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When Eric Wainaina was a student at the Berklee College of Music, he often led children in music at Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston. But Wainaina remained troubled about his home country, Kenya, which was being destroyed by corruption. Development specialists at the World Bank estimate that individual incomes there would increase by about 30 percent without the endemic bribery.

So, while attending Twelfth Baptist in 2001, Wainaina composed and recorded "Land of 'A Little Something,'" an anticorruption song. To his surprise, it soon became the most popular song in Kenya-and the campaign anthem of the new president, Mwai Kibaki.

Last July, Wainaina held a concert in Nairobi, Kenya, where the average urban resident pays 16 bribes a month for things such as driver licenses, bridge crossings, hospital treatment, and favorable court judgments. The Nairobi native led 100,000 people in singing against government corruption.

"I'm not a politician," Wainaina, 28, says. "I'm just a young Kenyan at a time when there's a lot of corruption. … Christians have to stand up."

Wainaina is an example of a nascent global movement. While AIDS and religious liberty continue to top the international agenda for many Christians, anticorruption efforts have an increasingly prominent profile. In June, U.S. President George W. Bush and other leaders of the economically powerful G-8 nations announced plans to provide an extensive package of anticorruption initiatives in Peru, Nicaragua, Nigeria, and the Republic of Georgia. These heads of state also pledged to join the new U.N. Convention Against Corruption and to "translate the words of this convention into effective action."

This new focus is a rediscovery of an old Christian tradition, and Christians in many cases are leading the charge. Revulsion against corruption is drawing people to Christ, and inspiring Christian leaders to launch campaigns against bribery, scamming, and misappropriation of funds. More and more missions agencies say that robust anticorruption preaching and action must accompany social development.

Anticorruption activists have for years pointed out the link between corruption and poverty. Peter Eigen of the anticorruption advocacy group Transparency International (TI) noted in 2001 "the vicious circle of poverty and corruption, where parents have to bribe underpaid teachers to secure an education for their children, and under-resourced health services provide a breeding ground for corruption. The world's poorest are the greatest victims of corruption. Vast amounts of public funds are being wasted and stolen by corrupt officials."

TI ranks countries on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being perceived as highly corrupt. Finland, with a 9.9, was perceived as least corrupt. The United States was perceived at 7.6, tied for 16th with Israel in 2001. Kenya scored a dismal 2.0 rating. The 2004 TI survey of Kenya reports that since Wainaina's popular campaign, the new government has reduced the amount of petty bribery. However, corruption at higher levels of government-for instance, in expensive contracts-continues to be rampant.

Legal scholars, theologians, and social scientists point out that Christians are often a bulwark against corruption. Federal judge and Catholic thinker John T. Noonan Jr. wrote in his magisterial book Bribes that the concept of bribe depends "on the conception of a transcendental figure … a judge beyond the reach of ordinary reciprocities … a transcendental judge."

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November 2004, Vol. 48, No. 11