Baruti Kasongo
Pastor Baruti Kasongo (also known as Léonard Barutti Kasongo) is the pastor of Baruti Tabernacle, a large message church (in all likelihood, the largest church in the message with a congregation of about 12,000 people) in the city of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has spoken in many message churches in North America, including Cloverdale Bibleway.
False report of a miraculous healing
We received the following report on Facebook from someone referring to themselves as Christian Ngoy:
- In a campaign of evangelization in Kinshasa in August 2016, a blind Protestant bishop was not ashamed of the crowd, he came to seek healing from JESUS , the great doctor. Reverend BARUTI touched his eyes. After a short prayer, his eyes were open and he saw. I am an eyewitness because I was personally présent!
We asked for the name of the Bishop so we could follow up and determine whether there was actually a healing that occured. Certainly, if there was an acutally healing by a blind man receiving his sight, and a non-message Bishop, this would be monumental news.
Not surprisingly, no information regarding the name was forthcoming so we have come to the conclusion that the report was fake. We are prepared to report the healing of this Bishop as and when we can have a conversation with him to determine that, in fact, he was blind and has been healed.
Other reasons to believe Pastor Baruti is a fraud
What kind of Christian would name a church after himself? Need we say more? Isn't this an example of narcissism to the extreme?
Baruti Kasongo in North Carolina
Atapis Ngyamba is a message pastor in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is originally from the Congo. His wife is the daughter of Baruti Kasongo
The pictures on the right are from a visit that Baruti Kasongo made to Charlotte to minister at the church where his son-in-law is the pastor.
It is normal practice for the people in North Carolina to roll out the red carpet for Baruti Kasongo (literally!). In the picture above he is being delivered to his adoring fans in a Rolls Royce limousine. His daughter and her husband, the pastor of the church, are also picture showing off in front of the Rolls Royce.
It is clear that, according to scripture, Atapis Ngyamba is not qualified as a pastor in any kind of Christian church:
- Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.[1]
Is this conduct what Peter was speaking of in 2 Peter 2:1-3?
- But false prophets arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. These false teachers will infiltrate your midst with destructive heresies, even to the point of denying the Master who bought them. As a result, they will bring swift destruction on themselves. And many will follow their debauched lifestyles. Because of these false teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation pronounced long ago is not sitting idly by; their destruction is not asleep. [2]
Paul also warns of this behavior in 1 Tim. 6:3-5:
- If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.[3]
Footnotes
- ↑ The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 1 Ti 3:2–3.
- ↑ Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Biblical Studies Press, 2005), 2 Pe 2:1–3.
- ↑ The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 1 Ti 6:3–5.