The Sunday Mail
THE Christian world has lately been experiencing growth as a number of prophets spring up to start new ministries that thrive on physical demonstrations of spiritual power.
Most of these prophets have gained popularity for their various miraculous exploits, attracting multitudes of believers who would also want to experience, witness and benefit from this power.
With the major pull factor being healing and prosperity, congregants are encouraged to “seed” in order to realise their dreams and this in turn has led to many of these men of the cloth amassing tremendous wealth.
Some people question the authenticity of these ministries, while adherents swear by their divinity.
Legal practitioner Patony P Musendo has written a novel, “The Emmaculate Calling”, which delves into some of the shenanigans that go on behind the scenes in some of these ministries.
From the ugly side of church politics to the orchestration of fake miracles, this piece of fiction digs deep into the Christian world.
Yes, the book is fictional, but it still challenged my views on the spiritual landscape and as I was reading I started questioning some of the incidents that were transpiring within the Christian domain.
The protagonist, Emmaculate, goes on a crusade to unmask a dubious prophet while at the same time trying to help a pastor win an election for a position in another church.
What starts off as an endeavour to quench her curiosity leads to her exposing a web of the church underworld in which leaders use witchcraft and other devious means to gain power and wealth.
There is a raging battle in one church where pastors use dirty tactics to elevate their positions in the hierarchy.
Another interesting character in the book is Prophet Gareth, who pays people to fake disability so that when he “prays” for them, they appear to have been healed — a gimmick that Emmaculate unmasks.
Another prophet, Oracle Shoko, acquires power after a visit to North Africa and upon returning to the motherland starts performing miracles and opens his own church.
Shoko uses deception, manipulating his connections to influence events to turn out as he would have “prophesied.”
This is a hard-to-put-down book, with the author creatively crafting links that bring together ordinary people, pastors, prophets, fetish priests, politicians, the media and the police.
A major setback is that there is no real background to the protagonist, whose profession is not clearly highlighted.
The style is plain and simple and could have benefited from other literary to spice things up.
Musendo does compensate with his plotting abilities, with a storyline that magnetises the reader to continue flipping pages.
A timely read if ever there was one.
