Jim Jones and Paul Mckenzie: Your Pastor Says God Spoke to Him. Why Do You Believe Him? — Bashir Lucas Samson Lukman

The world was met with shock when it was discovered that Jim Jones had led more than 900 members of his cult, the People’s Temple, to their deaths in Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978. The tragedy, which became one of the deadliest mass killings in modern American history, claimed 918 lives. Many of the victims were children. Some people were killed, while others died after being made to consume poison in what became known as a mass murder-suicide.

One must have thought that something like that could happen only in a world where people are not as civilised and enlightened.

It is 2026, and Kenyan doomsday pastor Paul Mackenzie is in the news for his conviction over the murders of 191 people, 190 of them children. Mackenzie, who led the Good News International Ministries, instructed his followers to starve themselves and their children to death so they could “meet Jesus”. On October 19, 2026, a Kenyan court convicted him and 28 co-accused of murder.

His doctrine forbade education and condemned modern medicine as evil. Twenty-eight other leaders associated with his movement were also convicted. Mackenzie had insisted that nobody was forced to die. Yet, according to testimony presented in court, one of his co-accused said Mackenzie had instructed his followers that anyone who resisted the directive to fast must be forced to go to heaven through kicks and blows.

Burials inside the forest where the cult was based were called “weddings”. Those who died “were celebrated as having wedded with Jesus”, the judge said.

One witness stated that a pregnant woman had been barred from nursing her newborn baby, who died 12 days later. “She was instructed to fast to death and follow her children,” the witness said.

Paul Mackenzie has been convicted, but there are many more cults yet to be discovered. While some remain hidden, we have many open cultists, and Christians, in particular, need to start thinking.

Jim Jones was a Christian preacher. Mackenzie claimed to be a man of God. The Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh, were an apocalyptic religious movement that believed in the imminent Second Coming of Christ. In 1993, more than 70 members died when their compound in Waco, Texas, caught fire at the end of a 51-day standoff with American authorities. Koresh had exercised extraordinary control over his followers, including what they ate, read, and how they lived.

In Uganda, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God ended in another horrifying tragedy in 2000, when hundreds of members died in a mass death initially believed to be a mass suicide. Subsequent investigations uncovered additional bodies, with evidence pointing to killings as well as suicide.

These were not all identical movements, but they shared something worth thinking about: religious conviction can become a weapon in the hands of people who demand unquestioning obedience from their followers.

In a sane world, any “man of God” who claims to speak with God must provide evidence for that claim or risk being exposed as a fraud. It gets even worse when a pastor who claims to “redeem” his followers says he has had tea with God, yet he has millions of followers. Another is in the news for saying God told him Africa’s role is not scientific or technological contribution to the world but spiritual redemption.

How much can I write about those who go around in aprons, believing they are “chosen”? Isn’t that an obvious cult-like mentality? If their pastor asks them to commit suicide, how many would question him? We see them on the streets dancing hysterically, fabricating lies in the name of miracles. If they are not claiming to be shot without the bullets penetrating their bodies, they are claiming to have been run over by a truck without sustaining a single scratch.

And people believe these things!

Speaking in tongues, as it is commonly practised in many churches today, is a lie, a big fat lie. Pastors claim it is a gift from the Holy Spirit, but when the disciples spoke in tongues in the Bible, they spoke in languages they had not learnt, and people who spoke those languages understood them. What we see in many churches today is largely unintelligible gibberish, with no demonstration that it is an actual language being spoken.

Unfortunately, church members now speak in those tongues themselves, which makes me wonder: why do we save people from a delusion they did not just buy but have now begun to sell themselves?

How about those who believe their pastors can heal the sick, make the blind see, and raise the dead? When you try to open their eyes, they claim you are not a believer! Ask them to produce a verifiable demonstration of these extraordinary powers, and suddenly, you are the enemy of God.

These are potential victims of the likes of Paul Mackenzie, and we see them every day.

The problem is not that people believe in God. The problem is that people surrender their ability to think because somebody claims to speak for God. They will question the claims of a traditional religious leader, laugh at the followers of a strange religious movement, and condemn people who die in the name of another religion, yet they cannot bring themselves to question the man standing on their own pulpit.

Why?

Is it because he quotes the Bible? Is it because he speaks in the name of Jesus? Or is it because they have been conditioned to believe that questioning a pastor is the same thing as questioning God?

If a man can convince you that he speaks directly to God, that his instructions cannot be questioned, that medicine is evil, that education is a distraction, and that your salvation depends on obeying him, what exactly separates you from the followers of Paul Mackenzie?

Must a pastor first lead hundreds of people to their deaths before we begin to question his teachings? Must children die before we realise that something is wrong? Must we wait until bodies are discovered in a forest before we start asking questions?

People are suffering and dying in the name of Jesus, the worst of it being those under the grip of doomsday pastors.

Christians, think!