A hidden-camera investigation by an undercover reporter exposed a church in London offering ‘gay conversion therapy’.
Shocking footage, captured in the Kent branch of Winners’ Chapel, shows a pastor telling the reporter that God didn’t create him to be gay, but something ‘shifted in your life that God can fix.’
He also told the reporter that homosexuality is the work of Satan and the modern-day of acceptance of it is also the devil’s work, akin to that of the Nazi brainwashing of Germans.
The pastor, Gbenga Samuel, was one of several at the Nigerian-founded church who said he could help the ITV reporter with being gay.
The pastor, Gbenga Samuel, said being homosexual is perpetuated by television and film
Within an hour of being in the church in Dartford, Kent he is being rolled around the floor with two pastors praying heavily over him, shouting and speaking in tongues.
‘Let there be a release!’ they cry. ‘Let the fire come upon him!,’ they shout for over twenty minutes.
This was after the reporter was told he needs to embark on a ‘complete mind reorientation’, including a week of intense Bible studies to rid him of his homosexuality.
He said afterwards: ‘To them, it was clear that being gay was both a sin, and in some sense a sickness that is both mental and spiritual.’
He and another member of Winners’ Church led the reporter into an empty church hall for ‘therapy’
Winners’ Chapel openly claims that its mission is ‘liberating men everywhere from every oppression of the devil’.
The ITV reporter spent two months attending the church with a wider investigation by the channel spanning half a year.
Shockigly, the pastor also likened gay acceptance to Nazi propaganda under Hitler
‘During World War II, how was Hitler able to get boys to gas millions of Jews in the gas chamber?’ Gbenga asked the reporter.
He continued: ‘These boys were specially trained in special school where it was played over to them, over and over, during the day and during the night, the propaganda that the Jews are the bad people, and they should be exterminated.’
It was after these comments the reporter was taken into an empty church hall where he was subject to the physical therapy.
The government estimates that tens of thousands of LGBT people have either been offered conversion therapy or been through it.
During the therapy the pastor spoke in tongues and laid his hands all over the reporter
An anonymous woman also detailed a similar experience, in which her family willingly participated, even calling a pastor to the family home.
‘His words were along the lines of ‘there’s something inside of you that needs to come out’.
‘So whether that is a demon or a bad spirit, it’s something that’s in me’, she said.
‘And it’s almost like he had his hand on my chest to draw something out, speaking in tongues. All the family were gathered around me, praying, laying hands on me.’
He proposed ‘complete mind reorientation’ as a remedy for the reporter’s homosexuality
That lasted for three hours and left the woman feeling like ‘damaged goods, defective goods’.
The Evangelical Alliance, which represents thousands of Pentecostal churches in Britain, said ‘churches and their leaders must be held accountable when they misuse their influence over others. Winners’ Chapel International is not a member of the Evangelical Alliance and we would have serious concerns regarding the behaviour depicted.’
Winners’ Church have began an internal investigation off the back of ITV filming but they did deny that they offer conversion therapy.
They say they are open to all people and take ‘inclusion and diversity very seriously.
The reporter involved said: ‘Some of the pastors who counselled me made highly disturbing comments, comparing me to brainwashed children in Nazi Germany.
‘There was little sensitivity about how this could have been incredibly damaging to me.’