On November 6, 2026, Kenya’s High Court sentenced Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, a self-proclaimed Christian pastor, to 200 years in prison for his role in the deaths of 191 people. His 28 co-accused received prison sentences ranging from 10 to 160 years. Mackenzie’s lawyer had earlier indicated that he intended to appeal. The court found that followers of Mackenzie’s Good News International Church had been subjected to an organised system of enforced fasting, sustained by the promise that they would meet Jesus. Mackenzie denied forcing anyone to fast, but the court rejected his defence.
More than 400 bodies had been recovered during the wider investigations in Shakahola Forest, although the convictions concerned 191 deaths.
I find the deaths of the children especially disturbing. What religious authority could possibly justify withholding food from a child? Children cannot make an informed decision to die for a preacher’s promise of salvation. Yet adults who believed they were following God’s will became participants in a system that killed children entrusted to their care.
How did a preacher acquire enough authority to persuade adults to accept such instructions?
We have seen videos of pastors striking worshippers, trampling them during deliverance rituals and demanding money in return for promised miracles. Why does Christianity, particularly in parts of Africa, appear so hospitable to these self-proclaimed prophets and spiritual entrepreneurs?
Kenya’s 2019 census recorded approximately 85.5 per cent of the population as Christian. In a country where most people are Christians, we should expect Christian institutions to feature prominently in religious scandals. Their numbers alone cannot establish whether Christians are more susceptible to exploitation than Muslims or Buddhists.
But certain forms of Christianity present opportunities worth examining. A preacher can establish an independent church, announce that God speaks directly to him and demand obedience without anyone outside his ministry examining his authority. If he promises miraculous healing or financial prosperity, that authority can also become a lucrative business.
I think the way churches organise authority helps explain something else: why some religious leaders publicly display acts of abuse while others conceal wrongdoing to protect their institutions. To understand that difference, we must first examine how a human being convinces others that his instructions carry God’s authority.
God told me. But how do you know?
Suppose a pastor announces that God has instructed a congregant to sell his land and give the proceeds to the ministry. The congregant believes God possesses supreme authority. He also believes God can communicate with human beings. The pastor claims to have received precisely such a communication. Must the congregant obey?
The conclusion does not follow, because between God’s authority and the pastor’s demand sits a premise nobody has proved: that this particular man is accurately reporting what God said. Even if God cannot deceive, the person claiming to speak for God can.
The pastor might reply that he has already demonstrated his spiritual authority through miracles. A believer may object: "I saw him heal a man who could not walk. Why should I question him?"
Suppose we grant everything the believer says. Let us even assume that the healing was genuinely miraculous. Would that establish the pastor’s authority to dictate someone’s marriage, demand ownership of their property or inflict physical punishment?
A gifted surgeon may save my life. I would be grateful and would probably trust his medical advice. But I would not give him control over my bank account because he successfully operated on my heart.
Ability in one matter does not establish unlimited moral authority in another. Christian scripture recognises this distinction. Deuteronomy 13:1–3 warns against following a prophet who leads people away from God, even when his predicted sign comes to pass. In Matthew 7:22–23, Jesus rejects people who claim to have prophesied and performed mighty works in his name.
The believer must therefore examine what a preacher demands, independently of the extraordinary powers he claims to possess. Yet some pastors invoke scripture to prevent such examination. "Touch not my anointed", from Psalm 105:15, becomes a warning against criticism. Hebrews 13:17, concerning obedience to religious leaders, is presented as an obligation to submit to every instruction.
Who decides that these passages grant a contemporary pastor such powers? Very often, the pastor himself. He interprets scripture, declares that his interpretation establishes his authority and warns believers that questioning him amounts to questioning God.
He has supplied the evidence for his own authority and appointed himself the judge of whether that evidence is sufficient.
The business of selling hope
In Kenya, the expression "sowing a seed" is familiar in some prosperity ministries. A believer gives money while expecting God to provide employment, restore health or deliver a financial breakthrough.
Think of a mother whose child has remained ill after several hospital visits. She has spent her savings and prayed for years. A preacher tells her that God has revealed the solution, but she must first give a particular amount of money. It is easy to dismiss her as gullible. That response ignores the mother’s predicament. Someone claiming special knowledge of God’s intentions is offering her the possibility of her child’s recovery. The exploitation becomes clearer when we examine how the promise works.
If the miracle comes, the preacher was right. If it does not, the believer lacked faith, concealed some sin or gave too little. Heads he wins, tails she loses. The pastor preserves his reputation regardless of what happens, while the mother bears the financial and emotional cost.
