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A pentacostal African church based in Canada has presented a private jet to its Ghanaian pastor on his birthday.
The church, Miracle Arena for All Nations in Canada, which is a multi-cultural charismatic and a fast growing church based in the heart of Toronto, Canada was founded in 2011 by Dr. Kofi and Rev. JoAnne Danso.
On his birthday, the church presented the private jet to Dr. Danso and his wife for their passion and charisma towards the work of God.
In an interview with Prophet Dr. Danso, he noted that he had prophesied that God was going to bless him with a jet this year on his birthday and so was not too surprised when the church bought him one.
Prophet Danso said it feels good to have a private jet because it will ease his travels, adding that it will also help reach more souls with the word of God.
The Ghanaian pastor stressed that the private jet was not a thing of luxury, but rather a necessity. According to him, the jet will be used to generate funds for the church when not in use by way of leasing it out. He advised other churches to emulate the example of his followers.
“Every church should do this for their pastors if they can. The more we help pastors to reach one continent or the other we help fulfill the gospel,” Prophet Danso noted.
Prophet Danso has lived in Amsterdam for nine years and migrated to Canada for five years. He is married with four kids, including a set of twins. He has been in the ministry for 24 years and has 15 books to his credit.
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Nigerian mega preacher TB Joshua opened a company in a known tax haven, according to reports stemming from the Panama Papers leak.
Joshua— a hugely popular Nigerian televangelist —is alleged to have incorporated a company called Chillon Consultancy Limited in the British Virgin Islands on June 20, 2006, along with his wife Evelyn, Nigeria’s Premium Times reported. Documents obtained from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca allegedly show that Joshua and his wife both own one ordinary share each in the company, which has no physical presence in the British Virgin Islands but lists the address of Mossack Fonseca under its contact information.
The Panama Papers constitute the biggest data leak in history, withg 11.5 million tax documents leaked from Mossack Fonseca show how some of the world’s rich and famous use offshore companies to shelter their wealth. A number of high-profile Africans have come under scrutiny as a result of the leak, including Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote —who is ranked by Forbes as Africa’s richest man—Khulubuse Zuma, the nephew of embattled South African President Jacob Zuma , and Jaynet Désirée Kabila Kyungu, the twin sister of Democratic Republic of Congo leader Joseph Kabila.
There are legitimate ways of using offshore companies based in tax havens, though they can also be used to illegally evade taxation. The British Virgin Islands was the most popular tax haven cited in the Panama Papers documents.
The Nigerian preacher made an official statement on his Facebook page on Monday denying any links with the alleged company. “I am not a businessman and have no business whatsoever. What God has given me is more than enough. I have nothing to do with the Panama Papers,” said Joshua in the statement. The preacher—whose famous backers include former Ghanaian President John Atta Mills and South African politician Julius Malema —also accused the media of using the Panama Papers “to attack those you have been looking for an opportunity to victimize.”
Joshua is the head of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), which reportedly attracts as many as 50,000 worshippers per week to its Lagos headquarters. He claims to have prophesied numerous world events in advance, including the November 2015 attacks in Paris and the death of Michael Jackson.
He and other trustees of SCOAN are due trial for criminal negligence after a Lagos guesthouse owned by the church collapsed in September 2014, killing at least 115 people —mostly South Africans who had traveled to Nigeria to see Joshua. The trial has suffered numerous delays due largely to legal challenges by Joshua’s defense team.
Newsweek
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Greece — In an emotional visit to a fenced-in refugee center on this Greek island, Pope Francis told hundreds of displaced families Saturday that "you are not alone" — and underscored it by taking three families of Syrian Muslim refugees back to Rome with him.
The 12 refugees, including six children, joined the pope on his plane after a five-hour visit to the Moria detention center. The pope also asked European leaders to do more to help the thousands of refugees stuck in camps.
Two of the families are from Damascus, and one is from an area of Syria now occupied by the Islamic State, according to a statement by the Vatican press office.
The pope "desired to make a gesture of welcome regarding refugees" and worked out an agreement between the Greek and Italian authorities regarding the families, the statement said.
"Refugees are not numbers; they are people who have faces, names, stories and need to be treated as such," Francis tweeted.
The 12 refugees will be cared for in Rome by the Community of Sant'Egidio, a Catholic lay organization dedicated to charity, the Vatican said. The Vatican is already hosting two refugee families in Rome.
