American Evangelist churches masquerading as connoisseurs of African family values
OPINION
On Friday, 16 May 2025, Family Watch International and its partners gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, for a week-long conference themed 'The Pan-African Conference on Family Values'.
Family Watch International is a US Christian conservative organisation led by the infamous Sharon Slater. This anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ organisation lobbies in the United Nations and countries around the world to push their anti-rights and anti-gender agenda.
This wasn’t the first conference convened on East African soil; one such was held in Uganda, from 9 to 11 May 2025, with Family Watch International also participating.
East Africa seems to be the hub for conservative US evangelists, and one wonders why. The conference is a series of conferences focusing on what they call traditional African family values. Again, one wonders what gives an American organisation the authority to speak to Africans about African family values. After the May gathering in Nairobi, the delegates released a press statement introducing and claiming to be adopting what they labelled 'The Nairobi Declaration on Family Values'.
Funded misinformation
This article was thus born to review and address, particularly, the 'African family' ideas purported in the declaration.
The first inquiry is, who is funding the conference? This conference is heavily funded and guided by the ultraconservative far-right evangelical movements from America and Europe. The African hosts, the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum (KCPF) and the Kenyan Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and actors are merely tokens in this scheme aimed at taking over Africa by erasing its actual values and redefining them from a Western and Eurocentric religious lens.
The colonial missionaries historically employed this very familiar move.
Another blatant untruth in their declaration is the claim that they represent governments, civil society, academia, religious bodies and “allied international partners”. There has been no evidence to prove this claim, except for the participants who are known conservatives, infamous for their hate and anti-rights rhetoric from countries such as Uganda, Kenya and South Africa.
This misinformation and disinformation is one of the strategies they employ to make it seem like most, if not all, African governments and masses approve of their unscientific absurdity.
African family values owned by foreign entities
According to the declaration, their engagements aim for “promoting and protecting family values in challenging times" and to advocate for and protect the “natural family”.
It is rather peculiar that American and European organisations would lead a conversation about African family values.
These are modern imperialists; they intend to cement their Western-centric idea of a family.
Their family structure comprises a mother, a father and children, while the African family is beyond that.
Although nuclear family units do exist within African society, it is the more nuanced family structures consisting of “children, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters who may have their own children and other immediate relatives” that dominate the African family traditions.
Often in rural areas, children are communally raised by their grandmothers, aunts and siblings, as the parents go to the cities for economic opportunities and serve more as financial support for their young.
It is therefore naïve for these modern imperialists to falsely claim a singular and rigid definition of family, especially as it concerns African people. Failure to acknowledge the diversities and complexities that exist within African family structures is both delusional and a clear indication of how there is nothing Pan-African about the conference itself.
Nothing Pan-African about it
Furthermore, how does a Pan-African family conference discuss African family values without African traditional leaders, elders and spiritual leaders?
Their exclusion of these figures demonstrates that they uphold the colonial and missionary legacy. It remains the view of the majority of Africans that those in traditional roles are the true custodians of the African culture, language, traditions, customs and values, and these individuals clearly misalign with these modern imperialists’ agenda and mandate, thus illegitimising claims of Pan-Africanism and protecting African family and values.
The cognitive dissonance is evident in African actors who adopt those imported religious beliefs and regard them as superior to true African spirituality and culture, making these individuals modern imperialists.
Misleading the people
The intentional misuse of the term 'Pan-African' not only misleads but can also entice those who believe in what the term has historically meant, while in actual fact, the ideals they are spreading are far from Pan-Africanism.
Meanwhile, African human rights organisations and those who can legitimately claim Pan-Africanism are concerned about colonial laws and the reform and eradication of colonial legacies. The modern imperialists, on the other hand, are reinforcing the colonial legacy by using confusing and dividing language aimed at causing moral panic among African communities.
Erasure
Activists in Kenya who have been following and monitoring the work of Family Watch International in Africa have argued that their agenda poses a grave threat to erasing Africa’s rich diversity of families.
What the conference deems un-African are the same characteristics that the colonial missionaries historically labelled undesirable when they indoctrinated African societies in Christianity and its values, when Africans were made to believe that their own spiritualities are demonic.
The term 'values' becomes redundant when it is solely tied to Christianity and disregards true African realities.
They are causing confusion among African societies through the use of desirable and triggering language such as 'Pan-Africa' and 'African values'.
When people are divided and busy fighting each other, important issues will fall through the cracks, go unnoticed, and there will be a lack of accountability. These modern imperialists use tactics to distract the African nation with these ideas that historically have never been a problem within African societies; meanwhile, the looting of the African land continues, and so does the exploitation of its minerals and resources.
This article is part of the Southern Africa Litigation’s campaign around addressing hate speech, misinformation and disinformation.
