Are pastors exploiting worship for personal gain?

Pastor Israel Ford and his first wife, Lydia, publicly introduced Shikayla as his second wife during a church service in the US.

I wanted to avoid the ongoing debate on pastors and fake miracles until I read about Kenyan pastor Paul Mackenzie, who was convicted for starving his followers to death and for the murder of 190 children. As thought leaders, we have an obligation to drive public discourse on critical issues such as faith, culture and religion that shape society.

Lately, the East African timeline has been awash with stories of Mackenzie in Kenya and of the feud between Ugandan pastors (first Robert Kayanja) and Frank Gashumba over the authenticity of miracles performed by new reformation Christian denominations.

We cannot ignore this escalating clash over staged fake miracles, because lives are at stake and the consequences are far-reaching, to the detriment of spirituality, morality and religion.

The debate reignited when a political and social pundit called out claims of a woman delivering a baby without a uterus, the healing of cancer and HIV without professional medical treatment, and promises of overnight wealth as signs of hoodwinking, manipulation and exploitation of gullible peasants and urban elites by pulpit businessmen.

For the first time, many netizens across ethnic, social and political divides united behind Gashumba and like-minded critics to challenge stage-managed healings and other grave human rights abuses.

Amid the applause, I noticed unexpected, overzealous rage and retaliation from city pastors, self-styled apostles and Pentecostal believers against calls for transparency and accountability. In my view, the bitter verbal exchanges, diatribes, curses and death threats directed at Gashumba were uncalled for and beneath so-called men of God, and they reveal the hidden motives behind the staged miracles.

I expected restraint and intellectual engagement. They could have taken the biblical path of “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39), or demonstrated a public healing, as in Mark 2:6–7, where Jesus told a man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home,” to silence the Pharisees and sceptics. That did not happen.

Instead of responding with logic, civility and spirituality, some pastors cited infringement of the freedom of worship guaranteed under Articles 29(1)(c) and 37 of Uganda’s 1995 Constitution. Article 29(1)(c) provides that a person shall practise, belong to or participate in the practices of any religious body in ways consistent with the supreme laws of the land, while Article 29(1)(b) guarantees freedom of worship and association.

However, Article 29(1)(c) is increasingly being manipulated in ways that contravene the Palermo Protocol, the United Nations instrument designed to protect human beings from exploitation. By rejecting constructive criticism, scrutiny, transparency and accountability, these new reformation leaders, disguised as pastors and apostles, are turning freedom of worship into freedom of exploitation.

Most neo-Pentecostal and oneness pastors have exploited Christianity for personal enrichment and power, tactically extorting money and property from poor peasants seeking jobs, better living standards, healing, travel opportunities and marriage partners.

Offerings and tithes were traditionally voluntary in the Catholic, Anglican, Adventist, Orthodox and Islamic faiths until new evangelical denominations (classical Pentecostal, oneness, charismatic and neo-Pentecostal) began coercing congregations to give fixed, large amounts to earn blessings and miracles. Yet nothing in the Bible shows God or Jesus Christ, whose names they manipulate to garner followers, putting a price tag on miracles, mercy, forgiveness or blessings.

Besides the stories of pastors insulting each other in public, it is very sad that self-proclaimed men of God have turned the pulpit into a platform of emotional and physical exploitation, offering false hope and unrealistic promises.

Lest we forget, Jesus Christ himself said in Matthew 21:13, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves,” and in Matthew 7:15 warned, “Beware of false prophets that will come in my name.” We are witnessing these warnings.

Can you imagine Ronald Kayanja (not his real name), a prominent city pastor, promising energetic young men that they would become billionaires in just 90 days through sprinkled water? The water miracle may sound like the Maji Maji rebellion gimmick in Tanganyika, but it happened at the Lubaga Miracle Centre during the “Big Fix” event in September 2026. The irony is that this very pastor, who has spent over 40 years collecting tithes in US dollars, is not ranked among Africa’s billionaires.

