Saturday, December 6, 2025

Prosperity gospel faces historic challenge as Botswana goes broke

“I hope prosperity gospel doesn’t survive corona virus,” said Reverend Dr. Prince Dibeela in late March 2020 as Botswana prepared to go into a national lockdown.

A pay-to-pray scam that mostly targets black people, prosperity gospel was invented in the 1970s in the United States. Among its chief proponents was Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II, a sharp-dressing, coiffed-hair-sporting black American minister and evangelist based in New York City.

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