Rejecting Christ’s Freedom? Sacralisation and Personalisation in African Neo-Pentecostal Prophetism

Abstract

The African religiosity that permeates all human existence is driven by a consuming desire for connection with the spiritual world that provides and protects human flourishing. African neo-Pentecostal prophets (ANPPs) respond to this need by imposing themselves as the sacral agents that can connect people to God. The sacralisation of prophets leads them to personalise the church as their personal property. The question answered by this article is as follows: from a Christian soteriological perspective of Jesus as the only sufficient intermediary between God and humanity, how can we address the African need for connection with God that fosters a reliance on African neo-Pentecostal prophets and leads to the sacralisation of these prophets and the personalisation of the church? This article uses Christ’s redemption of believers to challenge ANPPs’ response to the African need for connection with God that leads to these prophets’ domination and exploitation of their followers. This article challenges ANPPs to promote the freedom of Christ’s redemptive work instead of sacralising themselves and personalising the church, which instils a religion of fear that keeps their followers subservient to prophets. The contribution of this article lies in assisting Christians, in this case the followers of ANPPs, to realise that sacralising the prophets provides grounds for these prophets to personalise the church. Therefore, Christ’s redemptive work should be affirmed and promoted as a means of protecting the church from being personalised by sacralised prophets.

1. Introduction

The innate African need for spiritual power to overcome life’s problems underpins the sacralisation of prophets, who use their claim to be God’s supreme agents that share in God’s divine nature to personalise the church. African neo-Pentecostal prophets (ANPPs) refers to African prophetic and messianic figures who are distinct from classical Pentecostalism, although they have similar Pentecostal characteristics, such as speaking in tongues and a particular emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit and prophecy (Kgatle 2019, pp. 3–5; 2020, pp. 3–4). As will be expounded later, sacralisation means treating prophets in divine terms, which often leads to them competing with God or even replacing God in a believer’s life. Personalisation, which goes together with commodification and commercialisation, is used in this article to refer to prophets treating their followers as their personal possessions. This article will argue that ANPPs sacralise themselves and personalise their followers as a response to the African need to connect with God and access spiritual power to overcome life’s challenges.

The main question answered in the article is as follows: from a Christian soteriological perspective of Jesus as the only sufficient intermediary between God and humanity, how can we address the African need for connection with God fostering the sacralisation of prophets and the personalisation of the church in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism? This research question is answered by first describing the deep African need to connect with the spiritual world. Second, the sacralisation of the prophets in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism is described. Third, how the sacralisation of prophets provides grounds for them to personalise the church as their own possession that depends on them for its survival is evaluated. Fourth, how sacralisation and personalisation undermine Christ’s redemption of the church by his blood is analysed. Fifth, the article closes by emphasising that the freedom Christ has given to the people he has redeemed through his blood desacralises all prophets and depersonalises the church of God. The significance of this article lies in it contributing a soteriological framework to assist Christians, in this case the followers of ANPPs, in realising that sacralising prophets provides a basis for prophets to personalise the church. Therefore, Christians are challenged to take the freedom enacted by Christ’s redemption seriously and protect themselves and Christ’s church from being personalised by prophets who sacralise themselves.

2. The African Need for Connection with the Spiritual World

African neo-Pentecostal prophetism seems to follow the African traditional religious view on the importance of spiritual specialists in bridging the gap between people and the spiritual world. This need for spiritual specialists stems from an impersonalised view of the spiritual realm in African Traditional Religions (ATRs) (Turaki 2000, p. 2). Because of their unique role of connecting humanity and the spiritual realm, spiritual specialists such as medicine men and women, diviners and seers are often viewed as more than human. They are viewed as sacral beings. These specialists are autonomous and authoritative personifications of the spiritual world, and their words are feared and always obeyed by those who seek a better life. Many Africans view the traditional spiritual functionaries in sacral terms because they are thought to possess the power to link people with the spiritual realm and even to block access to it, thereby starving people of the spiritual resources for existence. Turaki (2000, p. 3) perceptively calls for Christianity in Africa to recognise and take seriously the traditional belief in the impersonal (mystical) powers because they have extensive religious and social implications that must be thoroughly studied, understood and addressed by the Christian gospel. It is therefore argued that this African need for effective agents to connect people with the spiritual world informs the sacralisation of prophets in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism.

