A prosecution witness on Tuesday painted a chilling picture of how controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie allegedly twisted scripture to lure his followers into a deadly fast.
Testifying before Shanzu Law Courts Principal Magistrate Leah Juma, the witness recounted how Mackenzie repeatedly cited a passage from the Book of Revelation, chapter 13, verse 11, about a pregnant woman hidden in the wilderness for 1,260 days to escape a seven-headed dragon.
According to the witness, Mackenzie gave the ancient text a dangerous, self-serving meaning.
In his sermons, the preacher is said to have taught that the seven-headed dragon represented Satan and his agents, whom he called wamataifa, worldly powers.
The pregnant woman, he claimed, symbolized his church and its faithful, the wateule or chosen ones.
The child in the vision stood for their faith, while the wilderness was none other than the remote Shakahola forest in Kilifi County, where Mackenzie’s followers retreated after he shut down his Furunzi church.
The witness explained that Mackenzie interpreted the 1,260 days mentioned in Revelation as three and a half years, a prophetic countdown to the rapture.
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