Jesus Christians

[15] In 2011, the community in South America launched a website, called Cómo Vivir Por Fe (How To Live By Faith) featuring Spanish translations of Jesus Christian material.

("A Change of Name", August, 1996)[37] In 1983, Australian media followed members of the community who offered to do free work for one day for any family or business which requested their assistance.

[38] In 1984, group member Boyd Ellery was sentenced to three months prison in Sydney for burning an Australian dollar note in a statement about trusting God and not money.

They wore T-shirts with an upside down American flag (as a symbol of distress) and the caption "Pride Goeth Before a Fall"[49] In 1994, Rob and Christine Dunn, Gary, Dave and Cherry McKay, Ross Parry, Rachel Sukamaran,Paul, Craig, Kevin, Rols, Sue, Sinni, Liz, Boyd, Chris, Roshini, and Sheri were among Jesus Christian members who voluntarily cleaned sewers and toilets in India.

[57] On 14 July 2000 the group was splashed across the front page of the British tabloid Daily Express, which declared that members Susan and Roland Gianstefani had kidnapped a 16-year-old boy, Bobby Kelly.

[64] Bobby was eventually located hiding out with two Jesus Christian men, including Reinhard Zeuner, in a Hampshire forest,[65] and placed in a foster home.

In 2005, a charge of abduction was made against Roland and Susan Gianstefani in Kenya, this time by the father of a 27-year-old single mother Betty Njoroge, who had joined the community with her 7-year-old son.

[86] In October 2006, Jesus Christians in the United States, along with Dave and Cherry McKay, held a mock trial in Long Beach, California where they charged the parents and two brothers of one of their members, Joseph Johnson, with attempted murder and with aiding and abetting others in doing this.

It followed an attack on one of their members, Reinhard Zeuner, in which he received a fractured spine, bleeding on the brain, broken teeth, and numerous cuts to the head and face.

Although the family did not attend the trial, various sentences of 5-25 lashes of the whip were carried out on volunteers from the Jesus Christians themselves, as an attempt to illustrate their understanding of the cross of Christ.

("The Trial")[88] On 11 December 2007, Dave and Cherry McKay and Roland and Susan Gianstefani were interviewed on stage as part of a two-day feature on religious cults on the UK television programme The Jeremy Kyle Show.

[92] Following this announcement, long-term members Roland and Sue Gianstefani and Ross Parry, claimed they had been excommunicated, and later shunned, for objecting to the changes in which they believed the group was to operate.

[94] Roland and Susan Gianstefani, went on to establish their current ministry, Making It Real,[95] which is focused primarily on anti-war and human rights activism, and promoting altruistic organ donation.

[101] On December 7, 2017, at the annual conference of The Australian Association for the Study of Religion[102] in Sydney, Australia, Geraldine Smith[103] presented an academic paper accompanied by formal discussion about the new religious movement that Dave and Cherry McKay founded in the 1980s.

[107] Along with this announcement the Jesus Christian website,[108] which had been largely dormant for nine years, was reinstituted and now included material published on the A Voice in the Desert YouTube channel.

Also in 2019, the Jesus Christians protested the arrest of Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, leader of Good News International Ministries on the grounds of religious liberty relating to his stance against the Huduma Namba biometric ID card.

In the days immediately following the raid, Pablo Salum garnered significant media attention in Argentina with the claims of human and organ trafficking, and labour exploitation.

Following the closure of the case, the Argentine community created a new YouTube channel called Corona de Espinas ('Crown of Thorns' in English) [120] where they published several videos explaining what had happened and highlighting the court's ruling.

In July of 2024, a conference was held in the Palace of Legislature of Buenos Aires discussing the anti-cult movements' increasing use of human trafficking laws as a tool for religious persecution.

Titled, Discrimination and Criminalization for Religious and Spiritual Reasons in Argentina, [121] the conference included a presentation by the Argentine community detailing the accusations which had been brought against them by Pablo Salum.

In June, 2021, a video titled "Strange Bedfellows"[123] was published on the Voice in the Desert YouTube channel, discussing Jesus Christian allegations that they were the recipients of coordinated opposition from several parents of adult members of the group.

They based their claim on letters from the mother to her daughter, in which she wrote about her many years studying, amongst other things, witchcraft, and other spiritual beliefs, including “occult, esoteric traditions, ancient mysteries", and considering Lucifer "a catalyst for finding the true light of Christ.

McKay was not allowed to give testimony in his own defense, as he said that he could not in good conscience affirm the court oath due to the "whole truth" clause, stating, "I am quite happy to say that I will try to be totally honest in everything I say today and I understand that there are penalties if I knowingly do not do that.

The reason for wanting to word it that way is that I can’t honestly tell you that I would say the whole truth and I don’t think the court wants to hear the whole truth”[126][125] In December, 2023, Judge Julie Clayton ruled that McKay had acted maliciously in defaming Renee Spencer, but also noted that, "it is likely that the allegation caused harm to Ms Spencer’s reputation within the Jesus Christians but it is unlikely that her reputation will be damaged more broadly, including in her professional life."

[127] The documentary featured a meeting between Renee Spencer and her daughter Ellicia, a 29-year-old Jesus Christian member, in an attempt to reestablish the relationship between the two after having been semi-estranged for a number of years.

The documentary finishes with questions about Dave McKay's possible association with Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, leader of Good News International Ministries in Kenya, who was arrested in April, 2023, for the murder and incitement to suicide of over 400 members of his church, in what has been referred to as the Shakahola Forest Incident.

[129][130][131] Previous to release of the Channel 7 Spotlight report on YouTube, the Jesus Christians had published, on "A Voice in the Desert", an exposé of the allegations made against them regarding the Shakahola Incident.

("The Good Hindu")[166] ("In Search of Truth", November, 1986)[167] They believe that the technology needed to implement the "Mark of the Beast"[168] is now in existence[169][170] in the form of microchipped ID cards and subdermal RFID chips.

(Refer to "Sincerity") ("Father and Son--Two for One", January, 1994)[211] After a process of discernment, people who make a decision to join the Jesus Christians community forsake all private ownership of possessions.

("Power--Good or Evil",[215] and "Setting Up Your Own Community"[216]) Survivors[217] is a response to the popular Left Behind series of novels on Bible prophecy, written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.