Christianity has encountered a related temptation before. In the sixteenth century, abuses surrounding indulgences helped provoke Martin Luther’s challenge to the Catholic Church. An indulgence, properly understood in Catholic doctrine, concerns the remission of temporal punishment for sins already forgiven. It does not purchase God’s forgiveness. Yet the financial practices associated with indulgences helped produce one of Christianity’s deepest historical divisions.
Ironically, some prosperity preachers belong to traditions descended from the wider Protestant movement, yet they have recreated arrangements in which believers are led to think that money secures spiritual benefits. Churches require resources, and Christians are entitled to support them. I see no ethical problem with voluntary giving.
I object when a preacher tells someone that God will withhold healing or blessings unless money is paid to him. He claims to know God’s intentions and then makes his own financial interests a condition of divine intervention. If God cannot hear my prayer until I pay a pastor, I am entitled to ask what gives that pastor control over my access to God.
Why some abuses are performed and others concealed
Videos of public caning, trampling and degrading rituals seem particularly visible in reports about certain independent churches rather than Catholic or Anglican congregations.
Does that mean established churches are less susceptible to abuse? I doubt that visibility tells us very much about the overall extent of wrongdoing. It may tell us something about the incentives facing religious leaders.
A preacher whose reputation rests upon dramatic displays of spiritual power may find public performance useful. Imagine him ordering a worshipper to the ground, striking the person and announcing that he is expelling a demon. To outsiders, the act may be unmistakably abusive. Followers who already believe in the pastor’s powers may interpret the same scene as evidence that he can command supernatural forces.
A video of the performance circulates online. More people hear about the ministry. Some come to witness the preacher’s powers for themselves. In a crowded religious market, the spectacle can become advertising.
A priest or bishop in an established church derives authority partly from an office within a recognised institution. Publicly humiliating congregants may damage that institution’s standing. When misconduct occurs, those responsible may instead try to keep it from public view. The Catholic Church’s history of clerical sexual abuse demonstrates how dangerous institutional secrecy can become.
A French independent commission estimated in 2021 that approximately 216,000 people then living in France had experienced sexual abuse as minors by Catholic clergy or members of religious orders between 1950 and 2020. The commission also documented serious failures by church authorities to protect victims.
The Church possessed formal doctrines, established hierarchies and disciplinary procedures. Those arrangements did not prevent extensive wrongdoing.
Independent churches can conceal abuse, while established churches can tolerate public misconduct. The available cases do not establish which type of institution has the higher rate of exploitation.
They do suggest two ways in which leaders can protect their authority. One may display abusive conduct before an audience because the spectacle reinforces his reputation. Another may conceal wrongdoing because exposure threatens the organisation that sustains his position. The consequences for victims are serious in either setting.
How Christianity made room for independent prophets
Why has Christianity produced so many independent ministries in which individual founders exercise considerable power?
The Protestant Reformation challenged the authority of the medieval Western Church and encouraged wider access to scripture. Over time, Protestant Christianity developed numerous denominations and approaches to church government. But Luther himself was suspicious of religious enthusiasts who claimed revelation independent of scripture. It would be wrong to trace contemporary prophetic ministries directly to his teaching.
The modern emphasis on continuing prophecy and healing owes much to later Pentecostal movements. African independent churches also developed for reasons rooted in colonial and missionary history. African Christians challenged racial discrimination, exclusion from leadership and the dismissal of local religious concerns.
Kenya’s Legio Maria movement shows why that history cannot be reduced to Protestantism. It emerged in western Kenya in 1962–1963 among people from a Roman Catholic background. Simeo Ondeto and Gaudencia Aoko were prominent in its early development, although accounts of their respective roles differ. The movement developed religious teachings and practices outside Roman Catholic authority.
African Christians had legitimate reasons to demand control over their own religious institutions. The freedom to establish churches remains part of religious liberty. But we must distinguish that freedom from the authority a founder claims over other people.
Take, for example, a man who establishes a ministry. He determines its teachings, interprets its prophecies, controls its finances and appoints those who supervise him. If someone complains about his conduct, he also decides whether the complaint is an act of rebellion against God. At that point, he is no longer merely leading the institution; he is the institution. Such an arrangement gives followers little protection when their leader begins abusing his power.
