A prophet in South Africa, Prophet Theo
Bongani Maseko of the Breath of Christ
Ministries in Daveyton, has sparked outrage yet
again after he made his church members drink
engine oil .
According to him, it tastes like honey and
drinking the oil demonstrates “the power of
God”.
Photographs of people drinking the fluid during
church service were posted on his church’s
Facebook page. They had a caption which read:
"The fullness of Christ is in this bottle.
Healing and strange deliverance
#Mark16:17 -18."
In an interview with The Star on Monday,
Maseko confirmed he had made his
congregants drink the chemical. Asked why he
had used this method, he said it was “to
demonstrate the power of God”.
“When we pray over anything, its poison
dies. So it can’t harm people. Nothing
happened, no one has been to hospital,”
he said.
On the contrary, he said, congregants who had
drunk the engine cleaner had been “saved,
healed and delivered”. He backed up his claims
by citing Bible verses.
“Jesus spat on the ground and made
mud. He took that mud and smeared it
on the eyes of a blind man and,
instantly, that blindness was healed.
Mark 16 v 17-18 says ‘in My name shall
they cast out devils; they shall speak
with new tongues. They shall take up
serpents; and if they drink any deadly
thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall
lay hands on the sick, and they shall
recover’,” he said.
Maseko said no one needed to go to the
hospital.
This practice has however been condemned by
South Africa's Commission for Promotion and
Protection of the Rights of Religious, Cultural
and Linguistic Communities. Its Chairperson,
Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva, was livid at the latest
incident.
She urged religious leaders to rally together and
bring an end to what she described as
“reckless” abuse of Christianity.
“A lot of people are going to die one of
these days; we are fortunate that has
not happened. A lot of people’s lives are
at risk here,” she said.