Both the African quest for spiritual power and the role of spiritual specialists emerge from the African traditional religious worldview that posits the universe as divided into two realms the spiritual and the physical, which are interconnected and interdependent. This worldview operates according to the principle of cause and effect. It emphasises cosmic and spiritual harmony by saying human life is good and prosperous when there is harmony between the two realms and is in danger when the harmony is broken (Turaki 2000, p. 15). The spiritual realm on which life and all existence depends is greatly feared and revered. This realm is however mysterious, and people cannot fully understand and control it. Different African peoples have varying ideas on what constitutes the spiritual realm, even though there is an understanding that God occupies its apex. From a western African perspective, Turaki lists impersonal (mystical) power(s), spirit beings, divinities/gods and the belief in the Supreme Being. On the other hand, from an eastern African perspective, Mbiti (1969, pp. 15–16) lists the spiritual realm to comprise of God, the supreme creator and sustainer of creation including humanity, spirits that include the ancestral spirits of dead people and non-human spirits and other spiritual powers. Magesa (1997, p. 44) seems to follow Mbiti’s view that seems to be common in southern Africa (Mashau 2009, p. 117; Taringa 2006, pp. 197–200).

The impersonal mystical nature of the spiritual realm leads people to search for spiritual specialists who have mastered ways of connecting people to it. Because of its impersonal mystical nature, there is a great need for specialists who understand this spiritual realm and act as intermediaries between it and the people. Expressing the impersonal mystical nature of the spiritual realm in Shona Traditional Religion, Taringa and Sipeyiye (2018, pp. 201–202), say the supreme being who created and ordered the world, is often experienced as distant or unavailable to humans, which allows the ancestral spirits that are believed to be more accessible to people to act as intermediaries. It is this impersonality and mysticality of the spiritual realm that creates the need for specialists to act as intermediaries that connect the people to the realm which they so desperately depend on for all their existence.

However, classifying the African traditional religious spiritual realm as impersonal controversially feeds into the colonial view of Africans as superstitious people without religion and worship (Kroesbergen 2019, p. 228). This article uses impersonal to mean that God, the principal source and power of the transcendent realm, is not related to people and the rest of material creation in direct personal terms but through the hierarchy of spirits, which function as mediators between God and humanity (Banda 2022, p. 6). The debate on whether God in ATRs is a personal being or impersonal is endless. Setiloane (1979, p. 60) argues that in ATRs, God is the supreme impersonal “IT”, not a “he”. Setiloane (1979, p. 60) is dismissive of any attempts to personalise God by arguing that a personal God is inferior to the African view of God as an impersonal IT. Setiloane uses IT in capital letters to affirm God’s supremacy and differentiate God from other “it” objects.

On the contrary, Mungwini (2019, p. 80) defends the personhood of God in ATRs in saying the following:

This was a God who could be spoken to and who spoke and pronounced on matters affecting the people at all times, yet it was also a God that unlike human beings and ancestral spirits was shrouded in mystery; a God that was neither male nor female because it was not fully knowable.

While Mungwini is affirmative on God’s personal interaction with his people, Masenya (2023, p. 229) seems to question this by saying that African traditional healers believed that their supernatural abilities to heal came from their ancestors. According to Masenya, ‘It is only in recent times that some such healers have begun referring to God, when speaking about the abilities they possess–abilities endowed by the supernatural’ (Masenya 2023, p. 229). This suggests that even African traditional healers felt a closer presence of their ancestors and a remoteness of God.

However, while it can be argued that ATRs view God as a personal deity, there is a consensus among Africans that God and humanity are separated by a chasm that is only closed by the hierarchy of spirits (Banda 2022, p. 7). According to Mungwini (2019, p. 18), God in ATRs is more interested in large communal affairs than in the personal affairs of individuals. Furthermore, even if one successfully argues that God is a personal being in ATRs, one must contend with Turaki’s (2019a, p. 34) observation:

[O]verwhelming facts do show that, even though Africans generally have an awareness and belief in the Supreme Being, the truth is, this Supreme Being is not known to have been exclusively worshipped by traditional Africans.

Rather, what is witnessed is that “the African divinities and the ancestors, who are the lesser beings, have been actively involved in the everyday religious life of the traditional Africans” (Turaki 2019a, p. 34). Instead of God, it is the divinities and ancestors that “directly receive sacrifices, offerings and prayers offered by the traditional Africans” (Turaki 2019a, p. 34). Ultimately, whatever may be said about the impersonality of the spiritual realm in ATRs, there is the need to take note of Magesa’s (1997, p. 74) point on the African context:

In the final analysis, however, God, acting through the ancestors, but never completely absent from the scene, is the ultimate point of departure and arrival in human [religious and] ethical life.

