I’m Still Standing

Last night I heard surprising news. Nigerian preacher T.B. Joshua (deceased, June 2021) had his own BBC documentary. It just appeared. Sixteen women have accused him of things like repeated rape and kidnapping.

CORRECTION: it appears I was misled. Not unusual when the BBC is involved. By my wife’s count, there are only 9 women who accuse Joshua of sexual abuse.

The BBC’s ad copy refers to him as one of Africa’s richest preachers. Africa is full of crooked charismatic preachers who teach Satan’s prosperity gospel.

When a man is accused of rape by one woman, it means nothing whatsoever until there is corroborating evidence. When 16 women make an accusation, it’s different, because the likelihood that 16 people will tell the same lie is much smaller than the likelihood that one woman will make a false rape accusation, which is extremely, extremely high.

A relative of mine has made three false accusations that I know of. She’s not unusual.

In writing about this, I will not trouble myself to type “alleged” over and over, so insert it yourself where appropriate.

Joshua was born in poverty in Nigeria, and he ended up with a church called SCOAN, the Synagogue Church of All Nations. He performed all sorts of miracle healings. He and his followers blessed tap water and sent it out as “Morning Water,” and people who used it claimed they received healings. He cast demons out in front of crowds. He did all sorts of works of philanthropy.

His church never had a scandal while he was alive. Leftists, who hate him because he cast demons out of perverts, claim it was a scandal when a building that belonged to SCOAN collapsed and killed people, but that isn’t true. Anyone can buy a building that has been designed negligently. If you want to see a real scandal, look up Peter Popoff, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker, or any of thousands of priests who have been caught with boys.

He ministered for something like 40 years. He was only married once. He never divorced. He did not charge for water, and he refused to sell it, but he did limit distribution to people who paid small fees to become members of his ministry.

My wife was healed instantly, using this water. She had eye problems, and she gave Morning Water a try. This was years ago. She was healed immediately and permanently, in the privacy of her home.

Other ministries trace their roots to SCOAN. A New Zealand businessman named Bill Subritzky traveled to SCOAN and learned from Joshua. He started a ministry based in his own country, and he did the same things Joshua did. He was very wealthy before he started his ministry. He was a real estate developer. He didn’t teach the prosperity gospel or beg people for money. He died without scandal.

Mark Hemans, an Australian, has an active ministry. He travels constantly, doing what Joshua did. You can see him on Youtube. He does not teach the prosperity gospel. He does not ask for money, and he rarely mentions it, except in cases where people are under financial curses.

I have not drawn any conclusions about the BBC’s claims, but I know a couple of things.

A few years back, a Nigerian lady claimed Joshua had abused her sexually. I looked into it. She seemed crazy to me. Not credible. She seemed to be a nut who wanted attention. You can find videos of her on Youtube. See what you think. I didn’t pay any attention to her.

One lady who accuses him now is a homosexual, so obviously, she is not right mentally. Lesbianism is a mental abnormality, and it may come with other problems. She claims she went to Joshua to be delivered. I am skeptical because perverts have worked very hard to destroy Joshua’s ministry. Before he died, a small group of angry perverts got his Youtube channel removed overnight, because he was shown delivering a homosexual man.

It’s easier for me to believe that a mentally-disturbed person belonging to a group known to be hostile to T.B. Joshua, and known for spreading lies, would lie than it is for me to believe Joshua raped her. Maybe he did, but she is not a convincing witness.

Now I’ve learned about problems with a third witness. My wife explained something to me. A lady claims Joshua raped her over and over. She also says that late in their relationship, he told her he was surprised to learn she was South African. She claims he thought she was Nigerian.

South Africans are very easy for Nigerians to identify. My wife explained it. They have a very distinct accent. My wife heard her and knew instantly that she was South African. In Internet comments, other Africans have said the same thing. Clearly, she lied about what Joshua said, so why trust her accusations?

She has also claims other men believed to be prophets raped her. Men from other organizations. The obvious question: how many prophets have to rape you before you quit bothering prophets? It’s not credible. If I got raped every time I went to the dentist, I would quit going. Wouldn’t you?

These are my opinions.

Out of 16 accusers, I discard three. That leaves 13. And I only learned about this mess last night. The other 13 may have equally serious credibility problems.

Will the others fall as well? Impossible for me to know. If the evidence of any accusation turns out to be solid, I’ll believe it. If not, why should I?

The BBC loves to call Joshua one of Africa’s richest preachers. That’s dishonest. It makes him sound like Kenneth Copeland, a true snake who feeds on the poor and makes them poorer.

Joshua was adored by hundreds of millions of believers. If he had loved money, he could have taught the prosperity gospel, and he would have become a billionaire. He chose not to do this. Why not? He would have to have been stupid not to. Other African preachers get away with it.

Joshua lived in a crummy little house. You can look it up. After he died, people criticized his house because it was so cheap. If all he cared about was money, and his personal fortune was so great, why did he live in a dump on a dirt road?

If he was so wicked, why didn’t anyone credible come forward during 50 years of ministry?