Other religions, different forms of authority
Islam presents an important comparison because mainstream Sunni Islam has no single religious hierarchy comparable to the Catholic papacy. Religious teachers can establish institutions and acquire followers without the permission of one central authority. Yet Sunni doctrine regards Muhammad as the final prophet. Someone claiming a new prophetic office would contradict a foundational teaching. A spiritual healer or Sufi master can still acquire considerable authority through claims of religious knowledge or blessing. These claims create different opportunities for exploitation.
Catholicism, meanwhile, regards public revelation as complete in Jesus Christ. It permits belief in private revelations but subjects them to doctrinal limits and ecclesiastical examination. An independent Christian prophet may face far fewer restrictions when declaring that God has instructed a follower to surrender property.
The question in each setting is who can challenge the spiritual instruction and on what grounds.
In Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, disciples may undertake serious commitments, known as samaya, in relation to their teachers. Fear of violating those commitments can make criticism difficult.
In 2018, an independent investigation commissioned by the Buddhist organisation Rigpa found serious evidence of abuse involving its former spiritual director, Sogyal Rinpoche. Britain’s Charity Commission subsequently identified serious safeguarding failures at Rigpa Fellowship.
Hindu traditions have also produced powerful spiritual personalities whose followers grant them extraordinary authority. In India, Asaram Bapu was convicted of rape in 2018. The Rajasthan High Court upheld his life sentence in May 2026.
These examples cannot establish which religion experiences the most abuse. They show why religious authority must be examined through the institutions and beliefs that sustain it.
A Christian prophet, a Muslim spiritual healer and a Buddhist guru do not claim identical forms of authority. But followers in each tradition can become vulnerable when they are taught that questioning a spiritual leader threatens their relationship with the divine or their spiritual progress.
What Shakahola says about consent
What does it mean to say that someone freely agreed to a religious practice? Adults may choose to fast, donate money or organise their lives around beliefs that outsiders consider mistaken. Religious freedom protects that choice. But it cannot justify starving children. The Kenyan court rejected the defence that the Shakahola victims had voluntarily fasted to death. Of the 191 victims covered by the convictions, 190 were children.
A child cannot consent to being deprived of food because an adult believes a preacher has promised salvation. Adults, too, can become dependent upon religious leaders through a gradual series of commitments.
Someone joins a congregation seeking comfort. The preacher provides guidance and the members offer friendship. Later, the leader asks for money or discourages relationships with relatives who question his teachings. The follower begins to regard outsiders with suspicion. Eventually, admitting that the pastor has deceived them may mean confronting years of misplaced trust and sacrifices that cannot be recovered.
We cannot assume that every Shakahola victim followed this course. But it helps explain why people sometimes defend religious leaders who mistreat them. Calling the victims foolish offers no serious explanation. We need to understand the circumstances under which ordinary people begin to regard independent judgement as a threat to their spiritual security.
Society, particularly the state, has a responsibility here. Religious liberty cannot authorise violence, coercion or the deprivation of children’s basic rights. A police officer does not need to settle a theological dispute about prophecy before protecting a starving child.
Faith must answer questions
A pastor says God has spoken. What should a believer reasonably ask? How does the pastor know that the instruction comes from God? A claimed miracle does not settle the matter. Does the pastor stand to benefit personally from what he demands? Can a believer question him or leave the congregation without threats?
I would ask something further of every religious institution, including established churches: who investigates complaints against its leaders, and what happens when wrongdoing is established?
First Peter 3:15 instructs Christians to be prepared to give a reason for their hope. The passage concerns the defence of Christian belief, but a church that values reasoned faith should be capable of answering reasonable questions about its own leaders.
Christianity’s apparent vulnerability to religious charlatans cannot be explained by calling Christians gullible. Certain movements allow extraordinary claims of divine guidance to be made with little independent scrutiny. Others possess formal safeguards but protect powerful officials who violate them.
Whether abuse is staged before a congregation or concealed to defend an institution’s reputation, the danger grows when religious leaders can escape questioning and accountability.
Christians may believe that God has authority over their lives. A pastor who claims to exercise that authority still owes them a reason to believe him.
If God gave human beings the capacity to reason, by whose authority does a pastor demand that they surrender it?
George Nyongesa is a lecturer in Philosophy and Logic at the University of Nairobi, the Technical University of Kenya and Chuka University. He is the author of Aristotle’s Logic: A Cheat Code to STEM, Critical Thinking, and Foolproofing Against Bullshit. His academic interests include ethics, philosophy of science and the application of logical reasoning to contemporary problems.