Nour Essa, 30, a Palestinian-Syrian scientist, is one of the 12 who returned to Rome with the pope. She will be relocated along with her 3-year-old son and husband. The family fled because her husband was being pressured to join the Syrian army.
"We heard of the EU-Turkey deal which would be implemented on March 20 and decided despite the bad weather to get on one of the boats to Lesbos," she said. "We were very lucky: Friends of ours that were living with us in Turkey that came the next day were not given papers and are still in jail in Moria camp. Instead, we will be refugees in Italy!"
The pope's gesture came as the European Unionbegins to implements a controversial plan to deport refugees from Greece back to Turkey.
The deal stipulates anyone arriving clandestinely on Greek islands on or after March 20 will be returned to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece. For every Syrian sent back, the EU will take another Syrian directly from Turkey for resettlement in Europe.
In return, Turkey was granted concessions including billions of dollars to deal with the more than 2.7 million Syrian refugees living there, and a speeding up of its stalled accession talks with the EU.
Human rights groups have denounced the deal as an abdication of Europe's obligations to grant protection to asylum-seekers.
Hours before Francis arrived, the European border patrol agency Frontex intercepted a dinghy carrying 41 Syrians and Iraqis off the coast of Lesbos. The refugees were detained and brought to shore in the main port of Mytilene, the Associated Press reports.
When the pope visited 250 refugees at the Moria detention center, one young girl fell sobbing to her knees in front of him. The pontiff gently lifted her to her feet and stroked her hair. A woman told the pope that her husband was in Germany, but that she was stuck with her two sons in Lesbos.
The pope made the rounds among many of the refugees, shaking hands with young people along a fence and later addressing the group.
"I want to tell you that you are not alone," he said. "In these weeks and months, you have endured much suffering in your search for a better life. Many of you felt forced to flee situations of conflict and persecution for the sake, above all, of your children, your little ones."
Francis was met at the airport by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras along with Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, and the Archbishop of Athens.
USATODAY
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After Nigeria’s self-appointed Prophet and miracle doer, T.B. Joshua, warned the nation of Ghana of an impending foreign terrorist attack, the west African nation was gripped by fear.
“Pray for these two nations – Nigeria and Ghana,” the cleric said near the end of his service at The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN), broadcast live on the popular Christian television network Emmanuel TV.
“I am seeing an attack. It will be in a foreign way that the attack will come, not a local way. Every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, pray for these two nations for protection against [a] foreign attack that will happen in any gathering.”
Joshua described it as “a battle between the Holy Spirit and evil spirits”, calling for the country to be alert throughout the entire month. Within hours of Joshua’s prediction, a clip hurriedly uploaded to YouTube by a viewer began spreading on social media.
Football star Asamoah Gyan was among the first to share the clip with his Twitter followers, as did star actor John Dumelo to his over three million fans on Facebook.
By Monday, tension was so rife in the country that the Ghanaian police force were forced to address the public and call for calm.
“The Ghana Police Service wishes to urge the general public to remain calm in the wake of the terrorist attack prophecy by the founder of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, Prophet T.B. Joshua,” read the letter circulated nationwide.
“We lose nothing by taking T.B. Joshua’s prophecy seriously,” summed up Supt. Cephas Arthur, the Director of Police Public Relations in Ghana.
Pastors and politicians alike were quick to comment on the prophecy, as Ghanaian news channels replayed the clip and newspapers posted the warning on its front pages.
Joshua was commended and condemned with almost equal ferocity, some suggesting he should be ‘arrested’ for stirring up public panic with such ‘doomsday predictions’ and others calling for President John Mahama to invite him to lead a national prayer session.
Evidently anticipating the reactions that would emerge, Joshua had addressed his proficiency to give ‘negative’ predictions earlier in the same service. “You would expect me to say every good thing but 99% of words from God to you are warnings,” the cleric revealed, explaining that his reason for making such a revelation public was to intensify prayers.
“I believe that two believers are better than one. If I say this [prophecy] to you, you should join me in prayer but instead – you attack me, turn the words upside down and incite people against T.B. Joshua,” he added.
The cleric was perhaps alluding to the President of Malawi, Peter Mutharika, who publicly accused Joshua of being a ‘fake prophet’ after misinterpreting one of his predictions earlier this year to mean his death was imminent.
