Billionaire 'cult'-like church leader pitches up in Finsbury Park

Dear readers — another Monday dawns. We’re framing this as a positive. 

While you were off enjoying your weekends (we hope), Miles was venturing into hostile territory at the 30th anniversary celebrations of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG). 

If you missed our story on the UCKG the other day, they’re the “cult"-like, multinational organisation seeding in London. Last week, our reporting saw Lewisham mayor Brenda Dacres called upon to apologise for her links to UCKG in a heated council dispute. Well, on Sunday, billionaire Brazilian church founder Edir Macedo was in town for the first time in years. Miles decided to go along to hear the word of God in person… More on that below. 

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Now, on with your briefing.

Big story: Billionaire 'cult-like' church leader pitches up in Finsbury Park

Topline: This past weekend, controversial super church UCKG were celebrating 30 years in the UK. The festivities culminated with a rare visit by the organisation’s billionaire founder to their Finsbury Park headquarters. Given our previous reporting, we decided to send Miles along to grab a slice of cake. Here’s what he saw.

From the pews of the Rainbow Theatre: If Jesus Christ had sustained his earthly body long enough to start a budget airline, Universal Church of the Kingdom of God’s 2802 seater auditorium in Finsbury Park would be its members lounge. Even the staff, for some reason, are dressed like flight attendants. It’s a busy day for UCKG’s London HQ. I arrive a few minutes late; the main hall is already full. Amongst stragglers, I’m shepherded upstairs to a balcony room. There’s no balcony, just a mounted flat-screen and, on it, the beaming, froggish face of Edir Macedo, the church's billionaire Brazilian founder.

Before Macedo and his church took this place over, it was the Rainbow Theatre. This is where Jimi Hendrix first burned a guitar. James Brown played here, as did Bob Marley, Iron Maiden and Stevie Wonder. Now it’s the ‘UCKG HelpCentre’, one of 18 venues around the capital repurposed by the church. Its unassuming logo almost makes the building look like a job centre, were it not for the call to passers-by to “Stop Suffering” emblazoned below in crimson letters.

Coerced congregation: As The Londoner has already made clear, it’s easy to miss UCKG’s influence on the capital, despite its massive expansion since the 1990s. Former members warn this influence is deeply malign. They have described how the church regulated everything in their life from what they wore to the music they listened to and coerced them into donating rent money or their life savings. Congregants would be shown graphic pictures of the corpses of people who had died after they left the church to dissuade them from making the same choice. Others said they underwent prayer sessions designed to stop them being gay or were told by church pamphleteers that the UCKG could cure them of their deafness through prayer (many of these claims were largely denied by the church when we reported them last month).

Mass appeal: Today, the crowd is mostly people of colour, and a broad mix of ages. Together we sit facing the TV screen, intuiting salvation through the plasma. Macedo delivers his sermon in broken English, pacing up and down the stage, a flat grin on his visage. When he gets impassioned, he shouts and the words rasp like dry leaves. 

• One young girl in a parka starts to cry; a little boy crouches behind the seat in front, headphones in, playing a game on his phone. Most of the children look bemused or bored.
• Occasionally, Macedo encourages congregants to call out to God and the room is filled with muttering and cheesy stock music. People speak automatically. Some rock back and forth. “Strong, strong!” Macedo shouts, “yes!”

Meandering ministry: Eventually, Macedo retires to a seat on stage and surveys his kingdom while one of his pastors takes over. The theme of the sermon is hard to pin down. At one point he explains that many people want to “date God”, but not marry God. Much of the proceedings is disrupted by an AV malfunction and, for a while, we’re all left staring at a Mac desktop screen as staff scurry about frantically.

• The Eucharist is delivered in tiny mass-produced, two-part plastic cups, each containing a shot of wine and a small circle of bread. Everyone is made to repeat the words “I do” like they’re being married off.
• The pastor reminds everyone of their sins. “You committed adultery, you committed prostitution, fornication, addiction… but his blood washes you clean.” Everyone drinks their shot of wine.

Time to collect: After the Eucharist comes the donation. Staff walk to the front of the room bearing sacks and card readers. “God gave his life for you on the altar," the pastor says, “you’re going to give your life to him at the altar and express it through your offering.” Worshippers queue up, some stuff cash into envelopes provided by the church, but most just tap the machine. The woman next to me begins to sing, then, almost trancelike, removes a Santander debit card from her purse and wanders up to join the queue.

The service carries on, rising and falling in curated spiritual crescendos. Macedo takes over again. The man now has a net worth of almost two billion dollars. Finsbury Park is not known for its affluence. When the service finally ends, I step out onto another grey, wet, London afternoon. Everyone trudges back to their lives, souls saved, wallets cleansed.

Your news briefing

🇨🇳Saturday saw huge crowds of protestors gather outside the proposed site of a new Chinese ‘mega-embassy’, near the Tower of London, with many fearing the site could be used to illegally detain those opposed to the Chinese government. Plans for the embassy – which would be the largest in Europe — had previously been rejected by the local Tower Hamlets Council but in recent months, the council has overruled by the Labour government after Chinese President Xi Jinping raised it directly with Keir Starmer. 

