IMPLICATED:
Pastor Kitaka
 

ABUSED: Mr Lukyamuzi at Monitor offices. Photo by Stephen Wandera

Police display the ‘miracle’ machine. Photos by M. Ssebuyira
 

An Internt advert of the device

ENTEBBE
It’s as strange as it’s true. A man of God of Ghaniain extraction was arrested and interrogated at Entebbe Airport after he attempted to clear a machine which, police say, he has been using to deliver electric current on unsuspecting worshippers during church service.

http://sundayvision.co.ug/detail.php?mainNewsCategoryId=7&newsCategoryId=132&newsId=573403
 

Are the pastors fleecing the flock?

A BEAUTIFUL woman in her late 20s walked into the Sunday Vision offices one evening. She was in mourning over her car, which she said had been taken by pastors Ronnie and Betty Badda of Liberty Praising Centre, Luzira.
According to her, Pastor Betty called her during a service and told her that God had asked her to give her car to the church. Pastor Betty promised that God would answer the woman’s prayers in three months if she agreed to donate the car. With the promise of a wedding in three months’ time, and a life in the US thereafter, the woman surrendered the car and its log book to the pastors.

But none of their promises came to fulfilment, despite months of prayer and fasting.
The woman had bought the car using a bank loan that she is still paying off. Before taking the car, the pastors had asked her to “sow” her household items, two phones and millions of shillings, which she did.
A Sunday Vision undercover reporter posing as a desperate, heartbroken woman went and prayed at the Badda’s church for three months. She recorded her experiences in a gripping three-part series.

First meeting: February 6
I had an appointment with Pastor Betty Badda. I had called her earlier, and she had instructed me to meet her at the church. At the church, I found a long queue of people waiting to see her.
I waited for my turn. Finally I got inside the counselling room, where I found four men attending to different people. The room was bare, save for four chairs and tables used by the counsellors.

Each counsellor held a Bible. From inside a closed inner room, I could hear loud groaning, like someone was in great pain.
Pastor Betty, I was informed, was busy praying for a believer behind the closed door. When I insisted on waiting for her, I was told that her husband, Pastor Ronnie Badda, could help me. I agreed to meet him.

Counselling starts
My tale to Pastor Ronnie was that I had made plans to introduce my boyfriend to my parents last year; however he had changed his mind two weeks to the function.

I was devastated and heartbroken when he claimed that he wasn’t ready for commitment. Although we were staying together, I had learnt that he was dating another girl called Brenda. I loved my boyfriend so much, that is why I was seeking God’s intervention. I wanted to get married this year. Meanwhile, my ex-boyfriend had offered me a car, but I didn’t know whether to accept it or not. Should I chuck him, I asked?

Pastor Ronnie advised me to stay with my boyfriend despite his cheating. He said God would turn my boyfriend’s heart in my favour as long as I sowed (give money and other property to the church) and prayed a lot.

“You have to sow at least once a month. You also have to be faithful in paying the tithe. If you do that, God will solve all your problems. You will also get a promotion at your job and get a brand new car before this year ends,” he assured me.

As we prayed together, the pastor got a ‘vision’ from God. “I’ve seen you crying, but God wants you to know that you have come to the right place. But I have also seen a shrine at your home. You have to destroy it because it’s those demons trying to disorganise you,” he said, advising me to start attending their church every Sunday.

1st Sunday, February 11
I went to church as advised by Pastor Ronnie. He was not in attendance.
It was his wife, Pastor Betty, in charge. She did the preaching. Her sermon had something to do with the rewards of sowing. “Sowing strengthens blessings,” she assured us, revealing that it was Pastor Imelda Namutebi who introduced her to the benefits of sowing.

“I started sowing my household items when I was poor. My neighbours thought I had been bewitched. But God is faithful because now I’m rich. I have bought many cars, to the surprise of my skeptical neighbours. You too will be blessed, if you make a pledge.”