Magesa’s point is that God personally relates to his people through the moral code shared with the first ancestors, a code which is now passed to all subsequent generations. However, Magesa’s view of this moral code as God’s personal presence among his people seems to replicate the Christian view of the Bible as the word of God. Magesa’s view also has a semblance of the Apostle Paul’s sentiments of God’s natural revelation in Acts 14:17 and Romans 1:18–20. Therefore, the notion of impersonality can be dismissed on the basis that Africans believe that they ultimately encounter God’s personal relationships with them through their ancestors and special religious instruments. However, what is observable in everyday African life is the remoteness of God and the frantic efforts by Africans to connect with him through various spiritual specialists, whose number, and ways of connecting with God, keeps growing all the time (Turaki 2019b, p. 358).

Therefore, when responding to the sacralisation of ANPPs, it is important to recognise its roots in the intense African feeling of God as remote or less directly involved in the daily lives of people. This sense of God as remote and uninvolved in one’s life creates a reliance on spiritual specialists who are regarded as efficient in connecting people with God. Because the spiritual world is not easily accessible to ordinary people and supernatural powers are impersonal, unseen, and unpredictable, people “employ the services of many specialists and religious practices that can effectively link [them] up with the spirit world” (Turaki 2000, p. 21). It is this framework that informs the sacralisation of the prophets in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism.

3. The Sacralisation of the Prophets in African Neo-Pentecostal Prophetism

It can be argued, therefore, that the sacralisation of prophets in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism thrives on the African craving for super-spiritual figures to act as intermediaries between God and human beings. Many followers of ANPPs are motivated by the quest to connect with God and derive from him all that is needed to flourish in this life (Kroesbergen 2019, p. 23). This leads to an attachment to prophets because they are viewed as endowed with some measure of the divine nature of God that gives them autonomous supreme power over their followers, which creates the belief that the prophets are only accountable to God for their actions.

When leaders are sacralised, they are absolutised and elevated above other Christians. In a way, prophets are viewed in quasi-divine terms to such an extent that their followers are satisfied with them in a way that removes their need for God. Sacralisation treats pastors and prophets as God’s viceroys on Earth who must be given unquestioning obedience by Christians. This approach may draw some parallels with the Roman Catholic tradition, where the Pope is the earthly representative of Christ and holds supreme power over the church. However, unlike the Popes, who rise to their office through election, the ANPPs’ are “Men of God” as the descendants of a select few chosen to stand before God and share in his authority (Gunda and Machingura 2013, p. 21). As indicated by Machingura (2017, pp. 100–101), the prophets assert their supremacy in the church by using “catchy words or titles” such as papa, father, man of God, or woman of God—all of which “confirm their domineering statuses over their followers”. In various ways, the neo-Pentecostal prophets project themselves as the powerful “big man of the big God” (Kalu 2008, pp. 103–122). Agazue (2016, p. 2) points out that self-styled prophets establish churches on their own and assign themselves authoritative prophetic titles of their choice. Kgatle (2019, p. 3) highlights that the prophets just assume authoritative prophetic titles like the Major One and Seer One without following the due ecclesiastical processes to obtain such titles. Instead of ecclesiastical processes, the prophets rely on their personal charisma, usually their singular claim that they have received a unique calling from God that separates them from other people. These prophets are sacralised by asserting themselves as “men of God” (women are there, but very few) who have received a unique anointing from God that places them closer to God above other Christians, which makes them “big men” that are spiritually supreme and with unquestioned absolute authority over the church (Gunda and Machingura 2013). The sacralisation of prophetic power promotes a personality cult that leads to the idolisation of prophets (Kgatle 2019, p. 3).

South Africa’s flamboyant prophetic figure Hamilton Qhoshangokwakhe Nala, the leader of Nala Mandate International, is an illustrative example of a religious leader who has absolutised and sacralised himself. Nala adorns himself with the title King Somnala, which in iSiZulu means king of the kingdom of plenty, which he calls the Plentian nation. His followers address him by the iSiZulu title of royalty, “Bayede”, the equivalent of the English “Majesty” (Nala 2016). In one of his addresses, Nala (Siba 760 TV 2023) asserted his unique spiritual supremacy with the claim that he was born with a star on his upper back. This claim asserts his mysterious nature that elevates him above other human beings and gives him supremacy over his followers. As will be shown later for Bushiri, many other prophetic and messianic figures have claimed unique experiences in their birth or youth which have indicated their divine calling. It is important to note that Nala has since recanted Christianity after rejecting the Bible as unreliable, full of errors and contradictions and a colonial book that destroyed Africa by aiding the European colonisation of the continent and continues to weaken African people’s economic power (Nala 2022a, 2022b). Nala has replaced Christianity with a decolonised Afrocentric philosophy he calls Plentianity, meaning a philosophy of plenty. His Plentianity philosophy contains elements of positive confession from the Word of Faith movement and the theology of wealth and prosperity. When critiquing Nala, it is important to bear in mind that his renunciation of Christianity and movement into his Plentianity philosophy are still in a formative and fluid state and therefore subject to many changes.

