New Life Pentecostal Church Bishop Dan Migosi said on Monday that such incidences – though few in number -defamed the church and urged Kenyans to be vigilant to avoid being deceived/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 23 – A section of the clergy has strongly condemned the actions of a pastor who allegedly used a sex worker to declare false testimonies in his church and urged the government to crack down on such individuals.
The pastor is accused of approaching the sex worker as a customer before coercing her to help him deceive his followers.
New Life Pentecostal Church Bishop Dan Migosi said on Monday that such incidences – though few in number -defamed the church and urged Kenyans to be vigilant to avoid being deceived.
“The church in Kenya is stable. It is only a few who are spoiling its name by their actions. They are doing wrong by the standards set because some of them are selling anointing oil which should not be for sale. Some have sold brooms, soil and stones in the church and some even sell water,” he said.
He appealed to the government to deregister so called pastors whose aim is to benefit from the vulnerability of those who come to worship in their churches.
“If the government can have mechanism of investigating some of the people around that pose as if they are doing miracles – since some of them are not registered – that would help the church. The pulpit has been played with by a few individuals and it is high time the church goes back to where it is supposed to be,” he stated.
His sentiments were echoed by a reverend in the Community Church Sammy Ongondo.
“You should not be told that you should drink oil for you to get well. That oil that is sold to you has been bought here at the supermarket and then you are told that it has been imported from Israel,” he said.
“And even if it was imported, what is the difference in the oil from Kenya and Israel?”
In the meantime, Attorney General Githu Muigai warned that any church which engages in any illegal activity will be deregistered.
Muigai however pointed out that there needs to be hard evidence of an illegality taking place before any action is taken.
“We can revoke the registration of a church if it becomes involved in illegal or irregular activities but we must receive that complaint from somebody to cause us to commence an investigation,” he said.
He also revealed that where complaints have been received such churches have already been deregistered.
“We receive complaints all the time from churches which say that another church is interfering with us… it is taking away our members. It is preaching against us and sometimes where there is genuine reason to do so, we deregister a church and most deregistered churches then go to court and then the courts have to go back to the same reasons which we considered,” he stated.
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