A group of self-styled apostles and prophets preaching that faith and donations bring health and wealth had become some of Ethiopia’s best-known religious figures by 2019, broadcasting their services on their own 24-hour television channels.
The Amist Kilo church in Addis Ababa, mother church of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, one of the country’s older Protestant denominations, photographed in November 2015. (David Castor / Wikimedia Commons, CC0) [file photo]
Ethiopia Observer, which attended services in Addis Ababa in early September 2019, named Tamrat Tarekegn, Eyu Chufa, Yonatan Aklilu, Jeremiah Hussen, Tibebu Workeye and Birtukan Tassew among the preachers claiming millions of followers. Their message set them apart from older Protestant churches such as Mekane Yesus, Meserete Kristos, Kale Heywet and Mulu Wongel.
At Christ Jesus Life Ministry in the Kotebe area of Yeka sub-city, Tamrat told thousands of worshippers ahead of the Ethiopian new year 2012 that it would be a year of prosperity and miracles. He described a woman who had gone bankrupt and now owned ten factories, and told a young man from Ambo that God would open the way for him to travel abroad and grow rich.
The five-hour service, filmed for the church’s television station, included testimonies of healing, recovery from addiction and exorcism. Near the end, the preacher called forward those willing to pledge 10,000 birr, then 5,000 and then 1,000. About 25 people answered the first call; by the last, the crowd coming forward was too large to count, the outlet reported.
The prosperity preachers rode a wider evangelical boom. According to the World Christian Database, Ethiopia had about 900,000 evangelicals in 1970, about 3 percent of the population; by 2015 the figure was close to 19 million, or 19 percent. Protestant missions arrived in force in the 1950s, and independent charismatic churches multiplied after the 1995 constitution guaranteed religious freedom. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is himself a Pentecostal believer.
Television made the new churches’ names. “Prosperity gospel has been always related to televangelism,” said Ruhama Gezahegn, an instructor at the International Evangelical Church College in Addis Ababa, who argued that the movement rests on a mistaken reading of scripture. Joachim Persoon of the Orthodox Theological College said the trend was present in Ethiopia, though not yet on the scale seen in countries such as Nigeria.
Critics questioned how the churches handled money. Some sold bottles of “anointed” oil promising healing and protection. Eyu Chufa of Christ Army International Church defended the practice to BBC Amharic, saying the oil, bottles and labels were imported and the church had to charge to cover the cost. Ruhama said the problem was churches run by a single leader who controls the income, a pattern she said was not limited to prosperity churches.
Yehualashet Kassa, a communications consultant and former head of a Christian media ministry, criticised the filming of people during exorcisms. “Is it right to bring the microphone close to the person and amplify his suffering?” he said. “This is an intrusion of his privacy.”