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Desperate Religious Charlatans

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…The Role of a Culture of Superstition in the Proliferation of Religio-Commercial Pastors in Nigeria by Chima Agazue

BEVERLY HILLS, May 24, (THEWILL) – They are more desperate and wily than politicians and conmen combined. They exert almost hypnotic control over church members. And yet when they lure the hapless victims, they pretend they are out to deliver them from one problem or the other. It could be deliverance from bondage, from marine spirits, from a generational curse, from witches and wizards, and even from family members forever scheming on how to do them in.

The range of their power of deliverance is simply astonishing, oftentimes silly and questionable. Yet people believe them and even entrust their lives to them. And such is their complete devotion you often hear some say, “My Pastor said,” “My Pastor said,” as if they have no mind of their own.

How do these so-called men of God do it? What makes them so successful in their charm offensive to people desperately in need of deliverance – spiritual or otherwise?

There is a lot to learn from this book for any reader with an unbiased mind. It is profoundly illuminating and the author, Chima Agazue, has done his countrymen and women a great service, those in chains to desperate charlatans masquerading as men of God. In tackling his subject, he does not flinch from citing examples where necessary, laying bare for readers how many of the supposed men of God have simply taken victim after victim for a ride.

There is the incredible story of a 53-year-old Pentecostal evangelist who bedded and impregnated several married women in his church and then casually proceeded to do the same to their daughters. Found out years ago, the man defended his action by claiming to do the work of God. His act, he said, “was in line with the directives of the Holy Spirit to do the will of God, which is an act of spirituality.”

Another wolf in sheep’s clothing was caught and arrested years before, in Lagos. Pretending to exorcise a possessed woman, he used anointing oil to massage her breast and private part for a whole week. He was also caught pants down. And yet another case was of a mother who innocently left her preteen daughter with another pastor in Lagos for spiritual cleansing. By the time the mother returned, her young daughter was not so innocent anymore.

There are many of such atrocities and abuse by supposed men of God in this book and they are simply mind-boggling, mind-boggling because you wonder how these preachers succeed in inveigling church members or those seeking solution to problems that may not even exist in the first place. It is also mind-boggling to readers who may wonder how the victims are so gullible to fall victim time and time again to the rapacious preachers.

When Agazue wrote this book, he was a doctoral student of Forensic and Criminal Psychology at the University of Huddersfield, UK. The Role of a Culture of Superstition in the Proliferation of Religio-Commecial Pastors in Nigeria will have earned him a PhD. It is a scholarly investigative work and his case against the promiscuous preachers is solid.

Agazue does not concentrate alone on the atrocious acts on victims. In his view, worshippers, or those who believe in the infallibility of their spiritual guides, are to blame as well. To begin with, he writes that his book “is not written with the intention of passing judgment on all men and women of God on Nigerian streets…I wish to present the facts of a very unhealthy development in their midst…desperados using the Bible and God’s name to make a comfortable living through the vulnerability and gullibility of their adherents.”

But the message at the heart of the matter of his book, as the title suggest, is the influence of superstition in most cultures where these dubious men of God thrive most. When people eat while asleep, for instance, it is seen as a bad omen. Even when they make love while slumbering, it is interpreted as an attack from the marine world.

In Agazue’s words, it is “how these pastors have built on an existing culture of superstition to pioneer a religion centering on prophecies, miracles and prosperity, as opposed to making Christians good people.”

In strong words, the author condemns the gullibility of the victims who “live their lives by the dictates of the prophets, who are often ‘miracle workers’ too. Whatever they say is accorded value, irrespective of how silly their words may sound.”

For readers, that is a timely warning from the author. Unfortunately, there are no shortages of such warnings in history. They have mostly fallen on deaf ears, which is why victims continue to fall victim.

From the Reverend Jimmy Jones tragedy in Guyana in the late seventies to the religious cults of David Koresh in Waco, Texas, and their cruder equivalents in some African countries, worshippers have always been hard done by, and it is often by those to whom they entrust their lives, by those who should, in essence, deliver them.

The Reverend Ezeugo King saga and a female worshipper, Anne, who was allegedly burnt to death on his instruction is one infamous example. Sentenced to death by a court in Lagos, King has been awaiting death by hanging for more than a decade now in Kuje Prison, Abuja.

Another reason for the gullibility of worshippers, as the author suggests, is ignorance. Where, for instance, a sick person should find solution in orthodox medical centres, church members prefer to invite their pastors to cure the ailing. Western medicine has never embraced spirituality. But some Pentecostal preachers consider spirituality the essence of human existence. So, when problems arise, ignorant church goers sometimes seek help from their pastors or General Overseers.

“The etiology of mental illness in Africa,” Agazue writes, “is often inextricably linked with the spirits through culturally-embedded beliefs. Hence, the perceived efficacy of Western-style psychiatrists is disputed since they are not known to communicate with the spirits in order to appease the gods to exorcise the spirits.”

Continuing, he notes that “many pastors in Nigeria are quick to give the people what they want or tell them what they want to hear, in order to receive favours from such people. This is partly why charlatan pastors win many followers who regard them as spiritually powerful, while the genuine ones – who instead tell people the truth – are avoided and scorned as not being governed by the Holy Spirit.” And another: “Prayer houses have replaced both psychiatry and hospitals as pastors are now all-in-one therapists.”

While Agazue’s book may come as a remedy to church members under the spell of dubious pastors, he himself needs deliverance from unprofessional editors. The spelling errors and prepositional inaccuracies can only turn readers against a publication that should set captive minds free.

About the Author

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Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.

Michael Jimoh, THEWILLhttps://thewillnews.com
Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.

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