By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
August 8, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

He has been widely described as a famous Nigerian pastor. But most of the media publicity swirling around his pastoral activities makes Prophet TB Joshua seem like a bona fide Ghanaian man of the cloth. Indeed, those who believe in his healing powers claim he is a great man of God, although one or two of his disgrntled former acolytes and associates have written and spoken in unflattering terms about the man.

My business here, however, is not to weigh in on either side of the TB Joshua Debate, but simply to observe the fact that if, indeed, he is generously endowed with the healing powers that his followers claim that he has, then, of course, there is no gainsaying the positivity of Prophet Joshua's decision to donate some 2,000 bottles of anointed healing water to those West African countries hardest hit by the latest onslaught of the Ebola virus (See "TB Joshua: I Can Heal Ebola Patients With Anointing Water" Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 8/8/14).

I choose not to quibble over the fact of whether, indeed, Prophet Joshua has even half of the healing powers he claims to have and his disciples and patients affirm he has. What I firmly believe and that which I can personally testify from experience, is the incontrovertible fact that there is a metaphysical or spiritual aspect to every material phenomenon and entity in our solar system. And also, the fact that the esoteric nature of prophetic healing is so preternatural that it cannot be routinely subjected to the sort of positivistic investigation and analysis of modern science.

Nonetheless, prophetic healing such as allegedly engaged by Pastor Joshua is a science of its own. His alleged claim of having foreseen and publicly predicted the onslaught of the Ebola virus early this year, is about the one aspect of his homilectics on Ebola that I am a bit tempted to query, if only because as a man of God, Pastor Joshua could well in advance have interceded on behalf of the prospective victims long before the onset of this most deadly disease. For, to be certain, knowing about the near-future outbreak of such a horrendous disease and apparently doing nothing positive to stop it in its tracks, except to trail its devastating wake, after the fact, with 2,000 bottles of "anointed" water, does not seem to me like a very positive and/or constructive approach to prophetic deliverance.

Rather, it smacks of abject cynicism and heroic self-indulgence or sheer narcissism. In other words, what I crave to know from the leader of the Synagoge Church of All Nations (SCOAN) regards why Prophet Joshua evidently decided to stand idly by until the Ebola virus wasted nearly 1,000 lives before deciding to anoint 2,000 bottles of water to help stem the apocalyptic tide of this epidemic. Even as I write, the disease has been reported to have struck a fifth nation, Benin, aside from Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. And just what has Prophet Joshua done about the equally deadly epidemic of cholera, which is widely reported to have become an annual ritual blood bath in Ghana, a country in which Prophet Joshua appears to spend as much time as he does in his home country of Nigeria?

I also tend to believe that inasmuch as the healing powers of men of God, such as he claims to be, has relevance in the uphill battle against deadly epidemics such as cholera and Ebola, nevertheless, highly influential religious leaders like Prophet Joshua have a bounden obligation to underscore the need for the sound practice of both personal and environmental hygiene to his congregations and followers. In the case of the widely alleged spiritual adviser to the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, Prophet Joshua, if he has not already been doing so, could regularly invite notable and distinguished health experts to educate his multiple congregations in Ghana and Nigeria.

The preceding could go a long way in remarkably reducing the catastrophic bite and reach of the aforementioned epidemics. For it goes without saying that the most effective way to go at Ebola is the whollistic and complementary approach.

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