South Africa Chief Justice is Lay Pastor at New Apostolic Reformation Church
Last summer, South African president Jacob Zuma nominated judge Mogoeng Mogoeng to be SA's new chief justice. Mgoeng Mgoeng was then serving as a lay pastor at Johannesburg's Winners Chapel International and, as the LA Times reported, he was criticized for his alleged stance on women's and LGBT rights; South Africa's City Press quoted a senior pastor at Winners Chapel International (WCI) as stating, "We transform such behaviour (homosexuality) through prayer and counselling according to the teachings of the Bible." Described City Press,
"When church services at Johannesburg's Winners Chapel International (WCI) end, congregants can report to an office where a string of pastors stand ready to rescue souls, drive out illnesses and cure "deviations". [ video, below: WCI church head David Oyedepo came to widespread international attention recently due to a video that showed him slapping, during a church service, a women who confessed to him that she was a "witch for Jesus". Rather than offer sympathy, Oyedepo declared the women to be damned to hell ]
As Mogoeng Mogoeng explained in testimony before South Africa's Judicial Service Commission in early September 2011,
"My church's opposition to homosexuality is not something peculiar to it, nor does the church have as its core value, the attitude that homosexuality should not be practised, or is a deviant behaviour. As it happens Mgoeng's WCI church, Winners Chapel International, is a branch church under David O. Oyedepo - one of the 5 wealthiest pastors in Nigeria, according to Forbes. Oyedepo has been an active participant in C. Peter Wagner's emerging New Apostolic Reformation movement : In the book Out of Africa: How The Spiritual Explosion Among Nigerians Is Impacting The World, that Wagner co-edited (with senior Nigerian pastor at Ted Haggard's New Life Church, Joseph Thompson), which features a chapter contributed by David Oyedepo, Peter Wagner writes, in his introductory chapter to the book,
"I convened a Nigerian Apostolic Summit, under the auspices of the International Coalition of Apostles. Meeting with those Nigerian apostles was a remarkable experience. Four of the five most prominent Nigerian apostles attended (William Kumiyi could not make it) as well as many others. All four have written stimulating chapters in this book. Before the meeting ended, I realized that I was in the presence of unusually gifted servants of God. These four apostles seated together in that room constituted the most powerful coalition of anointed Christian leadership in one place I had ever seen." (Out Of Africa, Regal Books/Gospel Light, 2004, pages 10-11) Oyedepo played a central role in the event, according to Wagner, who writes,
"One of the four leading apostles, Bishop David Oyedepo, the author of chapter 10, agreed to host the apostolic summit. He generously took care of all the accommodations and food." As Charisma editor J. Lee Grady, who has served as one of C. Peter Wagner's International Coalition of Apostles members, wrote for the April, 2002 issues of Charisma,
"[Oyedepo] is proud to claim faith preachers such as Hagin, Kenneth Copeland and Fred Price as valued mentors. And he often brings American faith preachers to speak at his church's sprawling facility--which is as big as most American sports arenas. Also playing a major role in the 2002 ICA-sponsored Nigerian Apostolic Summit, recounted Wagner, was Redeemed Christian Church of God General Overseer Enoch A. Adeboye. In 2003, according to the Vol. 4, No. 3 July - September issue of Wagner's Global Harvest Ministries Global Prayer News, Adeboye, Sunday Adelaja, Emmanuel Nuhu Kure, and David Oyedepo were among the Nigerian apostles to be featured at a scheduled October 23-25, 2003 "Light The Nation - Rekindling The Flame" conference at Rev. Ted Haggard Colorado Springs, CO New Life Church. Along with Emmanuel Kure, one of the officially listed apostles on C. Peter Wagner's ICA "short list" has been Sunday Adelaja, who founded a megachurch in Kiev, Ukraine and went on to build a church empire with churches, stated Wagner, in Israel, Russia, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and the Netherlands. As Wagner describes, Nigeria has been exporting its pastors around the world. Why such success, for Nigerian Christianity? Explains Wagner,
"It is happening in the New Testament way. Jesus sent His disciples out to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons and preach the kingdom of God... As a former American missionary, I can personally attest to the fact that at least some of us were taught not to expect to see the sick healed, demons cast out or the dead raised through our ministry. Some of our theologians relegated such things to the lunatic fringe of Christianity. While raising the dead and curing the sick are positive endeavors, the pervasive obsession with demons that haunts New Apostolic Reformation doctrine casts a dark shadow on the NAR's faith healing paradigm. The central organizing concept of C. Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation is radically utopian - God's kingdom can be brought to Earth, and a utopian millennial kingdom established, when all of the demon spirits and demonic principalities believed to currently have power over the Earth are driven out and destroyed. As part of that utopian project, it is necessary to drive out, from people, institutions, or geographic areas, demons associated with incorrect religious, political, and ideological beliefs, or with basic personality characteristics (such as non-heterosexual sexual preferences.) It is through the practice of Spiritual Mapping Spiritual that the demons - and also human beings associated with the alleged demons - are mapped out (geographically located), for future targeting. In the leading video propaganda series of the NAR, George Otis, Jr.'s Transformations videos, people accused of witchcraft and sorcery are hounded by mobs and police, or even found sliced in half by swords. "Enemy" institutions "miraculously" burn to the ground, and objects associated with competing belief systems are incinerated. In a 2006 conference speech, C. Peter Wagner, who has played a pivotal role in organizing the emergent New Apostolic Reformation, made very clear his view that "Spiritual Warfare" was not relegated merely to the spiritual realm - it extended, as part of a seamless continuum, into actual warfare, with bullets and napalm.
South Africa Chief Justice is Lay Pastor at New Apostolic Reformation Church | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)
South Africa Chief Justice is Lay Pastor at New Apostolic Reformation Church | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)
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