What if this “Anointing Oil” thing is a Hoax!
Have you encountered the Anointing Oil Craze?
Walking down any street or market in Kampala, you might catch stray anointing oil from a random spray gun, followed by random decrees and declarations of great health, wealth, breakthroughs, favour, and prosperity of any kind. Is anointing oil the new success charm? Why has it become so necessary to add anointing oil to almost all prayers? It appears that almost anything and anyone can be anointed today. And pretty much, anyone can anoint. What exactly happens to people, or even objects (namely, buildings, cars, pens, equipment, businesses …) when anointing oil is smeared, sprayed, or poured on them?
From overnights to deliverance services, to hospital wards, and to the streets, then special breakthrough services, what used to be regarded as sacred – for consecrating the set apart, and reserved for the bedside of near-dead to anoint them in preparation for their transition, anointing oil is now commonplace in day-to-day supposedly spiritual activity. If you haven’t encountered this anointing oil craze, I have a few personal experiences (among many) to set context for reflection and discussion.
A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of officiating and preaching at a candidates’ dedication service at one of Uganda’s elite and best-performing secondary schools. With some of the best teachers in the country, many of whom National Examiners, the school boasts in undisputed national pride, having produced some of our nation’s leaders across all major spheres. As an outsider, it was an honour to bring God’s Word to an audience that included elite teachers, school admin, high-profile parents and their kids, as well as representation of a prestigious fraternity of Alumni. I titled my sermon: “Magnificent Walls without Foundations”, a contextualised exposition on Matthew 7:21-27.
“If indeed, anointing oil is as powerful and effective as hyped, why isn’t it being used on kids who desperately need it, such as those from Karamoja, Bundibugyo, or Busoga, Buvuma, or Madi-Okollo (a district that had just one 1st Grade from all the pupils that sat PLE in 2025), to also excel like their counterparts in Wakiso, Mukono, Kampala, Bushenyi, Mbarara … and others? Why are we fooling ourselves, and unfortunately, our kids too!”
Even though I was confident that I had proclaimed the Gospel, challenged the congregation, and witnessed a sense of conviction, I was not prepared for what lay ahead after Holy Communion and general prayer. The school chaplain handed me a bottle of “special anointing oil” from Israel and told me that the students, parents, school, and the church expected me to anoint their candidates ahead of their forthcoming O’Level Exams. My heart sank! Internally, I struggled and grumbled greatly because I don’t believe it’s necessary. In my opinion, it is a hoax! Nevertheless, I prayed, and anointed them with the chaplain’s help. When the results were released, their students had excelled as always. Did it have anything to do with the anointing I performed during the dedication service ahead of the Exams? I doubt it did. I vowed never to be manipulated and used, or involved in what I strongly consider syncretic rituals disguised as spiritual and prayer.
Special Anointing Service by Pr. Robert Kayanja of Miracle Center Cathedral.
Does Anointing Oil Help Students to Excel in Exams?
Now that the 2025 Examinations results are out, and others in the pipeline, I intend to use the occasion and the reality within the statistics to discuss both the deception and syncretism associated with anointing oil and the rituals of what is flaunted as “anointing” in today’s practice. Traditionally, most end-of-year exams in Uganda are transitional (except for universities) and tend to attract both excitement and anxiety in equal measure. In response, it has become fashionable for schools and churches to hold special dedication and anointing services for candidates at various levels. Maybe not yet for nursery and kindergartens, however, in Uganda, anything is possible and goes! But does anointing our children with oil have any effect on their academic performance, or just deceptively hypes their expectations of themselves?
Our eldest son sat his Primary Leaving Exams (PLE) in 2025, and is now heading to high school, having passed with a very decent 1st Grade! But before he could sit them, the school invited us (all parents) for a special Dedication service a week before the Exams. Which I think went well, apart from the hyper-spiritual sermon that involved decreeing and declaring miraculous success upon all the kids, and denial and rejection of any ounce of failure (of which the school in subject only had about twenty 2nd grades out of the over 200 pupils that sat the previous year. The rest were 1st grades). Why would they imagine, expect, or even fear the possibility of “failure”? Yes, they excelled again, but not as they did the previous year.
Having each played our roles in educating and preparing our children for this moment in their lives, we gathered to dedicate them to God in prayer. They were hitting the academic battlefront and representing our individual and collective efforts. Prayer was well-organised, with representation from all stakeholders: a pupil other than the candidates (P6), a P.7 candidate, a P.7 teacher, a school admin, parents (father and mother), and the presiding priest. Then Lo, and behold – anointing oil! The final, more important and special ritual was yet to be performed to unlock, seal, and guarantee our children’s actual success in the coming exams and in their destinies beyond. I wondered who really bewitched us! Isn’t this an attempt to put a success charm on our kids, just in case all their academic efforts, parents’ and teachers’ input, and the earlier prayers fail? Are we able to account for all investments (or failure of investment) in the education of this nation’s children without involving anointing oil?
