Influence of Deceptive Religious Messages on the Emotional Well-being of the People of Imo State of Nigeria: The Ecclesiastical and Civil Approaches

It is a serious problem to solve as deceptive religious messages from many men and women of God have caused destructive consequences on many people to the extent that some face emotional ordeal with the state of mind that someone is after their life or behind their difficult state. These deceptive messages are difficult to interpret to be false as they seem to be accurate when they indirectly construe what an individual is facing, but never come to reality. The purpose of this paper is to find out more about the influence of deceptive religious messages on the emotional wellbeing of the people of Imo State. Based on the findings from the interviews conducted messages that have to do with one’s destiny have made victims remain slaves to their faith, their lots and the prophets, prosperity without work prophecy is the one affecting the people adversely, and it has also led to the people solely relying on prayer without resorting to orthodox medicine for cure of illnesses, thereby complicating their health. The theories used in this paper are James-Lange Theory of Emotion and Cognitive Appraisal Theory. Both theories discuss human emotions. It is recommended among others that church leaders should control these men of God in their churches from giving deceptive messages that come out of their minds claiming that they are led by the Holy Spirit to proclaim such messages, and \the citizenry should be sensitized. Heuristic inquiry, semi-structured interview and secondary sources of data collection were employed for this research. Keywords: Influence, Deception, Deceptive religious messages, Emotional well-being, Ecclesiastical approach, civil approach.