You see them
everywhere these days. Images of them adorn billboards and banners all over the
continent. Judging by their appearance, you would be forgiven for thinking
they’d be right at home at a Dangote or Virgin executive meeting. Crisp suits
with elegantly patterned ties and pocket squares, shiny shoes, sharp haircuts,
manicured hands. They go to a lot of effort to convey an air of success.
Judging by the crowds they attract, convey it they do.
They are Men of
God, charismatic preachers who minister through signs and wonders after the
spirit of the biblical book of Acts. They offer miraculous healing, they
profess prophetic knowledge, and they promise prosperity… in exchange for a
seed.
They are liars.
To clarify, this
is not an attack on preachers in general. There are many who genuinely do live
according to their beliefs. Disagree with them though I may, I have no cause to
question their integrity. The specific crop of pastors I address here is
another story.
Shepherd Bushiri
is one such pastor. According to his ministry’s official website, he has
representations in seven African countries, namely his native Malawi, South
Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania and Ethiopia (this last one jars a
little, geographically speaking, but stranger things have happened).
I invite you to
browse that site, paying close attention to the statement on the main page and
comparing it to the blog post titled Why Some Get Healed and Others Not. See if
you can also spot the glaring inconsistencies in The Story of the Dead Boy Coming Back to Life.
What brought
Bushiri to my attention, though, is a couple of videos of him performing
“miracles”. In the first, he claims to be able to capture images of the family
of an audience member “in the spirit”… on an iPad. Because those could never
have pictures stored in them. Hilariously, one unfortunate camera angle brings
the whole house of cards down. You can slow things down to clearly see why.
The second video
was of him walking on air. I won’t elaborate; just wear a mitten on your
dominant hand (the facepalm will be brutal) and watch it.
While the videos
Bushiri uploaded basically debunk themselves, others of his ilk have been
exposed by third parties. Peter Popoff is a televangelist and a “faith healer”
who claimed to be receiving direct revelation from God about various people
attending his services. An investigation revealed he was actually receiving
radio transmissions from his wife and associates backstage, who were reading
from the audience’s prayer cards. After many denials, Popoff came clean and
issued a heartfelt apology to his flagging following before retiring from the
public eye... until recently.
Despite years of
requests by different parties, Benny Hinn has been unwilling to provide independent verification of the many “healings” that take place at his
crusades, nor has he been willing to address the multiple instances in which
his staff were seen to deliberately prevent the seriously ill from making their
way to the stage.
These are men
and women with a massive, international following. They draw crowds wherever
they go, because people long for rescue from their troubles, and they, the
people, believe these preachers to have a direct line to the ultimate power in
existence. No price is too high for them to gain divine favour. To them, the
Man of God is never to be criticised or questioned, and anybody who dares think
otherwise is obviously being used by the devil (see comments on the above
videos).
But why would a
man with a direct line to God resort to (rather bad) prestidigitation? What
does it say about that man’s own faith in this God when he actively and
deliberately lies to his congregants? If he happens to believe in the power he
claims to serve, does he then think that power requires deception to win
hearts? If not, I wonder what his actual goal is.
 |
| Never mind. |
Clerics have
every right to be rich. I’d even say I have no problem with them living off
donations of their flock. My problem is with them taking advantage of people’s
desperation by using deception to ensure compliance. That is the epitome of
dishonesty. That is the height of faithlessness. And it has real, devastating
consequences.
People have
ignored medical advice in favour of faith healings, to tragic effect. Others have experienced
financial setbacks because they believed that the way to a better life lay in
giving to the church (read “to the pastor”), believing God would repay them a
hundredfold, rather than actually having some sort of investment plan.
Believers hoping to get a job or a spouse will typically stand while the Man of
God prays over them, touching their foreheads and binding whatever evil spirit
is held responsible for the bit of misery in question… but no word on how the
believers can actually achieve those ends. If things don’t happen, it’s because
the people didn’t pray earnestly enough, or because they doubted, or because
their seed was insufficient. Never mind that they’re struggling to secure their
children’s school fees. Never mind that their medication money helps pay for
the “parsonage”. No, it can’t be that the man at the pulpit is full of crap;
that would seriously hurt attendance and, more importantly, the bottom line.
So, just as the
God they preach is blameless, and therefore all kinks are the doing of fallible
mortals, these preachers are almost equally blameless when things don’t go
according to the plans they lay out. They build themselves up as secondary
messiahs, causing their flock to swear by them only, to believe every utterance, to eat grass on command and to literally be stepped on. That sort of dependency is
the one thing keeping scrutiny and exposure at bay. And that is basically what
I hope one day will vanish.
Anyone following
a religious figure should embrace healthy scepticism. I don’t advocate turning
your back on your faith; simply realise the person you follow is a mere human,
with all the attending trappings, as suggested by the many scandals regularly
peppering the press. Claims of the ability to tap into the supernatural should
be met either with demands for testable evidence or with the entertained
indifference we give stage magicians, who have the honesty of admitting they
are fooling us.
