Kato Mivule | October 26, 2009
Charisma, The 700 Club, Christianity Today and False African Revivals…
About two weeks ago I commented on an article by Lee Grady that appeared in Charisma Magazine and posted online about the East African Revival. Lee Grady who happens to be the editor of Charisma Magazine took a research trip to Uganda to find out more about the East African Revival.
Lee Grady submitted his report in the article he posted on his blog and the Charisma Magazine website. The report was totally lacking and greatly skewed to paint an impression that there is actually a revival going on in Uganda and East Africa. Lee Grady even mentioned how he wished that the USA would have a similar “Balokole” (Evangelical) renewal as experienced by Ugandans.
The report by Lee Grady totally ignored the current spiritual state of the African Evangelical Church, especially in Uganda were Lee Grady spent time. False doctrines, false teachings, gluttonous, and materialistic lifestyles of preachers from the West, especially the Prosperity Gospel Teachings from the TBN TV family who make up the largest advertising base for Charisma Magazine, have made base in Uganda’s Balokole (Evangelical) Churches.
I still wonder how anyone visiting Uganda could not see this very important issue affecting the Church in Uganda. I still wonder why Lee Grady did not call on the Church in Uganda to repentance and to return to Biblical Truth in his report but instead opted to write about a none existent revival. At least Lee Grady should have been rebuking those in his Adverting base at Charisma Magazine for the total distortion of the Gospel they have done in Africa.
Yet still Charisma Magazine and the Western Christian Media are found of exaggerating Revivals in Africa, painting a picture that the Church is growing in Africa so as to make their Western Congregations give more money to their ministries and Churches. Yet the fact is that Evangelical Christianity in Africa is not growing in depth but in width…one western missionary who visited Africa put it more aptly and truthfully that the Church in Africa is a mile wide but an inch deep.
The Western Christian Media for a long time has been playing ‘the numbers game’…they host pseudo preachers from Africa who claim to have Churches with thousands of members and with claims that Africa is largely being evangelized. Such exaggerating preachers are given wide platforms on Christian TV and Pulpits in the West and their ministries are then affiliated with some super mega ministry in America. The super mega ministry then begins to use the false statistics of a revival and church growth in Africa to generate millions of dollars from unsuspecting and undiscerning Western Congregations. This keeps the super mega church pastor in business and he in turns sends a few remittances that keep the African pseudo Pastor in business too…to care for a few orphans here and there, take pictures and video clips here and there, hold overnight prayer meetings with large gatherings, send the images to the super mega church pastor in the west, the super mega church pastor continues to pay for full color advertisement in Charisma Magazine and other Western Christian Media Outlets, and the cycle of deception continues…
Christian in Uganda sends statistics…
After we posted our critic of Lee Grady’s report on his visit to Uganda, a brother from Uganda sent us statistics by Uganda’s Bureau of Statistics showing results of the 2002 census that had been done in Uganda. The report was released in 2002 and it shows Uganda’s religious demographics…
Religious denominations |
Number |
Percent |
| Catholics | 10,242,594 | 41.9 |
| Church of Uganda | 8,782,821 | 35.9 |
| Muslims | 2,956,121 | 12.1 |
| Pentecostals | 1,129,647 | 4.6 |
| SDA | 367,972 | 1.5 |
| Other Christians | 286,581 | 1.2 |
| Traditional | 241,630 | 1.0 |
| Other Non-Christians | 159,259 | 0.7 |
|
Orthodox |
35,505 |
0.1 |
| Bahai | 18,614
| 0.1 |
|
None
|
212,388
|
0.9
|
In the Report, Evangelical Christians are listed as about 2 Million which is about 4.6 percent of Uganda’s Population…yet during the same year Charisma Magazine publishes an interview with Mega Church Pastor and Preacher Robert Kayanja who then declares in Charisma Magazine that Uganda is 92 percent Christian.