If the BBC deceives people about Joshua and greed, won’t they lie, and encourage others to lie, about everything else?

I am more inclined to believe the new stories about T.D. Jakes. I may as well confront the question of whether I’m being fair. If I am skeptical because the Joshua stories came out so late, why not give the same benefit to Jakes?

Joshua is accused of nonconsensual acts. That’s the difference. If dozens of men have penetrated Jakes’ anus with his consent, they have nothing to be angry about and every reason to keep quiet. We don’t see dozens of men claiming Jakes raped them, years after the fact.

Also, the people exposing Jakes are purported witnesses, not victims. The “victims,” or consensual partners, if they exist, are presumably distraught about the new revelations.

When a black man “on the down low” sodomizes another black man who is eager and willing, it is usually kept quiet. Dozens and dozens of rapes, on the other hand, would ordinarily be exposed in a timely manner.

Maybe Jakes is innocent, but he looks guiltier than Joshua.

The accusers can’t claim they were scared to talk. They weren’t all trapped where Joshua could harm them. They were free to travel later. You can’t tell me a woman in a far-off country was afraid a preacher would send men to beat her up or kill her. It’s not credible.

Another important thing to know is that African preachers are libeled all day, every day. It’s a national pastime. There is tremendous infighting among African Christians. They call each other filthy names and threaten violence. I have seen a huge number of libels directed at Joshua, so new ones would just be par for the course.

I don’t claim anyone involved in the Joshua and Jakes stories is guilty or innocent, and I don’t claim to know whether any accuser or witness is truthful. For now, I insist on seeing some really good evidence before drawing firm conclusions.

The good thing about seeing ministries attacked like this is that it may help some people understand the problem with worshiping men.

I have had Catholic friends. Although perfectly happy to avoid church and sin at will, they had no sense of humor about priests or the popes. They revered them mindlessly, in spite of their obvious and very great shortcomings.

I have had many Protestant friends. Many attached themselves to ministries and followed men as though they were Yeshua himself. They disdained people who followed other men.

Many people treated Joshua like a god, whether or not it was his fault. They thought his ministry was perfect and unassailable. Now Joshua is accused of committing countless rapes and faking miracles, by a huge news organization.

What happens now to people who treated Joshua like Yeshua?

The challenge to their faith is very serious, because they based their faith largely on their opinions of a man. If he raped women, and he seemed so righteous, what else was he wrong about? If he faked miracles, are all miracles fake? If God permits this kind of thing, is he even there? If we are so easily fooled, is there no hope we will ever know the truth and be saved?

People can be driven to atheism and paganism by questions like that, unless they build their faith on the Holy Spirit, not men.

Long before I had any idea who Joshua was, I saw spirits. I received miracles. I had visions. Sorry; take down every preacher on Earth, and I will still know God is real and works miracles. I will still know Yeshua is alive and that he is God, because he visited me twice.

If you’re trapped in the thrall of a man you think is holy, snap out of it. You’re not helping yourself. The big problem with an organization that follows a man as a god is that all Satan has to do is take down the man. He no longer has to work hard to get at all the followers. They fall like dominoes once the man is caught stealing or found in bed with the wrong person. If you worship men, you are setting yourself up for a fall into bitter atheism.

The people at the BBC want to end Christianity. Let’s just admit that and confront it. England is a pagan country, like most European nations. It’s full of atheists, Muslims, wiccans, Yoruba practitioners, astrology slaves, and other types of heathens. Christianity pretty much ended in England in the 19th century.

The BBC wants homosexuality to cover the globe. They see people who believe the Bible as superstitious idiots who…let’s all say it together now…CAUSE ALL THE WORLD’S PROBLEMS. Like they privately say about the Jews.

The BBC has lied to us over and over and over. It has been wrong so many times, no one could count the instances. It promotes leftist falsehoods every day. No reasonable person would consider the BBC trustworthy. They’re dishonest about little things like the weather. You can’t expect them to be truthful about people they hate.

I don’t trust the BBC about anything significant. Not automatically.

I hope the T.B. Joshua story collapses, but if it doesn’t, I will be fine. I will still watch Mark Hemans, unless he gets taken down, too. I will continue praying and blessing and cursing. I will continue speaking in tongues a great deal. I can’t go backward now. God built my house on the rock of revelation, so the rains don’t mean anything to me.

For a long time, I’ve been praying for God to destroy and expose evil ministries, whether they be Christian, Jewish, pagan, or secular. My wife and I pray for it together every day. Maybe the recent news stories show that God is listening to people like us. On the other hand, maybe the hit on Joshua is Satan’s way of putting good people in the path of friendly fire. I don’t know. I can be fooled. It has happened before. Whatever the truth is, I hope God will continue exposing the snakes.

A while back, God told me the truth had gotten lost. These days, it is impossible to determine the truth about anything important. God. Coronavirus. Elections. The climate. You have to have the Holy Spirit at your side, telling you the answers. If not, you are in big trouble already.

See Psalm 32:6.