Following the private meeting between the prime minister, Pravind Jugnauth, and the Pentecostal church recently, Weekly speaks to Georges Leste, president of the Mauritius Assembly of God, about the church’s ambitions and aspirations. He explains the different movements within the Pentecostal church and their differences with the Catholic church and other religions.

All the branches of the Pentecostal church have been lying very low for years and suddenly, you start making the headlines. Why now? 
Making the headlines is nothing new. We take advantage of certain events to make the Mauritian population aware of our existence. 

This time you went beyond making us aware of your existence. You started asking for ‘concessions’ – which are of a financial nature. Aren’t you embarrassed by that?
In our campaign to make the Mauritian population aware of our existence, we are also seeking recognition by the people and also by the government. We need official and legal recognition. We have been around for 50 years. We can’t remain quiet forever. It is not necessarily for material gains. We need to be recognised as an official religion and have a legal status to carry out our activities.

If you are not interested in financial gains, what prevents you from carrying on with your prayers discreetly as you have always done?
When we pray discreetly, we do not have the same freedom as other official religions.

But you are not exactly an official, established religion. You are more of a sect.
In the eyes of others only. We are considered as a sect precisely because we do not benefit from the official status given to other religions.

What makes you different from a sect?
A sect means something cut off. Even the history of the Christian religion was considered a sect of Judaism and then became a religion. We need the same status as we have been around for half a century. What is the difference between us and the Catholic Church?

The Catholic Church does not promise miracles and does not sell miraculous oils that cure all diseases. You do, don’t you?
I must stop you here. You need to make the difference between the Assembly of God and other movements which are not part of the Assembly of God but which perhaps identify themselves as Pentecostal movements. In the Assembly of God, we don’t sell any oils and we have nothing to do with those practices.

Don’t you believe in miracles?
Yes we do! We pray for miracles to happen. For us, miracles are the intervention of God in cases where no one and no science can explain. These miracles happen through our prayers.

Do many miracles happen to the people for whom you pray?
Yes they do. That is why we have so many members. Many people come to the Assembly of God looking for this miracle and for deliverance.

And they find it in your church, do they?
Yes, yes!!! 

So you continue to believe that some incurable disease which science cannot cure can be cured through you.
Yes, I do. But I am not the one who cures these diseases. It is God through our prayers. He is the one who makes these miracles happen. To achieve that, we have to preach the bible, the evangel and spread the word of God who creates faith in the hearts of people. Sometimes, ignorance prevents us from receiving divine things. So when we preach the Bible and create faith, the Lord intervenes as ignorance ends. The other religions and movements, on the other hand, do not do that.

When you talk about ignorance, do you mean the ignorance of other religions?
The ignorance of the Bible.

What about other religions not based on the Bible? What do you do about them?
(Laughs) We pray for them!  We pray that they come, see us, listen to us and make the difference.

You know in Mauritius, there is an implicit code not to make others feel that their religion is inferior to that of others. Your movements at times transgress that code by going around trying to convert people. How do you react to that?
We do not do that. There are many groups that are wrongly assimilated to us. They are not. They have their practices and we have ours.

You say that you have so many members but at the same time, every time there is a polemic around a particular Pentecostal group, you immediately react by saying they are not members of your ‘federation’. Who exactly is a member of your federation?
Good question! The Assembly of God was the first to introduce the Pentecostal doctrine in the 1960s. The other movements you see today did not exist. Some sprouted out of our own movement and went about doing their own thing. We are not responsible for what those who have left the Assembly of God are doing nor are we responsible for the behaviour of other movements whose followers go around trying to convert people. 

What about your members? Do they not try to convert citizens from other religions?
You know, the word ‘convert’ is ambiguous. When we preach conversion, we don’t try to change people’s customs, habits, their name, their way of doing things etc. We try to bring them light and truth and a change to their heart, attitude and character to become what the Bible shows that the Lord wants us to be. 

But isn’t there in an attempt to convert someone an underlying statement that you want them to swap their religion, which is not good enough, for a better one? Coming out of the darkness where they were living into the light?
Yes, in relation to what we believe and the way we see things. 

Is this therefore a violation of the unwritten Mauritian code that each one should practise their religion and let others do the same, without suggesting to them that their religion is inferior to that of others?
I perfectly agree with you. But we don’t impose anything. We only propose and we show people how things can be done. In fact, it is people who mostly come to us for a solution when they are in dire straits. 

