Pastor Burns Thousands of Bibles for Supposedly 'Misleading' His Congregation
A pastor in Uganda burned thousands of copies of the Bible claiming the sacred book "misleads" his congregation, news reports say.
Pastor Aloysius Bugingo, pastor of the House of Prayer Ministries in Makerere, Kikoni, set fire to thousands of copies of the Bible because he says they are "heavily edited" and are thus misleading his congregation, Tuko reported. He burned the Bibles on Easter Monday.
Pastor Bugingo, who owns Salt FM and TV, claimed that certain versions of the Bible, such as the widely accepted King James Version, the Good News Bible have been "tampered with" and feature some omissions. Some verses that have been omitted, the pastor claims, are those that concern fasting and the Lent period.
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He also claimed that the King James Version mentions the "Holy Ghost" 99 times, far more numerous than the "Holy Spirit" which is mentioned only seven times, the Campus Bee reports. Because of these perceived errors, pastor Bugingo told members of his congregation to gather up copies of these versions of the Bible so that they could burn them.
Pastor Bugingo's ministry is mostly attended by students from Makerere University and other higher learning institutions in Wandegeya, a neighborhood in Uganda's capital city Kampala. Up 6,000 people attend the church's daily prayer, while he also claims to have a crowd of 10,000 to 15,000 attending the church on Sundays.
Bible Errors
Down through history, some Bible editions have had typographical errors. One version famously known as the "Wicked," "Adulterous," or "Sinner's" Bible, printed in 1631, made the serious mistake of omitting a very important word in one of the Ten Commandments.
Instead of reading "thou shalt not commit adultery" according to Exodus 20:14, the erring translation omitted the word "not" and appeared to portray God as commanding the very thing He had commanded not to be done.
This error was viewed as "sabotage" more than "a slip-up," auctioneer Bonhams told The Guardian back in 2015 when a copy of the Wicked Bible went under the hammer.
It ruined printer Robert Barker's life: he was summoned to court, fined, had his printing license revoked, and later spent his last days in jail.
Most copies of the Wicked Bible were destroyed, and it is believed that only 10 remaining copies existed in 2015.
