Majority of pastors/prophets are getting smarter than ever. Prosperity preaching in some churches is now ‘old school’ (especially in the UK). If it’s still happening in a church near you, then it might be still working for the pastor (probably in Ghana because they virtually live on hope), who has not given up the dream of gaining the status of a Hollywood preacher or the congregants still believe that manna will definitely fall from the sky but it’s not their time yet.
Some men of god have realised that people are not parting with their money too much when it comes to sowing to be rich, sowing for ‘supernatural debt cancellation’ or sowing for details to vanish on bank systems when you owe a bank (these prayers don’t work on banks no matter how hefty your seed is, even if their systems crash, they always have a back-up).
So what the pastors do now is to see visions of death/prophesize doom. Like magic, God has stopped giving revelations of riches; the only revelation they’re getting now is death, sickness, curses, witches playing ‘chaskele’ (cricket) with our lives and parents sitting on their children’s blessings….And it is working as usual.
The one I heard which intrigued me was about people who have incisions (tribal marks) on their bodies; according to a certain prophet who has the title of a Dr attached to his name: it’s a mark of evil which is causing their downfall in life so evil follows them wherever they go. The hearer of the message (who had a fulfilled life), until the doomsayer ‘prophesied’, he/she didn’t know there’s a problem with/in his life will begin to panic. That is when they start recounting why they lost that job (was not qualified for) or why they keep dreaming about animals.
If you’re not married, either you’re cursed or you’re spiritually married, when you see a cat staring at you, it’s been sent to destroy your destiny (my neighbour has a cat which always stares at me and I intend to ask her if she bought it from Ghana just in case). Generational and ancestral curses and the list are endless.
As entrepreneurs as the pastors are, when profits are dwindling, they quickly find other ways to reap profits. There are various sums of monies you have to pay to deal with the problem step-by-step (so woe betides you if the problem is an ancestral curse). If you can’t do the fasting they prescribe (it is not a type of fasting you can do), you’ll pay them to fast for you (assuming they’re really fasting) as well as giving groceries to break their fast (that is rent and weekly shopping covered). You’re wondering why milo and Horlicks are getting dearer each day. Amazingly, God created them so unique that the more they fast, the more they gain weight and look ‘kama’ (Ghanaians confuse obese with looking good).
Too much eating of ‘kokonte’ at night before bedtime (with all due respect to kokonte lovers) or constantly sleeping with no electricity is causing one to dream dreams with the believe that, it is a vision. Often, “God told me…” is in reality, “I think God would agree with me…therefore, I am going to tell you that God told me…” is causing too much harm.
Children are killing their parents in cold blood/not on speaking terms with their mothers because of one prophet; people are watching their back because an animal is observing their movement, people travel back home and don’t step foot in homes they grew up in because their ancestors planted their placenta or whatever there and children are being killed by parents because they’re the cause of their sufferings in life.
Then we ask, since these perpetrators of this doomsayers are getting successful, why don’t their own mothers destroy them? If I’m going to sit on/tie my children’s blessing in the future, why don’t I do that when they’re young? Why sacrifice so much to raise them into responsible adults I’ll be proud of? Waiting until later doesn’t make me smart…at all.
I’ve not touched any anointed; my long arm is ‘touching’ the business men who are making life a living hell for people. Why should it all be doom and gloom? Is God not interested in our prosperity anymore? I prefer the prosperity messages because at least with that, it puts a flicker of hope in my life that one day, I may be rich or win the lottery (lotto is not gambling, it’s the stock exchange of the ‘poor’) and I can choose not to sow any seed because it doesn’t incite fear.
It is scary when a prophet ‘sees’ witches or my family sitting on my blessing – I will be ‘forced’ to fork out money to unseat them from my blessing – that is how powerful the mind is.
Why only Africans?