Students of Lugazi SS being anointed by a Bishop ahead of their 2025 National Exams
Many questions inevitably arise. Where is anointing oil throughout our children’s journey between Nursery to P.7? Why isn’t anointing oil being used on kids who desperately need it, such as those from Karamoja, Bundibugyo, or Busoga, Buvuma, or Madi-Okollo (a district that had just one 1st Grade from all the pupils that sat PLE in 2025), so that they also excel like their counterparts in Wakiso, Mukono, Kampala, Bushenyi, Mbarara … and others! Why are we fooling ourselves, and unfortunately, our kids too? Why is anointing oil limited to PLE, UCE, and UACE only? How many times does one have to be anointed? How come we don’t see it at Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels, and into the Marketplace or family? Oh, we actually have them. Just that those spaces are a different ball game and detest jokes!
Anointing and Anointing Oil in the Bible
Am I just lashing out against anointing oil and the practice of anointing? Or, accusing anointing oil for causing failure? Of course not! Am I possibly just ignorant about this anointing oil thing? Maybe! The practice of anointing is first seen in the Bible; it is therefore essential to thoroughly examine scripture to understand its true value. What was its purpose? Is it necessary today? Who can, and should be anointed? Who even anoints? How long does the particular anointing stay? How long can an anointing sustain someone?
According to Jewish tradition, “anointing” is an act that refers to rubbing or smearing (or pouring) oil to make a person or something sacred or set apart for divine use. For humans, the anointing supplies power to carry out God’s purpose at a specific time. It could also involve deliverance and protection. Famously, both the Jewish and Biblical stories point to an “anointed one”, or the “promised one to come” (Deut. 18:15ff), the Messiah, whom Isaiah prophesies in Isaiah 61 (also Luke 4:18), and John the Baptist refers to when he sent messengers to Jesus himself, asking, “Are you the One? Or should we wait for another?” (Luke 7:18-ff).
Biblically speaking, anointing itself first appears in Genesis 31:13, where God reminds Jacob of the vow he made when he anointed a pillar at Bethel, and the special anointing oil is explicitly mentioned in Exodus 25 and 28 when God instructs Moses about the oil lampstands and the consecration and setting apart of Aaron and his sons for Levitical and separation as priests. This continues until we see Naomi instructing Ruth to anoint herself in preparation for Boaz, who redeems her (Ruth 3:3), and more prominently, the anointing of Israel’s kings, Saul and David, by Samuel the prophet-priest. Further on, Zadok (priest) and Nathan (prophet) anoint Solomon as king (1 Kings 1). Oftentimes, prophets just showed up on the scene already anointed by God himself. This phenomenon is further expressed in the Old Testament as “the Spirit of the Lord came upon me.”
Anointing and anointing oil symbolized and were associated with God’s blessing and presence (Psalm 23:5; Isaiah 61:3), consecration (Exodus 30), empowerment and authority for a task (such as for kings in 1 Samuel), and healing prayer (James 5:14). Similar connotations continue to prevail in Christian practice today. But to what end, when the anointed one (the promised Messiah, Christ Jesus) already came, and performed the ultimate task of his anointing, whose blood, shed over two millennia ago, washes every soul clean (from Wakiso, Kampala, or Nakapiripirit, Bombay, or New York), white as snow, without fail. and also sent his Holy Spirit who seals and in turn anoints all believers (followers of Christ). Yes, you got that right – the Holy Spirit anoints all true followers of Christ! (Galatians 4:6; Ephesians 1:13; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, 1 John 2:20). But anointing oil today is selective in its effectiveness. Some are saved from failure, while others aren’t. Others, for example in America or the Schengen, or our Muslim neighbours, don’t even need it to excel in academics or business! That’s why I find anointing oil, whether from Israel or from Ephesus, is spiritually deceptive.
“The deception to our children that anointing oil will make them excel in exams or succeed in life cannot be sustained given the reality that they face soon after the results are returned or when life checks in with further studies and future responsibilities like work, marriage, and life in community.”
Special Anointing Oil from Jerusalem. – Amazon
Spiritual Deception and Abuse of Anointing Oil
Rather than taking my sentiments for it, but think for a moment, and ask yourself; What if the anointed students do not excel as decreed and declared? Well, that’s no longer a question because the results are here and the answer is obvious. And I assure you this has always been the case – not all who get smeared with anointing oil and prayed over pass as desired. What could have fallen short? Did the anointing oil fail them? Or their faith (of the candidate or of their parents) was lacking? Or maybe the anointer didn’t do it well. Could the “anointing” be willing to take another chance and correct things? And what happens to students and pupils who don’t get to excel as anticipated? What about those who never got the anointing experience, yet performed well? And there is that lot, which is sizable, that never gets anointed – and fails! Then wish they too were anointed. Somehow, we want to keep pretending that this is not deception and syncretism.