However, even though Nala has since discarded Christianity, it remains important to consider him when discussing the sacralisation of religious leaders because his conduct and his shift from Christianity to his Plentianity philosophy both illustrate the possible ultimate destination of church leaders who sacralise themselves. Nala’s transition from a pastor to a sacralised supreme leader can be seen in various forms in the lives of African messianic figures, who begin by questioning the sufficiency of Jesus Christ in Africa and querying the integrity of the Bible and thereafter progressively replace these with their own philosophies, leaning on ATRs, until they either marginalise or completely discard Christ and the Bible and enact themselves as autonomous messianic leaders. For instance, Nala began to be addressed as Bayede while he still professed Christianity (Nala 2016). Nala’s promotion of the Word of Faith principles that undergird his Plentianity philosophy traces back to his days as a Christian faith healer (Nala 2016). He is now an autonomous spiritual leader who is the supreme authority in his church or movement.

Nala’s rejection of Christian doctrine and discrediting of the Bible have both been useful in his self-construction as an autonomous messianic figure overseeing his followers. His followers view him as an omnipresent saviour who can miraculously rescue them in times of crisis (Nala 2022b). He has declared that he has the power to heal cancer and HIV and AIDS and protect people from bullets and robbers (Nala 2022b). He has tactfully and intentionally sacralised his cultic personality by contrasting himself with Jesus Christ, and in the process, has discredited Christ as either a lie, irrelevant to Africans, or simply unavailable to save Africans. Nala stated the following:

During the time you believed in Jesus what did you want? You wanted Jesus to take you to heaven, or not to burn in heaven after death. […] You had been told that you can ask anything from Jesus, and he would do it. You were told that he will protect you from all dangers. […] But, when the robbers attacked you, did you see Jesus coming to save you? When you were being shot at, did you see Jesus coming to protect you from the bullets? Did you see him? What is it about Jesus that made you believe he is the saviour?

(Nala 2022b).1

In this excerpt, Nala erases Jesus from the religious life of his people and inserts himself as the saviour of his people. He presents himself as omnipresent and omnipotent to save his followers from any danger. Nala discredits Jesus as a messiah who is only helpful for eschatological purposes. Nala then inserts himself as the messiah who saves his people according to their present needs.

Nala invalidates confidence in Christ by asking, “What is it about Jesus that made you believe he is the saviour?” In other words, from Nala’s perspective, how can people continue to believe that Jesus is the saviour when he is absent in their present troubles, and all he can do is save them from a yet-unexperienced hell that lies in the distant future? Yet, on the other hand, people have given testimony of seeing Nala deflect bullets targeted at them, saving them from robbers. Nala therefore asks the people to make a decision about him by categorically stating the following:

Now that there is someone who can heal you from cancer, from HIV and AIDS, from bullets, from robbers, why do you continue saying you want Jesus whom you have never seen?”

(Nala 2022b)2

With these words, Nala, presents himself as better than Jesus, constructs his personality cult, and absolutises himself by challenging the power and relevance of Christ. Nala sees himself as omnipresent and omnipotent and therefore more relevant to the African context “to such an extent that he even dares to replace Him [Christ]” (Mngadi 2021, p. 26). Nala buttressed his self-sacralisation by narrating how he responded when questioned about who he thought he was, to which he responded by saying:

I think I am a mystery, even as I sit here I don’t know how to explain myself, I am a mystery that is puzzling itself.

(Nala 2022b)

These utterances open Nala to the charge of subtly claiming a form of deity. He can be accused of seeing himself as God or comparing himself with God, as when God says to Moses, “I am who I am” (Ex 3:14). In a similar fashion, Nala says he is who he is. As Mngadi (2021, p. 26) points out, in the prophetic churches, there “is a strong drive in these circles to have an African Christianity without Christ at the centre”, to draw attention to the prophets’ attempts to establish religious systems that replace or compete with Christ. The various authors in the monograph edited by Kgatle et al. (2022) describe the various ways in which some African neo-Pentecostal prophets try to do away with Christ in their ministries.

