The denominations cited vicar Markku Koivisto’s ‘extremism’ after gold dust and oil appeared during meetings in Nokia

Lutheran vicar Markku Koivisto was thrown out of his parish in Nokia, Finland–a city world-famous for its cell phones–even though Markku had been leading weekly healing and evangelism gatherings of 1,000 people for 10 years.

That didn’t stop Koivisto. Just last January, some 10,000 Finlanders flocked into the Pirkka Hall, an indoor sports arena in Nokia, to hear the locked-out vicar preach the gospel and pray for the sick during a 10-hour, nonstop, 2001 New Year’s celebration.

In the secularized and scarcely populated European north, a crowd of 10,000 at a church service is exceptional. The Finnish population totals 5 million, with only 10 percent attending any kind of church service each month.

The typical charismatic church in Scandinavia averages between 100 and 200 attendants. Few conferences attract more than several hundred participants.

The local Lutheran Church council justified its pre-Christmas ban of Koivisto’s meetings because of what Head Bishop Juha Pihkala charged was Koivisto’s “extremism.” The accusations targeted occurrences such as gold dust falling in the parish church vestry and oil dripping from the hands of ministry-team members.

Koivisto told Charisma that “these things have not happened very often, and, although [I] am thankful for such ‘divine surprises,’ the meetings always focused on salvation and healing.”

He said that 4,000 people have come to Christ at his Nokia revival services during the last 10 years and that “thousands” were healed. That claim, Koivisto said, can be verified by the thank-you cards that people filled out and left in the church after the services. Again, such figures are exceptional to the region, he said.

In the last five years Koivisto organized eight youth and children’s camps, with some 70 participants each summer, and he planted numerous church cell groups in Nokia. “We reach lots of young people, in particular kids in difficulties, like drug abusers or orphans,” he said.

When the parish church doors closed on those seeking God’s supernatural intervention, Koivisto immediately took leave of absence from the Lutheran Church and started organizing an independent ministry. Within a month 1,500 believers had signed up pledging financial support.

“If anything, the anointing has increased after the exclusion,” Koivisto said. “Lately, people had to support me physically during the services. The presence of God was so ‘heavy’ that I could not stand on my feet. Also, God seems to be healing
more severe sicknesses now.”

Still, the split worries the former vicar.

“We hold the revival services in the Nokia Pentecostal Church for the time being, but that is less than ideal for reaching the unchurched. Culturally, a Lutheran church poses a lesser barrier.”

Also, the orphaned cell groups need a new spiritual home, but Koivisto said he has no intention of planting a new church.

“I am still a Lutheran,” he said. “At least I try to be.”

On a personal level “being banned from the church is tough indeed, especially on the family,” Koivisto admitted. Mass media exposure, typically negative, puts a heavy load on the vicar’s wife–a physician and psychiatrist–and their four children.

“Last spring, during a period of five weeks, there were only two days in which I was not featured in the media,” Koivisto said. “This year started off with reporters and photographers from 17 media companies visiting on the same night. It is too much.”

On the other hand, Koivisto reflects, the media actually helped kick off the revival. From the very beginning, the healing services in the Lutheran church caught the attention of the local reporters. Koivisto recalls one instance in particular.

“I had an appointment with a reporter in the church, but he got sick, and asked me to come visit him instead. I went–and he asked me to pray for him! Well, God healed the reporter, and the article turned out very long and very positive.”

The Nokia revival dates to 1991 when Koivisto survived terminal cancer. One day, when Koivisto was about to leave for the hospital, a visiting Pentecostal preacher from Australia called and said God had awakened him three times during the night telling him to “go pray for the Lutheran vicar.”

The vicar was theologically anti-charismatic and declined the offer, but the Australian insisted, and in the end Koivisto was prayed for and anointed with oil. He was not healed instantly, but during the ensuing medical treatment the doctors repeatedly testified to “astonishing” recoveries, and the vicar reviewed his theology.

“I started getting together with a few people to pray for the sick, and within months there were hundreds of people attending,” Koivisto said. “I was really taken by surprise. I felt like a spectator in the theater.”

