A growing brand of new Pentecostal churches in southern Africa is known to emphasise the prosperity gospel, deliverance, miracles and healing.
Miracles, including people apparently rising from the dead, are just one of the contentious issues swirling around these churches. Pastors have been the subject of sensational media headlines for spraying congregants with insecticide or making them eat grass, selfies taken in heaven, or claims of fraud and rape.
In response to these kinds of abuses, the South African government even established an independent cultural commission which created a special committee “to deal with issues in the religious sector”.
