Altar, church, God, Herald on Sunday, Lord, news, Newspaper, reporter, UCKG,
Recently, the New Zealand newspaper, Herald On Sunday, published an article, elaborated by its reporter, in which false allegations were made against the UCKG and its founder, Bishop Macedo.
The article claimed, in an extremely denigrating tone, that the UCKG tells people to pray and disregard medicine. The article went on to mislead readers with untrue facts about the church, its representatives, and its beliefs.
In view of this abhorrent, distorted information and poor example of journalism, Bishop Wellington, currently overseeing the church in New Zealand and Australia, felt strongly about those false allegations and decided to involve the praxis of a professional legal team for possible legal action against the newspaper. “The article was so plainly wrong and misleading, we couldn’t just let it be,” said the Bishop.
In a formal letter, the newspaper admitted errors in the article saying, “It is correct to say that the headline given to the story does not accurately reflect the position of the church. We regret the errors and will publish a correction…”
The Herald on Sunday newspaper then published, on 24 July 2005, a three hundred word response, clarifying the matter with veracity. The newspaper also included a correction on its website.
Bishop Wellington spoke about his opinion of the newspaper’s correction. “This proves once again that people shouldn’t always believe what they read in the papers, especially when it comes to UCKG. It confirms that the church and its representatives were smeared.
“The reporter behind the article paid little regard to the truth, reporting untrue allegations as if they were facts. I must say, however, that I admire the response given by the editor of The Herald on Sunday newspaper, who, on behalf of a reporter who failed to excel by releasing a low level of elaborated journalism, had to regret errors.
“Overall, it’s a good sign; we barely arrived in New Zealand and the facts show a fertile soil for God’s Word,” said the Bishop.
Notwithstanding the importance that UCKG attaches to defending the reputation of the work of God, Bishop Wellington wishes to remind church members of the words of the Lord: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.”
(Matthew 5:11-12)
Released on Sun 7th August 2005