Pastor Robert Kayanja goes on to emphatically state that 75 percent of the 92 percent of Uganda’s Christians are LEGITIMATE BORN AGAIN CHRISTIANS… From Pastor Robert Kayanja’s statement in Charisma Magazine, 22 Million Ugandans out of Uganda’s 24 Million people are Christians, and 75 percent of the 22 Million Christians are legitimate Christians, which means that 16.5 Million Ugandans are Legitimate Born Again Christians in Uganda – that half of Uganda’s population are Born Again Christians!
“…One megachurch pastor, Robert Kayanja, says 92 percent of his country is now Christian Twenty-five years ago in Uganda, a person might have been considered foolish if they had admitted to being a born-again Christian. Today, if you're not a born-again Christian, Ugandans might ask: "What are you waiting for?" That's how pastor Robert Kayanja described the current spiritual state of his homeland, a country that was ravaged by dictator Idi Amin and others before a spiritual breakthrough in the 1980s and 1990s swept the majority of the population into Christianity. Today, 92 percent of Uganda's population of 24 million claim Christianity, and at least 75 percent of those are legitimate born-again Christians, said Kayanja, who pastors the charismatic megachurch Miracle Center Cathedral in Kampala, the capital…”
'Reign of Terror' Reversed in Uganda | October 31, 2002 | Charisma
Some one must be telling lies to the Western Christian World and the Western Christian World is willing to listen to such lies and even publish them in their media outlets for their own ulterior motives mainly around the issue of money.
From Uganda’s official records Moslems alone make up 12 percent of Uganda’s population, which is about 3 Million, larger than the Evangelical Christians at 2 Million or 4.6 percent of Uganda’s population. Even if ALL who call themselves Christians in Uganda are combined, that is Catholics, Anglicans, Seventh Day Adventists, and Evangelicals, that is about 80 percent; one would never come up with the outrageous claims of Pastor Robert Kayanja that 92 percent of Ugandans are Christian as published in Charisma Magazine the very year that Uganda’s 2002 Official Census report was released.
Pastor Robert Kayanja on the TBN TV set
Charisma Magazine did not even mind checking the Kayanja claims but instead rushed to publish the highly exaggerated and misleading Pastor Robert Kayanja Interview. The question is then why does Charisma Magazine allow such exaggerations to proceed unchecked? Is it because they know they will benefit from the super mega prosperity gospel preachers of America who support Pastor Robert Kayanja? Why is Charisma Magazine so taken up by highly exaggerated Christian Data from Africa and none existent revivals?
700 Club, False Revivals, and Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga…
Yet still the fascination of fake and bogus revivals by the Western Christian Media is alarming and shocking. In 2003 Pat Robertson and the 700 Club invited a young Uganda Mega Church Preacher called Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga for an interview on the 700 Club broadcast around the world. Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga organized nation wide prayer meetings in Uganda and claimed that 3 million Ugandans attended such meetings. With much interest in “seeking a revival”, the 700 Club made the announcements and even titled the story as “Uganda Revival”…
“…December 26, 2003, the largest prayer gathering in the history of Uganda was held. All through the night from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. 25,000 pastors mobilized three million Christians to pray in 50 stadiums -- one in each district of the nation. They prayed for their nation and for global harvest to cover the earth. Jackson says in the coming years they expect 13 million, or half the population of Uganda, to gather for such annual prayer meetings. They are seeing many Muslims come to faith in Jesus. The Lord has shown them there must be six levels of prayer so that God can harvest a nation to Himself: 1) prayers in homes, 2) prayers in churches, 3) prayers in communities, 4) prayers in cities, 5) prayers in a nation, and 6) prayers for the nations. These six waves create an atmosphere where God can dwell…”
Jackson Senyonga: Uganda Revival | The 700 Club – CBN.com | December 26, 2003
The 700 Club has never cared to check or verify the statistics that Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga gave. Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga claimed for instance that his Church has about 40,000 Members, and 22,000 attending each week. If this were the case and true, then they would have to hire the largest stadium in Kampala to seat such a crowd. Yet still no official records exist to substantiate such spurious claims of a 22,000 or 40,000 Member Church in Kampala. 
Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga'
Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga has been on a Internet and Media ‘clean up image’ campaign, setting up new blogs, twitter accounts, websites, news articles, all to ‘make over’ his image after the airline plane molestation accusations that were leveled against him. In 2008 Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga was accused of molesting a girl on a domestic flight in the USA. Of course I did not believe such claims, in my opinion, I do not think that Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga would be too stupid to do such a thing. For one thing he travels widely with his wife and he is a very smart, astute, and clever guy, who cares so much about his image that he would have no interest in “molesting a girl on a day light flight”… Personally I think the Americans overreacted and were overly hyper sensitive and with paranoia, they mistook Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga who was seated next to the young girl to be a molester… I think they saw a black man seated next to a young girl and prejudged him… Yet I could be wrong , Ugandan Pastors are capable of putting up surprises…
Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga seems far much more concerned about dealing with his image because of the girl molestation debacle yet what Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga should be worried about most is his hyperboles, concoctions, fabrications, distortions, and outright lies about an ongoing revival in Uganda. If there is anything that could cause more danger to Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga’s Image is the over exaggeration of facts. Yet still what surprises why the Western Christian Media outlets buy into such fabrications; It seems that it is in their interest that Flamboyant African Preachers keep telling lies to them.About Pastor Jackson Senyonga
Jackson Senyonga was born and raised in Uganda, East Africa. After the death of his father during Idi Amin's regime, he reconciled with his biological mother who had abandoned him when he was three months old. He is the founder and senior pastor of Christian Life Church in Kampala, Uganda, in East Africa. Jackson once again saw God's grace at work as the church skyrocketed from seven people to 2,000 in two weeks. Within the first seven months that number grew to 7,000. Today, over 22,000 people attend Christian Life Church each week, and 40,000 are registered as members and that number continues to grow on a daily basis. Christian Life Church (CLC) has planted over 1000 churches in four countries in Africa.Although he experienced abandonment as a baby, and his father was murdered by Idi Amin, the grace of God was poured out on Jackson in a special way. He has been raised as a voice for Uganda as well as other nations.Jackson has witnessed the power of God's transformation in his nation. He has been a catalyst…
http://jacksonsenyonga.blogspot.com/
http://www.jackson-senyonga.org/
http://www.jacksonsenyongabiography.com
The Largest Church so far is the Miracle Center Church with Pastor Robert Kayanja with 10, 500 and even then such churches never fill to capacity except when Prosperity Gospel moguls like Benny Hinn come to Kampala to preach Healing for a fee. Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga went ahead to make claims that 3 million Ugandans participated in his nation wide prayer meetings and that 25,000 Pastors officiated the prayer meetings. Such claims are not just outrageous but total distortions, fabrications and lies.
I challenge Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga and 700 Club to come up with data to prove that the story they run on 700 Club was true. There is no evidence at all in Uganda that 3 million people attended this so-called Uganda Revival prayer meeting. This statement by Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga was a total exaggeration and the 700 Club bought into this lie and rather than check facts, they went on with the pomp and fabrications, reporting false revivals because that is what their audience wants to hear and in return they are able to collect more donations thus maintaining their establishment.
The 700 Club could not even find out that Uganda does not have 50 Stadiums as they reported that could house 3 million people! Why is the Western Church so much given to listening to lies, distortions, and fabrications? Why do they enjoy to be entertained by such outright lies?
I remember one pastor from Uganda who made a statement on his return from a preaching trip in the USA, that “if you speak truth in American Churches, they don’t give you donations but if you preach lies to American Christians they give you money…” Is this not true? In other words all what this pastor needed to do was exaggerate and speak about large numbers, and big revivals and fake healings, and the American Christian audience would give him money he needed for projects back home. Thank God this pastor kept his character and spoke Truth and returned to Uganda with little. Yet the likes of Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga and Robert Kayanja preach fabrications and outright lies and are given red carpet treatment by America’s Christian Media Outlets who seem not to practice at least a little journalism just to check the facts.
