On Jan 3, an online article named "False Prophets Rake in Money in Africa by Religious Trickery" was widely reposted by many social media in China. The news was posted on Kaiwind website which devotes to fight against cults this Monday. A photo in the article showed that a false prophet leads people to the hell.
Actually, a major part of the news was translated and edited by the website from a commentary article "Religious trickery lines the pockets of false prophets" written by Elvis Masogo from IOL, an African news website. The original post was published on December 11, 2016. It criticized some claimed Christian prophets and doggy pastors who accumulated wealth by performing "miracles".
It read, "The marauding false prophets and greedy pastors who pretentiously call themselves "the servants of God" are actually a grave danger to the spiritual discourse of Christianity. These fake prophets and tsotsi pastors are abusing and exploiting the sanctified name of Jesus Christ in order to extract financial benefits from unsuspecting congregants.
These "holy" charlatans and soulless scoundrels are a powerful antithesis of everything Jesus Christ stood for and represented."
According to IOL, it is owned and run by Independent Media, a South African newspaper group that publishes 15 national and regional newspapers, and several Cape-based community newspapers.The author Elvis is a renowned local political analyst.
The photo in the article shows that "in Limpopo a 24-year-old self-styled prophet is spraying, in the name of Jesus Christ, insect-killing Doom in the eyes of congregants." It was also picked up by some influential websites including MSN.
Last year, Chinese social media exposed some astonishing phenomena in South Africa, such as some church leaders asked their congregations to eat grass and swallow snakes.
