In this article, we'll provide clear evidence that disproves the false accusations against the Jesus Christians in relation to the Shakahola Massacre Incident. We'll also reveal the source behind the untrue claims published by the Kenyan Senate Ad-Hoc Committee about the Jesus Christians and explain how it's part of organized attacks by people who strongly disagree with the group's Christian beliefs and practices.

You can watch a video which presents this article in a visual and audible form here:
The Truth About the Jesus Christians and Shakahola

The "Information"

The Senate Ad-Hoc Committee has assumed that the Jesus Christians are guilty and they have asked the authorities to:



So, anyone promoting any of our teachings must be expelled from Kenya? Why? On what information is the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee basing this decision?

They only give one paragraph of information about it, and it says the following:



At first glance, it sounds very serious and thoroughly researched... but what if I told you that this information is not only demonstrably false, but that it did not come from an investigation on behalf of the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee at all? Rather, it was given to them by someone who purposefully and maliciously intended to defame the Jesus Christians... and what if I told you that we have a pretty good idea of where that information came from?

But before we speak about the source of the misinformation, let's examine this key paragraph, the one on which the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee is basing their decision.

The "Investigation"



The pargraph starts by saying that this was “information availed to the committee”. In other words, this was not information that the committee found through careful research. Instead it was given to the committee by someone. The Senate Ad-Hoc Committee gives no explanation as to who the source is nor where this information can be verified... though we shall talk about the source later in this article.

To our knowledge, the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee did not reach out to Dave and Cherry Mckay nor to any member of the Jesus Christians in any way, for clarification or confirmation of these shocking allegations. It does not appear that the Committee invested ANY time in corroborating the information with other more reliable or reputable sources. As we will show in this article, it is evident that the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee was just handed a paragraph of information, and then, based solely on that paragraph, the Committee has made this extreme decision to request that all foreign members of the Jesus Christians be expelled and barred from Kenya.

About the Word "Cult"

But let's keep reading:



The use of the word “cult” is intentionally prejudiced so as to immediately ascribe negative connotations to the group. In the same Senate Ad-Hoc Committee report, we see the following definition being given for “cult”:



The Jesus Christians do not fit this description. Ironically, it is an official teaching of our community that we do not use lofty titles for anyone, whether inside or outside the group, and our system of beliefs is directed exclusively towards the teachings of Jesus Christ. If this makes us a “cult”, then it makes every church that claims to follow Jesus a “cult” as well. Applying the term "cult" to the Jesus Christians is derogatory and appears to be intended to maliciously prejudice the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee and the public against the Jesus Christians, even before hearing or seeing any actual evidence.

Forsaking All and Communal Living

The report goes on:



As readers of our website would know, we Jesus Christians do teach and practice forsaking private ownership and possessions in obedience to the teachings of Jesus and the practice of the Early Church regarding this topic. You can read Luke 12:33; Luke 14:33; Luke 18:22; Matthew 13:44-46; Mark 10:29-30; Acts 2:44-45; and Acts 4:32-35 for some of the clear biblical texts that support this teaching and practice.

These are valid Christian teachings that have centuries of religious tradition and have been practiced by many Christian communities throughout the centuries including Catholic orders like the Franciscans, as well as some Mennonite and Anabaptist communities. Therefore the Jesus Christians should not be discriminated against on the basis of our practice of these teachings.

However, the Jesus Christians do NOT teach that Christians relocate to an isolated communal place. In fact, because all Jesus Christian communities are dedicated to evangelism, they are located in populated urban areas, and Jesus Christian members engage daily with the public. The statement about "relocating to an isolated communal place" is a deliberate distortion designed to link the Jesus Christians to Paul Mackenzie's decision to isolate his followers within the Shakahola forest, something that has no relation to the teachings or practices of the Jesus Christians.

The comment regarding "where they serve one master" is also a deliberate distortion of the teachings of the Jesus Christians. The Jesus Christians teach what Jesus taught in Matthew 6:24 that says:





The author of the information given to the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee purposefully and maliciously distorted this teaching to give the impression that the Jesus Christians teach that people should go to an isolated location like Shakahola to serve a human leader (like Paul Mackenzie), something that is totally opposed to the real teachings of the Jesus Christians.

