I’ve always had a special interest in evangelical pastors who claim to be able to raise the dead. I’ve written one article on this topic and I was starting to organise the material for a second piece when I came across this story in Pastor Danny Nalliah’s autobiography Worship Under the Sword (5th ed. 2005). Nalliah, who was born in Sri Lanka, heads a Melbourne Pentecostal group called Catch the Fire Ministries (CTFM) and the following was one of his early experiences:

I was informed of a girl in our factory that had fallen seriously ill. The next thing I knew, I was in this girl’s house … She was lying on a bed, there was no movement at all, her eyes were open, but the black portion of the eyeball had gone in … Then the village doctor came in and pronounced her deceased … Then the Holy Ghost told me, ‘Command this girl to come back to life, in the name of Jesus’ … at once, I commanded the demon of death to come out in the name of Jesus, and the people [assembled in the room] looked at me in amazement. As I finished the girl gave out a scream, ‘Hoooo, hoooo’, she said, as she shook her head left to right. Her hair started blowing up, just as if she had a fan behind her head. All the people sitting and crying around her jumped up with fear. I ordered them all out of the place. Not all of them knew Jesus and I knew that the demon would go into one of them if they stayed … I continued commanding the demon of death to come out, in the name of Jesus. The girl continued to hoot and struggle, but after about four or five minutes I shouted, ‘Get out and get up in the name of Jesus’. The girl got up and sat down … That day the whole crowd bowed down to Jesus. (pp.25-6)

Being a modest sort of chap, Danny disclaims direct responsibility for the miracles he performs and gives all the credit to God. This didn’t stop his Pentecostal brethren in Sri Lanka from holding him in awe:

I was nicknamed ‘3Ds’ (DDD) in my church, and that stood for ‘Demon Delivering Danny’. Oh, praise God, I enjoy taking on the devil … In my ministry I have encountered many demon-possessed people and by the power of the Blood of the Lamb, every one of them was delivered. (23)

Incidents like the next one were a dime a dozen for DDD. When a boy turned up at his doorstep complaining that his sister was possessed ‘and has been turning the house upside down the whole night’, Danny leapt straight into action:

As I entered the house I could not see her but from inside her room she started shouting, ‘What are you doing here? Get out of my house …’ With my lips whispering, ‘In the name of Jesus’, I started towards the room. As I entered the room, the devil knew that his party was over … I shouted, ‘In the name of Jesus, you demon get out of this life and this house right now.’ Within two or three minutes, she was delivered by the mighty power of Jesus. (24)

But this is chicken feed compared with Danny’s exploits a few years later in Saudi Arabia:

I was called to pray for a man who was totally paralysed … His whole right side had stopped functioning completely … [Hmm. 'Totally paralysed' or just 'right side'?] … I commanded in the name of Jesus that the paralytic spirit come out. I pronounced life back into this body in fullness. Then I started hearing someone shouting hallelujah … I opened my eyes and realised it was the [paralysed] man, who [previously] could not speak. He was shouting hallelujah and no one could stop him … Within 24 hours this man was totally healed and got out of bed … The news of the healing of this man spread all over the Middle East. (36-8)

Oh, and just as an afterthought:

Another man, who was British, who had a brain tumour and [needed] prayer, called me when he heard the news. Praise God, when I prayed, the lord healed him. (38)

Death, paralysis, brain tumours - is there anything our boy can’t handle?

Evidently not, as he managed to heal a case of total deafness while visiting Washington DC in 1998 (73) and another case of paralysis in Indonesia a few years later: ‘She was walking, talking and completely healed by the power of God’. (86-7) When Danny visited Sri Lanka in 2002 (having moved to Australia in 1997), a man ‘totally blind for 17 years’ was brought to him:

Well, Glory to God, I placed my thumbs on his eyes and rebuked the blind spirit and claimed healing in the Name of Jesus. I finished praying and took my hands off. Instantly the man’s eyes opened up and he started shouting, ‘I can see, I can see!’ He then grabbed my tie and started telling me all the different colours on my tie … (CTFM Newsletter, Sept. 2002, 2)

On a later visit to Sri Lanka, Danny succeeding in ‘healing’ another tumour, having anointed the patient’s head with oil, prayed, and diagnosed … witchcraft. This healing would have been even more impressive had the tumour not already been removed by surgery. (CTFM Newsletter, Jul. 2006, 3)

Now, some of you may be tempted to dismiss Danny’s claims as a lot of piffle, while others might entertain even darker suspicions about our hero. Please don’t go down this perilous path, as, you see, Danny is obviously one of the Lord’s ‘anointed’ (this literally means ’smeared with oil’, a term I don’t find especially problematic when applied to Danny), and if you go round bagging the Lord’s anointed - hoo, boy, are you in trouble! Danny specifically warns against the dangerous practice of ‘touching the anointed’ (see pp.51-4) and I’m sure we’re all very grateful for his concern.

Leaders of the Federal Coalition parties seem anxious to endorse Pastor Danny’s brand of Christianity. Prime Minister John Howard recently congratulated CTFM for bringing Christians together at Festival Hall in Melbourne on Australia Day, while:

… Federal Treasurer Peter Costello wrote a letter of support to Pastor Nalliah during his legal battle [over an alleged breach of Victoria's religious vilification law], and Deputy PM Mark Vaile, former Deputy PM John Anderson and former Governor-General Peter Hollingworth have made speeches to the group. (Nassim Khadem ‘PM defends “force for good” Christian message’, Melbourne Age, 20 Jan. 2007)

So who are we to doubt?

Filed in: Evangelicals, Pentecostalism