Prophets:Prophecy in Eastern African History .
London : James Currey , 1 – 27 .
Kalu , Ogbu U. ( 2008 ). African Pentecostalism:An Introduction . Oxford : Oxford UniversityPress .
Kenya Let’s Pray! ( 2014 ). Nairobi:Evangelical Alliance ofKenya.
KTN Kenya ( 2014 ). ‘Je Koinange Live with Valentine Njoroge and Binyavanga Wainaina
(Being Gay in Kenya)’, YouTube, 29 January. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CANd4G_
ewBY (accessed 25 October2015).
Lindhardt , Martin ( 2015 ). ‘ Continuity, Change or Coevalness:Charismatic Christianity and
Tradition in Tanzania ’, in Martin Lindhardt (ed.), Pentecostalism in Africa:Presence and Impact
of Pneumatic Christianity in Postcolonial Societies . Leiden : Brill , 163 – 190 .
Macharia , Keguro ( 2013 ). ‘ Queer Kenya in Law and Policy ’, in S. Ekine and H. Abbas (eds),
Queer African Reader . Dakar, Nairobi and Oxford : Pambazuka Press , 273 –
289 .
Maxwell , David ( 1998 ). ‘ “Delivered from the Spirit of Poverty?”:Pentecostalism, Prosperity
and Modernity in Zimbabwe ’, Journal of Religion in Africa 28/ 3 , 350 – 373 .
Mbembe , Achille ( 2006 ). ‘ On the Postcolony: A Brief Response to its Critics ’, African
Identities 4/ 2 , 143 – 178 .
MmegiOnline ( 2014 ). ‘Kenyan Preacher Calls for Church’s Repentance’, 16 September.
www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=46029 (accessed 6 March2015).
Mwachiro , Kevin ( 2015 ). ‘ A Lost Chapter Found:Interview with Binyavanga Wainaina ’, in Theo
Sandfort , Fabienne Simenel , Kevin Mwachiro and Vasi Reddy (eds), Boldly Queer: African
Perspectives on Same-Sex Sexuality and Gender Diversity . The Hague : Hivos , 97 – 101 .
Ndibe , Okey ( 2014a ). ‘The Binyavanga Wainaina Interview (part 1)’, This Is Africa
, 10
April. http://thisisafrica.me/binyavanga-wainaina-interview-part-1/ (accessed 15
September2014).
Ndibe , Okey ( 2014b ). ‘The Binyavanga Wainaina Interview (part2)’, This Is Africa , 10 April.
http://thisisafrica.me/binyavanga-wainaina-interview-part-2/ (accessed 15 September
2014).
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o ( 1986 ). Decolonising the Mind:The Politics of Language in African Literature .
London : Heinemann .
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 799781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 79 2/24/2016 7:31:31 PM2/24/2016 7:31:31 PM

