Friday, 29th March 2024
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What died at Prophet Mboro’s church

Sir: An incredible thing happened at the Incredible Happenings Ministries in South Africa: The girl died. A sick child that the mother brought for healing passed away at the premises of this church. The report says that the controversial South African preacher Paseka Motsoeneng, self-styled Prophet Mboro was holding the girl when she died. From…

Sir: An incredible thing happened at the Incredible Happenings Ministries in South Africa: The girl died. A sick child that the mother brought for healing passed away at the premises of this church. The report says that the controversial South African preacher Paseka Motsoeneng, self-styled Prophet Mboro was holding the girl when she died.

From the report, this South African child should not have died, if the mother had taken her to a proper medical centre. But she did not. This girl would have been alive today if Mboro had acted swiftly; if he had divested himself of all pretensions to healing and to have supernatural powers and had done what he supposed to do: refer the mother to a hospital. But he did. Blinded by his prophetic pride and ego, he watched as the girl died.

Both the mother and Mboro failed this girl. South Africa failed this girl. The girl died as result of an admixture of negligence, ignorance, superstition, foolery, and charlatanry.

All critical thinking South Africans and in fact other skeptically minded people of the world should not fail this girl even though she is dead. Skeptics should now work and campaign to honour her memory by ensuring that no child in South Africa suffers a similar fate.

To accomplish this important goal, faith healing must be abolished. Skeptics in South Africa should take on self-styled faith healers like Prophet Mboro. They should expose and debunk their reckless and irresponsible claims of having supernatural powers. To leave faith healing claims unchallenged is a disservice to the society as the case of this girl has tragically demonstrated.

It makes these claims appear credible at least before the eyes of poor, uneducated folks who are unable to distinguish evidence-based from non-evidence based cure claims. People of limited means, who are sick or those as in this case with sick children desperately look for cures and go to places where they could access such treatments at little or no costs.

Faith healers like Mboro deceive and exploit such vulnerable people. Self-acclaimed prophets make people believe that they are healers and that their churches are hospitals where people can receive their healing. Unfortunately, many people across Africa, both young and old, children and adults have suffered an untimely death or irreparable health damage because they went to churches, not hospitals, to fake healers like prophet Mboro, not trained competent medical officers, for treatment. This destructive trend must stop.

So, in honour of the memory of this South African girl and other victims of this fraudulent practice, a categorical stand must be taken against faith healing and faith healers. Faith healing must stop. Faith healers like prophet Mboro must be stopped.
Leo Igwe.

 

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