In other predictions, Joshua reiterated a message he gave earlier this year about worldwide food-shortage, adding that the economic challenges would only worsen, leading to further ‘insecurity’.
“Since I was born, I have never seen the situation like this all over the world,” he bluntly stated. “If every country came out to tell their citizens the truth, it’s better so that they can be prepared. You have to cut your coat according to your size. What you have now – manage it. What you are expecting – don’t put much hope on it.”
Joshua warned Nigeria that the era of reliance on oil was near an end. “The world will discover mineral resources better than oil and more valuable,” he stated, echoing a call he has made frequently over the years to invest heavily in agriculture.
The reaction to Joshua’s prediction within Ghana highlights the rife fears of terrorism among citizens, especially after attacks in neighbouring countries Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso in 2016.
It also adds credence to Joshua’s reputation as one of Africa’s most influential voices, his few words in a church service in a different country provoking frenzy throughout an entire nation.
Joshua’s visit to Tanzania last year evoked a similar nationwide furor, his close relationship with the new President John Magufuli making newspaper headlines across the country.
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Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, the outgoing president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), has revealed that most people who claim to be pastors are in reality not men of God but ‘commercially minded people’. In a recent interview granted to The Punch, Oritsejafor has expressed displeasure over how ‘these men of God’ have turned the church into a business centre. “The problem we have in the church is that a lot of these pastors are not men of God as they were not called.
They are mercenaries, commercially minded people. The duty of the church is to preach morality not materialism and because Nigerians are very gullible; they are easy victims of deceit.
They fall prey to some of these pastors or prophets of doom. “The way they live gives a wrong impression of what should be in a church of God. There should be no room for material possessions. I am not saying a man of God should not live a life of comfort but it should be a life of good comfort; that is why kidnapping is now a common thing even in the church,” he said.
Naij.com
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Pope Francis has called on the Roman Catholic Church to welcome divorced and remarried Catholics without making changes to the church’s teachings.
The Vatican released a 256-page document from the pope on Friday. The document, called “The Joy of Love,” discusses family life for the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.
Pope Francis is urging local clergy to accept divorced Catholics and those who re-marry in civil ceremonies on a case-by-case basis. He said that the church’s teachings on marriage should not be the final word.
The document said, “a pastor cannot feel that it is enough simply to apply moral laws to those living in ‘irregular’ situations, as if they were stones to be thrown at people’s lives. This would bespeak the closed heart of one used to hiding behind the Church’s teachings.”
Gay Catholics, however, said the pope had failed them. The document welcomed gays in the Roman Catholic church but repeated its opposition to same-sex marriage.
"He has ignored submissions and appeals by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics," said Peter Tatchell, a British gay rights advocate. "Gentler words do not assuage Vatican opposition to gay equality.
Last October, the Pope met with 270 Catholic bishops to discuss family issues and church teachings on homosexuality, marriage and divorce. The new document was a sign of Francis' call for the church to be more forgiving with “imperfect” Catholics.
The biggest issue at the synod meeting last year was whether the church should offer Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics.
Church teaching says that a remarried person must receive an annulment of an earlier marriage to take part in Communion. In an annulment, Catholic clergy rule that the earlier marriage was invalid, in violation of church law.
Conservatives oppose any change to the church’s teaching.
Liberals want to look at each marriage on a case-by-case basis. They support creating a path that could lead them to take part in major religious ceremonies.
Francis changed church law last year to make it easier to get an annulment. On Friday, he said the opposition from conservatives was in conflict with Jesus' message of mercy.
"In thinking that everything is black and white, we sometimes close off the way of grace and of growth and discourage paths of sanctification which give glory to God," he said. "Let us remember that a small step in the midst of great human limitations can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties."
The Rev. James Bretzke, a Boston College theologian, said the document will help clergy to welcome divorced and civilly remarried Catholics back to the church. He said, "Pope Francis does not outlaw that, whereas John Paul II specifically outlawed (it).”
Mark Brumley has published the writings of retired Pope Benedict XVI. He said Francis' attention to morality "doesn't mean this is a free pass to do whatever you want."
He said the document tries to navigate the difficult path of supporting church teaching while letting the civilly remarried to participate in the life of the church.
VOA
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