🤳 Phone-snatching horror stories have worsened in recent years, to the degree the Met Police has finally been forced into action. A ‘clampdown’ on mobile phone thieves last week led to nearly 250 people being arrested, with over 1,000 handsets seized. This is but a drop in the ocean of the phones snatched in the capital every day; of the nearly 83,000 devices lifted across the UK last year, three quarters of thefts took place in London. E-bikes have greatly aided the boom in trade. Still, at least the police are making moves. Maybe we could re-criminalise nicking bikes next?

🏟️For the last five years, it’s been revealed by The Islington Tribune, leaseholders of the flats built at the site of Arsenal's old Highbury Stadium have been forced to pay for on-site fire marshalls at a collective cost of £100,000 a month, after dangerous flammable cladding was identified on the new development. One die-hard Arsenal fan living at the site described being left unable to sell his hugely costly home: “Essentially, we’re in jail. We’re trapped.”

Got a story for us to look into? Please get in touch at editor@the-londoner.co.uk.

In case you missed it: Last week, Londoner readers were regaled with the tale of Mr Pink, once the owner of one of South London’s most eccentric properties, and the battle to stop the home from falling into disrepair.  

From dawn till dusk 

We all know London can be unbearably huge. So every week we’ll take you through an ideal day across the city using our little black book of the best London venues. We hope it’ll be equal parts glitz to spit and Tube-dust.

Breakfast: There are roughly four thousand cafes in London and people have diverging views as to which of them produces the best espresso. However, the vast majority of those people haven’t been to O Português Cafe Deli on Church Road, Camberwell. Not only do they do the finest espresso in the capital, if you’re having a really bad day, mischievous proprietor Ivo will put a shot of grappa in there for an extra couple of quid. Go easy, it’s only breakfast. 

Lunch: In any given city in Japan, you can often find some of the best food served inside train complexes. This is not a trend that translates to Britain or, for that matter, London. If anyone can find good, well-priced food in Euston we’ll give them a medal. However, at St Pancras, commuters can actually get themselves a decent, quasi-affordable ramen at Kineya Mugimaru. 

Drinks: In Whitechapel, if you’ve grown tired of watching bands half your age play at The George Tavern you can always pop into The Hungerford Arms, where you’ll probably be the youngest person there (yes, even you!). This is a pub’s pub, straightforward and unpretentious. Upon entering you might trick yourself into thinking it’s a depressing place, but it’s not; you’re just a depressive person. Once you’ve necked a few cheap Stellas, the space will open up. 

Dinner: In keeping with our Japanese theme, by far the best value sushi in the capital can be found at Eat Tokyo. There are six outlets dotted around the city in Covent Garden, Holborn, Notting Hill, Soho, Hammersmith and Golders Green. Best to go with a large group as sushi becomes less expensive the more people are eating it for some reason. Well, at Eat Tokyo it does. 

Later: We don’t have a specific location for this one, as we don’t want to give the game away. But walk around the Walworth area late at night — if you spot an open basement corridor with Columbian music wafting up the stairs, congratulations! You may have discovered a sapo bar. These places have — let’s call them ‘creative’ — licensing arrangements, but they’re brilliant, open extremely late, and the only places in London you can play sapo, a Columbian disc throwing game. Be respectful, pay for a drink or two immediately and wait patiently for your turn to play. 

Our favourite reads

London calling: How foreign money is fuelling English football’s southward shift — Matt Slater, The Athletic 

English football’s north/south divide has very little to do with geography, and everything to do with the flow of cash, argues Matt Slater in this Athletic investigation. A new wave of international investors who all want easy access to Heathrow is reshaping the map further. The result? A London-centric footy boom.  

Crownland: what does the King own in London? — John Lubbock, London Spy

London Spy mapped all of the King’s massive property empire in London, including The Oval Cricket Ground, dozens of pubs, blocks of flats and offices housing everyone from Macmillan Cancer Support to the Metropolitan Police and The Economist newspaper. It’s easy to forget the influence, power and wealth held by landed aristocratic elites in our country, especially in cities like London rather than the rural countryside. Pieces like this help reshape how you see the capital. 

To Do List

📚 The price of pints has risen and the length of hangovers has increased. Swap the traditional pub crawl for a trail of independent bookshops this weekend, with the annual London Bookshop Crawl. There’s a wait list for group tours but you can plan your own with the self-guided programme — plus there’s a whole host of events accompanying the main attraction (bonus: alternative Valentine’s weekend sorted for both couples and singles). 

🎶 The Barbican Center is hosting a new season, Concrete Garden, which kicked off last Thursday. This takes inspiration from a recent major show exploring the work of Noah Davis, “an American artist whose work celebrated the power of art to elevate the everyday”. Jazz pianist, Jason Moran, will perform a tribute to Davis with a concert “inspired by one of his canvases”.