80 Adriaan van Klinken
Ngunjiri , Mbugua ( 2014 ). ‘My Beef with the Church– Binyavanga’, The Nairobian [online],
7February. www.standardmedia.co.ke/entertainment/thenairobian/article/4115/my-beef-
with-the-church-binyavanga (accessed 15 September2014).
Nyanzi , Stella ( 2015 ). ‘ Knowledge is Requisite Power:Making a Case for Queer African
Scholarship ’, in Theo Sandfort , Fabienne Simenel , Kevin Mwachiro and Vasi Reddy
(eds), Boldly Queer: African Perspectives on Same-Sex Sexuality and Gender Diversity . The
Hague : Hivos , 125 – 135 .
Parsitau , Damaris ( 2015 ). ‘ Embodying Holiness:Gender, Sex and Bodies in a Neo-Pentecostal
Church in Kenya– Body Talk and Cultural Identity in the African World ’, in Augustine
Agwuele (ed.), Body Talk and Cultural Identity in the African World . London : Equinox ,
181 – 201 .
Parsitau , Damaris , and Philomena Njeri Mwaura ( 2010 ). ‘ God in the City:Pentecostalism as
an Urban Phenomenon in Kenya ’, Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 36/
2 , 95 – 112 .
Rao , Rahul ( 2010 ). Third World Protest: Between Home and the World . Oxford : Oxford
UniversityPress .
Repent and Prepare the Way ( 2010 ). ‘Prophecy of 2007 Horr i c Bloodshedin Kenya &
Ful llment– Dr.Owuor’, YouTube, 21 January. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK5EXFe8-
nU (accessed 25 October2015).
Reuters ( 2014 ). ‘KENYA: Kenyan Writer Binyavanga Wainaina Comes Out and Vows to
Challenge Homophobia in Africa’, ITNsource [online], 31 January. www.itnsource.com/
en/shotlist/RTV/2014/01/31/RTV310114006/ (accessed 15 September2014).
Sadgrove , Joanna , Robert M. Vanderbeck , Johan Andersson , Gill Valentine and Kevin Wa r d
( 2012 ). ‘ Morality Plays and Money Matters: Towards a Situated Understanding of the
Politics of Homosexuality in Uganda ’, Journal of Modern African Studies 50/ 1 , 103 – 129 .
Van Klinken , Adriaan ( 2013 ). ‘ Gay Rights, the Devil and the End Times: Public Religion
and the Enchantment of the Homosexuality Debate in Zambia ’, Religion 43/
4 , 519 – 540 .
Van Klinken , Adriaan ( 2014 ). ‘ Homosexuality, Politics and Pentecostal Nationalism in
Zambia ’, Studies in World Christianity 20/ 3 , 259 – 281 .
Van Klinken , Adriaan ( 2015 ). ‘ Queer Love in a “Christian Nation”: Zambian Gay Men
Negotiating Sexual and Religious Identities ’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion .
doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfv073
Van Klinken , Adriaan ( forthcoming ). ‘ Christianity, Human Rights and LGBTI Advocacy:The
Case of Dette Resource Foundation in Zambia ’, in A. van Klinken and E. Chitando (eds),
Public Religion and the Politics of Homosexuality in Africa . Farnham : Ashgate .
Van Klinken , Adriaan , and Ezra Chitando , eds (forthcoming). Public Religion and the Politics of
Homosexuality in Africa . Farnham : Ashgate .
Vengeyi , Obvious ( 2013 ). ‘ Zimbabwean Pentecostal Prophets: Rekindling the “True
and False Prophecy” Debate ’, in Ezra Chitando , Masiiwa Ragies
Gunda and Joachim
Kügler (eds), Prophets, Pro ts and the Bible in Zimbabwe . Bamberg : University of Bamberg
Press , 29 – 54 .
Wainaina , Binyavanga ( 2011 ). One Day IWill Write About This Place . London : Granta .
Wainaina , Binyavanga ( 2014a ). ‘I am, for anybody confused or in doubt, a homsexual.
Gay, and quite happy.’ [Twitter], 20 January, 22:41 UTC. twitter.com/BinyavangaW/
status/425397812826611712 (accessed 16 September2014).
Wainaina , Binyavanga — ( 2014b ). ‘Show me one decolnised African christian church,
and I shall join it’ [Twitter], 4 February, 21:30 UCT. twitter.com/binyavangaw/
status/430936435093282816 (accessed 24 March2015).
Wainaina , Binyavanga ( 2014c ). We Must Free Our Imaginations , 3/6: ‘The Demon Next
Door’, YouTube, 21 January. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmiO1EJ-ru8 (accessed 25
March2015).
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 809781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 80 2/24/2016 7:31:31 PM2/24/2016 7:31:31 PM

A Kenyan queer prophet 81
Wainaina , Binyavanga ( 2014d ). We Must Free Our Imaginations , 2/6: ‘The Ecstacy of
Madness’, YouTube, 21 January. www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQrln8pogNw (accessed
25 March2015).
Wainaina , Binyavanga ( 2015 ). ‘Conversations with Baba’, YouTube, TedxEuston, 15 January.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5uAoBu9Epg (accessed 23 March2015).
Wa r d , Kevin ( 2006 ). ‘ Marching or Stumbling towards a Christian Ethic? Homosexuality and
African Anglicanism ’, in Te r r y Brown (ed.), Other Voices, Other Worlds:The Global Church
Speaks Out on Homosexuality . NewYork : Church Publishing , 129 – 141 .
Wesonga , Michael ( 2014 ). ‘Kenya Prophet David Owuor:President Uhuru Kenyatta Called
Me over Insecurity’, Standard Digital , 21 April. www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=
2000109861 (accessed 6 March2015).
9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 819781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 81 2/24/2016 7:31:31 PM2/24/2016 7:31:31 PM

9781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 829781472444745pre_pi-200.indd 82 2/24/2016 7:31:31 PM2/24/2016 7:31:31 PM