By Joshua Benton
Staff Writer

Page 1A

http://www.clipfile.org/2005/05/22/780/

ENUGU, Nigeria - Ejike Mbaka is telling a story. The 20,000 Nigerians gathered around him in the red-dust lot have gone quiet.

“Last week, there was a man who was mad, insane,” he begins, standing on a rickety stage. “For years, the doctors attempted to heal him. But the infirmity continued. He came to me for help.
“I gave him some healing water” - and here, some in the audience hold up the small plastic packages of water he sells, 45 cents each - “and told him to pour it in his ear on Sunday. Then pour it in his other ear on Monday.

“He did exactly that. And on Tuesday, a large frog crawled out of his ear. And he was cured.”

Appreciative cheers from the audience. “Such are the things God can do,” he says.

It’s about 10 p.m. When the sun comes up in the morning, the crowd will still be here - except for those injured thrashing on the ground under the Holy Spirit’s spell.

What’s remarkable about the scene isn’t what Ejike Mbaka says. It’s who he is. He’s not a witch doctor. He’s not a Pentecostal preacher. He’s an ordained Catholic priest.

After sunrise, he’ll go back to his parish, Christ the King Catholic Church, and hear confessions. But for now, he’s promising the crowd hundreds of miracles on this night. If they’re lucky, he might even repeat a feat he says he’s accomplished four times before: raising a man from the dead.

Scholars say Father Mbaka and his brand of Catholicism symbolize the impact that Christianity’s rapid expansion in the Third World could have on the faith: pushing mainline religion toward the supernatural.

“That is what is defining the face of Christianity in Africa now,” said Jacob Olupona, a native Nigerian and a religion scholar at the University of California at Davis. “The church is discovering how powerful a phenomenon it is, how popular it is with the people. And now they can’t stop it. So they go along with it.”

Some within the church worry about this nudging of conventional Christian doctrine toward the mystical. But others, including Father Mbaka, say it’s a welcome return to the early days of Christianity, when earthly signs of God’s power were a regular and acknowledged part of the faith. He quotes Psalm 97 to emphasize God’s force: The mountains melt like wax before the Lord.

“I believe that, as a Catholic priest, I am a healing instrument of God to my generation,” he says. “The whole environment is charged for a miracle.”

Vatican approval

The teachings of Catholicism and faith healing are not diametrically opposed, even to the Vatican. Since the 1960s, the charismatic renewal movement within the church has advocated a more Pentecostal style of worship, including “charisms” such as speaking in tongues and healing. It has met, perhaps surprisingly, with general approval from church leaders.

In 1979, addressing the movement’s leaders, Pope John Paul II said charisms are “all part of the richness of the Lord. I am convinced that this movement is a sign of his action.”

When Pope Benedict XVI was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he wrote the foreword to a book on the charismatic movement. Criticizing “a world imbued with a rationalistic skepticism,” he wrote that charisms were “not just ancient history, over and done with.” He cautioned, however, against charismatic Catholics’ going too far and subverting the central role of the church’s hierarchy.

Dr. Olupona said that 10 or 20 years ago, the Nigerian Catholic hierarchy might have asked Father Mbaka to keep quiet. “But they realize that it’s a different story now,” he said. “If they did that now, they would be courting their own demise. People believe in him.”

Father Mbaka, a handsome 38-year-old, says he began his healing ministry in 1996 after discovering he had curative powers. “It is the work of the Holy Spirit,” he explains. “I can’t heal anyone as a human being. I am open to God as a channel. And the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk. Cancers disappear.”

He says those who doubt him will face God’s wrath. Three days earlier, a man in a neighboring state vehemently criticized his ministry. As punishment, Father Mbaka says, God struck the man blind. “If he repents, he will see again,” he says.

Every Wednesday, Father Mbaka’s all-night healing sessions draw thousands to the vacant lot he calls the Adoration Grounds, next to his Catholic parish. Around 10 p.m., after hours of preaching by his followers, he strolls in like a rock star.

The band at stage left blares - lots of drumming, blasts of trumpets, and occasional female vocalists. He holds a golden cross and wears the traditional finery of the Catholic Church; followers reach out to touch the hem of his gold and ivory robe
A dozen priests and almost 30 nuns follow him. There will be a Communion service later, and Father Mbaka needs help distributing the Eucharist to the swelling crowd.

“In America, I would not see a crowd one-hundredth the size of this one,” he tells the cheering crowd. “But the spirit of God is in Africa.”

Father Mbaka rattles off passages in Scripture that support his healing ministry. Luke, Chapter 7: “But say the word, and my servant will be healed.” Matthew, Chapter 19: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Jesus’ own words, he says, are what will bring the miracles in a few short hours.

Father Mbaka’s flock is very poor, and he says he needs money to serve them. He wants to buy land in the country and build housing for orphans and the elderly. To support his dream, he made a fundraising swing though America a few months ago, including a stop in Dallas.

“In America, they have the money but not the worshippers,” he tells the crowd. “Here we have the worshippers but not the money.”

To raise cash, he has started selling his own private-label “healing water,” called Aquarapha. “God is using Aquarapha to heal a lot of diseases,” his newsletter says, next to a customer testimonial claiming that the water healed his swollen eyelids.

Father Mbaka acknowledges that most American Catholics would be skeptical of his ministry. It doesn’t bother him. “That’s the problem with the American church,” he says. “There is not enough faith. I believe the God of old is still the God of the present.”

Hi all, I need some replies here or hve all the atheist seeking for prove that God do exit left the forum, lol,

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no reply for 6 years? must be some sort of nl record..

not suprising..

Christianity is a fake and malicious ideology.