A controversial “Bapticostal” megachurch pastor has confirmed he is facing a “health challenge” amid rumors that he is terminally ill.
Bishop Eddie Long, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., released a statement Sept. 6 acknowledging he is “recovering from a health challenge that I trust God to deliver me from” and requesting that people respect his family’s privacy.
Bishop Eddie Long
Long said the issue has nothing to do with his much-leaner physique, which he attributes to giving up his “slave menu” for a raw vegan diet.
Obnoxious Television — a blog that has broken stories about scandals involving African-American leaders of the prosperity gospel movement in the past — reported Sept. 2 that Long suffers from stage four cancer and has only months to live.
Long, 63, started as pastor of New Birth Church in 1987, when there were 300 church members. Today the church claims 25,000 members. In 1994 Long was given the title “bishop” in the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship, part of a movement of churches that identify as Baptist but incorporate elements of Pentecostalism.
Long was one of six prosperity gospel televangelists investigated by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley in 2007 for possible misuse of donations made to religious organizations. An outspoken opponent of homosexuality, Long sparked controversy in 2010 when civil lawsuits accused him of sexually abusing underage male members of his congregation. In 2012 he was back in the news for involvement in an $11 million dollar Ponzi scheme.
Speculation about the bishop’s health became rampant after he posted a video on Facebook in August showing off his new slimmer frame.
“People are asking, ‘Bishop, what happened to all of you?’” he said in the video. “Well, part of me has melted away.”
“I said to my congregation I am going to live to be a hundred,” he explained. “But I wasn’t going to get there stopping by Popeye’s. That was my weakness. The biscuits with honey and chicken wings, spicy.”
Young said “basically many of us are still eating from a slave menu,” which he had left and “gone to total raw vegetables.”
“All you vegans out there, I never thought I’d do this, but I am, and it’s really, really given me a lot of energy,” he said.