*Daniel Digashu is a consultant at the Southern Africa Litigation Centre.
Family Watch International is a US Christian conservative organisation led by the infamous Sharon Slater. This anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ organisation lobbies in the United Nations and countries around the world to push their anti-rights and anti-gender agenda.
This wasn’t the first conference convened on East African soil; one such was held in Uganda, from 9 to 11 May 2025, with Family Watch International also participating.
East Africa seems to be the hub for conservative US evangelists, and one wonders why. The conference is a series of conferences focusing on what they call traditional African family values. Again, one wonders what gives an American organisation the authority to speak to Africans about African family values. After the May gathering in Nairobi, the delegates released a press statement introducing and claiming to be adopting what they labelled 'The Nairobi Declaration on Family Values'.
Funded misinformation
This article was thus born to review and address, particularly, the 'African family' ideas purported in the declaration.
The first inquiry is, who is funding the conference? This conference is heavily funded and guided by the ultraconservative far-right evangelical movements from America and Europe. The African hosts, the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum (KCPF) and the Kenyan Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and actors are merely tokens in this scheme aimed at taking over Africa by erasing its actual values and redefining them from a Western and Eurocentric religious lens.
The colonial missionaries historically employed this very familiar move.
Another blatant untruth in their declaration is the claim that they represent governments, civil society, academia, religious bodies and “allied international partners”. There has been no evidence to prove this claim, except for the participants who are known conservatives, infamous for their hate and anti-rights rhetoric from countries such as Uganda, Kenya and South Africa.
This misinformation and disinformation is one of the strategies they employ to make it seem like most, if not all, African governments and masses approve of their unscientific absurdity.
African family values owned by foreign entities
According to the declaration, their engagements aim for “promoting and protecting family values in challenging times" and to advocate for and protect the “natural family”.
It is rather peculiar that American and European organisations would lead a conversation about African family values.
These are modern imperialists; they intend to cement their Western-centric idea of a family.
Their family structure comprises a mother, a father and children, while the African family is beyond that.
Although nuclear family units do exist within African society, it is the more nuanced family structures consisting of “children, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters who may have their own children and other immediate relatives” that dominate the African family traditions.
Often in rural areas, children are communally raised by their grandmothers, aunts and siblings, as the parents go to the cities for economic opportunities and serve more as financial support for their young.
It is therefore naïve for these modern imperialists to falsely claim a singular and rigid definition of family, especially as it concerns African people. Failure to acknowledge the diversities and complexities that exist within African family structures is both delusional and a clear indication of how there is nothing Pan-African about the conference itself.
Nothing Pan-African about it
Furthermore, how does a Pan-African family conference discuss African family values without African traditional leaders, elders and spiritual leaders?
Their exclusion of these figures demonstrates that they uphold the colonial and missionary legacy. It remains the view of the majority of Africans that those in traditional roles are the true custodians of the African culture, language, traditions, customs and values, and these individuals clearly misalign with these modern imperialists’ agenda and mandate, thus illegitimising claims of Pan-Africanism and protecting African family and values.
The cognitive dissonance is evident in African actors who adopt those imported religious beliefs and regard them as superior to true African spirituality and culture, making these individuals modern imperialists.
Misleading the people
The intentional misuse of the term 'Pan-African' not only misleads but can also entice those who believe in what the term has historically meant, while in actual fact, the ideals they are spreading are far from Pan-Africanism.
Meanwhile, African human rights organisations and those who can legitimately claim Pan-Africanism are concerned about colonial laws and the reform and eradication of colonial legacies. The modern imperialists, on the other hand, are reinforcing the colonial legacy by using confusing and dividing language aimed at causing moral panic among African communities.
Erasure
Activists in Kenya who have been following and monitoring the work of Family Watch International in Africa have argued that their agenda poses a grave threat to erasing Africa’s rich diversity of families.
What the conference deems un-African are the same characteristics that the colonial missionaries historically labelled undesirable when they indoctrinated African societies in Christianity and its values, when Africans were made to believe that their own spiritualities are demonic.
The term 'values' becomes redundant when it is solely tied to Christianity and disregards true African realities.
They are causing confusion among African societies through the use of desirable and triggering language such as 'Pan-Africa' and 'African values'.
When people are divided and busy fighting each other, important issues will fall through the cracks, go unnoticed, and there will be a lack of accountability. These modern imperialists use tactics to distract the African nation with these ideas that historically have never been a problem within African societies; meanwhile, the looting of the African land continues, and so does the exploitation of its minerals and resources.
This article is part of the Southern Africa Litigation’s campaign around addressing hate speech, misinformation and disinformation.
*Daniel Digashu is a consultant at the Southern Africa Litigation Centre.
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