Nala’s logic of self-sacralisation is amply visible, albeit in a mild form, among many new prophets in South Africa who construct their own unique autonomous spiritual supremacy. In various ways, the prophets idolise themselves, presenting themselves as a measure of divinity. For example, Prophet Lesego Daniel, leader of the Rabboni Centre Ministries, was reported by Frahm-Arp (2023) to receive confessions of sins from his followers and announce their absolution. Daniel’s absolution is different from the practice of the Roman Catholic Church, where the priest gives absolution or assurance of forgiveness as an earthly ritual that expresses a divine and spiritual reality, the power and authority of which lie with God (Frahm-Arp 2023, p. 5). Rather, Daniel is the one that forgives. As a result, in the lived theology of Daniel’s followers, Jesus has played no role in their understanding of confession and forgiveness because they “understood that God’s forgiveness of sins was dependent on the Prophet forgiving them” (Frahm-Arp 2023, p. 2). Having been sacralised, “the Prophet determined what was considered sinful, who was forgiven, and who had access to the gift of being reunited with the Prophet and the church community” (Frahm-Arp 2023, p. 2).

Another high-profile prophet that substantially employs the logic of self-sacralisation is the Malawian born Prophet Shepherd Bushiri, who asserted his spiritual supremacy through a video recording that showed him walking on air (The Citizen 2015). Another video depicts angels appearing in his church services (Heavenly Spiritual Channel 2018). Bushiri (2019) buttressed his self-sacralisation when he testified that he had a unique interpersonal relationship with God and that when he received his prophetic commission at the age of 10, God took him to heaven and gave him, among other things, the keys to access the ministries of God’s kingdom. In that testimony, Bushiri said that God took him to paradise, where nobody is allowed but he was allowed, and was shown something like a monitoring screen that monitors everyone’s life, and God told him that he is a mystery that will never be understood and God would kill anyone who managed to understand Bushiri (Bushiri 2019).

In these prophets’ testimonies about themselves, they present themselves as God’s unique people who function as intermediaries between God and people. By receiving people’s confessions of sins and pronouncing them to be forgiven (Daniel) and claiming to have access to God’s monitor that surveils people (Bushiri), these prophets assert their spiritual supremacy over other people. These prophets effectively construct their personality cult by saying God has destined them to be supreme spiritual agents. Thus, Kgatle (2019, p. 3) shows that the sacralisation of prophets promotes a personality cult that leads to the idolisation of prophets.

More importantly, by sacralising themselves, these prophets affirm and promote the African traditional religious need for special human agents to connect people to the spiritual world that brings them human flourishing. Those who put their faith in them and follow their teachings will be connected to a divine power that will take away their poverty, disease, and suffering. What needs to be noted is that prophets like Nala ultimately promise to fulfil for their followers what they have failed to find in Christ. These prophets therefore substitute Christ, and to an extent, even God is substituted. Kalu’s (2008, p. 112) evaluation is that ANPPs have shifted the biblical view of pastors as servants, to pastors as revered supreme leaders. Consequently, “where Paul called himself a bondservant, the new pastor engages in a personality cult, and flaunts his person, wealth, and status” (Kalu 2008, p. 112). The flaunting of wealth and status is significant in the sacralisation of prophets because it presents the prophets as spiritual conquerors who have defeated the devil. The devil is seen as the author of poverty and suffering. As Adelakun (2023, p. 112) points out, material prosperity “helps the creation and condemnation of devils by shaping a sacralized ‘self’ that will symbolize the good/light/God with the power—the immense wealth, that is—to vanquish poverty causing devils”. Since God is invisible, “His viceroys on earth, the pastor, […] take His place and have us look at them as if we were looking up to God” (Adelakun 2023, p. 112).

Self-sacralisation is evident in how the pastors “spectacularize themselves and make their embodied self the visual focal point and point of contact to divine power” (Adelakun 2023, p. 112). Consequently, Zimbabwe’s Prophet Urbert Angel can say his personal life is the fertile ground on which people must sow their seeds by tithes and other special offerings and gifts if they want to attain material wealth (Angel 2013, pp. 83–98). By projecting themselves as the ground on which Christians must sow their seeds, they sacralise themselves as the points of contact with God that lead to freedom from demonic poverty, the hellfire of their perilous social conditions, and the believers’ attainment of their own power identity with God (Adelakun 2023, p. 112). In essence, the prophets sacralise themselves by projecting themselves as the points for connecting with God. A critical danger of this sacralisation of the prophets is arming church leaders to subvert the New Testament’s notion of the equality of believers by asserting the spiritual supremacy of leaders over the church. In turn, this provides grounds for the personalisation of the church.

