Anita Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy Church has
worsened, P.M News reports.
On Sunday, two days after it was reported
that Anita Oyakhilome had filed for divorce,
Christ Embassy deleted her pictures and
personal information from its official website,
www.christembassy.org.
Many describe the action as the beginning of
a process to shut her out of the church, after
she accused her husband
of “adultery” and
“unreasonable behaviours” in a divorce suit
filed in London last April but only made public
on Friday. Continue...
Christ Embassy’s new website now shows
only Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, with a broad
smile welcoming his followers to the month
of August, and tagging it, ‘Month of Praise’.
In the message on the website, Oyakhilome
also urges his followers to “rejoice for the
joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Also, on the website of the Rhapsody of
Realities, a daily devotional co-authored by
the esrtwhile couple, there’s nothing to show
that Anita is still recognised as the only
visible face on the website among the family
members is that of her husband.
It was too early to know if the September
edition of the Rhapsody of Realities still has
the photographs of both the pastor and his
wife as it used to be.
In the past, when the going was good, Anita
and Chris Oyakhilome held hands on the
church website and smiled broadly. They
projected the image of a perfect couple.
But P.M.NEWS checks at the weekend
revealed that there is confusion in the
church following the divorce suit filed by
Anita to end her over two decades marriage
to the founder of Christ Embassy Church.
In the past, Pastor Chris headed the Nigerian
branch of the church, though he travelled to
other branches occasionally, while Anita
headed the branch in London and its
environs.
Christ Embassy and its founder have been
embroiled in a myriad of controversies in the
past. In 2010, Oyakhilome was accused of
engineering a money laundering scheme in
Nigeria, and questions swirled around his
finances because of his glamorous lifestyle.
Many pastors and theologians also
excoriated Oyakhilome for his “New
Creation” doctrine—a form of gnosticism that
says after a person becomes a Christian,
any sin they commit is only in the body and
will not affect the spirit.
In 2008, Oyakhilome’s reputation as a faith
healer was tarnished badly in Johannesburg,
South Africa, when a man told a Soweto
newspaper that Christ Embassy offered him
more than $1,200 to sit in a wheelchair and
pretend to be crippled until Oyakhilome
prayed for him.
“The man went to the media instead of taking
the money, sparking concerns that healings
were being faked to impress growing
crowds,” said Lee Grady in an article in 2012
published by Charisma Magazine.
Pastor Chris Oyakhilome has also been a
target of criticism by the Treatment Action
Campaign for his support of faith healing to
cure HIV.
Allegations that Christ Embassy members
are reportedly being forced to give huge
sums of money in offerings with the biggest
donors receiving the biggest awards have
left many people concerned.
Many Nigerians have also alleged that the
church operates like a cult and pressures
members to marry only within Christ
Embassy.
Many people also remember the scandal
involving Christ Embassy and Sheraton Hotel
some years ago when a member of the
church, who worked at the Sheraton Hotel,
stole money from his employers and gave it
to Christ Embassy. But when Sheraton
approached the church for reimbursement,
the church allegedly claimed that the money
had been given to God and could not be
refunded.
Many also excoriated Pastor Chris some
years ago when the church began collecting
gate fees from members for their New Year
Eve’s Service.
More recently, Oyakhilome came under
attack after he claimed that Christians were
free to masturbate because it was not a sin.
But the latest scandal involving Anita and
Chris, who have two daughters, seems to
threaten the very existence of one of the
biggest churches in Nigeria.
Christ Embassy runs several arms including
the Healing School, Rhapsody of Realities,
and an N.G.O called the Innercity Missions
as well as three Christian television
channels: LoveWorld TV, LoveWorld SAT and
LoveWorld Plus.
The church is scattered all over the world,
including in the United Kingdom, the United
States, South America and the whole of
Europe.
Stories about women bringing men of God
down are not new. In 1988, Jimmy Swaggart,
a famous American preacher was implicated
in a sex scandal involving a prostitute that
resulted initially in his suspension, and
ultimately defrocking, by the Assemblies of
God.
Three years later, Swaggart was implicated
in another scandal involving a prostitute. As
a result, Swaggart’s ministry became non-
affiliated, non-denominational and
significantly smaller than it was before the
scandals.
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