New Wine in Old Wine Skins: Wesleyan Methodism within the Contemporary Religious Market Place in Kenya
Alice Muthoni Mwila 
Issue: Vol.10 No. 14 December 2024 Special Issue Article 3 pp.33-41
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/erats.202410143 | Published online 24th December 2024.
© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
This paper purposed to explore the impact and future of Methodism in the face of challenging trends in the Kenyan religious space. Through qualitative empirical research done in the Njia Circuit of Methodist Church in Kenya (MCK) Nyambene Synod, this study identified the main practices and trends that are challenging and influencing Methodism in Kenya. They include religious commodification that has been developing and infiltrating Christian churches in the last three decades, the Pentecostal spirituality, mass and social media influence, spiritual lethargy and “quick fix mentality,” Africanization of Christianity campaigns, and MCK structures. The study found that Christianity in Kenya has been forced to swiftly respond to the enlightenment brought about by modernity, socioeconomic currents, and political winds of change. Churches including MCK, are grappling to control the religious space in Kenya and that dictates that adaptation is necessary for survival. This paper addresses the gap in how to integrate eighteenth-century Methodism into the twenty-first-century church in Kenya. Consideration is based on the fact that since the inception of the MCK, other forms of churches, ministries, and social change have happened. This paper proposed a consideration for a paradigm shift in the way the Methodist Church carries out mission work in today’s society, and especially through its structural organization. Thus, acceptance and use of new wineskins to withstand the vigour of new wine to avoid tearing away in the form of loss of relevance and impact.
Keywords: Methodist Church in Kenya, John Wesley, Commodification, Africanization, Methodism, Religious Marketplace.
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Rev. Dr. Alice Muthoni Mwila has served as a Minister of the Methodist Church in Kenya (MCK) for the last twenty-five years. She is currently a lecturer in Theology at Kenya Methodist University and a post-graduate coordinator at the Department of Theology. Dr. Mwila served as a Synod Bishop of MCK Nyambene Synod for eight years from 2016 to 2023. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Practical Theology from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge United Kingdom (2021), a Master of theology (MTh) from Queens University Belfast UK, (2006), Bachelor of Divinity from St. Pauls Theological College Kenya (1999) and Bachelor of Arts (BA) from Egerton University Kenya (1991). Her research focuses on Pastoral/Practical Theology, Contextual Theology, Methodism and Leadership. One of her recent publications is titled – The Changing Religious Affiliations: Factors Affecting Denominational Changes in the Methodist Church, Nyambene Synod, Kenya.
Mwila, Alice Muthoni. “New Wine in Old Wine Skins: Wesleyan Methodism within the Contemporary Religious Market Place in Kenya ,“ E-Journal of Religious and Theological Studies, 10 no.11 (2024): 33-41. https://doi.org/10.38159/erats.202410143
© 2024 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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