Our International Investigations aid South Africa’s fight against spiritual pornography—this month we focus on “Major/Prophet/Papa” Shepherd Bushiri

Major Prophet Shepherd Bushiri coming out of his jet

We recently engaged in discussions providing information and assistance to the South African Secular Society, who are attempting to help their fledgling democratic government develop legislation and case law to combat religious fraud and excess in South Africa—and there’s loads of it.  It’s sad to say, but the US has exported the “name-it, claim-it” gospel around the world—to the poorest people of the world.  Ole Anthony calls it spiritual pornography—self-seeking in the name of God which soon becomes spiritual cancer.

Nowhere is this bald-faced lie more glaring and destructive than in Africa where the great majority of workers earn less than a dollar a day.

“Planting your seed” is nowadays generally taught to mean donating your money into a ministry to get some sort of blessing, either financial success or physical healing.  It never works for the poor but quite like a fraudulent pyramid scheme, it only enriches its prosperity preacher proponents at the top of the pyramid who live in luxury and use donor funds as their personal bank account.

Think “spiritual porn” is a bit of an exaggeration?  Watch Malawi born mega-church pastor Shepherd Bushiri’s arrival and reception to the adulation of tens’ of thousands and some of his parlor trick performances here.  Among other pseudo miracles, Bushiri claims he can walk on air, photograph angels with a “random” IPAD, and prophesy the future.

Bushiri’s first name is ironic—a shepherd is supposed to care for his flock and place his charge’s interests over his own.  QZ.com, a Global Online newspaper whose main office is in New York, reports Mr. Bushiri recently acquired a Gulfstream III jet and claimed on Facebook it’s “My third jet in two years”. [1]

Bushiri is pastor of the Enlightened Church Gathering (ECG) with its largest congregation in Pretoria and branches across the African Continent.  It claims to have over 300,000 registered members.

Also president of Shepherd Bushiri Investments (SBI) and the Bushiri Consultancy in Dubai, he claims massive wealth.  According to Malawi’s Nyasa Times, Bushiri is a billionaire entrepreneur whose ventures include gold mines, oil exploration and production, SB Airways which charters private jets in South Africa, a mobile phone service provider called PSB Network in South Africa, hotels in South Africa and Mauritius (a small island west of Madagascar), producing and selling an energy drink called “Favor”, as well as several other companies in Dubai, Ethiopia, Cyprus, and Zambia.

Bushiri is not alone among African pastors who own or whose ministries own corporate jets.  The largest concentration of private preacher jets is located in Nigeria.  We intend to report more on this in future posts.

inside Bushiri’s jet

 

More from South Africa:  Last month we reported that Pastor Timothy Omotoso of the Jesus Dominion International ministry was arrested and charged with sex trafficking April 20 by a South African law enforcement organization similar to the FBI.   More here… 

[1] Lily Kuo, ANNOINTED—Malawian pastor defends buying a third private jet by saying, “I am what God says.. I was born a winner”, QZ.com, Quartz Media, January 2016