Ernest Angley and the road to Hell

A new sign has appeared in Maseru, causing me some anxiety. It looks like this:

The sign is everywhere, and where there is no sign, there are smiling people in yellow t-shirts handing out flyers. Nothing since I have been here has been so well advertised as this.

In a country where fighting misinformation is a major part of the battle against HIV/AIDS, I am not sure these crusaders have picked the right side.

The sad thing is, I don't even think they are ill-intentioned. I am willing to bet Angley and his gang are here at a loss, funded by their church in Ohio. It's not a scam: they really believe in what they are dispensing. (Though I bet their home church in Ohio is not doing too shabbily...) No matter how many people show up to a crusade in Maseru, an offering plate passed among the poor here is not going to make a dent in the airfare or hotel budget of Angley and his friends.

On the other hand, those few dollars thrown into the offering plate probably are the school fees of a child, or at least somebody's dinner. Picture it: the poor throwing their livelihoods into a pot to finance wealthy preachers on their world tours. What a reversal of the message of Christ!

Of course, the worst of it is that last line on the advert: AIDS and Other Death Diseases Healed! They clearly have not thought about the irresponsibility of claiming to cure AIDS. Rather, somebody had the idea, "AIDS is a big problem in Africa, I bet that would be a real hook!"

This kind of thing isn't generally that destructive in the United States. The preacher claims to cure your cancer, you go see your doctor the next day, take a few tests, and you can verify the claim. If the miracle is a fake, nothing is lost.

But in Maseru, people have more faith, and the word of an American preacher may be as good as the word of a doctor. Especially when the preacher says you are healed, and the doctor's solution is to prescribe you medicine for the rest of your life.

So if Mr. P___ goes to see Mr. Angley, and hears that he is healed, maybe he will believe. Maybe he will believe, and, in an act of faith, stop taking his medicine. Maybe he will get sick three weeks later, and get tested again, discovering that he still has HIV. Except during his three week hiatus from the medicine, the HIV has developed resistance. And now he has HIV, and thanks to Mr. Angley, the meds no longer work.

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I was hoping to make it to one of the events, but my anaphylactic reaction in Johannesburg prevented me. I'm sure that going would only have upset me further. I am told that in the culmination of the event, Angley waved his hand across the masses, and shouted, "If you have cancer, you are cured. If you have AIDS, you are cured."

I don't know if miracles happen or not. I'm inclined to think they can. But I don't for a second believe that they can be manufactured. You can't advertise that on such-and-such a date, miracles will be performed. You can't wave your hand and cure cancer and AIDS in thousands of people.

HIV is not like cancer. There is a tremendous social stigma around the disease, long queues to see an HIV doctor, and a lot of people aren't even quite sure they believe in it. All these things make a miracle cure tremendously appealing, because a miracle cure means people do not have to face up to what HIV means, to take responsibility for getting tested, to think about how their behavior needs to change.

People in Lesotho doesn't need a miracle worker. They need education, and they need compassion and understanding from their families and communities. The resources are there to help far more people than are seeking treatment at this time, but people need to take the initiative to get tested, to seek treatment. Miracle workers like Mr. Angley only perpetuate the stigma - they let people think, "Maybe he's for real. Maybe I don't have to get tested now." And the sickness spreads further.

The big event was on April 1st. The tired, the poor, the huddled masses, they turned up in large numbers to see what this great American had to offer them. But it was April Fool's Day, and the joke was on them.