Addressing impunity in Kenya through a postcolonial reading of ‘authority’ in mark 1:21-28

Abstract

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is presented as the authoritative one in the sense that He exercises power and authority by virtue of His high position and relationship to God the Father. Power and authority are concepts that Mark builds up in his Gospel, with the use of the word, Exousia (e)cousia) to distinguish Jesus’ authority from that of the world. Using postcolonial biblical criticism, this study explores Mark’s usage of exousia in 1:21-28 to argue that imperial ideology is constituted in the gospel’s construction of the concept of authority (exousia). The inquiry on the usage of exousia in Mark’s Gospel comes against a background of an ever growing culture of impunity in a country that is predominantly Christian. Therefore, the key question was; how can we address the prevailing and ever-growing culture of impunity in Kenya through a postcolonial reading of the concept of exousia in Mark 1:21-28? In order to address this and other questions, this study employed the postcolonial framework to argue that Mark is influenced by the imperial setting of his day to provide the images that he does in the concept of exousia. The study’s objectives were to offer an alternative and contextual reading of exousia in Mark’s Gospel, to establish the need for postcolonial biblical criticism in Kenya, to demonstrate that pre-critical reading of the Bible in Kenya has contributed to the culture of impunity, and to develop enabling and emancipatory language in the reduction of impunity in Kenya. Being a qualitative study, and employing the Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM), data was obtained in churches from church-going Christians in Nairobi City, through Contextual Bible Study group discussions and key informant interviews. Samples were decided through simple random sampling, purposive and cluster sampling. Data was analysed using the NuVivo data analysis software, and exegesis. Among other things, the study reveals that though not entirely, impunity as present in Kenya emanates from the empire and partly derives from interactions with Mark’s exousia. Towards this end, this study recommends another hermeneutics for rereading the Bible in order to address impunity. A ‘way’ reminiscent of the ‘way’ in Mark’s Gospel has also been proposed for addressing impunity in Kenya