Denison Forum
Dr. Ryan Denison
If you’ve never heard of Apollo Quiboloy before, you’re not alone. His name was unfamiliar to me as well before reading a recent article in Christianity Today that chronicled his legacy and arrest on charges of rape, sex trafficking, fraud, and smuggling. What makes his arrest particularly troubling, however, is the legacy he leaves behind as the leader of a cult in which he claimed to be the “Appointed Son of God.”
Quiboloy started his movement, called the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC), in 1985. Prior to that, he was a pastor in the United Pentecostal Church International (UPCI). His departure was, perhaps, expedited by the fact that the UPCI was already investigating him for false teachings by the time he left.
His church began with fifteen followers but eventually grew to as many as seven million, as his claims of being a messianic figure and bridge to God proved attractive to the people around him.
He states that he earned his title as God’s Appointed Son because “he was the first man to have endured all the fiery trials of persecution and hardship and to have overcome them all without breaking his covenant with the Father.” Moreover, he claimed to have broken “the chain of sin by his absolute obedience to the Father’s will.”
As such, he represented the firstborn and start of Christ’s second coming, which he taught would occur “in millions of sons and daughters of the Father in the Kingdom Nation of God on earth.”
As with many cults, however, his false teachings were not the only way in which he misled and abused his followers. More Here
