Stories by Sunday Ani ([email protected])
The things happening in some churches around the world remind one of
what happened to the followers of Reverend Jim Warren Jones. It was
reported that on November 18, 1978, the American cleric made over 900
members of his church, the People’s Temple Religious Cult, to commit
mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, South America.
Jones, born on May 13, 1931 to a Ku Klux Klansman in Lynn, Indiana,
ordered his followers to commit suicide by drinking cyanide-laced juice,
which he called a “revolutionary suicide.”
In Kogi State, North-Central Nigeria, the Pastor and General Overseer of
Zion International Christian Church, Idah, simply identified as
Kingsley, was alleged to have impregnated an 18-year-old girl, in the
guise of delivering her waist and private part from satanic possession.
He was said to have convinced the innocent girl that she was afflicted
with demons in her waist and private part, which could only be exorcised
through sexual intercourse. The poor girl believed the preacher out of
fear and surrendered herself to him, but she became pregnant after the
exercise.
According to the girl, who joined her parent from the village in
November 2015, when the pastor saw her in the church he ordered her to
see him after the church service for deliverance because she had a wild
demonic spirit in her waist and private part. She said: “He told me that
my waist and private parts had been ravaged by demons and until
deliverance was carried out, I might not be able to have any child in
life. He said he would only cast out the demons from me through sexual
intercourse but warned me not to tell anybody about the mode of
deliverance.
“I was afraid that if the demons were not cast out, I might not be able
to have children, as he said. So, I went to him for the deliverance.
After praying into an olive oil, he asked me to undress while he rubbed
my waist and private parts with the anointing oil mixed with some other
substances. He later undressed and used the same oil on his private part
before he descended on me.
“But I discovered that I was pregnant when my mother noticed changes in
my conduct and began to ask me questions. I had to reveal everything to
her even though the pastor warned me not to tell anybody.”
However, the 37-year-old pastor was said to have denied the allegation,
insisting that all he did was to cast out the demons that possessed the
girl, using anointing oil.
The Kogi State Commissioner of Police, Seidu Madawaki, who paraded the
suspect, was reported to have said: “After impregnating the girl, he
attempted to abort the pregnancy but the girl refused to drink the
concoction he gave to her for that.”
Also, a Nigerian pastor based in Kenya established a church where he
sucks women’s breasts as a way of deliverance. The church has only women
as members, who freely offer their breasts to the pastor to suck out
the demons in them. The pastor, who was simply identified as Chijioke,
admitted that he ‘delivers’ women by sucking their breasts. “I suck
‘demons’ out of women’s boobs,” he was quoted to have said.
According to him, he named his church ‘Breast and Honey Harvest’ because
the spirit lies in the breasts of ladies. “The more you suck the
breasts, the more you get the fulfilling of the Lord,” he was reported
to have said.
In the same vein, Reverend Njohi of the Lord’s Propeller Redemption
Church in Dandora, instructed his female church members to attend church
service on Sundays without wearing pants so that they could be closer
to God. He told them that doing so would also give God easy access into
their body for proper cleansing.
And in compliance with his instruction, the female congregants of the
church were attending church on Sundays without pants or brassiere.
“Ditch your bras and pants while coming to church, so that God can enter
your body,” he told his female church members.
Another pastor also asked unmarried ladies in his church to strip, so he
can plant in them, a holy kiss that would make their husbands to locate
them. Single women of a church in the Caribbean were taken to a beach
by their pastor, who asked them to get naked and bend over so he could
plant a “holy kiss” on their butts.
This holy kiss, according to the pastor, would enable the ladies to find
their husbands wherever they are. As if there is a special blessing in
asking women to strip naked, another young pastor in South Africa asked
the female members of his church to get naked for total healing.
Not too long ago, another South African pastor, Lesego Daniel of Rabboni
Centre Ministries, in Garankuwa, north of Pretoria, turned his church
members to herbivores by asking them to eat grass for them to be closer
to God. Following the barrage of criticism that trailed the development,
he defended his action, saying: “Humans can eat anything to feed their
bodies and survive on whatever they choose to eat.”
Members of his church stoutly stood by him. Defending her pastor,
Rosemary Phetha, 21-year-old law student, said: “Yes, we eat grass and
we’re proud of it because it demonstrates that, with God’s power, we can
do anything. I have been battling a sore throat for more than a year,
but I got healed after I ate the grass.”
The same pastor was reported to have commanded a woman to enter inside a
deep freezer that was on a high freezing point and fall into a deep
sleep. When the woman was asked to come out of the freezer 30 minutes
later, she was reported to have said that the ice in the deep
refrigerator was, indeed, very hot and that she didn’t feel cold.
Indeed, not a few shepherds are feeding their flock with strange
doctrines or menu, which they consume veraciously. It is the same story
in many parts of the world.
In Lagos, women searching for the fruit of the womb are made to worship naked at a church.
A church at Egbeda, Lagos, has discarded the 10 commandments in the
Bible, maintaining that the leader of the church, King Olutanmole is
Jesus Christ that will take them to heaven to meet God. According to
them, this is the reason the ministry is called Kingdom of Heaven on
Earth.
At a time, it was reported that ladies were using cucumber to
masturbate, a Zimbabwean prophet, Walter Magaya, allegedly sold anointed
cucumber in his church. His church members, especially the ladies,
reportedly patronised him heavily. It was reported that after the
pictures of the service emerged online, some facebook users criticised
the pastor, calling him fake for selling cucumbers in the house of God.
And the other day, a bishop reportedly turned cold water to hot water in
Ebonyi State. In a bid to replicate Jesus Christ’s miracle in Canaan in
Galilee where He turned water into wine, a bishop in Ebonyi State, Sam
Zuga, reportedly turned cold water to hot water. Cold water became hot
water after the prayer of Bishop Zuga in Onicha Local Government Area of
Ebonyi State. The Igwe of the community and other people from the crowd
were said to have tested the cold water to confirm that it had actually
become hot.
While some people maintain that these are the signs of the end of the
time, others insist that with faith, as little as the mustard seed,
mountains can be moved.