Related articles and links |  1 of 3

Returning to Nigeria a year after so many attended his evangelistic crusades that 16 were crushed to death, German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke is expecting even more.

Bonnke—a German recognized throughout Africa for his charismatic crusades—drew a crowd of half a million people who came and stood shoulder-to-shoulder on 80 acres of open ground to hear the Pentecostal evangelist speak.

Last night, November 7, marked the opening of Bonnke's "Great Millennial Crusade"—a six-day meeting that most likely will result in Bonnke's largest crusade to date. By the end of the week, when attendance is predicted to exceed 2 million, it could also signify one of the largest Christian gatherings ever recorded.

The event is being held in the southern city of Lagos, Nigeria's biggest community with a population of around 13 million people. Poverty stricken and plagued with countless diseases, Nigeria is a breeding ground for religious and political turmoil. A British colony until the late 1950s, the country struggled severely under the leadership of harsh dictators after gaining its independence. Last year, Nigerians elected their first president, Olusegun Obasanjo, in a democracy that is still fighting to stay alive.

Along religious lines, the country is sharply divided by a Muslim north and a Christian south. In the past year, several northern states have implemented the controversial Shari'a law, a strict Islamic social and penal code that regulates the Muslim lifestyle and calls for stricter rules on women, segregation between males and females in schools, and stronger punishments such as stoning or beheading for criminals.

In a country with over 400 ethnic groups, different tribes are always at odds in Nigeria, particularly the Hausa-Fulanis of the north and the Yoruba people of the south. Clashes intensified last month between these two groups as hundreds were killed in Lagos-based riots.

With such intense turmoil setting the stage here this week, Nigerians were clearly interested in the promise that Bonnke had extended on crusade advertisements reading, "Come and receive your miracle." Almost all people in Lagos are in need of a miracle of some kind. For many, day-to-day survival has become the main goal.

Speaking to an endless sea of faces from center stage, Bonnke shouted to the crowd, "Jesus is the Savior of Nigeria!" The lively audience cried out in response, waving their hands in anticipation. Many who attended had walked for hours before arriving at the large field just outside of the city.

After presenting a "hot gospel message," as Bonnke called it, the evangelist prayed for the sick, assuring people that hundreds of miracles were about to happen. "Paralyzed people are going to walk," Bonnke promised as the healing service began. "The blind will see."

Hundreds of people soon poured to the front of the field to profess the miracles that they claimed to have experienced. One woman named Judith brought her six-year-old daughter to the stage and said God had healed her from a stomach tumor. Sobbing uncontrollably, the woman said her daughter has been sick for five years. "God took it away," she cried, pointing to the child's abdomen.

Stories such as this have led to Bonnke's fame throughout Africa as a miracle-worker. "We always pray for the sick—we feel like that's what God has called us to do," says Peter van den Berg, vice president of Bonnke's Christ For All Nations (CFAN) ministry.

Others, however, question the promises that Bonnke extends to a nation ravaged by almost every imaginable problem. Scott Ennis, an Assembly of God missionary in Jos, Nigeria, says that appealing to a strong sense of the supernatural is enticing to Africans because their culture reveres witchcraft and magic. But Don Corbin, U.S. Assemblies of God Foreign Missions regional director for Africa, cautions against abusing this factor. "We don't believe in wholesaling the supernatural," he says. "The danger is building on the sensational rather than the eternal."

next page... |  1 of 3

share this page

November (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44