Pastor Alph Lakau made headlines for all the wrong reasons, after a video of him supposedly resurrecting a man from the dead went viral.

It even sparked an internet challenge, and then the president got involved.

The “resurrected” man, initially known as “Elliot”, turned out to be a Zimbabwean named Brighton Moyo who had, allegedly, previously been “cured” of his paraplegia by the same pastor.

It’s all the miracles, all the time, for Brighton Moyo.

If you’re wondering why someone would knowingly con people, the Citizen might have some answers.

The church allegedly preys on and recruits the poor, and immigrants in particular, with one person interviewed, Samantha Revesai, claiming she was asked to fake her HIV-positive status and play along with the ruse that she had been healed after supposedly living with the disease for three years.

She claimed the church had offered her payments of R1,500 per month to stick to the story. The church allegedly also created fraudulent medical paperwork using her name in an attempt to convince congregants that she’d gone from being HIV positive to negative.

There are only two recorded cases of people who have been cured of HIV – and there was no religion involved, just cold hard science.

An anonymous person who claimed to know both Elliot – apparently a father of two – and his wife, claimed the church had tried to get her to act in a stunt for the church, doing something involving rats or snakes tucked into her clothes. These creatures were allegedly to emerge at the appropriate time during a service.

“Grace”, one of Elliot’s claimed church friends from Nellmapius, told the show that people agreeing to act as “cripples” could be paid R3,500 each.

“They don’t want South Africans … they want Zimbabweans because they’re untraceable.”

So the church is preying on vulnerable immigrants who need cash, in order to con believers into making sizeable donations to the church.

You gotta love that charity.

The church’s lawyers have vehemently denied that Lukau ever directly claimed to have performed a resurrection miracle.

Church spokesperson Busi Gaca, however, dismissed all claims of fakery as “ridiculous”, because in her view that would mean God was apparently not real and, in her opinion, God should be thought of as real and not a “wooden God”.

Similarly, she maintained that Lukau’s miracles were real due to the alleged realness of the particular monotheistic deity that is promoted by the Christian faith.

Uhm…if there’s logic in there, I’m struggling to find it.

The court case would make good TV.

We can’t show you that, but we can show you the Cutting Edge show that aired last night, covering the shady pastor and his dealings:

[source:citizen]