Pastor Mackenzie threatened to kick worshippers ‘straight to heaven’, witness tells court

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Pastor Paul Mackenzie once told his flock he would “force them to heaven through blows and kicks” if they resisted fasting, a witness has testified in the Shanzu Law Courts.

The chilling claim, delivered on Tuesday, added to a catalogue of disturbing revelations about how the controversial preacher allegedly manipulated scripture and terrorised his followers into starvation.

A witness, who took the stand before Principal Magistrate Leah Juma, described how Mackenzie repeatedly cited a passage from the Book of Revelation 13:11.

The verse speaks of a pregnant woman fleeing into the wilderness for 1,260 days to escape a dragon. Mackenzie’s interpretation was not theological, but tactical.

He told followers the dragon was Satan and his agents--wamataifa, or worldly powers.

The pregnant woman, he declared, symbolised his church and its faithful. The child represented their fragile faith.

The wilderness, he insisted, was Shakahola forest in Kilifi County, where his followers moved after he shut down his Furunzi church in Malindi.

“He gave the verse a meaning that suited his plan,” the witness told the court.

“He insisted that the 1,260 days meant three and a half years. That was the deadline to prepare for the rapture.”

From 2020, Mackenzie’s followers began what they called a prophetic countdown.

As the supposed deadline approached, they were urged to abandon food. To ‘beat the clock’, they had to fast to death.

Another preacher, identified as George, allegedly reinforced Mackenzie’s apocalyptic sermons.

The witness explained that Mackenzie preached with urgency, portraying every challenge as a test of faith. His words were echoed by senior members of the sect, who warned that anyone reluctant to fast was siding with Satan.

Another testimony came from E.I., a young man whose father forced him to join the fast.

“He told me my peers were already with God. That I was wasting time and risking damnation in Babeli where Satan would celebrate recruiting me,” E.I. said.

At first, persuasion was the tool. Later, threats replaced persuasion.

“He said if anyone resisted, he would force them to heaven through kicks and blows,” E.I. recalled.

These accounts mirrored earlier concerns raised by Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Mr Jami Yamina.

In 2023, Mr Yamina successfully argued that Mackenzie’s followers were not on a hunger strike but on a disguised fast meant to ‘meet the deadline to heaven’.

Survivors rescued from Shakahola were transferred to prison custody under court orders. They were placed under medical watch, some force-fed, to keep them alive.

“Tuesday’s testimony appears to confirm that the followers were racing against the 1,260-day countdown,” Mr Yamina told the magistrate.

The Shakahola tragedy left the nation in shock. More than 400 bodies have been exhumed from shallow graves in the forest since security forces stormed the sect’s hideout in 2023.

Many victims were women and children. The site has been described as Kenya’s ‘forest of death’.

Mackenzie, once a taxi driver turned preacher, first rose to prominence in Malindi through his Furunzi church.

His fiery sermons railed against education, medical treatment, and modern life.

In 2019, authorities shut the church after complaints from parents that children were dropping out of school to join his sect. Yet the closure only pushed Mackenzie deeper underground.

In Shakahola, he created a fortress of secrecy. Followers sold their property, cut ties with relatives, and moved into the forest.

Survivors later told investigators that dissent was met with threats and punishment. Some spoke of secret burials carried out at night.

The case has exposed a supremacy battle between the state and religious cults operating on the margins.

While government agencies have insisted Mackenzie must be held accountable for crimes against humanity, his remaining followers argue he is being persecuted for his faith.

Lawyers for Mackenzie have maintained that fasting is a matter of religious freedom.

Prosecutors counter that freedom ends when lives are destroyed.

The Shanzu court has become the arena where these arguments collide.

Tuesday’s witness accounts offered prosecutors fresh ammunition.

They suggested that Mackenzie’s teachings were not just misinterpretations but deliberate distortions designed to control.

Magistrate Ms Juma listened as the accounts painted Mackenzie not as a misunderstood pastor, but as a leader who exploited fear, twisted scripture, and pushed his flock into death.

The hearing continues.