‘Apostle’ who preaches and drinks wine

By John Kariuki

The stranger than fiction events you hear about in Kenya’s New Age churches will pale in significance if you compare them to the case of Nabii (Prophet) Tito and his Dar es Salaam-based African Church.

In this church nothing that the mainstream Church bans is forbidden. To put it simply, faithful can eat, drink and be merry.

Nabii Tito’s religious observances which are haphazard or anecdotal at best have been documented in an easy-to-read guide, which liberally quotes Bible verses. In a copy which he gave this writer, Nabii Tito frees his flock from sanctions against eating pork, marrying many wives and adultery.

This prophet also resolves the long-standing issue of God’s identity by declaring Him human, and a male for that matter, and ‘puts women in their place’ by declaring them servants of men.

I met Nabii Tito in Honey Pot, a pub in Dar’s feisty neighbourhood of Sinza. He looked odd in the place in his official collars, as he encouraged revellers to partake of the frothy stuff. He must have seen my dismay for he pulled a chair and sat next to me.

• .

  Keep Reading

• 
  The women brewing change in India, one beer at a time
• 
  Dutch beer maker to pay Kenyan distributor Sh 1.7b after Supreme Court loss

Male virility

"Ndugu, mimi ni Nabii Tito na ninaomba nikujulishe habari njema," he began.

("Brother, I am Prophet Tito and I beg to deliver the good news to you.) We got talking and at intervals he would ask for a beer. Over the evening the prophet would prove to be a beer guzzler who can shame a regular drunkard.

Nabii Tito’s African Church boasts of many followers in Dar alone and is spreading rapidly. "At a typical mass celebration me and my followers each smoke two cigarettes, take two beers and eat at least a half kilo of meat!" says the prophet. "It is customary to offer burnt offering of roast meat either bought from butchers or to roast a freshly killed goat which the faithful partake."

Nabii Tito took me through his guide titled: Tunywe pombe jamani ni dawa kutoka kwa mungu. Lakini tunywe kiasi. (Let’s drink, alcohol it is medicinal but should be taken sparingly).

The church guide lists 19 problems that are cured by alcohol. Top among them are nausea, lack of male virility and heavy menstrual flow. For menstrual flow, he recommends Safari Cane or Serengeti lager three times a day.

Beer is also recommended to boost milk production in breastfeeding mothers, for toothaches, constipation and when you are annoyed. Meat lovers should try a new cuisine courtesy of Nabii Tito. He says nyama choma should be marinated with alcohol before it’s roasted. This makes the meat medicinal, he claims.

Quoting Timothy 5: 23 he writes: "Do not drink water only, but take a little wine to help your digestion, since you are ill so often."

He has a whole page full of Bible quotations that allow drinking and eating of pork, like proverbs 31; 6-7, Luke 7: 33-35, Luke 22: 14-35, and Colossians 2: 16-19.

Nabii Tito gives his personal testimony of how alcohol cured him of a chronic disease. "Alcohol cured me of an illness that had troubled me for a long time," he says.

Death sentence

Besides, Nabii Tito recommends smoking cigarettes to treat colds and mental stress. And as good news for his followers, Nabii Tito’s guide recommends polygamy coupled with divorce, again quoting from the Bible.

In the fourth section of his guide, Nabii Tito claims that adultery is not solely a man’s sin. From the Bible he points out verses that put the sin of adultery squarely on women. But he carries a weird warning on this page against condom use. "Kondom ni jeneza la watoto, kuwa na huruma baba usitumie kondom!" (The condom is a coffin for babies.)

"Wanaume msitumie kondom kabisa,"(Men, don’t ever use a condom.) he reiterates during our interview at Honey Pot.

The guide outlaws sodomy. So strong are Nabii Tito’s views on homosexuality that he adds a footnote in this section calling for the introduction of the death sentence in Tanzania to deal with all sodomites and condom sellers.

Also elaborated succinctly in the handbook is the religious way that a woman should behave towards her husband.

Nabii Tito thanks all beer manufacturers and prays for these industries to prosper. He singles out the Serengeti and Konyagi breweries for special praise and gives his phone number to anybody who may need further understanding of the Bible. His mobile phone number is +255754 508 376.

There are of course mixed reactions to Nabii Tito’s unorthodox teachings.

Mwangi, a Kenyan visiting Dar who happened to be at Honey Pot pub and followed the interview, expressed shock at Nabii Tito’s weird ways. "This man is not a prophet," said the visibly shocked Mwangi.

Satarising Christianity

He described Tito as a staunch atheist taking advantage of drunkards. He described him as furthering vices and trashing morality. "He is satirising Christian naivety and hypocrisy and could as well be propagating Satanism. He is doomed!"

But Muchiri, another Kenyan on safari to Dar thinks that the prophet has a valid and overdue point. "If this man crosses the border into Kenya and preaches his ways, his church would be a crowd puller," says Muchiri.

In any case, many faithful of mainstream churches imbibe alcohol and smoke and take nyama choma and even keep mistresses. "So there is nothing strangely new in Nabii Tito’s teachings," observes Muchiri.

This view is supported by Isaac Mwagambo, a Dar resident. "There is much tolerance to such things within the Christian fraternity in this country but it is blasphemous for Nabii Tito to quote carelessly and out of context from the Bible to support his warped views," says Mwagambo.

Kamau Goro, a literature lecturer at Egerton University Njoro sees Nabii Tito’s effort as an attempt to reconfigure the Bible. "Africans always did this before Christianity was imposed on us", he says. "This is a strategy of negotiation with Christianity. Africans want to be Christians and yet retain their time-honoured cultural ethos like polygamy and drinking."

He suggests that people like Nabii Tito could be products of modernity, which questions both the traditional and Christian morals and values thus paving the way to secular church leaders who want to fashion a distinct identity. And like any great book of art, Goro admits that there is no final interpretation of biblical teachings, hence the many ways that people will twist its teachings to suit their needs. Asked what would happen if a church like Tito’s came here, Goro chuckles, "This sounds more of a social welfare club than a church!"

Mwangi and Muchiri see the export of Nabii Tito’s African church to Kenyan as a solution to many of our problems. They see many youths joining in droves and drinking wisely, at least the stipulated medicinal measure recommended by the prophet instead of their uncontrolled imbibing of killer drinks. "Besides, they would have some regular religious observances of some sort," says Mwangi.

However, some Dar es Salaam residents are of the opinion that the government should scrutinise these modern churches which seem to sprout up each passing day.

Shocked and angered

They are of the opinion that with the new churches trying to outdo each other in interpreting the Bible, there will come a time when a new church could come with a more impudent claim than the church of Nabii Tito.

"I am among the many Christians shocked and angered by the news that there is a church in Dar es Salaam that uses the words of the Bible to allow its members to smoke and drink alcohol," says an angered Dar resident.

"I am more than angered because the government, the clergy and other organisations seem to be taking it easy instead of challenging the so-called Prophet Tito for this blasphemy," he added.

"It is shocking that up to now no known Christian has taken up the challenge, perhaps a sure sign that the Bible knowledge of many a Christian, including me, is a suspect," complains Juma Mwadudu.

"With many modern church-goers having to rely solely on their preachers for biblical interpretation, many of the so-called apostles’ reasoning will always pass for gospel truth," reasons Mwadudu.