At this point, she asked the congregation to submit their pledges and offerings. The response was big. “Who will bring us some chairs for the church?” she asked. One woman raised her hand to pledge one chair.

Weird practices
A basket was strategically placed a few feet from the pastor. Any member of the congregation who felt moved by the sermon was supposed to drop some money in this basket, just like revellers do at music shows.

“God bless you my child,” the pastor would mutter each time someone was moved to give. Sometimes she would place her hands on the giver’s head and prophesy their future.

She asked one middle-aged lady to put her forehead close to hers. The lady happily complied, but fell backwards with a piercing scream the moment her forehead touched the pastor’s. She looked dazed when she got up, like she had been electrocuted.

Another time Pastor Ronnie was present, seated in a two-seater sofa facing the congregation. As Pastor Betty preached, he would clap, nod his head, smile and laugh in agreement with whatever she said.

At one point during her sermon, Pastor Betty turned to him with a request. Could he please donate his shoes to a certain boy, so that his (the boy) plans to travel abroad succeed?

The boy being referred to was a youth in his late 20s, of medium height and size, wearing blue jeans and a blue shirt. As Pastor Ronnie moved forward to grant his wife’s request, the boy and an elderly lady in a kitenge dress, probably his mother, were overcome with joy.
They sprung from their seats, screamed and danced wildly before the congregation. A few friends joined them and hugged the boy while ululating.

If anyone had entered the church at that moment, they would have concluded that the elated group had actually received a visa and an air ticket from the generous pastors.

The youth did not join in the jumping, ululating and dancing. He seemed to be in a daze; overcome with joy. All he could do was echo the congregation’s Amen and cover his face to contemplate the new world waiting for him abroad.

He smiled broadly as he tried on the pastor’s shoes and listened to Pastor Betty’s prophecies about his future. “You will be going abroad in a short time,” she predicted. “You will build a storeyed house and become very rich. You will live like a king.”

On hearing this, the boy lifted his hands to the sky, barely hiding the look of incredulity on his face.

Taking advantage of the excitement inside the church, Pastor Betty made another call for pledges and offerings. She then informed us: “It’s a rule in this church for everyone to come with sh500 every Sunday.”
The money is meant to finance the ongoing church construction project.

First seed
It was a Friday. I called Pastor Ronnie and told him that I wanted to sow some money. He gladly welcomed my call and asked me to take the money immediately.
He was at the church waiting. I found him seated in the front seat of a Pajero, with his wife Betty behind the wheel. We exchanged greetings, and they invited me to take a back seat.

Although we had not met before, one on one, Pastor Betty referred to my request to see her during my first visit, confirming my suspicion that Pastor Ronnie had briefed her about me.
I handed him the envelope containing sh50,000. He did not open it immediately, but they both thanked me profusely and promised that God would solve all my problems if I continued sowing and praying.
Pastor Ronnie joined me in the back seat, and held my hand as we prayed.

After the prayer, he said God had revealed to him that I would soon be promoted at work and that I was also going to get a car.

2nd Sunday, February 25
The service started with the usual excitement that is the hallmark of praise and worship songs. After almost two hours of singing and dancing, Pastor Betty started preaching. The theme of her sermon was, sowing alerts God about your problems.

“If you don’t sow,” she reiterated, “God won’t help you. You have to sow. The secret of this place is sowing. If you are suffering from AIDS, sow. If you have failed to get a marriage partner, sow. If you have no job, sow. Your miracle is here.”
To prove her point, Pastor Betty testified that she had recovered from AIDS after sowing all her household items. She then went on to scold us for being hard-hearted and refusing to listen to God’s voice whenever he talked to us.

By the end of the service, one lady had pledged to buy new shoes for Pastor Betty. Another gave a moving testimony about her fight with AIDS.
It went as follows: “By the time I came to this church, I was so sick I had given up on life. At one point, I had diarrhoea that was so severe, I had to pad myself. Desperate, I decided to follow pastors Betty and Ronnie’s advice.

