Kenya’s evangelical community was thrown into turmoil on Sunday after controversial televangelist James Maina Ng’ang’a confessed during a live sermon that he had once taken part in a gang rape.
Preaching at his Neno Evangelism Centre in Nairobi, the 64-year-old pastor, known for his blunt style and checkered past, paused mid-sermon to recount a violent episode from his youth. “Tuli-rape mwanamke mmoja, wanaume nane,” he said in Swahili, which he translated for his stunned congregation: “We raped one woman; we were eight men.”
The revelation, captured on a congregant’s phone and posted online within minutes, spread rapidly across X (formerly Twitter) under the hashtags #NgangaConfession and #PastorRape, drawing tens of thousands of reactions by midday.
Witnesses inside the packed church described the moment as surreal. Some members appeared to accept the account as part of the pastor’s redemption story, while others sat visibly unsettled.
Ng’ang’a has long built his ministry on personal stories of transformation, often referring to his years in crime and incarceration before what he calls his conversion in a U.S. prison. But this disclosure — describing a serious sexual assault — has sparked outrage.
Women’s rights advocates demanded urgent police action. Nairobi Woman Representative Esther Passaris said the confession should trigger a formal investigation. “This is not testimony; it’s an admission to a violent crime,” she said.
By Monday morning, Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations said it was “reviewing the footage” to determine the next steps.
The incident has reignited debate over accountability in the country’s powerful megachurches and whether religious leaders should face consequences for serious offenses committed before entering the pulpit.
