2. Charisma and the Scandal

Charisma, a Strang's publishing company, is a well respected Christian book and magazine publisher. I admire what the company has done over the years. This is the more reason why it beats my imagination the way it handled the scandal that was launched against Pastor Sunday Adelaja. Charisma House published ChurchShift written by Sunday Adelaja in January 2008, and was about to release a second book Money Won't Make You Rich when the scandal broke out in December 2008. Charisma did not waste time to publish its first article on the scandal on Friday, 19 December 2008. The article was titled "Sunday Adelaja Accused of Supporting Investment Scheme". The article has a negative undertone and focused more on the accusation. In spite of the several private exchanges between Pastor Sunday and Charisma (I read them all), Charisma still went ahead to publish another negative article about Pastor Sunday on Monday, 20 April 2009, after the Embassy of God Church's 15th anniversary. The article titled "Sunday Adelaja Marks 15 Years in Ministry Despite Controversy", still has a negative undertone. It seems that many people did not expect the anniversary to take place because of the scandal.

I will give reasons why Charisma should have done its research before rushing to publish its articles.

1. Charisma had the manuscripts of Money Won't Make You Rich before the scandal. I also read the manuscripts in August 2008 before it was sent to Charisma for publishing. The principles expressed in that book are totally opposite to what Pastor Sunday Adelaja was accused of. From what I know of Pastor Sunday, he does not preach what he cannot do. Some people say he is flamboyant, but he is really passionate about the Kingdom of God. The fact that the content of the book contradicts the allegations should have been a cogent reason for Charisma to carry out its investigations. I spoke with one of Charisma's staff members at a conference in Denver, Colorado, in July 2009, expressing my disdain about the Charisma articles and the absence of investigation on the part of Charisma; he also expressed the same feelings.

2. The bulk of the first article published by Charisma was on what one Rick Renner in Moscow, Russia (hundreds of miles away from Kiev, Ukraine) said. Here is an excerpt:

"Pastors and Christian leaders are now trying to maneuver through new restrictive laws that have been passed because of Sunday's claim that he and his church organized the Orange Revolution," Renner said.

Unless I am missing something or Pastor Sunday said it somewhere else; in the ChurchShift book which Charisma published, Pastor Sunday did not claim he "organized" the Orange Revolution. He wrote that his church "participated" and provided support (feeding and shelter) to the participants.

There are other quotations, especially in the second article, which I will defer for now while waiting for the outcome of the law suit. The case of Ivanna Schwartz mentioned in the article is also mentioned in the new book coming out in October: "Missional Reformation".

The big question is: why did Charisma rush to publish the scandal? Why did Charisma listen to Rick Renner in Moscow and ignored by not talking to Sunday Adelaja in Kiev? My opinion is that Charisma acted like Apostle Peter. Peter, not only denied Jesus Christ, he also tried to dissociate himself from the "uncircumsized", forgetting that Jesus ate with sinners. It is the hypocrisy of Peter that Paul exposed when he wrote:

Galatians 2: 11-12. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.

Charisma has been part of the new move of God in the 21st century by publishing ChurchShift. It needs to see the ongoing scandal as another persecution of Pastor Sunday and the church, and also an attempt by satan to divert attention from the move of God. Charisma needs to provide a clear explanation to Pastor Sunday for its actions and mend fences.

Abi Olowe, Ph.D.