“I used to come for counselling from the pastors, and the last time Pastor Ronnie told me that God wanted me to sow by buying shoes for him. I didn’t have money but I devised all means and bought the shoes. He prayed for me and told me to go for an HIV test. It was negative.”

We all shouted a big “Amen” to God. Pastor Betty reinforced the lady’s testimony with her own.

“Sowing opens God’s eyes to your problems. You don’t have to be rich to sow. You get the money to do your things, but you can’t borrow money to sow for God! You have carpets in your houses, but you can’t remove them and bring them to the church.”

There was dead silence inside the church. Pastor Betty then revealed, “I have received a vision from God. I can see someone here who wants to sow his phone. God told you to sow that phone some time back, but you hardened your heart. He is begging you to bring that phone now.”

Another long moment of silence, as we all waited for the person to bring the phone, but no one budged.

After a few minutes of waiting, she laughed and told us the story of a man who refused to sow his phone.

“It was stolen on his way back home. He started regretting why he had hardened his heart and refused to give the phone to God. Do you want that to happen to you? Bring that phone. There’s something God wants to do in your life but it’s that phone blocking your blessings. Bring it if you want to see God’s hand in your life. Bring it,” she pleaded.
But her cries fell on deaf ears so she threatened to get the phone by force.

“God has revealed to me who you are. Should I come for it myself? Should I?” she asked, as the congregation screamed: “Yes!”

She threatened to tell us who the ‘mean’ man was, but even this did not convince ‘him’ to sow his phone. Suddenly, a lady in her 30s walked towards her. The quality of her dress placed her above most members of the congregation, probably in the middle class.
The lady whispered something to Betty who suddenly shouted: “Oh, God is great. He has told this lady to sow her bag and its contents.”

“Amen!” the congregation shouted back excitedly.
By the time the shouts subsided, Pastor Betty had abandoned the phone project, and had received a watch from one man and a coat from a lady.

Several people, both male and female, sowed the clothes they were wearing, probably their best, promising to bring them after changing into other clothes.

One gentleman sowed his suit, while another sowed his shirt and a pair of trousers. One girl removed her necklace and sowed it after Betty demanded to know what she would give God to earn His blessings.

Towards the end of the service, a man she referred to as Julius sowed his phone. Betty could hardly hide her joy. “It even has a camera,” she shouted with glee.

Julius was smartly dressed in blue jeans and a light-blue shirt. After accepting the phone, she announced that Julius was not the person God had asked to sow his phone. She, however, did not return his phone. Instead, she re-launched her efforts to convince the man in her vision to sow his phone.

“Please bring the phone. God has revealed to me what will happen to you if you don’t, so you better bring the phone to save yourself. I’ve seen insects all over your body in the vision. They are not biting you because God is holding their mouths. But He will allow them to bite you if you refuse to sow the phone, so you better bring it now. Once the insects start biting, nothing and no one will heal you. You will die in pain.”

Still no phone. Frustrated that her threats had borne nothing, Pastor Betty instructed someone called David, a humble-looking man dressed in simple clothes to sow his mattress by giving it to one church member. David agreed.

To be continued next week

Published on: Saturday, 30th June, 2007

 

http://www.sundayvision.co.ug/detail.php?mainNewsCategoryId=7&newsCategoryId=616&newsId=574715

 Are pastors corrupting God?

A BEAUTIFUL woman in her late 20s walked into the Sunday Vision offices one evening. She was in mourning over her car, which she said had been taken by pastors Ronnie and Betty Badda of Liberty Praising Centre, Luzira.

According to her, Pastor Betty called her during a service and told her that God had asked her to give her car to the church. Pastor Betty promised that God would answer the woman’s prayers in three months if she agreed to donate the car. With the promise of a wedding in three months’ time, and a life in the US thereafter, the woman surrendered the car and its log book to the pastors.

