THE JOHN G. LAKE BUBONIC PLAGUE FAIRY TALE (PART I)

“Religious Folklore in a Laboratory Coat”

By Akin Ojumu

In The Trouble Makers: Dissent Over Foreign Policy, 1792–1939, the British historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote:

“Conformity may give you a quiet life… But all change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.”

He was right.

Had every generation been too timid to offend, too frightened to challenge convention, too deferential to question inherited assumptions, and too committed to preserving a counterfeit peace, humanity would not merely still be living in caves. We would be wandering barefoot in foliage while congratulating ourselves for maintaining unity.

There is a reason God placed roughly three pounds of extraordinarily complex matter inside the human skull. He intended us to use it.

Unfortunately, critical thought is treated almost as a spiritual defect in large sections of the Pentecostal–Charismatic–NAR movement. Too many people anchor their “faith” not in truth, sound doctrine, or credible evidence, but in sensational stories about the supernatural exploits of celebrated leaders and deceased heroes.

They are not merely willing to believe tall tales; they appear eager to believe them. The more extravagant the claim, the more enthusiastic the reception. A modest testimony may earn polite applause. But mention angels, invisible fire, heavenly travel, mysteriously disappearing diseases, or bacteria trembling before an anointed hand, and the congregation is ready for a standing ovation.

The movement is crowded with gifted raconteurs—people who possess not so much the gift of gab as the gift of garble: the ability to narrate absurdities with such confidence, drama, and religious vocabulary that credulous listeners mistake theatrical exaggeration for historical fact.

The famous story of John G. Lake supposedly killing bubonic-plague bacteria merely by touching them is one of the most gloriously ridiculous products ever to roll off the assembly line of the miracle-industrial complex.

It has everything the industry requires: a legendary hero, terrified doctors, astonished scientists, deadly bacteria, a conveniently placed microscope, and absolutely no credible contemporary documentation.

It is not history. It is religious folklore wearing a laboratory coat.

The version popularized by Roberts Liardon in God’s Generals claims that Lake declared, “When the disease touches me, it dies.” Lake allegedly challenged doctors to place plague germs in his hand and watch them die because “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” gave him power over disease.

Before proceeding, it is worth identifying the source of this extraordinary tale. In December 2001, Roberts Liardon publicly acknowledged that he had been involved in what his ministry described as a “short-term homosexual relationship.” 

Contemporary reports identified the other man as John Carrette Jr., then the youth minister at Liardon’s Embassy Christian Center in Irvine, California. According to Charisma Magazine, the relationship began around September 2001. Liardon subsequently stepped aside from ministry for a period and entered pastoral and professional counseling.

I say that just so you know that Roberts Liardon is a man with sordid reputation and not one to be trusted. His troubling public record should discourage anyone from treating him as an unquestionable authority—especially when he is promoting sensational stories unsupported by credible historical or scientific evidence.

But I digress.

According to the tale Robert Liardon told in the God’s General and in this video, doctors collected saliva from people who had died from the plague, placed it on Lake’s hand, pushed his hand beneath a “special microscope,” and watched as “the disease began to die.”

Lake remained healthy. The astonished doctors supposedly told him, “You have something we don’t have.”

There it is: charismatic science in six easy steps.

Step one: Find a corpse.

Step two: Collect infected bodily fluid.

Step three: Rub it on the prophet.

Step four: Shove the prophet’s hand beneath a “special microscope.”

Step five: Watch “the disease” die.

Step six: Document absolutely nothing.

No laboratory report. No medical journal. No identified microbiologist. No named government physician. No control specimen. No culture plate. No staining procedure. No viability test. No replication. No independent confirmation.

Just one heroic preacher, an unnamed collection of astonished scientists, a mysterious microscope, and enough theological fog to conceal the absence of evidence.

Gordon Lindsay later repeated a similar account. In that version, Lake allegedly told a doctor to collect “foam” from the lungs of a plague victim, place it under a microscope, and observe the living germs. The material would then be placed in Lake’s hand, where the germs would supposedly die instantly.

Again, the scientists are anonymous. The laboratory is unidentified. The instrument is unexplained. The report is missing.

The evidence has gone to be with the Lord.

I attended medical school. I studied anatomy, pathology, microbiology, bacteriology, and laboratory medicine. At no point did a professor wheel a “special microscope” into the room and announce:

“Ladies and gentlemen, today we shall be placing Brother Lake’s entire hand beneath the objective lens.”

That is not microbiology. That is Christian science fiction.

To examine bacteria microscopically, a specimen is collected and placed on a glass slide. It is spread into a thin smear, air-dried, fixed, and usually stained because most bacteria are nearly transparent. The prepared specimen is then examined under high magnification, commonly with an oil-immersion objective.

A human hand is not a microscope slide. A palm is not a prepared bacterial smear. A preacher is not a Petri dish. And “special microscope” is not a scientific term. It is the emergency phrase storytellers deploy when imaginary technology is needed to rescue an impossible story.

Whenever a miracle tale begins collapsing, the miracle-industrial complex introduces something “special”: a special microscope, a special anointing, a special grace, a special mantle, a special frequency, a special dimension, or a special revelation available only to the prophet—and conveniently unavailable to historians, physicians, scientists, or anyone carrying a notebook.

The word “special” performs enormous unpaid labor in charismatic mythology. It explains nothing. Its only purpose is to command the audience to stop thinking.

Then there is the magnificent claim that “the disease began to die.”

What exactly does that mean?

Diseases are not tiny animals grazing peacefully on the palm of a faith healer. Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The disease itself does not crawl around on the skin, gasp for breath, repent of its sins, and finally surrender to the anointing.

Did the bacteria die? How was death established? Was the organism cultured before and after exposure? Was bacterial viability tested? Was there a control sample? Was the specimen identified as Yersinia pestis? Who performed the experiment? Where was the laboratory? Where are the notes, records, and independent witnesses?

The miracle-industrial complex answers with its most devastating evidence:

“An anointed man told another anointed man, who repeated it in a book, which another preacher quoted in a sermon.”

Case closed.

Peer review has apparently been replaced by preacher review.

And this is only the beginning.

Quite apart from the scientific absurdity of supposedly examining plague bacteria while John G. Lake’s hand was “placed under a microscope,” the story collapses under the weight of a far simpler problem: the dates do not match.

South Africa’s major bubonic-plague outbreaks occurred primarily between 1900 and 1904. The first cases appeared in late 1900, followed by serious outbreaks in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth in 1901, with further outbreaks—including one in Johannesburg—in 1904.

John G. Lake, however, did not arrive in South Africa until 1908. His missionary work there continued until approximately 1913.

In other words, Lake arrived several years after the principal plague outbreaks had already ended.

So, the famous tale of Lake standing heroically in the middle of a raging bubonic-plague epidemic—caring for infected victims, handling corpses, burying the dead, and astonishing scientists with his allegedly germ-killing hand—is not merely scientifically incoherent. It is also chronologically defective.

The microscope story is nonsense, and the timeline is no kinder to the legend.

Even the calendar has exposed the fraud: the plague was over before Lake arrived, but the miracle-industrial complex never lets facts interfere with a profitable fairy tale.

To be continued.