If this anointing oil and all the decrees and declarations were effective, there would be no need for anxiety about the results of these anointed kids when they are finally released! We are people of doubt and uncertainty before and after anointing oil. Equally, there would be no need for breaking news and headlines of best and worst performance. After all, we anointed all of them and sent them out to excel. But we know very well that every year, time has smacked us in the face with shame. We fool ourselves by subjecting our kids to the same pseudo, unyielding power of “anointing oil”, knowing very well that some will definitely excel, and obviously others won’t. When the results return, we celebrate those who excelled – whether anointed or not. We are lairs, wicked, and foolish!
Very similar to a typical African Traditional Religious ritual, all the candidates are expected to come with an offering disguised as a “thanksgiving envelope”. Let’s assume it is indeed thanksgiving for bringing the child up to this stage. Why not hold it after the results are back? Of course, the main purpose of the offering facilitated by the parents is to invoke God’s blessing of success, as would be in ATR, where a substantial sacrifice is offered in exchange for blessings, protection, success … name it, are sought from the ancestors. We obviously must have borrowed this practice from somewhere else – ATR. Hence the unchecked syncretism!
“We have taken that which was commanded and preserved by God for only consecrating and separating priests and levites, and the holy of holies, now familiarized with and reduced to charms for financial and personal breakthroughs, to receive whatever blessing we desire and capture whatever territory we covet.”
While we boast of being a highly spiritual and superstitious people, attributing our well-being and successes, and failures to spiritual forces, we cross a very delicate line when exposing our children to ridiculous things like anointing oil. We don’t realise the magnitude of the effect it has on them, shaping their worldview, attitudes, and ethics, and influencing how they understand what it takes to succeed in whatever they pursue in life. If all it takes is some special anointing and decrees by some supposedly powerfully anointed agent, then why study or work hard? And we have the audacity to imagine that we are spiritually different from our neighbour who carries a talisman, because we think he is appealing to magic or their ancestors.
The deception to our children that anointing oil will make them pass exams or succeed in life cannot be sustained with the reality that they have to deal with now that the results are back, and when real life sets in, and the rubber hits the road. This disappointment continues when their further studies and future responsibilities, like work, marriage, and life in community set in. We are setting them up for a trap of dependence on anointing oil, which is not only deceptive but also merely superstitious, unbiblical, and unnecessary. They will be disappointed and are sadly likely to place the blame on God, because they were fooled into thinking the idea was a divine sanction. If anointing oil is not a hoax, then we must admit that we are using it wrongly, or we need to increase the amounts we apply. If not, we might even consider changing suppliers. Otherwise, why do we have to keep anointing the same people at various stages of life? It is a scam friends!
If not Anointing Oil, then What?
Addressing the Desperation for Success – another Way
If the main goal of all this is to position our children for success in life and its endeavours, then the principles are simple and universal – focus and hard work, entrust and honour God with your efforts (Proverbs 3:5-7). Yet, God, in all his prodigal mercy, gives rain to both the righteous and unrighteous. God is gracious to all peoples, nations, and tribes, and to children of all backgrounds and abilities – anointed or not. But each has to put in the relevant work if they are to see and taste the fruit of the land.
In fact, if education were a national and noble service, rather than private business and a competition, we are together duty-bound as a nation (government, parents, the church …) to be more intentional and strategic in our investment into education – finances, infrastructure, systems. So that whether a child is at King’s College Buddo or Kaabong SS, Gayaza High or Kangole Girls’ SS, they can access good quality education, and confidently sit and pass their exams, whether anointed or not. We shouldn’t be looking for anointing oil to make the difference.
“We fool ourselves by subjecting our children to the same pseudo-power of anointing oil every year, knowing very well that some will definitely excel, and others obviously won’t. When the results return, we celebrate those who excelled – whether anointed or not. We are lairs, wicked, and foolish!”
There is a term given to people who keep doing the same things every year, while hoping for different outcomes. Come the next round of final exams, if we still subject a breastfeeding 18-year old young mother from Karamoja, West Nile, or Busoga, (with all the barriers they have to cross before entering that exam room) to the same O’Level Exams with some undistracted 16-yr old boy from Seeta High, Kisubi, having soaked both in anointing oil, then tell the world that the latter was outstanding, we deserve nothing short of that term – Fools! Anointed Fools!
~ Raymond L. Bukenya ~
Writer, Speaker & Team Leader Tru Tangazo Uganda
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