Religion & Culture | Church mafia The biggest threat to Africa’s progress

The hands of Europe and the United States have long played a role in the physical, psychological, and economic dismemberment of Africa. The Slave Trade, the 1884 Berlin Conference, and the subsequent colonisation of the continent have exacted a dolorous toll. Much of Africa’s problems are traceable to foreign intervention.

Today, there is a new invasion, an invasion so diabolical that it threatens to ‘anesthetise’ millions of Africans. With horror, we witness a new kind of Christianity infesting the continent. Serving an intoxicating brew of stage hypnosis (mass suggestion) sleight of hand, subterfuge, and greed, sartorially dressed African pastors are wielding immense influence over bewitched congregations.

They have honed their craft, mirroring the Benny Hinns of the evangelical world, introducing and stowing the blight and scourge that is prosperity theology. It was Benny Hinn himself who mockingly said, “you can’t expect millions from the Lord if you give him some small amount.”

African pastors, though, are far more dangerous than any interloper. Here is why: They know well the African mind and culture. This gives them a fair advantage over any foreign preacher. Foundational to their mission are so-called miracles. These pastoral mafiosi know that they must challenge and usurp the authority and trust placed in witchdoctors, sangomas, and traditional healers. They must supplant them.

JAW-DROPPING MIRACLES

In a land steeped in the occult, the knaves who pass for pastors must deliver the most jaw-dropping miracles. They have perfected their brand of glossolalia – really gibberish – ever stirring their magical pot for greater wonderment in the name of Jesus.

Not in the least fazed in holding up pictures of a blue-eyed, blond Jesus as Moses did with his brazen serpent, these African pastors claim to make the cripple walk and the blind see, all part of an intricate ruse involving their cadre of handlers and sycophants.

In one act that rivaled their purported savior, the dead was resurrected amid cries of hallelujahs. This preposterous circus act took place in South Africa, drawing the ire of established religious bodies and citizen watchdogs. Surely, Africa is bleeding from this evil.

Africa is fertile ground for these religious charlatans. Amid hopelessness, benign neglect at the state level, internecine strife and economic strangulation, fictional teachings of vicarious salvation, redemption, the Rapture, and millennialism, will no doubt find attentive, gullible ears. Congregants, craving relief, will do the unthinkable, including surrendering their last possessions to the persuasive preachers. Sometimes the urgency to survive suspends reason.

Of this calamity, Bishop Paul Verryn of Methodist Church of Southern Africa remarked, “The general public has to start recognising that the journey toward God is not an abandonment of your intellect and that the questions that people ask about credibility, the questions about charlatans need to be listened to.”

It was in Uganda that the biggest religious suicide and mass murder occurred. In 2000, The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God preached the very end-of-time apoplexy that defines Evangelism in the Americas. Some 942 men, women, and children perished.

CANCER OF EVANGELISM

Africa is grappling with multiple problems, none bigger than the cancer of evangelism. What comes next tests the limits of nascent democracies. To what extent should governments intervene in church matters? Is the theft of human potential measurable and punishable? What about the individual’s right to choose? These thorny legal issues demand calculative, judicious responses.

Meanwhile, human rights groups are sounding the alarm.

Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva, chair of the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, said of the growing crisis in South Africa and the continent: “This chaos that we are faced with cannot continue forever, and it cannot continue for one more year. It is too painful to the whole nation. We cannot sustain the pain anymore.”

Directly addressing this new breed of pastors, she rhetorically asked: “What kind of profession is this that you cannot be called into order? Every profession at whatever level has a body to regulate it. We are asking for order.”

In like vein, Bishop Musa Sono of Grace Baptist Church noted, “These churches do not have a governing body. The church of South Africa has been here for a long time, but we never heard of those things. Where are the accountability and proper protocols?”

At this point, politicians facing constitutional hurdles have not moved on this critical development. Meanwhile, there is a groundswell of anger at the ruthlessness displayed by these pastors. Surely, this is not what the Christian messiah had in mind when He delivered his pronouncement in Matthew 28:18–20.

- Dr Glenville Ashby’s latest book, ‘Conflict of Identity: From the Slave Trade to Present Day - One Man’s Healing in Benin’ is scheduled for release in October 2019. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and glenvilleashby@gmail.com, or tweet @glenvilleashby.

CORRECTION:

In last week’s column, ‘Santa Muerte - Making Sense of the Fastest Growing Religion’ (8/23/18), Thor was described as the Greek God of Thunder. The correct description is the ‘Norse God of Thunder.’