4. The Resultant Personalisation of the Church by Sacralised Prophets

The sacralisation of the prophets provides grounds for the prophets to personalise their followers and the church in general. The Cambridge dictionary defines personalisation as involving “the act of changing an object or adding to it so that it is obvious that it belongs to or comes from you” (Cambridge Dictionary 2024).3 In other words, personalisation, among other things, means to “mark as the property of a particular person” (Merrian-Webster Dictionary 2024, p. n.p.). Therefore, this article uses personalisation to describe prophets’ treatment of their followers and the church as their personal possessions, which invariably entails making Christians dependent on them for their spiritual needs and spiritual identity. The signs of personalisation include territorial references to the church as “my ministry”, which, in most cases, is accompanied by them making their followers wear or display some form or sign of submission to the prophet. This includes various forms of insignia bearing the identity of the prophet, such as regalia bearing the prophet’s personal name or portrait (sometimes, the portrait of the prophet and his wife). A prominent way in which ANPPs personalise the church is through the idea that their prophetic power provides spiritual covering over their followers to protect them from the devil and to bring them blessings. Therefore, leaving the prophet’s church is an act of exiting the spiritual covering that provides protection and blessings. Sacralisation leads the prophets to personalise their followers as people dependent on them for their very lives.

This personalisation of the church by prophets is closely related to the commercialisation of the gospel, which leads to the exploitation of the church. Commercialisation of the gospel has been mockingly described by Chitando et al. (2013, p. 9) as “gospelprenuership” and by Machingura (2017, p. 101) as “humantheism” and “moneytheism”. These different words describe the way in which prophets use their claim of God’s anointing in their lives to pursue their own personal human satisfaction and accumulation of wealth. A serious challenge is that some of these prophets seem to care less about discipleship, which is the core of God’s mission, as they charge exorbitant consultation fees for one one-to-one sessions with people seeking their spiritual services (Pondani 2019, p. 45). ANPPs derive the power to charge exorbitant fees for their prophetic services from their self-sacralisation.

Personalisation is demonstrated in the demonisation of members who leave the church and them being threatened with all sorts of curses for leaving the cover of the “man of God’s anointing” (Maxwell 2006, p. 154). With a regular weekly or bi-weekly intensity of programmes, and even a blocked number of days of deliverance sessions, the prophets develop “a ‘dependency syndrome’ among their followers who look up to them as people of power with the abilities to protect and provide solutions to all their problems” (Golo 2023, pp. 168–169). This deep need for spiritual security in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism leads to the use of icons or prophetic products, such as anointed water, anointed oil, the prophet’s portrait, waistbands, and wristbands, among many things, which are thought to bring deliverance, healing, and protection from evil spirits (Biri 2012, p. 8; 2021, pp. 26–28).

Personalisation leads to the infantilisation of believers by treating followers as personal children of the prophet that require the prophet’s absolute guidance and protection. It is common in Pentecostal circles for people to classify themselves as children of the pastors or prophets of the churches they belong to (Dube 2018; Kgatle 2021, 2023). There is a sense in which that when followers make declarations such as “I am the child of papa”, what is at play is a deep sense of childlike dependence on the prophet as the supreme protector or a supreme link to the protective and providential power of God. In African neo-Pentecostal prophetism, “belief that the present life is under constant attack from evil spirits undergirds the practice of spiritual parenting” (Dube 2018, p. 3). Therefore child–parental relations express confidence in the prophet’s power to liberate and shield the concerned believer from their spiritual fears. The problem with this is the messianism embedded into “celebritysim” (Resane 2017, p. 3) that elevates prophets above the church. This leads to a life of faith that is dependent on prophets instead of personal faith in God.

However, of great concern is the tendency of prophets to personalise their followers by destroying the faith systems that give Christians the independence to establish their own individual direct dependence on God. Sadly, the personalisation of the church and the sacralisation of the prophet suppress critical thinking among believers, as they slavishly yield to these prophets’ authority and control. Having been personalised by their prophets, church members feel disabled and powerless to resist abusive behaviour.