Aren’t your promises at times exaggerated to convince those who are gullible to join your ranks?
No, no, no. Everything we preach is open and can be verified. You are welcome to come and see for yourself. 

When you promise miracles like curing a cancer that science cannot cure, isn’t that a false promise that can’t be verified?
We don’t promise anything. We just tell people what the Lord says. Everyone knows what God is capable of. If he wants to cure an incurable disease, he is capable of doing that. I personally don’t promise anything. I just deliver God’s words as being a promise.  

Isn’t there a lot of brainwashing in your movement? Would you at least admit that?
I don’t think so. We don’t do that. We are free. We brainwash people for what purpose? What’s the aim of it?

To get more members, more veneration, more money…
That’s some people’s perception, but it’s not true. 

What is this perception based on? Why don’t people accuse the Catholic church of propaganda, of brainwashing people and of making money off innocent people?
I don’t know why, but when there is a movement, there is always turmoil. On the other hand, the others are not a movement; they’ve always been here.

Who are the people who come to see you?
At the beginning, we were preaching the gospel, which comes from Catholicism, Protestantism, etc. People came to listen and ended up accepting the word of God and believing – without any obligation – that it was part of The Assembly of God. But, after 50 years, it’s no longer the same thing. Now it’s a new generation. Our children and grandchildren have grown up and were born into the Assembly of God. So we are asking to be considered a religion like the others. 

But one that feels superior to the other religions? 
No, we don’t claim that. We preach the values of the gospel. If the others do the same thing, there is nothing wrong with that. But they don’t do that. We do. 

Who doesn’t do that?
If we look at other institutions and doctrines, it’s not the same thing at all. If you observe well, you will see that it’s not the same. 

What’s different between you and Catholicism?
Oh, a lot of things.

For example?
Well, the foundation is the same. We are Christians; we believe in the Trinity. But, other than that, there are differences. 

What are the major differences?
For example, the Catholics teach people to pray to the saints or the Virgin Mary. They teach people to stand in front of a representation of God. We, on the other hand, as you can see, our assembly looks like this (showing the church). We don’t need candles, incense or anything else to pray.

But these are not beliefs. These are practices. What differentiates you in your beliefs?
We try and practise what is written in the Bible.

And what do Catholics do?
They don’t do what the Bible says.

Like what? They believe the Bible when it says that the Virgin Mary had a child from God?
Yes.

And you believe in that too?
Yes.

So why don’t you pray to the Virgin Mary?
No, the Virgin Mary is not God; we pray God directly.

The Catholics don’t think that the Virgin Mary is God either.
So why do they pray to her?

Because she’s the mother of Jesus.
We can say so; the mother of Jesus, God who became man. But we don’t pray to the mother of Jesus. You see, we try our best to do what the scriptures tell us to do. We never go beyond that or distort their meaning; we only practise them.

But Catholics too claim they practise the scriptures.
(Laughs) So they claim, but we need to analyse whether their actions actually match the scriptures.

According to you, what doesn’t match?
Like I said, praying to Mary, the saints and the dead.

They don’t pray to the dead.
What is the All Souls’ Day (fête des morts in French – Ed.) then?

Isn’t it a day to remember the dead and show respect for them?
It is, we remember the dead, but we don’t pray to them. Yet, there are people who go to the graveyard and talk to their deceased relatives. This is not Christian. 

Don’t you think that the dead can hear the living?
No. This is another field. People believe it because they’ve been taught so.

What do you teach your members? That the dead are gone for good?
No. We tell our members to think about our deceased and know that one day we’ll meet them again in the afterlife, in heaven, where they are. But we don’t teach them that they’re in the graveyard, in the tomb where they can go and talk to them. You see, there are things like this which differentiate us.

But are these differences so big that you have to invent another movement and pretend to preach something else when you believe in Jesus, in his birth, that Mary is his mother, that saints exist, that the dead are not in their graves but in heaven? What is the fundamental difference between you and the Catholics?
If you take the history of the Protestants, they protested against the Catholics. Hence the creation of the Protestant movement. From there, new movements were founded that protested against the Protestants. The Pentecostal movement came about to offer an experience which the Apostles lived. The Pentecostal movement was born from this experience of speaking in tongues when we receive the blessing of God and the spiritual gifts. The others disagree with this because they’ve never experienced this.

So what differentiates you is that you’re convinced that you have gifts that others don’t have?
Exactly.

And that you have extraordinary gifts such as healing the incurable illnesses?
It is a grace. God is gracing us.

