A Cult in the Forest - The vast majority of Kenyans are Christian, a faith that arrived with early colonization. A group of Finnish missionaries brought Pentecostalism in the nineteen-hundreds

The vast majority of Kenyans are Christian, a faith that arrived with early colonization. A group of Finnish missionaries brought Pentecostalism in the nineteen-hundreds. The colonial government tried to suppress it, because a faction of pro-independence freedom fighters belonged to the African Independent Pentecostal Church of Africa, which included messages about decolonization in its hymns. But after independence, in 1963, Pentecostalism and other forms of evangelical Christianity spread. They emphasized charismatic forms of worship—visions, spiritual healing, speaking in tongues—and a gospel that promised prosperity to the faithful. “If you want your church to be full, do what I call ‘spiritual gymnastics,’ ” Martin Olando, a scholar of African Christianity at the Bishop Hannington Institute, in Mombasa, told me. “Jump up and down, prophesize good tidings, tell people what they want to hear.” By the nineties, Kenya’s President, Daniel arap Moi, enjoyed a beneficial relationship with Arthur Kitonga, an influential Pentecostal bishop. “President Moi has been appointed by God to lead this country,” Kitonga said at the time. William Ruto, Kenya’s current President, and its first evangelical one, brought gospel singers into his campaign team and party, and has donated cars, and thousands of dollars, to evangelical churches. His wife, Rachel, invited the U.S.-based televangelist Benny Hinn to preach with her at a crusade. (This year, Hinn apologized for giving fake prophecies. “There were times when I thought God had showed me something that He wasn’t showing me,” he told the Christian podcast “Strang Report.”)

- By Alexis Okeowo - photo illustration by chantal jahchan

Everyone hopes for a miracle. And in Kenya—where evangelical Christianity is so popular that the President frequently prays with preachers during official events—the more miracles a pastor performs, the more followers he will gain. Some swiftly build large congregations and become multimillionaires. In 2018, Halua Yaa, a woman in the coastal town of Malindi, heard about a pastor named Paul Mackenzie, who, it was said, could heal the sick. Yaa’s eight-year-old granddaughter, Bright Angel, had mysterious symptoms: she had severe stomach pains and often threw up after eating. “She looked like she was going to die,” Yaa told me recently. Doctors gave her medicine and an I.V. drip, but nothing helped. “I went to the hospital for almost a year and a half, and there were no changes,” Yaa said. When she heard that Mackenzie was holding a “crusade” in Malindi—a kind of religious festival—she decided to attend. “You feel like, if Mackenzie can talk with Jesus for him to do miracles, he can also tell Jesus to take away this disease,” she said.

Yaa is fifty-four and petite, with full cheeks, cornrows, and a mischievous sense of humor. The previous decade had been difficult for her. After ten years of marriage, her husband left her for another woman, and she was forced to raise six children on her own. She developed a condition that caused her to lose sight in one eye. But she was smart and industrious; she started a café and eventually a farm in the countryside, built a home, and sent her children to school. Then, in 2010, one of her teen-age daughters got pregnant, and Yaa took on the responsibility of raising her granddaughter, too. She came to believe that this time in her life had been so painful because she was not devout enough, and found comfort going to a Catholic church. “Even if your heart is down, the word of God makes you hope,” she said.