5. The Undermining of Christ’s Redemption in Sacralisation and Personalisation

From a Christian soteriological perspective, the problem with the sacralisation of the prophets and their subsequent personalisation of the church is the prophets’ invalidation of Christ’s work of redemption and replacement of it with a religion that enslaves Christians with fear. Fear, particularly fear of disconnection from God, leading to vulnerability to demons and curses, is a formidable tool for perpetrating sacralisation and personalisation in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism (Dube 2018, p. 6). This reflects an African traditional religious idea where spiritual specialists like inyanga have the power to connect or disconnect a person from spiritual sources of wellbeing. There is a strong belief in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism that the money and material things that followers give to the prophets play a role in them receiving blessings from God because each time the prophet uses the gift, it will remind him to intercede for the giver (Dube 2018, p. 6). But from a Christian soteriological perspective, this undermines, among other doctrines, Christ’s redemptive work that connects believers with God through faith in Christ.

The Christian doctrine of salvation affirms that God has, through the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross, redeemed sinners from sin’s guilt and enslavement by Satan (Col 1:13–14). A sound understanding of Christ’s atoning work for sinners is essential in the desacralisation of the prophets and the depersonalisation of the church in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism. There are, however, some basic points that can be highlighted that challenge ANPPs’ self-sacralisation and their personalisation of the church. In its basic form, atonement negates the practice of prophets attempting to connect Christians with God through self-sacralising and personalising the church. A foundational aspect in the Christian doctrine of atonement is Jesus’ priestly ministry, which emphasises his exclusive work in reconciling the world with God (Heb 5:6; 6:20; 7:21). Kunhiyop (2012, p. 85) amplifies Bancroft (1976, p. 111) in describing biblical priests as “God-appointed mediators between God and [hu]man[ity] through whose intercession, by the offering of blood, atonement is made and justification obtained for the guilty sinner (Lev 4:16–18)”. There are, at least, three important redemptive achievements of Christ’s priestly function:

• Jesus acted on behalf of people before God (Mic 6:6–7; Heb 10:4–7; 7:26–27);
• Jesus offered the perfect, final and permanent sacrifice for all people (Heb 9:11–14; 10:12–14);
• Jesus, the perfect priest, now intercedes for humanity before God (Heb 7:25; Rom 8:34; John 17:1–26) (Grudem 1994, pp. 626–628; Kunhiyop 2012, p. 85).

The doctrine of atonement therefore invalidates the sacralisation of the ANPPs and their subsequent personalisation of the church by pointing out that Jesus Christ, as the sinless and perfect God–Human, is the only one qualified to reconcile God and humanity. The atonement of Christ invalidates the sacralisation of ANPPs by reminding them that they too are just as sinful as all other human beings. They therefore do not qualify to be intermediaries between God and humanity. But Jesus, as the perfect sacrifice, has sufficiently and exclusively fulfilled for all humanity the requirements for the ransom of sins and the expatiation of God’s wrath. An important aspect of atonement that is ignored or undermined in the sacralisation of the prophets and the personalisation of the church is Christ’s priestly role of continually interceding for Christians to God. Unlike the ANPPs, Jesus Christ who conquered sin and death “is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Rom 8:34). This biblical presentation of Jesus Christ as seated at the right hand of God desacralises all systems and functionaries that claim to mediate between God and humanity by calling people to place their faith exclusively in the one who sits in the very presence of God.

6. The Freedom of Christ in Desacralising the Prophets and Depersonalising the Church

Sacralisation and personalisation in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism take away the spiritual freedom that God has given to Christians by adding an enslaving culture of fear that ties Christians to the prophets for spiritual security. ANPPs impose a salvation based on connecting to God through prophets, which invalidates the freedom Christ secured for believers through his death on the cross. The prophets distance Christ from believers by instilling a sense of vulnerability in Christians who are not connected to them. This must be remedied by replacing the fear of the prophets with confidence in the freedom and deliverance of believers through Christ’s death on the cross. Adelakun (2023, p. 106) calls on African neo-Pentecostal prophetism to realise the significance of the breaking of the veil of the temple in two right after the death of Jesus (Lk 23:44–47). As Adelakun (2023) expresses,

The veil was the curtain that separated the place—the holy of holies—which only the priest accessed in order to mediate between God and [hu]man[ity]; and it was a space from which ordinary congregants were barred admission. The ripping of the temple cloth, the physical and symbolic barrier between God and humans, was thus a significant event in the history of the relationship between humankind and God. It granted humans direct access to God.

