Seeds of doubt at miracle crusades
Sharon Mathala | Friday July 31, 2015 12:45
Recently, Zimbabwean mega-church founder and leader, Pastor Magaya, took over Gaborone for a weekend with hundreds of believers thronging the three-day healing crusade.
Starting in Tlokweng and later moving to Block 7, thousands of faithful followers jammed into packed facilities to hear one of Zimbabwe’s most celebrated self-proclaimed prophets.
While I am not necessarily a sceptic, I grew up knowing the traditional churches and their style of worship, a far cry from what the ‘fire churches’ are now doing. Where congregants only stood up to pray or sing hymns, most fire church services are a frenetic display of dancing, jumping, screaming and praising, amidst the extravagant demonstrations of healing and deliverance.
‘The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk’ is one of the most common phrases on the banners charismatic pastors plaster all over town before a crusade. In fact, ‘banner advertising’ and ‘healing crusades’ were unheard of in years past and are a phenomenon associated with fire churches.
As I drove past the iconic Batlokwa Stadium on Friday – the first day of Magaya’s crusade , I noticed a section of the wall had been destroyed. It had been months since I had travelled to Tlokweng and I wondered whether the walls had been destroyed solely for the crusade or had been that way before.
Zimbabwean media reports, from a crew of journalists sponsored to travel to Botswana by Magaya, would later quote the prophet as saying he had authorised the destruction in order to provide more room for the crowded flock.
“The venue is too small and we had no option, but to destroy part of the walls of the stadium to avoid a stampede,” NewsDay quoted Magaya as saying.
“A number of people needed to be delivered and the space did not allow all to be inside. So to avoid chaos and a stampede we had to find solutions to deal with the problem, and the only possible solution was to destroy the walls which we did.”
At the stadium, I also noticed that the numbers were going to overwhelm the capacity. Vehicles, including numerous buses, with South African, Namibian and Zimbabwean number plates indicated that worshippers had come from all over to witness Magaya’s works and hear his word.
One could see the determination in the eyes of both the young and old, as they pulled their heavy blankets tighter around themselves to beat the winter chill.
I could not help but wonder whether the masses were followers of the church, had come to be healed, see miracles or whether they were there purely to worship God. Again, in my years, an all-night service – which usually took place once a year unlike today – was purely for praise, worship and strengthen relationships amongst church members.
I decided to interview Magaya and hear it from the horse’s mouth, the man who had managed to fill an entire village full of worshippers. I approached one of his ushers for assistance.
Whilst waiting to interview the prophet, I peeped into a notepad the usher was poring over intently. In the book, which was divided into columns, I could make out scribbled handwriting being: the names of a person, what the person was wearing and what miracle was to be done on them.
Hmmm?
I became confused. Was this the way it was done? I always thought that the pastor when he was in his ‘zone’ would somehow picture the person who needed help and call them out randomly from the crowd, but the notepad suggested a level of pre-planning.
I struck up a conversation with another usher and was told: “The man of God is very powerful. He makes people do weird things as the spirits are fighting with his words.”
The usher, clad in a T-shirt emblazoned ‘Zero Tolerance for Demons’ pointed out a young man who had climbed a tree just to get a better view of Magaya, as the stadium filled up.
The prophet later turned my interview down saying he needed to get into the ‘zone’ of healing and needed no distraction from journalists.
The entire experience reminded me of the visit of another mega church charismatic healer, whom I would prefer not to name.
That prophet filled the National Stadium to the brink and I remember making my way to school and overhearing men at the taxi rank arguing about how football matches had given way to the pastor, yet the facility had been built for sport.
Whilst this particular pastor was in the country, those who attended told me that miracles had indeed happened. Some testified that they had received ‘miracle money’ in their pockets, while others said they had received messages from their banks that money had been credited into their accounts. Theories abounded and there was no clear way of getting to the truth. I chose to believe them anyway.
But I still wonder. I personally would not use money that was mysteriously credited into my account. How can that happen? Where would the money be coming from? God? Or?
Something does not seem to sit well on this matter. I paid a visit to renowned local fire church celebrity, Joel Keitumele, for some insight. Keitumele was recently the subject of raging tabloid speculation that he had suffered a mystery illness perhaps associated with his church activities.
As he reclined in his comfortable lounge, Keitumele was unequivocal on his beliefs. “We are in the age of miracles, things are now different,” he said.
Magaya’s entourage, with favoured media in tow, left Gaborone and in the wake of his departure, Zimbabwean newspapers were awash with stories of how he had swept over the country.
“Prophet Walter Magaya was treated like royalty in Gaborone when he touched down yesterday for a two-day crusade. Prophet Magaya was given a ‘state accord’ vehicle and security to use during his brief stay.
“Sir Seretse Khama International Airport came to a standstill as officials and PHD (Prophetic Healing and Deliverance Ministries) member(s) forced themselves into the restricted places to welcome Prophet Magaya who arrived accompanied by his family,” wrote the Zimbabwe Latest News website reported.