MIRACLE SCANDAL IN SOUTH AFRICA.
By Leo Igwe
In April, a South African newspaper the Sowetan, published a report http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=740954 [1] revealing the deception, fraud, manipulation and exploitation underlying the miracle sessions of the Nigerian televangelist, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome and his church, the Christ Embassy. The report indicts Pastor Chris for staging and faking miracles.
A member of the church in South Africa the Sowetan that one of the pastors offered him 10,000 rands ( 150,000 naira) to rehearse and pretend to be in a wheelchair three weeks before the all night prayer called Night of Bliss held at the Johannesburg stadium in April. The man was approached by a pastor of the church in the quest ‘for people to work for the church’ and ‘help draw crowds’ to the event. The plan was that the man would sit on a wheelchair and be moved around while pretending to be physically ill and would stand up and walk as soon as Pastor Chris stopped praying for him.”
But this man later turned down the offer. “I just told myself that using the Word of God to lie to desperate people is immoral. So, I refused to take up their offer.” He stated. According to this report, some church members claimed that Pastor Chris had been hiring people to pretend to be sick and disabled and then “be healed” during his television shows and public prayer meetings. They said that those claimed to have been healed during miracle sessions were actually trained weeks before the event. “Even children who are healthy are whisked around in wheelchairs. Some use crutches. Everyone is allocated a person who tells the congregation about your background, your specific illness and suffering. The Pastor raises his hands and places them maybe on your legs if you cannot walk, and few seconds later you get up and walk around the room.”
In its reaction, Christ Embassy has denied staging any miracle, describing the report as ‘rubbish’ and a blackmail by a soft selling newspaper to discredit the church and “this holy crusade”.
Anyone who is acquainted with the South African media knows that the Sowetan is not a soft selling tabloid. In fact the Sowetan is one of the major newspapers in the country and could not have made up this story. Christ Embassy just put up this defense to launder its image and still preserve this fraudulent scheme called miracles. Pastor Chris is not new to controversies over miracles. Not long ago, a man who claimed to be blind from birth identified the colour of his tie during a healing session. Following the reckless and irresponsible claims of faith healing by Nigerian pastors, the National Broadcasting Commission, some years ago, banned the advertisement of miracles on state televisions. So, what the report in the Sowetan did was to let the ‘cat of miracle scam’ out of the bag of Christ Embassy and the penticostal churches.
Miracles are not new to Nigeria, especially to our country’s fast growing pentecostal churches that are springing up everyday and fiercely competing for fellowership and money. Faith healing is one of the most potent weapons they use to attract members.
As a billboard along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway says “Miracles happen everyday” Indeed, miracles happen everyday in Nigeria. But they are all fakery. They are all stage-managed by the pastors and their gullible folks to sustain the penticostal hocus pocus. And Pastor Chris and his Christ Embassy are alone in this business. Other Nigerian pastors and their church members also stage miracles.
Personally I don’t know why it took the miracle session in South Africa to reveal this “open secret” about pentecostal churches in Nigeria - that they fake miracles. Again this report reveals how Nigerian church members have been collaborating in this spiritual scam by allowing themselves to be used by these con artists called faith healers.
There has never been any real instance of miracle. Miracles are fantasies which human beings use to explain what they do not understand very well or they don’t understand at all like survival in an accident, recovery from a serious aliment or a stroke of luck or fortune in one’s life.
Miracles thrives more under conditions of ignorance than knowledge, darkness than light, uncertainties than certainties. All instances of miracle which I know are founded or informed by hearsay, self-deception, gullibility and fraud. All the miracles talked about in the Bible and other sacred texts are lies, sacred fairy tales or pure fabrications. They did not happen. Jesus did not perform any miracle. He did not change water into wine in Galilee as the Bible tells us. Jesus did not heal the sick, raise the dead. He did not make the blind see, the lame walk, and the deaf hear. The miracle claims of and about the ancient prophets are false. They are mythical tales created and crafted by primitive minds to support and sustain the transcendental illusions and superstitions of religions. All the miracles attributed to Jesus in the Bible are sacred allusions to make him look divine and get people to believe in him. So, staging miracles did not start with Pastor Oyakhilome and the Christ Embassy or with thousands of churches in Nigeria that claim to perform signs and wonders. It started with the authors of the Bible and other sacred writings. It started with the founders and purveyors of religious wares. They invented and codified these mythical accounts so that people would believe- and believe blindly and thoughtlessly.
And I want to submit that until Nigerians nay Africans embrace critical thinking, skeptical intelligence, free thought and rational outlook; until there are Africans who are ready to live and act honestly, thoughtfully and courageously like this church member in South Africa, all these miracle peddlers, mongers, scammers and stage managers prowling the continent will continue to prey on, exploit, darken and scandalize the world.
Leo Igwe is the director of the Center for Inquiry in Ibadan
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