A Cripple Has Walked

Overview

A Cripple Has Walked or #ACrippleHasWalked refers to a trending hashtag on Twitter resulting from a May 23rd, 2021 video of a priest in Kenya allegedly healing a young paraplegic boy's legs all the way in Australia through the "power of God." The video and hashtag inspired controversy on Twitter, with many accusing the hashtag and its supporters of being ableist for the use of the word "cripple," as well as denouncing the idea of miracle healing altogether.

Background

On May 5th, 2021, the Ministry of Repentance and Holiness, a church based in Nairobi, Kenya,^[1][2] broadcast a healing and prayer session lead by the alleged prophet "Dr. Owuor," AKA "The Prophet of The Lord." On May 23rd, the church's YouTube^[3] channel "THE HIGHWAY OF HOLINESS" published a video showing Dr. Owuor praying and speaking in tons, followed by footage of a young boy over 11,000 kilometers away in Australia first dragging himself across the ground, then standing and walking perfectly (shown below).

Notably, this is not the first time that the Ministry of Repentance and Holiness and Dr. Owuor have claimed to heal a disabled person, with a previous video^[4] from 2019 making a similar claim (shown below).

Notable Developments

On May 23rd, a number of Twitter users began tweeting in celebration of the alleged miracle, using the hashtag "#ACrippleHasWalked" to spread word of the event. For example, on that day, Twitter^[5] user @Wa_mbuguah posted a tweet celebrating the alleged miracle, reading, "This is Extremely Shocking! This is Unbelievable! This is very Fearful! How can it happen? Somebody tell me, how can this happen? JUST BY A MERE DECREE" along with an image of a text graphic reading, "A TOTALLY CRIPPLED MAN STOOD UP AND WALKED AWAY IN NSW, AUSTRALIA!," garnering over 220 likes and 90 retweets in two days (shown below).

On the same day, Twitter user @DianaJaica posted a video of a number of people dancing, writing, "A Cripple Has Walked today. Cripples are walking since The Lord Stepped foot on the face of the earth. Cripples will walk in their largest number," (shown below).

The hashtag saw significant use over the course of the day, leading it to Twitter's trending page in North America. Later that day, skeptical Twitter users began using the hashtag to criticize the video and idea of miracle healings altogether, as well as denounce the hashtag and overt use of the word "cripple" in tweets about the "miracle" as ableist. For example, Twitter user @Back_In_Time85 posted, "You know, I was on the fence about my religious faith, but once I saw #ACrippleHasWalked trending, and saw what all that ableist BS was about, I'm now officially an atheist. Thanks, Twitter!" garnering over 1,500 likes and 100 retweets in two days (shown below).

Criticism and support continued to pour onto Twitter over the course of the day. Some users parodied the tweets in support of the miracle. pretending to support the "miracle" in order to bait users into watching an attached video alleging to show a disabled person walking (example shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References