But none of their promises came to fulfilment, despite months of prayer and fasting.
The woman had bought the car using a bank loan that she is still paying off. Before taking the car, the pastors had asked her to “sow” her household items, two phones and millions of shillings, which she did.
A Sunday Vision undercover reporter posing as a desperate, heartbroken woman went and prayed at the Badda’s church for three months. She recorded her experiences in a gripping three-part series. We bring you the second part of the series

Prayers

I approached Pastor Betty following earlier instructions from her husband Pastor Ronnie Badda that I should see her. After praying for a short time, she stopped and informed me that God had promised me a miracle.

“God is trying to show me something about you but I’m not sure what it is. I will continue praying for you,” she revealed. We continued praying.

Several minutes later, she claimed she had seen a dark bangle on my hand. I feigned deep concern and asked her what the bangle meant, but she said that God had not shown her its full meaning. “We need to pray very hard,” she informed me before handing me over to a pastor seated nearby, for more prayers.

While waiting to talk to Pastor Betty, I had watched this pastor pray for several other people. He would start by smearing the person’s forehead with oil.

Next he would lay his hands on the person’s head in prayer. Most of the people he prayed for would either scream or tremble violently before falling.

I pictured myself shaking and falling all over the place and decided to forego the oil ritual. He tried very hard to convince me, arguing that the oil was harmless, but I stood my ground. With his right hand on my head, he prayed that the demons of rejecting his oil flee from my life. He tried to push me to the ground, but I refused to fall, which compelled him to pray even harder. He eventually gave
up after praying for me for over 10 minutes.

Before I left, Pastor Betty advised me to attend the second service, which is referred to as Evening glory. I agreed. The evening service, I soon discovered, was just a continuation of the morning one. It ended after 8:00pm, by which time several people had been scared into sowing.

One elderly lady, probably in her 60s, was told that her decision to attend the evening service had prompted God to intervene and save her daughter from a fatal road accident.

“God has shown me a vision in which one of your daughters is involved in a very bad accident. A truck collided with the taxi in which she was travelling, and her head was severed by the truck. She died instantly,” Betty announced.

The congregation gasped and shook their heads at the sad news. “However,” she reassured them: “God has decided to prevent the accident because this lady decided to dedicate this whole day to Him by staying here to pray.”

Looking dazed, the old lady couldn’t stop shaking her head in gratitude, as the people around her shouted “Amen”.

Pastor Betty continued to taunt those who thought spending the whole day at church was just wasting time.

3rd Sunday March 4
We had a guest pastor, who was simply introduced as “Musumba” (pastor). When I later asked Pastor Badda for the musumba’s name, he told me he was called Pastor Kiiza. However, he could not recall his first name or home church.

Dark, skinny and of medium height, Pastor Kiiza was introduced by Pastor Betty, as a living testimony of the benefits of sowing.

Pastor Betty informed us that God had cured Pastor Kiiza and his wife after years of painful battles with AIDS. The pastor testified to this in his sermon.

“I was cured because of constant prayer and sowing. Some of you don’t know the source of our testimonies. It’s sowing. If you want to see God blessing you, sow. Every seed you sow brings a similar blessing. Pledging to sow something is your insurance in heaven. You have to sow every month so that the seed you’ve sown brings all that God promised you to fulfilment. Each time you pledge and honour the pledge, God will help you when you call upon Him in times of trouble,” he said

At the end of the sermon, Pastor Kiiza invited members of the congregation to come forward with their seeds.

He started with those willing to pledge and sow sh100,000, followed by those with a seed of sh50,000.

Pastor Betty was the first to sow sh100,000. She was followed by seven other people. The pastor’s call for a seed of sh50,000 was heeded by over 30 people.

As more people moved forward, Pastor Kiiza reminded them and those still seated that: “God’s blessings to you are determined by what you sow. Once, I was praying for people during a service. A woman came to sow sh500. When I asked her what she wanted, she said that she wanted God to give her a house.

