South Africa orders Christ Embassy church to stop faith healing ads South Africa’s advertising authority yesterday ordered a Nigerian church to stop making claims on national television that it can treat diseases such AIDS through faith healing.
The ruling was made after anti-AIDS campaigners filed a complaint against Christ Embassy, a charismatic church based in Nigeria, which has paid-for programmes on the private e.tv channel on Sunday mornings featuring people recounting how they have been cured by the church.
“The message that is communicated to the e.tv audiences/viewers is that joining the Christ Embassy or its Healing School, or associating with it or attending its “faith healing sessions” will lead to its Pastor(s) transferring God’s healing powers to anyone who suffers from the list of diseases that are read out or announced in the programme,” the authority said in its ruling.
The church was then ordered to withdraw the advert from the station immediately. More than 10 percent of South Africa’s 50-million strong population is HIV positive.
The Treatment Action Campaign, the country’s main anti-AIDS lobby, said they lodged a complaint after it received a report that a woman with drug resistant tuberculosis, who had made significant progress on her medical treatment, gave up her medication because she believed Christ Embassy had cured her.
“She consequently became ill with XDR TB again and died but only after transmitting the disease to her children.
The ruling was made after anti-AIDS campaigners filed a complaint against Christ Embassy, a charismatic church based in Nigeria, which has paid-for programmes on the private e.tv channel on Sunday mornings featuring people recounting how they have been cured by the church.
“The message that is communicated to the e.tv audiences/viewers is that joining the Christ Embassy or its Healing School, or associating with it or attending its “faith healing sessions” will lead to its Pastor(s) transferring God’s healing powers to anyone who suffers from the list of diseases that are read out or announced in the programme,” the authority said in its ruling.
The church was then ordered to withdraw the advert from the station immediately. More than 10 percent of South Africa’s 50-million strong population is HIV positive.
The Treatment Action Campaign, the country’s main anti-AIDS lobby, said they lodged a complaint after it received a report that a woman with drug resistant tuberculosis, who had made significant progress on her medical treatment, gave up her medication because she believed Christ Embassy had cured her.
“She consequently became ill with XDR TB again and died but only after transmitting the disease to her children.
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