Kenya has been in shock since the first reports of horrifying finds in the Shakahola forest circulated in late April. And the fact that this shock continues is also due to the fact that investigators are still discovering new victims of the doomsday cult, which was hiding there from the rest of the world, almost every day. On Saturday alone, they dug up 22 bodies. 22 more people who paid for their faith in Pastor Paul Mackenzie’s “Good News International Church” with their lives. Who starved themselves to death or were murdered. The number of victims is now more than 200. And it is likely to increase further, hundreds of supporters are still missing.
Kenya’s President William Ruto commented on the case for the first time on Sunday, speaking of a failure by the authorities for which he took responsibility and announcing that those responsible would be held accountable. His government has come under massive criticism, and new failures have been coming to light for weeks. Pastor Mackenzie has been arrested and interrogated several times since 2017. But he was always free. According to Kenyan media reports, police officers were twice in the forest of Shakahola, where Mackenzie’s followers lived in villages called Galilee or Jericho. But they left without doing anything. Mackenzie is now in custody along with 25 other suspects.
The former taxi driver founded the “Good News International Church” at the beginning of the millennium, one of thousands of small Pentecostal churches that have sprung up like mushrooms in Kenya in recent decades. “Mushrooming,” says Edith Kayeli, a religious studies scholar at the University of Nairobi. As an Internet preacher, Mackenzie became known beyond Kenya. Initially rather inconspicuous, his teaching radicalized over the years until he retired to the forest with his church in 2019.
Investigators believe he instigated his followers to starve themselves to death. The children were to die first, then the women, and last the men who were still needed to dig the graves. According to witnesses, Mackenzie announced that he himself would be the last to arrive. “How many times have I told you that death is a good thing?” quotes the Kenyan newspaper nation from his sermon. “You fall into a deep sleep and on the other side Jesus will be waiting for you.”
The devotion of his followers was good business for Pastor Mackenzie
Evangelical churches, says Edith Kayeli, fill a need for spirituality that the Anglican or Catholic churches in Kenya often cannot. But even they can hardly understand that so many people from all walks of life submitted to Mackenzie’s teachings with all the consequences. For example, the story of a flight attendant who quit her job, sold her property and moved to the Shakahola Forest to die was told over and over again. “Mackenzie must have been very charismatic, very persuasive,” says Kayeli.
In any case, the devotion of his followers was good business for the preacher. research of New York Times according to they were not allowed to go to the doctor, but had to entrust themselves to Mackenzie’s healing powers and pay for it. The children did not go to school, but were taught in the church – also for a fee.
A commission is now to develop proposals within six months as to how the rampant growth of questionable cults in Kenya can be stopped. President Ruto, himself a devout Christian and married to an evangelical minister, warned against blaming the church or religion as a whole for the deaths of so many people. Mackenzie is a terrorist and criminal who bears individual responsibility. Ruto envisages self-regulation for the churches, without interference from the state.
Religious scholar Edith Kayeli doubts that will be enough. “As long as anyone who has a vision overnight can start a church, it will be very difficult to prevent the development of new and potentially dangerous cults,” she says.