Christianity Today and Ugandan Revival Fabrications…
Even the well respected Christianity Today, the supposedly sound American Evangelical Christian Magazine fell for the revival exaggeration trap when they published the unfounded claims of Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga…
The lies and exaggerations are too gross that it would take another essay just to write about the claims made by Pastor Ssenyonga about the supposedly “spiritual revival” in Uganda. Any Ugandan reading such the report by Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga in Christianity Today of a supposedly spiritual revival and “transformation” would laugh knowing the author was a mere con artist. Christianity Today claimed that Uganda was experiencing what many claimed to be a spiritual revival yet the truth is that ever since that report by Christianity Today, Uganda has been experiencing not a revival but an apostasy."...The Christian church in Uganda is thriving. Despite the legacy of Idi Amin, the evil dictator who ravaged and plundered the East African country during the 1970s, Uganda is experiencing what many say is a spiritual revival. Under Amin's regime, violence and oppression prevailed, churches were ordered closed, and people died by the hundreds of thousands. But as the devastation spread, a remnant of believers began to pray. Here Jackson Senyonga, an international prayer leader and senior pastor of the 22,000-member Christian Life Church in Uganda's capital city of Kampala, explains how God brought transformation to his beleaguered nation. In Uganda, we got our revival through devastation. The suffering of the people was beyond description, and no one came to our rescue. But God used the opportunity to wake a nation from its spiritual coma…Today, researchers say Uganda is one of the most transformed nations on the face of the earth. We've seen God transform the political system, the marketplace, and the church. At 8 A.M. in the State House, people pray. The Parliament doesn't want to discuss things until they pray. The judges don't want to judge until they pray. The police are faxing prayer requests to the judges. The crime rate is dropping—down 70 percent in some communities. A major bank in the capital city of Kampala plays praise and worship music on all 11 floors. Because God is everywhere, people are dreaming spiritual dreams. We've had Muslims and witch doctors come to our church saying, "I have never been to church in my life, but I had a dream. In my dream, I was putting on rags and rotten stuff. Somebody was telling me that I should come to church to get clean, white clothes. So I am here to find out if you give out clothes." They don't understand the dream. When you tell them the meaning of it, they burst into tears and give their lives to Jesus..."
Christianity Today | Revival the Hard Way | November-December 2003
Christianity Today goes on to ‘parrot’ the claims by Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga that Uganda is one of the most transformed societies on earth. This was not just a mere exaggeration but an outright lie. Uganda as far as global records are concerned is one of the most corrupt nations on earth. Uganda has one of the worst Human Rights Abuse Records in Africa.
When it comes to politics, Uganda’s political climate is one of the worst in Africa, with elections rigged every time. Pastor Jackson Ssenyonga claims that Ugandan Police keep faxing prayer requests to judges… Such claims are not just comical but a display of ignorance of facts by the unsuspecting Western Audience. As far as I know, Ugandan police have no such resources as to fax prayer requests to judges, if not to fax requests for bribes.
Yet such outlandish and outrageous revival claims by flamboyant Ugandan Prosperity Gospel Preachers is what reputable American Evangelical Publications like Christianity Today publish, all in the name of seeking a revival.
The truth of the matter is that no revival is taking place in East Africa but an apostasy. There is a departure from the Faith taking place in the Christian Church in Africa. Rather than publish purported revivals, Christianity Today ought to be calling the African Church back to Biblical Truth and orthodoxy.
If there is any need in Africa’s Evangelical Church, it is the need for sound bible teachers to teach and equip the saints in Africa concerning New Testament Christianity. There is so great a need to teach the New Testament in Africa. Otherwise in the next few years even the little Evangelicalism will disappear and what we shall have in Africa will be a very strong anti-Christian society totally agnostic and burnt out with all forms of Christianity as we know it today.
Western Christian Media outlets like Charisma, The 700 Club, and Christianity Today only add to the spreading of apostasy in Africa by encouraging and entertaining flamboyant prosperity gospel preachers from Africa who are given red carpet treatment to lie about fake and bogus unsubstantiated revivals, renewals, and Church growth movements in Africa.
The Western Christian Media entertains such lies simply because they love to play the numbers game and love to sound as powerful, influential and great before the secular west...yet the truth is that they walk naked and do not even know it.
Kato Mivule
