Repentance Made Visible: Embodied Holiness and the Forging of Religious Identity in the Repentance and Holiness Movement, Kenya

Abstract

This article examines how the Repentance and Holiness Movement (RHM) translates theological conviction into embodied practices of dress, ritual, and conduct. Founded in Kenya around 2004, the RHM is a prophetically led New Religious Movement whose theology of repentance extends beyond worship to shape everyday life. The study draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted across six RHM altars in Siaya County, western Kenya, including 85 oral interviews, six focus group discussions, and sustained participant observation. The findings indicate that repentance functions as a comprehensive theological demand that organises dress, economic activity, kinship relations, community membership, political consciousness, and aesthetics. These expectations are embodied through visible practices, structured worship, and ritual observance, while communal surveillance reinforces conformity through mutual spiritual accountability. The study further demonstrates that the movement’s local character is rooted in continuities with Luo cosmology and the East African Revival tradition. In addition, prophetic authority serves as the primary source of doctrine, shaping belief and practice throughout the movement. Although women constitute the majority of active adherents, they bear the greatest burden of visible behavioural restrictions, while formal leadership positions remain exclusively male. This gendered asymmetry complicates prevailing strictness theories of religious commitment. By examining five interconnected dimensions of doctrinal embodiment, the article provides the first sustained ethnographic account of how repentance theology is enacted in the daily lives of RHM adherents. In doing so, it addresses a significant gap in existing scholarship, which has largely emphasised prophetic authority and moral demands without exploring their everyday embodied expression.