Why the state and the church are on the cross over the Shakahola debacle

Detectives exhuming bodies at pastor Paul Makenzi's Shakahola farm in Kilifi County. [Kevin Macharia, Interior] The discovery of mass deaths of worshippers in Shakahola, Kilifi County, linked to Pastor Paul Mackenzie has brought into sharp focus the delicate state and church relationship. It has equally pushed to the fore the vexed issue of state regulation of the church and the inherent scrutiny of men and women of the cloth. As it were, the church and the government are literary between a rock and a hard place in dealing with the rotten eggs in the house of God. Shakahola has exposed the soft underbelly of government in its dealings with the church and vice versa. Both were not just caught off guard but thoroughly embarrassed by the fact that the killings went on under their noses. The church's embarrassment stems from the fact that it has miserably failed to enforce self-regulation and tame its rogue and wayward clergy in their midst. Despite vehement opposition to state regulation, it has become obvious that the church can no longer be trusted with this serious matter of regulating itself and weeding out church leaders who mislead their flock. The state must therefore offer a lasting solution. Indeed the fact that the government has mulled such move before is a clear testimony to this failure. Whether we admit it or not, there is a strong case for government intervention to bring sanity in the church. And whether it admits it or not the Kenyan church, like their counterparts in Africa and the world have been infiltrated by misguided and deadly doctrines that include cultism, profiteering, materialism pursuits and other earthly forces of evil in the name of God. Does it surprise anyone that when another clergyman Pastor Ezekiel Odero was released from state custody he was more concerned about the revenue he lost during his brief encounter than the souls he failed to deliver to God? The fact that there are churches that are nothing but secular business enterprises of husbands and wives that display their 'bedroom photos' is not in doubt. These are the types that continuously prey on gullible Kenyans weighed down by earthly challenges such as poverty, disease and other natural misfortunes like barrenness. The fact that Kenyans are daily conned of their hard-earned property is not in doubt. Stories of people selling their houses and taking their lifetime savings to those tricksters abound. For the government, the embarrassment stems from the fact that it failed in its primary role of protecting its citizens from senseless deaths. Transferring its relatively junior state operatives from Kilifi in the wake of the deaths of such magnitude is certainly too little too late. To continue burying our heads in the sand on this grave injustices and criminal activities committed by people who claim to messengers of God, will not do. How do we reconcile ourselves with this impotent inactivity in the face of senseless loss of lives of innocent Kenyans in the hands of rogue pastors, prophets of doom, evangelists, apostles and other self-styled characters like Yesu wa Tongaren, Nabbi etc?. The fact that the government and the church were caught off guard by the Shakahola cultism mass murder bespeaks volumes about the complex nature of criminal activities perpetrated and committed by individuals posing as church leaders. Who has not witnessed or heard of church leaders who openly flog or wrestle worshippers down and molest and torture them in the name of exorcising demons? How does the government run away from dealing decisively with a crime it has variously described as genocide, a massacre or mass murder without delving deep into religious crime as a whole? And in this respect one would beg to strongly disagree with the position taken by Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua when he says the Shakahola killings is a 'small thing' and that Mackenzie should be treated as an individual and leave the church out of it. The state will be shooting itself in the foot on bigger issues of protecting its citizens if it does not confront the issue of regulating the church. It must dawn on the government that the church may have power to preach and evangelise, convert and even kill souls but it does not bear the responsibility of dealing with errant members and protecting those who are driven to self-destruction by errant men and women in the name of God. That responsibility lies squarely with the government regardless of whether those who run it are declared God-fearing or not. That fear of God is not the same as failure by government to protect citizens from the type of senseless killings that the country has been subjected to in Shakahola. [Vitalis Musebe, a veteran journalist and winner of the 2023 Lifetime Award by the Media Council of Kenya]

Why the state and the church are on the cross over the Shakahola debacle

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