In 2004, geneticist Dean Hamer wrote a book called The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes. In it, he proposed that gene VMAT2 may be partially responsible for some people’s propensity for religious belief, due to the way it interacts with our monoamine levels, which includes serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. So the way I understand it, this gene may get some people high on religious ritual. That’s extremely reductive, but from what I witnessed as someone who grew up going to church, whereas Bible stories and church rituals made me feel dead inside, other people really got into it with their full bodies and minds—convulsing, yelling, and dancing like they were on bath salts. Convinced that something miraculous was happening when the minister invoked Jesus, even though everyone in the church community knew his own housekeeping wasn’t done because his son just got expelled from school. I could never unsee the hypocrisy and ignore the immoral condemnation of everyone who didn’t believe the stories we were telling. And we didn’t have those megachurches up here in secular Canada, this was just an ordinary neighborhood church hell-bent on capturing my mind.
Plus, there’s just one story after another coming out about greedy, lustful, wrathful preachers leading thousands of followers to excuse or commit the very sins they preach against. From the Church’s funding of the slave trade to their hoarding of stolen wealth acquired through colonization and genocide to their mass murder of women to their mass rape of children — and that’s just one religion — Christianity has proven to be a home for the worst of humanity while masquerading as the best.
The newest story to emerge is that of so-called Prophet TB Joshua based in Lagos, Nigeria. The things this man did to his followers are sociopathic, depraved, and disgusting, and he did it all “in the name of God.” He was called “Man of God” by the people who were convinced he was performing miracles, all while he lied, swindled, enslaved, and molested the people who were shovelling money into his pockets. He met with heads of state from all over the world, who all shook his hand and told the world this “Man of God” was the real deal. BBC Africa spent over two years gathering evidence of his crimes and interviewing eyewitnesses from his organization, and they have compiled it all into this 3-part series, DISCIPLES: The Cult of TB Joshua. The stories in this series are horrifying, the people he preyed on were young and vulnerable, and he committed every sin Christianity claims to be against while being co-signed by those in power.