How can younger men with no capital, or who have just completed university, become billionaires in three months? It only conditions them to be intellectually lazy and delusional. Believers say faith can move mountains, but we must refuse to be tricked by fake miracles, as some pastors would have us be. So tell me: if this is not freedom of exploitation, what is it?

Exploitation goes beyond empty financial promises. It is also psychological, when deceptive pastors choose to hoodwink gullible peasants and urban elites with modern-day witchcraft. How does a PhD, master’s or bachelor’s graduate believe in instant HIV/AIDS and cancer cures without professional medical care? I am compelled to think that this is modern-day witchcraft used to exploit even the highly educated. Victims often resume proper medication too late, spreading the virus or dying early.

The exploitation also becomes physical when some self-proclaimed men of God sexually harass young boys and girls, while others fuel faith-based and gender-based violence that breaks marriages and families.

We vividly remember a viral TikTok video of Pastor Paul Sanyangore purporting to call God directly on a cell phone, and of Prophet David Owuor claiming to chat with God on WhatsApp during church services. They were, literally, hoodwinking their gullible followers into believing that God, a spirit, has a physical cell phone. Really! These are no longer drama skits or fake miracle tricks but deception, pure deceit, intellectual insults and blasphemy, beyond manipulation and exploitation of our desperate peasants and urban elites.

I have always wondered whether all these atrocities and grand exploitation schemes happen without the authorities knowing. Of course they do not. They happen under full government watch and sometimes with its facilitation.

In Africa, most pastors and apostles play a key role in advancing pro-regime political patronage and election mobilisation. At times they demobilise the principled traditional religions and shift the government’s failures onto Satan. If a fresh graduate fails to find work because of poor planning and job scarcity and, in desperation, seeks divine intervention in Pentecostal churches, temples or synagogues, the pastor blames Satan and sometimes extorts money, while others sexually exploit the victim.

Anyone who tries to hold them accountable for their ills is quickly reminded, as a scapegoat quotation, of Psalm 105:15: “Touch not the Lord’s anointed.” They do not reflect on their misleading actions, which are detrimental to morality, faith and religion.

Neoliberal states have not only refused to regulate the multimillion-dollar Pentecostal sector and its pastors but have given them firearms, sharpshooters, monetary support, bulletproof vehicles and public land. With state apparatus behind them, they gain immunity from the law, along with power and wealth. Thus freedom of worship becomes freedom of exploitation.

Year after year, some pastors and apostles have made it routine, in the name of Jesus Christ, to hoodwink the masses with fake miracles and to shield bad governance. Others have committed unthinkable crimes with impunity, without facing justice, and go unpunished, except in a few cases, such as Paul Mackenzie’s in Kenya, where convictions have been secured.

Quote me well: according to Christianity, there are truly spiritual people who deliver genuine miracles to those who have faith. But the idea that every Tom, Dick and Harry can turn miracles into a trap or an attraction for followers has lured many reformation Pentecostal pastors into faking miracles, and so into turning freedom of worship into freedom of exploitation.

Freedom of worship turns into freedom of exploitation when authorities turn a blind eye to those who abuse constitutional religious rights.

It turns into freedom of exploitation when the public cannot hold perpetrators accountable for sexual exploitation, human trafficking and human sacrifice, despite constant accusations and cases against prominent pastors.

It turns into freedom of exploitation when security agencies and top brass in the executive, legislature and judiciary protect those defrauding citizens and misguiding patients with miracle promises.

When freedom of worship turns into freedom of exploitation, this is what happens next: the spiritual pact is broken, the church becomes a fiefdom of pulpit merchants obsessed with wealth accumulation, and followers become slaves.

Not all human beings are perfect, and pastors are no exception. But being wolves in sheep’s clothing, misleading the masses for personal gain, is what hurts most.

Therefore, it is no longer enough to ask whether freedom of worship has become freedom of exploitation. It is now right and just to say that some of these pastors are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Robert Kigongo is a sustainable development analyst.

The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of IOL