The Links Between The Jesus Christians and Paul Mackenzie



NOTE: Dave and Cherry Mckay have never had any contact with Paul Mackenzie, whether by email, social media, phone or in person.

It is ridiculous that some Kenyan media outlets have claimed that Dave and Cherry Mckay actually set up Good News International, when they have never had any contact with Paul Mackenzie.



It is true that a member of the Jesus Christians gave a sermon at Paul Mackenzie's church in 2019. This is about the only factual information in the paragraph from the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee. But is this sufficient basis to condemn the Jesus Christians? Does any priest or pastor who preaches at any other church besides their own denomination, bear the blame for anything taught by that church years later?

One of us preached at Paul Mackenzie’s church four years before the Shakahola Incident. None of us had any idea that Paul Mackenzie would one day teach such a thing, nor did we know much of his teachings at the time. We were invited to speak on a particular topic, and that is what the Jesus Christian member did, just as he would at any other church who would have invited him to preach.

One of us was simply invited to speak on a particular topic, and that is what the Jesus Christian member did, just as he would have done at any other church that had invited him to preach. In fact, afterward, neither the guest speaker nor any other member of the Jesus Christians had any further contact with Paul Mackenzie and his church. It is ridiculous to argue that having preached at a church automatically makes one guilty of everything that church does four years later.

Huduma Namba and the Mark of the Beast



This is a distortion of the facts. The guest speaker did not express ANY anti-government sentiments. His comments were related to Christian doctrine on Bible prophecy and its relation to the avoidance of a particular technology, on religious grounds, something that is within any individual's freedom of belief, supported by the Kenyan Constitution, and by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The guest speaker did not, at any moment, say that Huduma Namba was the mark of the beast. What the guest speaker said is that Huduma Namba was a step closer to the mark of the beast, a very important distinction. In fact, the guest speaker clearly mentioned several times in the sermon that the mark of the beast was a future event, not something that had already happened in 2019.



Concern regarding the Huduma Namba was not unique to the Jesus Christians. Many people were concerned over privacy issues, and the Huduma project was later rejected by the Kenyan High Court. So why are the Jesus Christians being unfairly targeted as being anti-government now, due to comments they made about the Huduma Namba more than four years ago?

The teaching about the implementation of something called the mark of the beast is not unique to Jesus Christians. It is a well established Christian doctrine shared by many churches.

Therefore, this fact alone about the Jesus Christians believing in the biblical prophecy regarding the mark of the beast and its association with cashless payment systems should not be used to persecute the Jesus Christians. Doing so is a clear violation of religious freedom and Constitutional guarantees that people will not be persecuted for their religious beliefs.



This is patently false. At no time in the sermon did the guest speaker urge followers to abandon earthly possessions and follow Paul Mackenzie to the "promised land". Not once did the guest speaker urge people to follow Paul Mackenzie to go anywhere nor to follow any of his teachings. Instead the guest speaker repeatedly told the congregation that they must follow Jesus Christ in preference to imperfect human leaders.



Once again, it is clear that information which the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee was given is not only false but that it was deliberately and maliciously designed to spur the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee and others into persecuting the Jesus Christians.

Radicalization and Religious Extremism

Furthermore, the false information given to the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee was deliberately intended to imply that the Jesus Christians radicalized Paul Mackenzie with religious extremism.

As the defamatory article in The Nation says:



This accusation by The Nation, if not by the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee, is patently false.

The Senate Ad-Hoc Committe Report clearly defined the terms “religious extremism” and “radicalization” as follows:





The Jesus Christians do not fit EITHER of those definitions. We do not promote violence, and we do not support terrorists. In fact, we are a pacifist group (like the Quakers). We actively promote love, peace, and non-violence.

Therefore the Jesus Christians should not be accused of religious extremism nor of radicalizing Paul Mackenzie nor his church nor anyone in Kenya nor anywhere else for that matter, since the definitions the Senate Committee Report has clearly given for those terms definitely do NOT apply to the Jesus Christians.

