FATAL ATTRACTION
Lessons from the rise and fall of Kevin Smith
IN MY line of work in ministry and community transformation, I meet many different people from all walks of life, from varied backgrounds and with different motives, seeking my assistance. Kevin Smith, a then 27-year-old on the threshold of starting a ministry, was one such person I was introduced to some 12 years ago.
As is customary for me to do, in our first few meetings, I gleaned as much information on his background as he was willing to volunteer; listened to not just his words but his heart for ministry; gauged his potential; reviewed his plan, which, at that time, was to stage a couple of events, not start a church; and linked him to a few of my professional non-clergy colleagues who could assist with planning and execution of said events.
As I recall, a few nights of evangelical meetings were arranged and held at Stephanie Hall in Half-Way Tree, interspersed with day-time meetings at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston.
COURTESY CALL
I was reminded by a recent social media posting that he also convened a meeting, at which I spoke, with a group of students at The University of the West Indies, Mona campus, who he hoped to form into a leadership mentoring group. In the process, he was assisted in making courtesy calls on persons in Government, the private sector, and civil society. The events were supported by a media campaign.
Although I personally never had a monetary arrangement with Smith, the services provided to him by the professionals who I may have introduced him to were understood to be on a fee-plus-expenses basis.
I personally did not benefit in a material or any other way from the association.
In the relatively short relationship of a few months and aided by hindsight, which is said to be 20/20, not only I, but others in the small team he engaged, saw signs, along with the spiritual manifestations that I now recognise as red flags. These primarily had to do with his self-elevation and love for the spotlight, ego and desire for adulation, preoccupation with raising money, failure to admit to or pay debts, resistance to advice of a personal nature or private counsel, and his questionable relationship with males.
There was, however, nothing in these moral and character flaws – neither in social or church settings – that could foretell the cult-like practices that led to his downfall and death over a decade later.
I can in all honesty and good conscience say that the Kevin Smith that is at the root of this current controversy is not the Kevin Smith that I met way back then, and I am no neophyte when it comes to assessing character.
He eventually moved on.
Having tested him in accordance with 1 John 4:1-3 (KJV) – “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out in the world.” – I was happy to let the relationship die a natural death.
I treat the experience with Smith like I do that with social deviants who show me one side, who I try to help, but after a while, sadly, they disappear to long jail sentences or the graveyard.
OFF THE RADAR
In the ensuing years, he disappeared from my radar. There was no further contact between us.
Although St James is my birth parish and I have family living in Montego Bay, not once did I hear his name mentioned – not even relating to a church or an event.
I was as surprised as anyone when a friend, who was part of that small team that tried to help him at the outset, phoned to tell me what had been reported on the news in relation to the events of the night of October 17 – the police raid and killings at a church pastored by Smith at Paradise, St James.
Those who knew Smith in his early years of ministry are left to ponder what happened during the ‘middle passage’ of his relatively short career that would have brought him to such a tragic end. The caricature of a self-serving religious zealot that emerged at Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries was anything but Christlike and should be roundly repudiated from pulpit to pew and in society generally.
At a national level, we may want to consider what makes us as a people so gullible to every new ‘thing’ – be that fake news, a rumour, or a personality. Be it church, politics, service club, community group, or other voluntary association, we are easily swayed by both message and messenger so that we turn on each other and away from principle in an orgy of back-biting and in-fighting. There is, it seems, a fatal attraction between Jamaicans and the things that divide us, which open the door to cults.
At a personal level, the object lesson to be learnt from these events and the likes of a Kevin Smith is this: Those of us called to be leaders in the Church must shun the very appearance of occult and other practices that have as their motive making subservient zombies of believing members. We must remain with the original anointed plan of God for the duration of our lives.