'Black Jesus' who terrorised jungle villages is captured
By Kathy Marks, Asia-Pacific Correspondent
Published: 17 March 2007

He called himself Black Jesus but Steven Tari was a false prophet, according to police in Papua New Guinea, where the Bible school drop-out will face charges of murder and cannibalism after being captured in a jungle village.

Tari, the leader of an obscure cult with 6,000 followers, had been on the run since last June, when he escaped from custody with the help of a Lutheran pastor. Suspected of raping scores of girls and carrying out sacrificial killings, Tari eluded police by staying on the move and hiding in far-flung mountain villages.

It was in one such village, Matepi, in the east of the Pacific nation, that Tari, 32, was finally tracked down this week. According to The Nation newspaper, eight local men crept into a hut where he was taking an afternoon nap, pinned him down and tied him up, using nylon rope. They called police - but only after one man had scaled the highest peak of a nearby mountain and then climbed a tree, in order to get a mobile phone signal.

(cont..)

And this man had 6,000 followers...

People are hungry for faith, so much so that they will follow a murderer rapist cannibal to have it. We really need to evangelize.

Prayers for all the flower girls, all 6,000 followers, and especially for those 8 men.

On another note I recently read an interview about the Archimandrite who founded the Byzantine monastery in California in which he said that after years of working in Africa he was convinced that Western Christianity was not compatible with people from non-Western cultures. He felt that Eastern Christianity was a better fit. That's a good evangelizing point.

But who's going to look at this thread with such an awful headline?I know this is a legitimate story headline, but I cringed when I saw it.

INdigo

I hear said there are 10 million Eastern Catholics.
Just think if each took it upon himself or herself to win just one convert a year! 10 million to 20 million to 40 million to 80 million! Well you get the picture.
And when I mean convert I dont mean proslytize.
Stephanos I

Well if you think of the Ethiopean Orthodox, is it not the heritage of the people.

interesting, but the title of this thread strikes me as rather sensationalist... which I guess is why I started reading it

What on earth was wrong with the Lutheran pastor who helped this man escape?

The Pastor was probably what is called in PNG a "one talk" or person of the same language group and this is a problem in a country where there are over 700 such 'one talk' groups. Loyalty is to one's 'one talks' first and foremost. The Lutherans have a very strong presence in the country which was made up of the Australian territory of Papua and the former German colony of New Guinea governed by Australia since WWI.