Community News
The power of religion to abuse, distort and control the realities of susceptible persons
BY PAUL JUNOR
Events surrounding Dr Kevin. O. Smith in his church in Montego Bay, Jamaica has garnered widespread international attention.
The deaths of two church members: 39-year-old Taneka Gardner, and 38-year-old Micheal Scottsdale Brown in a blood-letting ceremony, and another parishioner at the hands of the police has shocked Jamaicans and the world, and raised many questions after what happened on Sunday, October 17th, 2021.
Kevin Ontoniel Smith was born in 1982 in Glengoffe, Jamaica in the parish of St. Catherine. There is not much that is known about his early childhood and family. His mother raised him, and they migrated to Canada in 1996. He attended Jamaica College, a well-known and popular high school in Kingston. It was in Canada that he completed his high school education and received his formal education.
There have been media accounts in the Jamaica Observer, Jamaica Gleaner, UK Sun and the New York Mirror of Kevin’s background and past lives. It was during his time in Canada that he was recognized as a gifted child preacher. He was reared and nurtured in the theological conservative and biblical strait-laced apostolic community in Toronto.
In his autobiographical account on social media, Kevin writes “He received the baptism of the Holy Spirit at age nine, and at the age of seventeen he was sent to thirty-three countries within two years as a prophet to the nations.” Furthermore, he was an “Ordained minister of the gospel at seventeen years and at eighteen years he was ordained by the National Evangelists for Canada.”
He boasts of the fact that he was “The youngest Jamaican born Bishop in Jamaica’s church history.” Kevin completed: a Bachelor of Theology degree, a Doctorate degree from Vision International University in Ramona, California and a Doctor of Ministry from Mount Olive Bible Institute and Seminary (MOBIS) in Toronto, Canada. He was a licensed counsellor and certified psychotherapist.
Dr Smith was a sitting member of the International Council of Pentecostal Bishops (ICPB), which is located in Toronto, and served as a regional Bishop of the Board of presbyters. Dr C founded ICPB. A Reid and Dr C. Lloyd Battieste serves as Chief Prelate.
The Jamaica Observer reported on Tuesday, October 21st, Dr Smith was dropped from its member’s list. It was during his time in Toronto that he got married at eighteen years old. There are not many details known about his wife and his married life. There have been allegations that his wife caught him having sexual relations with men. She reported it to senior ministers in the church organizations, but they denied it and there were no reprimand or consequences. Eventually, he was arrested for sexual assault of a twenty-one-year-old male and convicted on November 5th, 2007.
He served six months in jail and received two years discretionary probation as well as probation orders for ten years. Kevin eventually left Canada and went to Jamaica where he started his Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries in January 2012. There have been questions raised as to whether the Jamaican government was aware that Kevin was a registered sex offender.
As a self-proclaimed prophet and pastor, his ministry claimed, “Our divine mandate is to transform the people by the power of Jesus Christ.” The mission of his church was to “Win souls to the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ and deliver the lives of people from the snares of darkness.” He described himself as the President and Founder of K.O.S Deliverance International and Chief Special Advisor of the King’s Oracles. Kevin was obsessed with titles and dubbed himself “Excellency.”
His church operated a food bank, helped kids with their school fees and there was medical care for the children and elderly in his church. On the other hand, Kevin was blinded by greedy pursuits and materialistic ambition. He was a charismatic manipulator who exercised a cult-like influence over his mostly female parishioners. His misogynistic behaviour is evident in many of his sermons, which can be seen on YouTube. He maintained an opulent lifestyle surrounded by a bevy of boys.
The events that unfolded on Sunday, October 17th, 2021, at the Pathway Christian Church were precipitated by what Kevin posted on Facebook. His religious ideology fuelled by his sense of prophetic frenzy drove him to summon his members to adorn themselves in white to be cleansed to enter an ark that would be leaving on Monday, October 18th, 2021. He was convinced that judgement day had come, and it was time to board the ark. This entailed a bloodletting ceremony, which would be a “Roman Catholic sacrifice that will have no survivors.”
There is speculation about the state of mind and psyche of this tormented minister. In much of his rantings and ravings, Kevin was vehemently opposed to the mandatory COVID-19 vaccination of the Jamaican government. He wrote “Forced vaccination in law is rape,” and this was the effect of vaccine policy.
He believed that the COVID-19 vaccine was the “Mark of the Beast” and would lead to the destruction of Jamaica. Kevin was steeped in numerology and attached significance to “999” as the inversion of the “demonic 666.” Many of his members were naked and lined up to be slaughtered with ceremonial daggers. This human sacrificial ritual was supposed to send the members on their heavenly journey.
Many likened this event to what happened with the Jim Jones massacre in 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana. If the police did not intervene, there certainly would have been a massacre. Questions remained as to what drove this megalomaniac to this fatal end.