Supporters say fair access and historic preservation at the heart of a petition to wrest jurisdiction from Muslims

Christians should have a big stake in who controls the biblical holy sites in Israel for the sake of the sites’ survival and protection from Muslim encroachment, contend several Christian organizations that are promoting a petition campaign to make sure that control goes to the Israelis.

The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ), the Christian-operated Bridges for Peace in Jerusalem, Christian Friends of Israel in Jerusalem, and The Galilee Experience in Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee hope to obtain

10 million signatures worldwide to influence decisions by the United States and Israeli governments that affect control of holy sites.

“If other ministries and organizations network with us, it can happen,” said Eric Morey, who along with his Messianic Jewish wife Terry operate The Galilee Experience–a tourist stop on the shores of Galilee.

“I think this would have a moral and political impact on decisions by the United States, Europe and the United Nations by letting the world know that it’s not just the Jews and the Palestinians involved here. The interests are much broader than that,” said Morey, an American-born Christian who now holds Israeli citizenship.
Similar to a declaration from Christians delivered to then Prime Minister Ehud Barak last November that included opposition to any division of Jerusalem, this latest petition urges the biblical and religious sites holy to Christians in Jerusalem remain under the administration and protection of Israel. More than 125,000 Christians from 122 nations signed the November petition, which was sponsored by the ICEJ.

Today, several sites face danger from Muslims, including the Church of The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Church of The Nativity in Bethlehem, Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, and others, said David Parsons, media spokesman for the ICEJ.

One traditional location of Simon the Tanner’s House in Old Jaffa, for example, was seized by Muslim extremists several years ago, and they continue to defy court orders to vacate the site, Parsons said.

“The Christian Embassy is extremely concerned with the mounting pattern of Islamic encroachment and damage at biblical sites throughout the land of Israel,” Parsons said. “We are convinced that it would be a tragedy to place any more sites of interest to Christians under the control of the Muslim-dominated Palestinian Authority. In contrast, the State of Israel has established an exemplary record of safeguarding freedom of worship and access to holy sites, and we urge Christians worldwide to support this petition.”

Morey concurred that the record proves that Israel is much more fair to all religious faiths, whether Jew, Christian or Muslim, when managing access to holy sites.

“When Palestinians desecrated Joseph’s Tomb in Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, during the ongoing intifadah Palestinian uprising last fall, Palestinian police stood by and watched,” Morey said. “Jews in Tiberias near Galilee reacted angrily and tried to set fire to an old mosque here. But Israeli police intervened and protected the Muslim holy site. Morey’s tourist business () is located across the street from the Tiberias mosque.

“In 1948, when Jordanians took over the old city, they destroyed the Jewish quarter and 58 synagogues and desecrated a Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, using the head stones as latrine seats in Jordanian Army camps,” Morey said. “Today, Palestinians control the Temple Mount and will not allow you to pray or carry a Bible there. Access by Jews and Christians is being denied.”

Palestinians are using bulldozers to excavate a huge entrance to a new mosque on the Temple Mount, in an area known as Solomon’s Stables, on the mount’s southern section. “They are dumping off artifacts from Herod’s Temple into a trash heap to destroy elements of the temple,” Morey said. “The Israeli government is doing nothing about this, and, oddly, not even the archeologists are complaining.”

Barak in March did meet with Islamic Waqf officials in Jerusalem to attempt to halt the excavations. More recently, Israeli soldiers have had their hands full trying to protect Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem during the uprising, which started last September when now Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount to worship at the Western Wall–one of the last remaining structures of the Jewish Temple from King Herod’s and Jesus’ day.

Regardless of ongoing peace negotiations, Morey says only the Jews have proven themselves fair to all faiths. “When the Israelis have control, as any tourist can attest, there is freedom of access for all religions and all faiths,” he said.

Church’s officials found guilty in ‘pyramid’ scheme

A federal jury in March found five former officials of a Florida church guilty of conspiracy and fraud. Tampa-based Greater Ministries International (GMI) founder and president Gerald Payne was convicted on 19 counts of conspiracy, money laundering and wire fraud, the Associated Press reported.

Also convicted on conspiracy and mail fraud charges were Payne’s wife, Betty; David Whitfield; Patrick Talbert and Edon “Don” Hall. James Chambers of Altamonte Springs, Fla., pleaded guilty by the time the trial began last January. Chambers also agreed to testify against other defendants.

