No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
“The weird you shall always have”
... The other church is End Time Disciples Ministries of prophet Penuel Mnguni also known as the 'snake pastor'. Pastor Mnguni who is also the spiritual son of Pastor Lesego Daniel led the members of his church to take up live snakes because they will not hurt them as stated in Mark 16:18 (Mofokeng 2020). Therefore, the congregants ate up snakes in End Time Disciples Ministries with the hope that these would not hurt or harm them (Khanyile 2016). ...
Some of the New Prophetic Churches apply the fundamentalist literalist reading of the biblical text in their sermons and theology because of a lack of knowledge and application of proper reading and interpretation of scripture. The fundamentalist literalist reading of scripture particularly Mark 16:18 is linked here to the abuses by some of the pastors in New Prophetic Churches. In addressing these challenges, this article proposes a proper exegetical study of Mark 16:18 that pays attention to the context of the text, the historical background and the grammar of the text. This will be achieved by giving a background to a fundamentalist literalist reading of scripture in Pentecostalism particularly as practised by New Prophetic Churches in South Africa. The article will also highlight some of the challenges posed by the fundamentalist literalist reading of scripture. The final section is an exegetical study of Mark 16:18, which is interpreted by recognising the whole passage of Mark 16:9–20 even though some New Testament scholars do not recognise this longer ending. This article reflected on this passage in response to the fundamentalist literalist reading among New Prophetic Churches not necessarily to enter the debate between the short ending and longer ending.Contribution: This article challenges fundamentalist literalist reading of scripture in New Prophetic Churches. The article proposes a thorough exegetical reading of Mark 16:18 that recognises the exegetical tools such as history, grammar and the context of the text.
... 88 At the time of writing this article, there were ongoing court cases against the Nigerian-born pastor, Timothy Omotoso of the Jesus Dominion International church, charged with allegations of sexual assault, human trafficking and racketeering, 89 and the Malawian-born multimillionaire pastor of the Enlightened Christian Gathering church, Shepherd Bushiri, and his wife, charged with fraud and money laundering. 90 Also recent was the video clip that went viral of the Congolese-born pastor Alph Lukau, in which he claimed to have just prayed and managed to bring a dead man lying in a coffin back to life. Charges of sexual assault and rape against the leader of the Rivers of Living Waters Bishop Zondo are being heard in a court of law in South Africa. ...
The practice of pastoral care is concerned with humanity’s total welfare encompassing the emotional, spiritual, psychological, and personal spheres as they pertain to, but are not limited to, sexuality-related matters. Pastoral care professionals are typically trained to deal with various personal challenges, including depressing sexuality-related issues and addictions. Although the topic of sexual addictions has received reasonable attention within the pastoral care framework, it continues to be considered taboo by most Christian believers and some pastors equally. As a result, pastoral care providers in countries like South Africa do not have solidified guidelines providing practical direction around the question of sexual addictions. Through the combination of the literature reviews and observations, the paper investigated possibilities of developing guidelines that pastoral carers can employ in addressing the challenges faced by those dealing with sexual addictions. These guidelines included an intervention referred to as “Promise Keepers” which focuses on married men, and Twelve Steps which is more popular as an intervention employed with substance abuse. Additionally, the paper presented the Falling Forward Manual, an intervention that focuses on Christian men facing challenges with sexual addictions. Beyond the scope of pastoral care and notwithstanding its focus on Pentecostal charismatic churches in South Africa, these guidelines will be beneficial to all churches in South Africa and beyond. Keywords: Pastoral Care, Sexual Addictions, Sexuality, Interventions, Religion, Pentecostal-Charismatic Church
... It is known for what is called a forensic prophecy of revealing people's details such as names, identity numbers, street addresses, and so forth (Kgatle 2019). The second characteristic is the one-on-one prophecy which happens during some consultations for which the congregants pay the man or woman of God (Mofokeng 2020). The third characteristic is the prophetic title: while church leaders are known by titles such as Pastor, Reverend, Bishop, and so forth, the prophets are known by titles such as major one, seer one, and so forth (Kgatle & Anderson 2020). ...
The proliferation of New Prophetic Churches within the broader Pentecostal movement in South Africa has come with the challenge of the abuse of religion and people’s beliefs. These abuses have attracted the attention of the government through the Cultural, Religious, and Linguistic Communities (CRL) commission with calls for the regulation of religion to deal with the abuses. This article worked within the context of Christian ecumenism and explored the role of ecumenical bodies in curbing the abuses in New Prophetic Churches as opposed to the regulation by the government. In this article the ecclesiastical freedom theory is used to
argue that ecumenical bodies are better positioned to deal with these challenges facing churches than the government and its commissions. It is suggested that, for New Prophetic Churches to be active in national ecumenical bodies such as the South African Council of Churches, they should be allowed to establish their own bodies to assure accountability. This will be achieved by defining the theory of ecclesiastical freedom, a discussion of the ecumenical bodies in South Africa and their relationship with New Prophetic Churches. In the last section the role of ecumenical bodies in dealing with abuses in New Prophetic Churches will be explored and recommendations made.
... The link to the spiritual world causes the Pentecostal prophets in these churches to ignore other causes or factors that contribute to the South African problems such as socio-historical, socio-political, and socio-economic causes (Banda, 2018:6). Some of the problems faced by followers of these churches are because of historic causative factors such as apartheid which lasted for a long time in South Africa (Mofokeng, 2020). Apartheid was a system designed to enrich the minority white people at the expense of the majority of black people in South Africa. ...
New prophetic churches are in continuity with the African Traditional Religions in tracing the challenges that many Africans face today to the spirit world. These churches make a connection between the challenges of sicknesses, joblessness, barrenness, and so forth, with witchcraft in the spirit world captured in the Nguni saying “uthakathiwe” meaning “you are bewitched”. Instead of linking these problems to socio-historical, socio-political, and socioeconomic causative factors in the continent, they would rather link them to the spirit world. Furthermore, the Pentecostal prophets in these churches blame the believers for not being able to deal with the challenges. This article problematizes this blame-shifting approach as it presents power dynamics in these churches. The article argues that in shifting the blame to the congregants, the Pentecostal prophets seek to remain or appear as powerful to their congregants. An African Christocentric missional approach is proposed as a theoretical framework that centres power on Christ than on the Pentecostal prophet in Africa.
Pentecostalism is a growing movement in world Christianity. However, the growth of Pentecostalism in South Africa has faced some challenges, including the abuse of religion by some prophets. This book first names these prophets and the churches they lead in South Africa, and then makes use of literary and media analysis to analyse the religious practices by the prophets in relation to cultism. Additionally, the book analyses the “celebrity cult” and how it helps promote the prophets in South Africa. The purpose of this book is threefold: First, to draw parallels between the abuse of religion and cultism. Second, to illustrate that it is cultic tendencies, including the celebrity cult, that has given rise to many prophets in South Africa. Last, to showcase that the challenge for many of these prophets is that the Pentecostal tradition is actually anti-cultism, and thus there is a need for them to rethink their cultic tendencies in order for them to be truly relevant in a South African context.
Mookgo Solomon Kgatle is Associate Professor at the University of South Africa. He is a National Research Foundation (NRF) Y Rated researcher (2019-2024) in the area of African Pentecostalism, and is visiting scholar at the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies-University of Birmingham (2020-2022).
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.