Killing the Devil

That's totally not Pastor Mboro up there.

A pastor in South Africa is claiming that he went to Hell and killed the Devil. No, seriously! Pastor Paseke Motsoeneng naturally made the claim on Facebook, because obviously anybody capable of such a feat is going to want to post it in their feed next to photos of what they just had for dinner. The post went like this:

“When I got to hell, there was a queue of millions of people waiting to be braaied by Satan. I even saw some prominent South African politicians.

“I was so shocked because they lived like angels here on earth. I thought they went to heaven.

“When Satan saw me, he panicked and directed his army to kill me. Like Samson in the Bible, I defeated them. Satan was my last victim.”

I don't know what "braaied" means, but since it's Satan I'm sure it must something pretty sick, maybe involving a pitchfork and a whole bottle of baby oil. Before you start celebrating, though, there are a few more things you should know about Motsoeneng, who also goes by the name Pastor Mboro. This isn't his first completely outlandish claim.

Last Easter, the pastor claimed that he “was so overcome by the spirit” that he went to heaven and took pictures on his cellphone. What did he do with those pictures? He sold them for R5000 each.

Sticking with the topic of money, Mboro told his congregants that he could get them into heaven, the cost this time? R10 000 for “guaranteed access” of course.

This pastor is so blessed that “God” once sent him a BMW i8 with a value of R2 million, all because Mboro helps the poor with his good deeds.

So yeah, this guy appears to be a total scammer. It also is kind of telling that his description of Heaven and Hell and Satan line up perfectly with oversimplified Christian metaphysics. The real spirit world doesn't work that way.

When I first read about this claim, I thought that perhaps Pastor Mboro had engaged a powerful chthonic spirit and defeated it in some fashion, and mistook that spirit for "the Devil." In Christianity, there's only one "Devil" and every evil spirit gets traced back to that single archetype. But there are many, many chthonic spirits and they can't easily be classed as "evil."

But no, it's probably not even that. Pastor Mboro is more likely just a scammer angling for donations, who knows full well that he's totally bullshitting everybody because it makes him sound impressive to his followers.