Rows of sick people queue up one afternoon in downtown
Lagos. There are people with crutches, mothers with crying babies, a couple of
wheelchair-bound people and several with bad coughs. This is not a hospital;
it’s a sports center. And they are not waiting to see a doctor; they are here
to see a priest.
T.B. Joshua is one of Nigeria’s most controversial
clergymen. Besides claiming to have a direct line to God, this 52-year-old has
been performing so-called “healing miracles” for 20 years. Call him the Oprah
of evangelism, the African case study in the kind of mass preaching that much
of America is so famous for; he has his own TV shows, two million Facebook
fans, sold-out events and branded merchandise. And like Oprah, he’s rich as
hell. The latest estimates put his wealth at about $150 million. His church has
branches all over the world, from the U.K. to Australia. He often goes on what
he calls “Miracle Crusades” to other nations, and he claims that more than a
million people have paid to attend his Tony Robbins–style seminars worldwide.
Joshua is certainly not the only millionaire priest in
Nigeria. Over the past 15 years, televangelism has taken over the country, and
Pentecostalism — a Christian renewal movement that emphasizes a direct,
personal experience of God — is booming across the entire African continent, as
well as in Latin America.
His pastoral style is sui generis. Joshua, who didn’t
respond to OZY’s requests for comment, doesn’t preach that much. Rather, for a
few minutes, he screams into the microphone, often prophesying what is to come
— wisdom garnered from the latest chat with God. (He claims he foresaw the
September 11 terrorist attacks.) Then, he takes his powers away from the mic
and toward the sick, praying over the bodies of the afflicted and asking God to
release the object of his prayer from cancer, syphilis, whatever disease it may
be.
Chimbiebere Stanley Okah, 42, one of Joshua’s followers,
tells us that he found the preacher through TV and was convinced when he saw
one of Joshua’s “miracles” — healing a man from baldness with a sip of water.
“I’ve seen countless miracles,” Okah says. “His preaching is flawless.” As for
Joshua’s critics? “I have nothing to say,” Okah tells us. “The Holy Book
teaches us to love even our enemies.”
It would be churlish to paint all of Joshua’s followers
as naive or wooden-headed. “It’s hard to believe you can run on empty claims
for over 20 years,” Marshall says. Those who come to Joshua are, after all,
seekers; many have prayed and dreamed for years on end. Like Paul Ighodaro, 37,
a Nigerian living in Greece. A composer, singer and writer, Ighodaro tells us
about a vision he had: A son of God would appear in Nigeria. Ighodaro himself
began to spread this word, which brought him to Emmanuel TV and Joshua. “I know
the signature of God when I see one,” he writes. Ighodaro doesn’t even need to
go to Joshua’s church, he says — he never has attended. He’s seen himself in
Joshua’s congregation in a dream, wearing the choir garment. But don’t think
he’s just relying on visions to connect with Joshua. Ighodaro credits the
internet most of all.
Courtesy: Laura Secorun Palet,Ozy Sun, Sep 18 1:00 AM PDT
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