{"id":2096,"date":"2006-05-13T23:12:59","date_gmt":"2006-05-13T23:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/pastor-sunday.html"},"modified":"2006-05-13T23:12:59","modified_gmt":"2006-05-13T23:12:59","slug":"pastor-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/pastor-sunday.html","title":{"rendered":"Pastor Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

This, via Zadok<\/a> – Nigerian mega-Christianity meets….the Ukraine?<\/p>\n

Pastor Sunday Adelaja’s a big success in Kiev:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Alarmed at his burgeoning congregation, the Church has launched a counter attack, seeking to portray Mr Adelaja as a charlatan.<\/p>\n

"Our main problem is that Sunday Adeleja has created a personality cult around himself," said Fr Evstratiy, a spokesman for the Kiev Patriarchate.<\/p>\n

"Experts say he uses conscience manipulation techniques. He starts his sermons in a low, ingratiating voice, and gradually gets heated up to the point where he is running round the stage screaming." At a recent service at a Kiev ice hockey stadium 14,000 people crammed in to experience the effect.<\/p>\n

As "Pastor Sunday" prepared to make a grand entrance, the choirgirls shook their pompoms, the disco lights started to flash and a fanfare sounded. The lights cut out, and Mr Adelaja emerged from a shroud of dry ice. Children holding flags of the world wafted round him and the choir bellowed "Sanctus!"<\/p>\n

The congregation responded enthusiastically. Many danced in the aisles. With his eyes closed and brows furrowed in concentration, he raised his arms aloft. A hush fell over the audience.<\/p>\n

"A man who is having problems functioning in his manly area, God is healing you," he intoned. "Those who are having skin problems, God is healing you."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The church’s website<\/a><\/p>\n

The pastor’s website<\/a><\/p>\n

Another, more positive view by Lee Grady of Charisma magazine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This, via Zadok – Nigerian mega-Christianity meets….the Ukraine? Pastor Sunday Adelaja’s a big success in Kiev: Alarmed at his burgeoning congregation, the Church has launched a counter attack, seeking to portray Mr Adelaja as a charlatan. "Our main problem is that Sunday Adeleja has created a personality cult around himself," said Fr Evstratiy, a spokesman…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nPastor Sunday - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/pastor-sunday.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pastor Sunday - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This, via Zadok – Nigerian mega-Christianity meets….the Ukraine? Pastor Sunday Adelaja’s a big success in Kiev: Alarmed at his burgeoning congregation, the Church has launched a counter attack, seeking to portray Mr Adelaja as a charlatan. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}