But do you realise how much this can be dangerous? That people can stop their treatment to come to you because they think you can perform the miracle of healing the people that doctors cannot cure?
No, no. We don’t teach that. People carry on with their treatment and continue to see their doctor.  At the same time, they look for divine intervention and God’s grace in their life. We never have and never will teach people to stop their medication or going to the hospital. On the contrary, we thank God for medicines and doctors. In addition to that, there’s the spiritual side of the faith – that someone can find relief where doctors and medicine can do nothing for them.

How would we know that it’s you and not the treatment which worked in the end?
It’s up to the person and his faith to decide to continue or stop the treatment. If someone’s faith is strong, he/she will put the treatment aside and can later testify, “I did this for that amount of time, and I took this for that number of days. I then set it aside and placed my faith in God and I’m healed.” It’s up to the person, we don’t force anyone.

But it still is dangerous.
I don’t see why it’s dangerous. It’s actually a blessing for the person if the latter does not have the means to find relief and someone or an organisation prays for him/her and succeeds in finding his/her relief.

In the past, there have been cases which made the headlines regarding weddings organised by the church between brainwashed ‘consenting’ people but whose parents were either unaware or unwilling for their children to marry the people chosen by the movement. Do you acknowledge that your movement made mistakes in the past?
As far as I know, I’m not aware of any cases. It may have happened in other movements. Within the Pentecostal movement, we are in good harmony but I cannot answer for anyone.

Could there be things other groups within the Pentecostal church do which do not please you or are against your beliefs?
Yes, but I don’t linger over their activities.

But why are you together under the same Pentecostal movement then?
That’s just the name; it’s the experience that matters. We each tread our own separate path. I’m responsible for the Assembly of God. That’s it. If you’re talking about the Light Ministries and so on, they have their own leader and organisation.

There’s no coordination?
No.

So, there’s no Pentecostal federation then?
This is your interpretation.

My interpretation is that if there’s a federation which groups all these churches, there must be someone in charge and there must be coordination. 
Maybe in the future we’ll head in that direction. But for recognition, we’re working on a bill which will group the Assembly of God, the Christian Family Church, the Full Gospel Church. But still each one is responsible for his movement. We have 144 churches. We are a federation unto ourselves. 

When you ask for subsidies from the government, is it for your federation or for all the movements associated with or claiming to be Pentecostal?
Personally, I have never asked for anything from the government and I will never ask for anything. We have managed by ourselves for 50 years and have relied on our members’ contributions. 

So you need nothing?
No, we also have needs. 

Aren’t the 10% compulsory contributions from your members enough? 
In the Assembly of God, we don’t impose anything. If people want to contribute 10%, that’s good, if they can’t, that OK too. If they want to contribute 100% of their salary, that too is welcome.

Are there members who contribute nothing at all, financially?
Yes, of course. If they are poor, what are they going to contribute? They run away from poverty, problems, suffering and they come looking for God. They can’t contribute anything. Now, once they have sorted out their problems through prayer and blessings, they find a job and rebuild themselves, they can start to contribute like everyone else. Everyone has to offer something. Otherwise, how will we manage? We can’t do anything without money. But we don’t impose anything. 

So what are your expectations after your discussions with the prime minister?
That too is not true. There were no discussions?

So why did you invite him?
Listen, the PM knows that the Assembly of God exists but he has never had the opportunity to meet us. So we sought to have him at our function.

Thus diluting religion with politics…The Catholic church does not invite him.
Oh, how come he finds himself in the functions of the Catholic church with his ministers? And the other religions too, the Hindus, the Muslims. It’s a tradition. We didn’t invite him for discussions.

Why did you invite him then?
We wanted to have a meeting with him. I did not go and invite him or organise the meeting. I was invited myself by Mr. Etienne Sinatambou (minister of social security – Ed). 

Was he the one who organised the meeting?
It seems to me that it was him but I don’t know for sure. He opened the way for us.

Is he a member of your church?
He is everywhere but mostly with us. 

So he can be qualified as a Pentecostal?
Yes, yes. 

In the Assembly of God?
Sometimes he is with us and sometimes he is with the others but mostly with us. He is a believer in the Pentecostal movement.

Are you in touch with him?
Not much. I tried calling him but he must be busy. 

For what purpose did you call him?
Sometimes there are meetings and he needs to have information about them etc.

Does he follow your advice or ask for your advice?
I have not often had the opportunity to advise him but maybe he had a closer relationship with my predecessor. I have only been here for three years so we have not been able to establish the same relationship yet.