Abstract:
It is neither possible nor valuable to eradicate ethnicity from our lives or from our churches. Attempts to do so
merely end up privileging one ethnicity over the others. This highlights the need and importance of an appropriate
model approach that incorporates ethnicity and embraces its benefits, while also ensuring that the church remains
unshaken. The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of negative ethnicity on the church in Kenya. The
specific objectives of this study was to: find out the manifestations of negative ethnicity with specific references to
churches in Kenya, find out the role of the church in combating negative ethnicity in Kenya, to establish the
hindrances towards ethnic cohesion in Kenya and to give possible recommendations aimed at mitigating effects of
negative ethnicity in the church with an aim of promoting inter-ethnic cohesiveness. The study utilized qualitative
approaches, one hundred respondents were selected using purposive and simple random and interviewed. The
findings of the study revealed that the church plays an important role in eliminating the negative effects of ethnicity
within the church and country by extension. The study recommends that the church should deliberately integrate
different ethnic groups in its organizational structures bearing in mind that we live in a multi-ethnic society.
