Bartholomew's Notes

From the Kenya Daily Nation:

During the day, he was a man of God, preaching the good news to his flock. But at night, he turned into somebody else, engaging in sex orgies and recording them for commercial distribution.

This is the picture that police painted of a 50-year-old American evangelist who was on Wednesday charged with possessing pornographic material.

Mr Thomas Kevin Manton of Dominion International, a church that operates from a Nairobi hotel, was denied bail and remanded in custody until Friday for the police to complete their investigations.

Manton – who is better-known as Thomas Manton IV, has a website here, where he boasts of his prophetic powers:

God has also had him speak profound prophetic-utterances to cities, states, regions and nations – and to more than 40,000+ individuals personally one-by-one- across 21 nations – in just 12 years of full-time ministry. His prophetic writings to 80+ nations; and his amazingly-accurate and detailed prophetic-predictions of NYC’s 9/11; London’s 7/7, Kenya’s economic, social and governmental changes; Great Britain’s political scandals, France President’s assassination attempt; and the Western Bank/Gaza conflicts – amongst numerous others – have alerted millions across the nations to what God is saying concerning unfolding world events today.

Manton also claims to be able to heal the sick and control the weather:

1) Hurricane Floyd ~ 500 miles around! 155 MPH winds~ F5 Hurricane! It would have destroyed the East Coast of Florida! I WENT OUT ON MY BALCONY IN Orlando. THE LORD SAID: Tell it to stop and turn north! Within the next hour, it stopped and turned north! The Weather Channel confirmed that!

2) Dallas Ft. Worth Tornado ~ God said, “Tell it to lift!” I did & it did instantly as the Lord said! Right in front of our eyes! It was going straight toward DFW Airport. But, we stopped it!

And, inevitably, there’s a promise of riches:

New Wealth is going to spring forth in the marketplaces for you, My precious ones, and I will have many new entrepreneurs arise ad become rich for my Gospel’s sake, says the Lord. Many Gospel Financiers will manifest now for the Divine Purposes of supporting My chosen Servants, and funding My chosen works in this next day, for I am preparing this even now, says the Lord God Almighty!

Curiously, however, his biography page gives no personal background details or any indication of links with other pastors.

Manton’s local prophecies have had a political flavour; here’s one from September 2007, posted on the site of African Press International (API is a whole story in itself, by the way):

Mr. Mwai Kibaki has served Me, by serving your nation well, over these last five years as Kenya’s President. And My Hand is even now upon him for the continued reformation of Kenya over the next five years!…Mr. Mwai Kibaki is the man that I have chosen and ordained to see these things through now for the good of your nation.

…[God says] And I will break-down and destroy, from its roots, the pervasive spirit of corruption that has plagued your nation for so many years. I have already attacked it, of late, and broken its legs, but unfortunately it is still lingering on in the mindsets and actions of many people. Nevertheless, I will attack corruption, vehemently and viciously, until I finally destroy it from continuing as a commodity of your societies.

…Look at the man that I have had ruling your nation for the past five years.  He was not looking for your nation’s Presidency for his own personal gain. He saw it as a mission for the good of the people of Kenya. He is already a very wealthy man, and he is content with what he has. He has not taken the wealth of your nation as his own; nor its production to put it into his own pocket. But he has looked continuously to implement ways of bettering the nation of Kenya. And he has done it. And this is what your nation needs, says the Lord!

…Did I not visit Nairobi in a new way on Monday, April 2, 2007 as I used My Prophet here to deal with the demonic-principalities? of Koinange Street Did I not have him prophesy over that area that very night, and declare that it would change immediately? (You may see this yourself! *Order your own Copies of the New Prophecies For Kenya 2007! (Volumes 1~4 on DVD)

In fact, as Paul Gifford notes in his forthcoming book Christianity, Politics, and Public Life in Kenya, Kibaki’s record is not particularly impressive: the director of Kibaki’s Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (unfortunately, that’s “KACC”) earns more than the Secretary General of the United Nations, and the organisation cannot investigate anything post-2003 (p. 18). MPs’ perks and expenses exceed the British in venality by far: apparently car fuel expenses are so excessive it would be cheaper for an MP to visit the border town of Kitale by hired helicopter than actually to drive there (p. 224).

Manton’s website is registered to London, and he has an adress in Bloomfield, New Jersey. In November he visited a certain “Gospel Light Church”, which is run by a Ghanaian pastor in Tottenham.

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