Bishop Joseph Adegold, senior pastor of Overcomers Christian International
Mark Dawes, Senior Staff Reporter
JOSEPH AWOJOBI enters a bookstore in the Mandeville area. A woman who works there asks him: "Are you a pastor?" He replies: "Yes." Woman: "Are you Awojobi?"
He replies: "Yes".
Woman: "You are our greatest enemy. Your name is at the top of the list in the Satanic Church."
He replies: "Really, what is the Satanic Church."
Woman ( in an angry mood and tone): "We are out to get you."
Bishop Joseph Adegold (formerly Joseph Awojobi) takes threats like those seriously. He is vigilant, prayerful and heavily engaged in the ministry of casting out demons which, in church circles, is often referred to as deliverance ministry.
Born and raised in Nigeria, Dr. Adegold, 46, holds citizenship in both that African nation and Jamaica. He came to the island in 1990 to pursue a Master's degree at the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology (CGST). Thereafter, he joined the Missionary Church Association in Jamaica (MCA) and was the pastor of the Devon, Spring Ground and Mollison Missionary churches.
He later left the MCA to become the founding pastor of the Overcomers Christian International which meets at two locations - in Kingston at 237 Marcus Garvey Drive, Kingston (at the site formerly occupied by CMP Metals Ltd); and in Mandeville at the Caledonia Plaza.
When I first met him in 1990, he answered to the name Joseph Awojobi. He changed his surname in 1998. He was born into a family that practised what we in Jamaica describe as obeah. However, at 19 he became a Christian and abandoned the family 'heritage.' Doing ministry in Jamaica was a source of embarrassment to him, as he was often asked: "What does 'Awojobi' mean?" He explained - 'Awo' means Obeah, and 'jobi' means family. When you put the words together one gets 'Obeah Family.' His new surname 'Adegold' means 'crown of gold.'
SATANIC BONDAGE
Before coming to Jamaica, he was involved, albeit on a smaller scale, in deliverance ministry. "Deliverance ministry may be simply defined," he said, "as that aspect of God's plan for man's complete freedom from Satanic bondage. Deliverance ministry is not a working class Christian activity but it is for all classes of people. Instead of going to Obeahmen and Obeahwomen or readers, people should avail themselves of God's provision in deliverance ministry."
As a Nigerian he was familiar with those African occultic practices which today form part of Jamaica's cultural landscape and which are doorways for demon-possession.
He notes that Nine-Night celebrations are African in origin and is a ritual practised after a person dies. The belief is, he explains, that the deceased person's spirit/ duppy remains in and around the house and needs to be appeased. Hence, festivity of drinking and dancing is convened on the ninth night after the person's death to appeal to the spirit to leave the house. Food is usually left out specifically for the duppy. This ritual, he explains, is paying homage to devils, and those who are present are liable to leave connected in some way to demons.
Christians, in particular, must not show up at nine-nights. However, he is encouraging Christians to transform nine-night celebrations to a 'Praise Night,' where a Christian festival is convened and where prayer is said, the gospel preached and the atmosphere is distinctly Christian.
Children are the most vulnerable group to demon-possession, he said, and African practices such as passing infants over caskets containing a corpse is a doorway to Satan. And guess what, when you leave a door open for Satan, don't expect him to pretend he doesn't see it.
"I remember a girl came to me, she was about 25. She had been passed over caskets many times as a child and she was full of demons and she saw demons everywhere. It took three hours for the demons to leave her. When we pass children over caskets we are passing on the spirit of death unto these kids. And anyone who has done that to their child or children need to ensure that those curses are broken," Bishop Adegold said.
Another doorway with African origin, is the custom of taking children to the graveyard to fellowship with the dead. He explains that there is a practice in Jamaica where a child is taken to the grave of a loved one and made to sit on the tombstone. The child is urged to say hello and to greet the person lying within the grave. Meals are had there at the grave and some cooked food is left out for the dead to consume at their good pleasure.
ASTRAL PROJECTION
The holder of a doctorate in Christian Education from the Minnesota Graduate School of Theology, Dr. Adegold is the author of the book Basic Secrets of Satanic forces, and booklets on spiritual warfare. He is working now on Human Development and Demonic Influences a book scheduled to be published by Whittaker House in December.
The casting out of demons, the bishop maintains, is not a ministry for every Christian but for those who are specifically called to that function. In this respect he differs from fellow deliverance minister, the Rev. Dr. Donald Stewart, pastor of the Portmore Covenant Community Church, who believes any Christian in right relationship with God can cast out demons.
Bishop Adegold has raised up an active cadre of deliverance ministers in his church and has assisted many congregations to establish their own deliverance ministry.
At his own church, he has four deliverance teams, each on average deals with about three deliverance cases per day. Some curses, he says, can't be broken but must be uprooted. This, he said necessitates not the 'everyday prayers' but discernment and an advanced mode of prayer. To illustrate, he said: "A lady was brought to my deliverance team. The team spent three hours praying for her deliverance but with no result. I came in and I said to her 'when we are praying for you what happens?'
"She said her mother appears before her. The mother, it turned out, had already dedicated her to the devil as a child. The mother appeared before her by means of astral projection. I said to the team lay your hands on her tummy and command a temporary separation between her and her mother to allow the deliverance to take place. And they prayed a simple prayer and in 10 minutes the girl was freed. Post-deliverance counselling for the girl followed. We sent for her mother and she came. Her mother had been involved in witchcraft. We prayed and laid hands on the mother and she was freed of her demons. Then we prayed for a reconnecting of the bond between mother and daughter.
"All of these things might sound foolish, but when you are dealing with the things of the spirit it has to be in the spirit. Jesus did strange things like giving a blind man his sight after spitting on the ground and using the mud to anoint his eye and then telling him to wash in the pool of Siloam ( John 9)," he said.
When a person accepts Jesus as Saviour, that fact does not automatically exorcise demons that might be resident in that person's life, he said. Such Christians still need deliverance as the soul is saved but there is need for physical and emotional salvation. "Salvation means wholeness. Salvation is a complete package. We Christians tend to focus on the soul, while other areas of the new Christian's life might be in bondage," he said.
DEMONIC STRONGHOLDS
Many pastors are resistant to deliverance ministry and fail to recognise areas in their ministry where demonic strongholds need to be torn down. But it is in the seminaries and bible schools that the change needs to begin.
"I spent seven years in seminary training and there was not even an aspect of a course taught which related to how to handle demonic issues," he said. Seminaries and bible schools, he said, "need to get out of their conservative mindsets as they are preparing people intellectually but are not properly equipping them for spiritual warfare." This fact becomes evident with the frequency with which pastors and Christian counsellors make emergency calls to him and fellow deliverance ministers to rescue a situation where demons manifest themselves - especially during a counselling session, he said.
Meantime, he warns that Christians must be vigilant as most Satanists attend church. He recounted episodes where Satan's emissaries showed up in his church and disclosed that they were sent there to kill him. Fortunately, all of these persons have been stopped in their tracks and they have been delivered from demonic-possession. Pastor Adegold knows he is a marked man, that he is on Satan's radar. But he is confident being in God's hand and so he is not intimidated, not in the least.
Mark Dawes is a senior staff reporter. Send feedback to dawesmark@hotmail.com
