Nner-city miracle worker
My great-grandfather was a prophet. My grandfathers were prophets, my uncles also. Mbiza here [he pointed to a photograph on his wall] is one of my uncles. He was in the Apostolic Church of Zion. He’d pray for people. He’d use water. It’s important to establish that it is not a hobby. When he’d catch the spirit while preaching, he’d hop on one leg.”
Radebe briefly explained that he would have visions as a child growing up in Gugulethu. He’d see flickering colours on the floor, so bright that he could not go to the bathroom unassisted. This went on until a woman visited their yard one day, praying and performing a soothing ritual that involved placing a camphor block on his head. must find her sister Saraswati. But with greedy eyes, he follows her. With the greed of wealth, no peace follows so Lakshmi wanders the city as Chanchala Laxmi, the restless one.
The restless one with no time for the slimy one. Mahalakshmi is manifested with 18, not four, arms. Maha is advanced, powerful and Mahalakshmi invokes the cosmic dance to display her fierceness.
Many arms hold weapons but the slimy one is unperturbed. He comes closer, leering at her. Mocking her fighter manifestation. A Johannes-
Radebe (who in his office has a photo of himself graduating from the Newburgh Theological Seminary in the United States) has been using the church premises on the corner of Wolmarans and Claim streets in Joubert Park since 2009, when he was 30 years old.
“I use water, like my forefathers,” he says. “Mostly, people bring the water; it could be from the tap. I don’t pray for the water. I bless it with my hands, or just stretch my hands to make it remove any foreign invading bodies. As African people, we know about witchcraft. People urinate things, snakes and other things that got there through witchcraft.
“I bless water. I am not a prayer healer; I’m a prophet. We all pray, but burg metro police van rolls by. He runs away.
Lakshmi, back to her usual form, is confused. How did she not triumph? Her ferocity was no match for that of the city’s henchmen, whose spectre strikes more fear in the hearts of people than the goddess does.
This takes from her again. This time, she loses a hoop. Dishevelled and confused, she finds some shade, watches the skaters in Joubert Park and collects herself, the hooting of taxis en route to Noord sounding musical. a prophet is different: he prophesies. I bless it in the form of a declaration.”
At his office, I am handed a booklet bearing a photograph of Radebe in white robes trimmed with leopard skin, seated on a chair adorned with a leopard skin. He carries an assegai, a church symbol, and a microphone.
In it, are lists of Radebe prophecies. They are TB Joshua-like; general, hazy visions of jailbreaks, bridge collapses and volcanic eruptions that later, according to the brochure, appear in the press, sometimes months after being declared from the pulpit.
I ask Radebe whether all his members can experience healing and he replies: “Let’s just start with the basic laws of life. In life, nothing is guaranteed. You can go to a hospital and not
“Her independence from male control is often described as ‘virgin’, although this does not mean sexually inexperienced but undominated. This combination of mother and virgin is powerful … the appellation ‘mother’ or Amman not interpreted to mean that birthing and nurturing their young is their only or most important function, but simply to act in a life-giving, creative function,” writes Diesel.
After walking from town, all the way down Albertina Sisulu Street towards the airport, Lakshmi walks recover. There could be various reasons. It could be you didn’t use your medication right. The medicine didn’t work. People die in hospital under the care of physicians. It could be many reasons, like your beliefs. Maybe you didn’t believe. It could be that my source of power is pure. I believe in God and you believe in something else. So these energies clash.”
Radebe and I find common ground when we speak about the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities’ farcical issuing of summonses to handpicked church leaders in 2015.
“I don’t know why,” he says. “I just know that I was summonsed. And the reasons for it were not clear to me, which is why I chose, under my democratic right, not to appear.
“There were no terms of reference, just ‘appear with your documents, among them, your qualifications’. further, to find a small slice of green in the city.
It’s a plant wall in Maboneng. She takes pictures with goras (white people) in Lord Ganesha T-shirts and box braids, then walks until she finds a patch of grass, which is not within sight or scent.
Taking off her hoop, her necklaces and her bangles, she systematically buries them in the soil. She looks down at the earth, where prosperity is derived and destroyed — maybe wealth cannot be secured without violence.
“Already I have a problem. Even though I do have religious qualifications, my faith is not something I need qualifications for. It’s a calling. I was asked for financial documents. I also have a problem with that. When you read the commission’s mandate, it’s not an institution that is supposed to randomly summon religious leaders and ask us for our financial statements.”
Radebe, one of three church leaders who refused to appear, was publicly threatened with arrest in 2015 for not appearing in front of commission chairperson Nomfundo MkhwanaziXaluva. All the commission would say was that the matter was still in the hands of the police.
When I ask Radebe about his expansion efforts, he and I speak past each other. “We have 56 branches in South Africa. Four in Mozambique and four in Zimbabwe. We will be opening one in the US, in Atlanta.”
Mere kilometres from where we sit, Radebe’s expansionism comes into stark focus. In November last year, the church removed tenants from an abandoned mansion in Berea near Ponte City. In December, the high court ruled that they could return, but their goods had been damaged.
According to Windeed, a deedsearching service, the church, whose overflow spills over into Wolmarans Street, has four stands in Yeoville, transferred to it in August 2014 for about to R5 750 000. Among these stands is a prime spot near the reservoir in Yeoville, long used by Johannesburg residents as an open area to worship and pray.
When later asked for comment by email about the Yeoville land, Radebe said they were not expanding to Yeoville but were relocating there. In a statement, the body corporate of a nearby building, Westminster Mansions, concerned about the zoning of the site, said: “We have written to them [the church] to have a discussion but no reply has been forthcoming thus far. We remain open as a community to hearing his plans. We do not want to prejudge. However, we have a fear that this could have a major impact on the lifestyle we are accustomed to.”
The worship area is currently fenced with barbed wire and has an armed guard.
That Radebe runs an organisation of immense influence with vigilance became even clearer after our interview. My chaperone’s two assistants diligently offered to get me a churchoperated “Uber” vehicle to ferry me home. They insisted on it. I should have protested but against my better judgment, I did not.