Call It What You Will

He says he loves you, and you believe him. He says no one will ever be able to love you like he does, and you believe him. You love him. Truly, deeply, wholeheartedly and a good helping of other sincerity-infused adverbs.

He demands exclusivity, which is fair, I’ll grant. He is your provider, your refuge. What would you be without him?

Yet criticism is out of the question because, obviously, he’s perfect. You learn to dismiss any misgivings or questions people have about him because they don’t know him like you do. What you have is special. It can’t be explained to outsiders, because they don’t see what you see, how wonderful and radiant he is. What basis would they even have to criticise? He chose you, and you chose him! To hell with scoffers, right?

How conveniently you ignore the fact that he takes credit, or rather you give him credit, for the things you achieve. You work hard and achieve them because he enables you to. Or because he somehow curried favour with those who may have given you a push. It’s never him directly, but in your mind it’s always him ultimately.

How conveniently you ignore the fact that everything that ever goes wrong is your fault, even when you can’t say how. When you really need him to step up, he does not; and it’s because of something you did, or failed to do.

He is in control of you, and you are essentially aware of it, because he tells you he can take care of you better than you can. And you believe him. He prefers you be friends only with people who explicitly approve of him. He would like you to put in a good word to those who are indifferent to or wary of him; or, failing that, cut them off. You trust him, so you go along with it.

Let’s face it: it is reprehensible, and I am sure you have felt the frustration of seeing someone dear to you stay in, and even vehemently defend, such an arrangement. I am sure you have felt the powerlessness that comes with not doing anything about it because you don’t have the right to interfere with expressed wishes, nor the ability to make your dear one see what is obvious to you.

A relationship? No, that’s not what this is, unless you mean it in the loosest sense, the way my fingers have a “relationship” with the keys they strike as I type. This isn’t a relationship. This isn’t love, and if you insist it is, I can’t have much respect for him, the one discussed above.

And I think our only point of disagreement here is that I make no exception for the divine.

Hand Waving and Air Dancing

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.