New era battle against religion
It is documented that 109 men, women, and children perished after a charismatic Kenyan church leader exhorted his flock to fast until death in order to “meet Jesus” in the hereafter. On a farm in Shakahola, a community on Kenya’s south-eastern coast, where Pastor Paul Mackenzie had his Good News International Church, bodies of the dead were found in multiple mass graves. Most of them had starved to death, according to autopsies. However, a few, including young toddlers, had been killed by strangulation or suffocation.
The deaths have led to charges against Mackenzie. The victims were drawn to a preacher whose contentious teachings had drawn government investigation as early as 2017 and came from all around the nation. The end-of-the-world themes in Mackenzie’s apocalyptic stories were opposed to contemporary or western lifestyles like seeking out music, education, or medical care. He emphasized the United States, the Catholic Church, and the United Nations as “agents of Satan” in his conspiracy theories.
New era battle against religion
In the same year, he sold his TV station, shuttered the church, and relocated to a ranch in Kilifi county’s woodland region, where hundreds of families had already begun to build homes. To another televangelist named Ezekiel Odero, the church and TV station were sold. Odero is well renowned for his tens of thousands of people-attracting “miracle healing” crusades. He is also being looked into for crimes connected to the Shakahola mass murder.
In Kenya, cultic-inspired religious movements and extremist religion are nothing new.
In Kenya, new religious movements or preachers rarely draw attention from the general public. Additionally, there is a lack of public knowledge of these groups’ societal impacts. In Kenya, discussions in public forums are more likely to center on the occult, with “devil worship” being the term of choice.
Kenya has focused on Islamic extremism, particularly what is considered “terrorism,” when it comes to religious extremism. These discussions are very politicized.