(p. 106)

Contained in this important reminder is Christ’s redemption having ushered in and enabled access to God for all people (Heb 10:19). And this access is exclusively through Christ and not through any other person or system (1 Tim 2:5). Furthermore, that Christ’s redemption has granted all humans direct access to God means equal access for all people in all nations (Eph 2:13).

Furthermore, the freedom of Christ brought about by his redemptive work on the cross calls for Christians in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism to think in new ways that desacralise their prophets and depersonalise Christ’s church. An important issue in African Christianity that must urgently be addressed is the tendency to revive and hold onto oppressive worldviews, resisting new ways of thinking that are informed and transformed by Christ’s resurrected presence and power. This is, perhaps, one of the major weaknesses of decolonisation’s attempts to shake off the colonial baggage that seeks an imaginary glorious African past instead of imagining a new African future (Speckman 2007, p. xviii). As already pointed out, the sacralisation of prophets and the decolonisation of the church mirror many aspects of ATRs and ultimately mark a revival of the traditional reliance on traditional systems such as traditional healers and ancestors (Biri 2012, p. 7; 2021, p. 30). Interestingly, even African theologians such as Kwame Bediako (1995, pp. 216–230) have not seemed interested in jettisoning this very detrimental framework, rather retaining and affirming it with their ancestors’ Christology.

Yet Christ’s freedom offered to Christians demands that this compulsive African need for intermediaries be rethought because it promotes religiosity based on reliance on spiritual specialists instead of Christ. The crucial starting points in this process include questioning the spiritualistic worldview of life that undermines other facets such as logic and human responsibility, critically thinking through the implications of the biblical affirmation of Christ as the only mediator between God and people, and critically reflecting on the sufficiency of Christ’s redemptive work in the unique African context in which African believers live. Furthermore, the followers of ANPPs need to be challenged to reconsider their spiritual worldview, which is limited by prophets’ power and fails to imagine life outside a prophet’s anointed presence, to the point of weakening their direct reliance on Christ.

African neo-Pentecostal prophetism needs to realise that Christ’s cross “democratize[d] the anointing”, which means that “by virtue of being born again, [all] Christians are God’s anointed” (Adelakun 2023, p. 106). God now relates personally with all his disciples because Christ’s redemptive work on the cross democratised access to God’s anointing. This democratisation desacralises all intermediaries that impose themselves between God and his people. This does not mean that church leaders have no authority over the church, for indeed, they have been given much authority (Heb 13:17), but this means that they exercise their authority in a desacralised manner that does not personalise God’s church. The freedom of Christ demands that believers think in new ways that liberate them and do not “mimic the hierarchical structures prevalent in the secular order such that even within the body of Christ, the equity of Christian brotherhood yields to power—the urge to use it, and the will to dominate” (Adelakun 2023, p. 106).

It is acknowledged that some prophets do project a high view of the Bible. However, the problem is that they then interpret it in oppressive ways that allow them to sacralise their authority and to personalise their followers. With the prophets that replace or minimise the authority of Bible, the problem is them destroying believers’ independent foundations of faith, which creates a vacuum that leaves people spiritually vulnerable. The prophets then fill this vacuum they have created with their messianic philosophies that allow them to personalise the congregation. ANPPs who demolish the centrality and authority of the Bible in Christian faith act as messianic functionaries who assert their own personal uniqueness as mediators between God and humanity.

7. Conclusions

The high prevalence of sacralising prophets in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism, which results in these prophets’ personalisation of the church, must be critiqued and reformed from a soteriological view of the freedom Christ’s redemption gives to Christians. ANPPs must reconsider their tendency to follow a prophetic system informed by ATRs that sacralises the human intermediaries between God and people. Instead, they should follow a system that is based on the cross of Christ, which has given freedom. It must be noted that instead of sacralising the prophets, the redemption of Christ desacralises them by giving all human beings equal access to the direct presence of God. Furthermore, the cross stands against the personalisation of the church by reminding Christian leaders that the church belongs to Christ exclusively. The personalisation of followers and the sacralisation of the authority of the prophets in African neo-Pentecostal prophetism are serious issues that threaten the integrity of Christianity in Africa. A greater responsibility lies with empowering Christians in African neo-Pentecostal churches to avoid sacralisation and personalisation by thinking about Christian life in new ways that are informed by Christ’s liberative work instead of ATRs. To experience the full extent of the freedom of Christ, African Christianity, as a whole, must urgently address its tendency to revive and hold on to oppressive worldviews instead of thinking in new ways that are informed and transformed by Christ’s resurrected presence and power.