In fact, it can be clearly shown that the deaths that occurred at Shakahola did NOT come as a result of what the Jesus Christians actually teach or practice. Rather, it is apparent that the deaths of Paul Mackenzie’s followers have come as a result of Mackenzie’s own private teachings regarding a false return of Jesus, claims that fasting to death will guarantee entry into heaven, and implementing coercive and violent measures that did not allow people to leave when they were not in agreement with his teachings. None of those practices which directly led to the deaths of so many people in Shakahola have ANY relation to what the Jesus Christians teach and practice. Blame should not be unfairly put on the Jesus Christians for something we have not had anything to do with.

In fact, if Paul Mackenzie and his church had actually followed the teachings and practices of Jesus, and of the Jesus Christians, they would all still be alive today, participating in a vibrant community that would be dedicated to preaching the Gospel in all the world, just like the Jesus Christians do and are doing right now. There is no real connection between what the Jesus Christians actually teach and how we actually live and practice our beliefs, and the teachings that led to the deaths of all those people in Shakahola.

Any attempt to make the Jesus Christians responsible for the deaths at Shakahola is unfounded, extremely unfair, and, in our opinion, constitutes a case of religious vilification.

Religious Persecution

We have clearly shown that the information from paragraph 128 on which the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee based its decision to request that Jesus Christians be expelled and barred from Kenya is false, and was designed to maliciously defame and persecute the Jesus Christians by blaming us for something we never did nor did we support or participate in.

This is in clear contradiction of articles 27, 32 and 33 of the Kenyan Constitution which aim to protect freedom of conscience, religion and speech.

As cited in the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee Report:



Yet, here clearly we have a clear case of the Jesus Christians being discriminated against because of our religious beliefs.



Yet the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee is requesting that Jesus Christians and any foreigner who is associated with them, be expelled from Kenya and denied access to the country.



However, the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee wants to ban the Jesus Christians from Kenya simply because one of our members gave a sermon at Paul Mackenzie’s church about our religious beliefs FOUR YEARS before the Shakahola Tragedy took place!

The Jesus Christians are simply NOT responsible for the false teachings and coercive practices that Paul Mackenzie appears to have implemented four years after one of our members preached there.

Since the source of the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee’s information about the Jesus Christians is dubious, and the information itself clearly false, misleading, prejudiced and maliciously motivated, we request that the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee retract their decision regarding the Jesus Christians and ask that the authorities in Kenya publicly clear the Jesus Christians in relation to the Shakahola Incident and make public who the source of the misleading and false information is.

The person responsible for this false information, could be prosecuted criminally not only for misleading the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee but also for religious vilification and persecution of a religious minority, since these lies about the Jesus Christians have led to us being further defamed in the media. All media outlets who have added false information in their reports and do not issue a clear retraction, should also be prosecuted for defamation and religious vilification.

The Source

Now, let us consider the source of the information in the Senate Ad-Hoc Commitee’s paragraph.

A few months ago, in April 2023, when the Shakahola Incident came to light, an Australian person (who shall not yet be named for legal reasons) who has spread disinformation about the Jesus Christians, and has been actively working with other people to find ways to cause legal problems for Dave Mckay and the Jesus Christians, informed a member of the group that Kenyan media was accusing Dave Mckay of having caused the Shakahola Incident and of being involved in organ harvesting and the sale of organs in the black market.

Of course, all such claims regarding organ trafficking and our involvement in the Shakahola Incident were nothing but lies, yet they were the same kind of lies that this same Australian (and the people they have been working with) had already been trying to spread about the Jesus Christians. It also seemed coincidental that they were letting us know of the article only hours after it had been written and published.

This Australian person was referring to a blog post written and published by one Simon Mwangi Muthiora on April 26th, 2023.

Some Kenyans may recognize his name, as he is a Kenyan blogger and has a following on some social media platforms, including a Telegram account that purports to be the official account of The Nairobian Newspaper.

Simon Mwangi Muthiora wrote an article titled: “EXCLUSIVE: Pastor Mackenzie; The Untold Story of Controversial Preacher and His Encounter with Police”.

This defamatory article was published on his Facebook account, the aforementioned Telegram account, and on some independent online tabloid media sites.

