Hezekiah Obwoge

Church and Development: a Case Study of the Church of God in Emuhaya District of Western Kenya Hezekiah Obwoge

Churches and faith-based organizations have made concerted attempts towards answering both spiritual and physical cries of the poor in Africa, and in Kenya in particular. This has partly been attributed on basis that religion is not lived in a vacuum and that spiritual progress and worldly development are necessarily interrelated. However, the search for causes and appropriate methodology to deal with the problem of poverty remains elusive. A number of researches have had an inclination to look at development in historical and economic terms while underestimating the influence of religion and culture in eradicating poverty, thus relegating religion to a matter of private belief. This study, therefore, set out to assess the role of the Church of God in Kenya (CoG-K) in alleviating poverty in Emuhaya District of Western Province of Kenya. In consequence, this study provides an examination on the CoG-K?s projects, programs, networks, teachings and their implication on people's way of life in relation to social - economic development.