All five defendants were taken into custody after the verdicts. Attorneys expect sentencing to be set by June.

GMI got into trouble when its Faith Promises program, which used Bible verses to entice people to double their money, failed to produce its promised massive returns, authorities said. An estimated 18,000 people from across the country invested almost $500 million between 1996 and 1999.

Investigators said until the program collapsed, it was a classic Ponzi scheme–a fraud in which early investors are paid with money from newer investors.

The following reports were released during the last month by Charisma News Service. Go to our Web site at to subscribe to the free weekday service or to access full-length versions of each day’s stories. The site also includes a search engine so you can access archived news.

CHRISTIAN POP ARTIST ARRESTED ON SEX CHARGES Ja’Marc Davis of the Christian dance band Raze has been arrested on sexual charges involving a 13-year-old girl. The 25-year-old singer is alleged to have had a sexual relationship with the girl, a former backup singer for the group, in 1998 and 1999, The Tulsa World reported. Davis has been charged with five counts of lewd molestation, three counts of rape by instrumentation, and three counts of forcible sodomy, the newspaper said. He was arrested March 1 following opening night of a planned 30-city “Amazing Pop Invasion” tour, which has since been cancelled. He pleaded innocent to all charges during an initial court appearance, reported the Associated Press.

CHRISTIAN COLLEGE OFFERS BENEFITS TO GAY PARTNERS Administrators at Dallas-based Southern Methodist University will offer medical benefits and reduced tuition to the same-sex partners of employees starting next year, The Dallas Morning News reported. The same-sex controversy also surfaced in the Presbyterian Church USA, which in March rejected a ban to

prohibit clergy from officiating at commitment ceremonies for same-sex couples. The defeat means clergy can conduct same-sex rites, although they are not considered marriages.

BLACKS SUE CHRISTIAN COALITION OVER ALLEGED BIAS The Christian Coalition was hit with a racial discrimination lawsuit Feb. 28 by 10 African American employees in the organization’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. The suit alleges that the office prohibits black workers from using the front door and maintains segregated eating facilities, The Washington Post reported. Two former employees of the activist group have since joined the suit, The Washington Times said, and a white employee filed a $39 million lawsuit claiming he was fired for refusing to spy on black workers. Executive director Roberta Combs issued a statement contesting the discrimination allegations.

SURVEY REVEALS SEXUAL ABUSE OF MISSIONARY CHILDREN A major study by a group of leading missionary organizations found that 7 percent of workers’ children reported being sexually abused, mostly when they lived at boarding schools while their parents served elsewhere. The dark secret of missionary service was revealed in a survey by eight major organizations that collaborated on the largest investigation of its kind ever, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported March 18. Although the survey was conducted in 1993, the data relating to sexual abuse has only now been released for the first time. The newspaper said that the results “puncture a hole in the wall of silence that has kept secret much of the data on evangelical sex abuse.”

COLLECTION CELEBRATES

ELVIS’ SPIRITUAL ROOTS

Elvis Presley’s Christian roots are celebrated in a new five-CD collection of the singer’s gospel work. Although he achieved success through his music and movies, Presley, who was reared in Assemblies of God churches in Mississippi, garnered coveted Grammy awards only for his gospel recordings and live performances, Religion News Service reported.

ATHEIST LEADER

CONFIRMED DEAD

Bones found at a remote Texas ranch have been positively identified as those of the founder of American Atheists who led the fight to have school prayer banned in the 1960s. The Federal Bureau of Investigation March 15 confirmed the remains unearthed in January to be those of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, her son and granddaughter, who disappeared in 1995, The New York Times

reported.

REGGIE WHITE

RETIRES AGAIN

Pro football star Reggie White has retired for the third time, but this one will stick because he says the Lord told him so. The future Hall of Fame defensive end ended his comeback with the National Football League’s (NFL) Carolina Panthers, the Associated Press (AP) reported. White, who is an ordained minister and has a home in Charlotte, N.C., hopes to open a religious theme park in the area in the near future, the AP reported. A 15-year NFL veteran, White, 39, recorded 198 sacks in his career, more than any other player in NFL history.

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