I asked her what kind of house she expected from sh500 and she said she wanted a three-bed-roomed family house in a nice place. I laughed. I asked her if she expected God to build her such a house using the sh500 she had brought. She said it’s what she had.

“I told her that that’s what God would use to build her a house that she should not expect the kind of house she wanted. Later she came back and told me that God had indeed built her a house in a swamp with many mosquitoes.”

By the time he ended the ‘little story,’ more than half of the congregation was at the front with pledges of between sh100,000 and sh5,000. I pledged to sow sh100,000.

The ushers wrote down our names, the amount we pledged, when we shall ‘sow’ it and the problems we wanted solved so that the pastor could pray for us. Most people pledged to sow between sh30,000 and sh50,000.

When Pastor Kiiza finally sat down, the host pastor, Ronnie Badda, got up and asked people who had come with their seeds to sow immediately.

Moved by Pastor Kiiza’s long sermon on the benefits of sowing, several people paid up on the spot.

Badda warned the rest that they should not just pledge and expect the pastors to pray for them; God would not answer their prayers.

March 26
I made a distress call to Pastor Ronnie, claiming that the relationship with my boyfriend was getting worse. I also told him that my ex-boyfriend had come to my home and brought me his car keys.

My story was that my ex-boyfriend had insisted that I keep the keys until I decide whether to take the car or not.

I wanted him to advise me on what to do. Pastor Badda wanted to know if my ex-boyfriend had also given me the log book. No, he hadn’t, I answered.

The pastor promised to pray for me and asked me to go for counselling on Thursday. I promised to turn up with the sh100,000 I had pledged the other Sunday.

March 28
I took the sh100,000 as promised. Pastor Badda was very happy. As we prayed together, he informed me he had received a vision from God telling him that I was going to get a promotion at my place of work. I reminded him about my ex-boyfriend’s car offer. Should I accept it? He asked me what I wanted, and I told him that I, of course, wanted to accept the car.

He thought for some time before suggesting that we pray. After praying for some time, he claimed God had sent him a vision in which I had accepted the car and I was driving happily. However, I had driven straight into a wide bottomless hole.

“I had not understood the message at first, but I have asked God to show me its meaning. He has shown me that the hole represents disease. I don’t know if your ex-boyfriend is sick yet or not, but God has made it clear that he will suffer from AIDS. It is clear that God is warning you not to accept the car, because if you do, it will come with many strings attached. You might end up getting AIDS. Don’t accept the car,” he warned.

Seeing my disappointment, he consoled me, saying I should be patient because God would give me my very own car within a short time.

We prayed again before I left. During prayer, he got another vision in which he saw me driving a brand new car and assured me that I would get a car by the end of April.

“That’s why I’m telling you not to take your ex-boyfriend’s car. The one you will get will come without strings attached,” he said. He further told me that he had got a vision in which my current boyfriend was cheating on me with a light-skinned girl.

I had mentioned this girl in our earlier discussions and told him that the girl in question was called Brenda. “In fact,” he said, “he has no intentions of leaving Brenda because he loves her very much.”

My face took on a troubled, hurt look on receiving the news. I asked him whether I should leave my boyfriend, but he insisted that I should be patient with him. “Be patient. Continue praying and sowing. God will turn your boyfriend’s heart to you and he will love you again. In fact, I see you getting married before the end of this year. You wait and see,” he said. I left with a confused look, requesting him to continue praying for me.

March 29
Pastor Badda called me, asking me at 3:00pm to call him back.

When I did, he informed me that God had sent him a vision telling him to go to Hoima for a mission the following day.

However, he added, he didn’t have money to sponsor the mission. But God had told him (still in the vision) that I might be of help.

He was hesitant in his request, since I had just sowed sh100,000. “I’m sorry for bothering you. I don’t know how you are doing, but God really needs this mission done. Unfortunately, it is very sudden yet I don’t have enough money. I am really sorry for bothering you, but if you can help in any way, your contribution will be welcome.”