The defamatory paragraphs in relation to the Jesus Christians in that article state the following:



As you can see, these defamatory paragraphs, full of false accusations against the Jesus Christians, relate directly to the false information that the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee was given.

We have almost a word for word exact copy of the lie about teaching people to serve “one master”, just like the Senate Committee’s paragraph.





There is also an almost word for word exact copy about urging the congregation to follow Paul Mackenzie to the “Promised land” in Malindi





In fact, virtually all the information used in the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee’s paragraph as the basis for why the Jesus Christians should be banned from Kenya, can be directly linked to Simon Mwangi Muthiora’s article.



It is all based on LIES, LIES and more LIES! It appears that the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee did not investigate ANYTHING about the Jesus Christians! They were given false, misleading and maliciously motivated information, and they ran with it. This appears to be a case of religious villification and religious persecution, and, because of that, Kenyan authorities have a responsibility to expose and denounce their souce, and to clear our name!

The Organ Harvesting Lie



The last sentence of what we quoted from Simon Mwangi Muthiora's article most shockingly accuses Dave Mckay of trafficking in human organs. This lie contributed to a panic in the Kenyan media, with many claims that the Shakahola victims had had their organs removed. However, because the organ harvesting theory in relation to Shakahola was so obviously ludicrous, this particular accusation against the Jesus Christian was not included in the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee report.

Yet The Nation Newspaper has tried to revive this lie about organ harvesting in their more recent defamatory article about The Jesus Christians, saying:



This is a deliberate attempt to resurrect something that was a FALSE narrative to begin with. There were NO organs harvested from Shakahola victims! It is an absurd claim that lacks any reason whatsoever, as you cannot even USE organs from a starving victim! The whole premise was false to begin with and a deliberate attempt to link and vilify the Jesus Christians by distorting the facts.

Contrary to what Simon Mwangi Muthiora published and contrary to the article from The Nation, the Jesus Christians have never been involved in organ harvesting, organ trafficking nor any other illegal activity involving organs. What the Jesus Christians have been involved in is altruistic live kidney donations… that is, some members of the Jesus Christians voluntarily and freely donated a kidney to someone who needed it, a practice often called a “Good Samaritan Donation” and praised by reputable hospitals and health organizations around the world. Such donations were not done secretly nor in suspicious circumstances as The Nation so falsely stated. They were done at some of the most prestigious hospitals in the world, often being done in front of documentary cameras from established news and media companies.



Distorting such altruistic donations into lies about organ harvesting, organ trafficking and other crimes, is not only serious defamation but reveals that people who are misreporting such things are not interested in the truth; they just want a sensational story to sell at the expense of serious, long term consequences for the Jesus Christians.

As such, we are experiencing a clear case of religious persecution there in Kenya at the moment.

Closing Remarks

We have good reason to believe that Simon Mwangi Muthiora was not acting alone in defaming the Jesus Christians with his articles, but he was himself given false and misleading information by an unidentified overseas source, which we believe came from an Australian citizen.

In any case, it is clearly demonstrable that the information given to the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee about the Jesus Christians is false and can be directly linked to Simon Mwangi Muthiora’s original article. If he did not invent the false information himself, he could certainly help authorities by revealing where he got his information. The Kenyan authorities have a responsibility to interview Simon Mwangi Muthiora to find out and reveal who his source was.

The Senate Ad-Hoc Committee also needs to be open and transparent about who “availed” them of the false information they have used to persecute the Jesus Christians. We do not believe it was Simon himself, but rather his Australian contact, who pointed them to Simon's article (which has since been from his Facebook and Telegram accounts).

Given the questionable and misleading nature of the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee's decision about the Jesus Christians, we urge a retraction. We call on Kenyan authorities to publicly clear the group in the Shakahola Incident, reveal the source of false information, and prosecute the responsible party for deceiving the Committee and for religious persecution. The serious defamation and religious vilification at the hands of Kenyan media must also be seriously investigated and prosecuted.

For those of you who are genuinely interested in what the Jesus Christians actually teach, we recommend you read the articles available in the TEACHINGS section of our website.