1 of 5 Kenyan Evarline Okello, unemployed mother of four, went into debt to fund a pastor — Photo: BBC Kenyan Evarline Okello, unemployed mother of four, went into debt to fund a pastor — Photo: BBC
Evarline Okello breaks down in tears as she reveals she got into debt after paying a pastor to pray for her.
She lives in a small hut in Kibera, a huge slum in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, and can no longer feed her four children.
Evarline hasn’t earned anything for months, she tells him on the phone. So when he heard about a pastor whose prayers could improve life, he wanted to meet him. He asked her for 15,000 Kenyan shillings (about 600 BRL).
The practice is known as a “seed offering”: a monetary donation to a religious leader with a specific goal in mind.
Evarline borrowed money from a friend who took out a loan in her name. She was told that this pastor’s prayers were so powerful that she would have her money back within a week.
But the miracle never came. In fact, it got even worse, she says.
The amount to be repaid on the friend’s loan exploded due to interest. She now owes the equivalent of more than R$1,500 and has no idea how to pay it back. The friend doesn’t talk to her anymore and Evarline is still unemployed.
“Things got so difficult that I lost all hope,” she says.
“Supernatural Solutions”
Kenya a country lying east of the African continent at equator level and bordered by Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda and Tanzania has been hit hard by the global inflationary crisis.
There, food prices rose nearly 16% in the 12 months to September 2022, according to the Kenya Bureau of Statistics, while World Bank data shows the number of unemployed Kenyans has more than doubled in the past seven years.
“People live very desperate lives,” says Gladys Nyachieo, a sociology professor at the Multimedia University of Kenya.
2 out of 5 Protest against rising cost of living in Kenya — Photo: Getty Images via BBC Protest against rising cost of living in Kenya — Photo: Getty Images via BBC
She says this has increased the longing for supernatural solutions, and many are now willing to pay for a miracle, even if they have to borrow money for it.
“People are told that God does not want them to remain poor. So they plant a seed,” she says.
The practice is common in what is known as the prosperity gospel, which preaches that God rewards faith with wealth and health. Believers are encouraged to show their faith by giving money to churches. The belief is that the donation will be rewarded by God with a blessing even greater than the amount donated.
The prosperity gospel originated in the United States, gained strength in the early 20th century, and spread to several countries, including Brazil.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Nigerian pastors came to the United States to learn more about this evangelical branch.
In the early 2000s it spread across Africa and gained popularity, encouraged in part by American evangelists like Reinhard Bonnke, who drew huge crowds from Lagos, Nigeria to Nairobi, Kenya. This growth in the number of believers continues to this day.
3 of 5 GermanAmerican evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, who died in 2019, was very popular in Nigeria — Photo: Getty Images via BBC GermanAmerican evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, who died in 2019, was very popular in Nigeria — Photo: Getty Images via BBC
The sociologist also points to another factor that favors indebtedness: the loan offers that Kenyans regularly receive on their cell phones.
“People just sign up and get the money,” she says.
That’s what happened to 26yearold Dennis Opili. Discouraged after more than three years of job seeking, he turned to a friend for help.
“He told me that there is a church that you go to and they pray for you. You give a certain sacrifice, they pray for you, and then you can get a job,” says Dennis.
He was instructed to donate every Sunday for three months and he donated a total value of about R$940.
When his savings ran out, he borrowed around R$600 from loan applications and friends.
“I believed what the pastor told me that I could get a job. So I didn’t have any trouble getting the loans because I figured I’d be able to pay the money back eventually.”
But when jobs didn’t turn up, Dennis began to suspect he’d been scammed.
4 out of 5 Dennis took out app loans to pay pastors — Photo: BBC Dennis took out app loans to pay pastors — Photo: BBC
Soon he was being hunted down by the credit companies. “Sometimes I just sit somewhere and relax and think about other things. Then someone calls and wants you to pay it back, and you don’t have to pay anything,” he says.
“I was scared because you don’t know what to do if you don’t pay. You don’t know if you can be prosecuted or taken to the police.”
Thankfully, Dennis has now found work, which has enabled him to pay some of the money back to both the loan companies and his friends.
“I still have a strong belief in God,” he says. “I just have to be a little more careful.”
pressure to donate
It is not only in Kenya that people go into debt in the hope of a miracle. A woman who used to attend a Nigerian church in the United States says she and her husband were under a lot of financial pressure including the obligation to “sow”.
She asked that her name and the southern US state where she lives be withheld for fear of intimidation by the church or her legal representatives.
Sarah (not her real name) says that both believers and local pastors at her former church had to “tithe” equal to 10% of their monthly income to fund the church and its leaders in Nigeria.
And this is in addition to the socalled “first fruits” a donation equal to all the income they received in the first month of the year.
5 of 5 American evangelist Oral Roberts (19182009), considered the “father” of the prosperity gospel — Photo: Getty Images via BBC American evangelist Oral Roberts (19182009), considered the “father” of the prosperity gospel photo : Getty Images via BBC
Local leaders set monthly goals, she says. Members were told they would be blessed by the senior pastor in Nigeria.
Sarah says she’s seen people donate with their credit cards at church services.
“I remember once at church a lady said, ‘I’ve paid my tithing and I still don’t seem to have enough money at the end of the month.’
The pastor’s response, says Sarah, was to tell people that giving is more important than paying the rent.
She says anyone who has wondered why miracles don’t happen has been told, “You haven’t prayed enough, you haven’t planted enough. You didn’t have enough faith.”
Sarah says her husband was pressured to leave because she kept asking questions but they left the church instead.
The last hope
Jörg Haustein, associate professor of world Christianity at the University of Cambridge, UK, says it is possible to understand why people pass on even when “the promises don’t pay off”.
Haustein says that for the middle and rising classes, like most people in Sarah’s church, the prosperity gospel offers “an air of economic prosperity and upward mobility that appeals to people.”
But language can also appeal to people living in poverty, he says.
“A church that says, ‘We know you’re hurting, and we have a practical, achievable solution for you,’ will be more appealing than one that preaches intangible systemic change.”
But why do people pass on, even if it means going into debt?
“Isn’t it like playing the lottery if you don’t have any money?” asks Haustein.
“It seems affordable because you can borrow a few hundred Kenyan shillings over the phone to invest and see if that helps,” he says.
“Of course there’s also an element of desperation, it could be the last hope someone has.”
Back in Kenya, Evarline says the experience didn’t make her give up her faith.
“I wouldn’t say the church is bad. The church is good. It’s the pastors doing the wrong thing. They are the ones asking for money.”