I did some quick thinking. I highly doubted the story, since he never mentioned it had not the prerious day in church. I quizzed him about it, but he insisted he had just received the call (he first said a vision) a few minutes earlier informing him about the mission. It was to last a week.

I asked him how much money he needed, but he refused to specify the amount and instead insisted that I give him whatever I could get. All the time he was apologising for bothering me at such short notice.

I told him it was okay but insisted that he tells me how much money he needed. “In all, we need around sh300,000,” he finally said.

I gasped in surprise. “Any contribution you can make is welcome. We are leaving very early tomorrow morning, so we need to collect the money today,” he said.

I told him that I needed to run to the bank and see if my salary had been deposited yet. I hung up with promises to call him before the end of the day.

I immediately ran to my editor and we decided that I should give him sh100,000, with an excuse that I couldn’t make sh300,000 because they hadn’t deposited my salary.

He did not pick up his phone when I called back. I sent a message asking where to meet him. He replied that he was attending the evening service, so I should go to the church after the service. It was approaching 6:00pm. He called me a few minutes to 7:00pm with a request that I go to the church. I refused, because I had another appointment in town. We agreed to meet at Communications House. He got there after 8:00pm. We stood at the steps to discuss my ex-boyfriend’s car offer and the Hoima mission.

He said the mission was actually the opening of a new branch of his church in Hoima, to be followed by a fundraising drive. He would return on Tuesday. A lengthy discussion about my ex-boyfriend’s car followed, at the end of which he advised me to accept it. “How about AIDS?” I asked him as he pocketed the money. He smiled knowingly and said: “You know what, you take the car. We shall pray to God to cancel all those problems. We have to pray very very hard, and have faith. I have no doubt that God will hear our prayer and cancel all those plans.”

Published on: Saturday, 7th July, 2007

Police must act on the crooks in our churches
http://www.monitor.co.ug/oped/oped07091.php
Editorial | July 9, 2007

Somewhere in the story of Jesus it is told that the disciples asked him how they would distinguish false prophets in the end time, and to paraphrase; the Son of Man did answer that we would know them by their works and deeds.

Indeed, the Bible warns us that there will be false prophets of different shades in the last days; they will deceive the nations with their works claiming to be inspired by the spirit of God Almighty. Today, we see miracle men and women all over the place, they have invaded our sitting rooms on television; the minds of many have been twisted by the preacher people - of course, this is not to say that amongst the many hellfire and brimstone preachers wedo not have true evangelicals.

However, the arrest of ‘Pastor’ Obirir Konjo Yeboah while trying to clear an electric charge releasing device at Entebbe Airport Customs Office is a revelation.
Probably, for the very first time our vigilant police may have stumbled upon the explanation to the ‘miraculous’ falling down that has been going on in many churches. Most of us have either seen in real life or watched on television how pastors touch people who then simply collapse!

Despite the miracle falling down, many persons who have purportedly been healed by the touch of this conmen posing as the genuine article have remained sick, others have died.

Ugandans are presently caught up in the global billion dollar industry that television evangelism has become. We urge the police to carry out a no-nonsense inquiry into the activities of all pentecostal and other churches known to indulge their faith in this manner. Pastors who practice the falling down brand of ‘healing’ must subject themselves to police investigation. Whoever objects to this course of action, taken in the public interest, immediately becomes a suspicious character.

One only hopes these people have an idea what that electric charge, though not more than 12 volts, could do to aggravate the health of really sick people? What people like Obiri and their ilk may have been doing is to unwittingly deceive the unsuspecting public, and along the way they may have indulged in homicide.

Luckily for us, we now know what this “chasing out of demons” in the ubiquitous churches may have been about all along. The misrepresentation of the Christian faith by these alleged brethren is criminal under our laws to the extent that a suit of impersonation can be sustained against one such crook. They have deceived our people and looted from them. Now, we strike back.



========================================================


Robbing billions in the name of Jesus Christ
http://www.monitor.co.ug/oped/oped07092.php
OPINIONS & COMMENTARIES
LETTER TO A KAMPALA FRIEND | Muniini K. Mulera
July 9, 2007

Dear Tingasiga: Notwithstanding my personal decision to live a life freed from religion, I acknowledge the enormous contribution that has been made by various religious communities and individuals to humankind.

In our era alone we have been witness to numerous acts of charity and sacrifice that have been made by members of organized religious groups in the service of the persecuted and the disadvantaged in society.

My wife and I were beneficiaries of exceptional acts of kindness by very fine Christian men and women who received us, housed us, fed us, clothed us and funded our wedding when we were refugees in Nairobi. I know too many religious leaders of high moral standards to paint all men and women of the cloth with a grim colour of deception and hypocrisy.

And while religion has often been at the centre of human conflict, including some of the bloodiest wars of the last two millennia, religious leaders have also been among the most devoted and successful mediators and peacemakers.

Yet religion the good, can also be religion the bad; a source of human pain and suffering that history has repeatedly documented. This is particularly so where there is non-negotiable emphasis on ancient rituals and rules whose relevance has been swept aside by the march of time and the great discoveries of science and intellectual thought.

One of the scourges of our time is the use of religion to exploit the gullible, the vulnerable and the excitable masses. The most dramatic manifestation, of course, has been the exploitation of Islam by those who are using terrorism and mass murder of innocents in their wars against the West and the Jews.

They have their counterparts in the West, especially among the evangelical Christian leadership, who have embraced the terrorists’ deception to wage their own counter-attack against legitimate Islam.

This conflict between the purveyors of corrupt interpretations of Islam and Christianity threatens global peace, with no end in sight. Terror can strike anywhere, anytime. Yet an equally deadly, if not more sinister, scourge is the mass exploitation by the peddlers of miracles and other ecclesiastical merchandise that has become a billion dollar industry.

Everywhere one turns one finds self-styled pastors trading lies about their imaginary powers to perform miracles or to prophesy happenings of great consequence.
While there is nothing particularly new about such claims, the ease of modern communication has provided a windfall to these conmen and women who thrive on the fear and desperation of their congregations.

The numerous self-styled pastors, apostles and prophets and prophetesses who are operating in Uganda alone are an example of how lucrative the Jesus/Miracle industry has become. I confess to deriving comical relief from some of the prophesies by these false prophets.

One recalls the pricelessly funny prophesy by Pastor, sorry, Prophet Robert Kayanja, founder and head of the Highway of Holiness International Foundation, who informed us at the end of 2005 that God had revealed to him that one of the presidential candidates would die before the February 23, 2006 elections.

More than 16 months later, all the presidential candidates appear to be still with us, unless we have all been duped by the apparition of a dead candidate who is roaming among the living. Seriously though, not even their false prophesies, which repeatedly expose them for the conmen that they are, discourage them from forging ahead in their quest for worldly riches and glory in the Name of Jesus Christ.

They get away it because they have an assured following of believers who are either too gullible to see the deception or just willing to explain and justify the false prophesies. If such false prophesies were all that these men and women used to con the gullible, one would let such things pass. But it is the exploitation of the weak and helpless, using the name of Jesus of Nazareth, that one finds hard to ignore.

They have copied the lingo and the lifestyles of some of the spiritual conmen who have plied their trade in North America in recent decades– men like Jim Jones, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Benny Hinn and Ted Haggard. I have no doubt in my mind that if Jesus returned today, he would not only disown these false apostles and prophets, but he would also throw them out of the temples which they have turned into bottomless sources of tax-free revenue to finance their thoroughly un-Christ-like appetites for the very finest things in life.

No doubt there are those who will disagree with my opinion of these jet-setting prophets and pastors. I invite them to read the stories and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus, the founders of the Christian religion and faith, whose lives of humble service, sacrifice and giving rather than receiving were at variance with those of the greedy lot who have commercialised the Christian message.

mkmulera@yahoo.com

 

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