by VorJack
We’re all aware of the stupid things about Haiti that Pat Robertson said recently, but just to recap:
And, you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.”
This is bad theology and bad history combined. To state that suffering is caused by sin ignores the message of Job as well as the Suffering Servant motif of Isaiah. But the notion that Haitian revolutionaries entered into a pact with the devil is apparently an old one. It may be worth looking at the history in order to get some idea of what’s going on.
In the Alligator Woods
Pullquote: ”Haiti is the only country in the entire world that has dedicated its government to Satan.”
According to legend, on August 14, 1791 there was a meeting of the Haitians who would go on to lead the slave revolt that would eventually defeat the French. The meeting was held in a place called Bois Caiman — phonetically that’s “Bwa Kayiman,” which you’ll sometimes see, and literally translated it’s “alligator wood.” Sources differ as to how many people were there. The important part is that the leaders agreed to stage a revolt, and a vodou ceremony was preformed involving the sacrifice of a pig.
There are no first person accounts of the Bois Caiman Ceremony. The first account to see print was in 1814, published by a French doctor who had been on Haiti during the revolution. He actually describes two meetings, the first revolutionary and then a second religious meeting the next week. A decade later, a French abolitionist wrote a history that combined the two meetings into one event.
From the point on, the story belongs to the Haitians. The Ceremony became a founding legend that satisfied the human need for a tangible starting point to everything. It also tied the Haitian revolution to the religion of Vodou, binding the faith to the country, and vice versa.
Vodou as Itself
Pullquote: “These sinister forces trace their roots to Haiti’s origin as an independent nation. And those roots may have entangled Bill Clinton and even Democratic Presidential frontrunner Senator John F. Kerry in strange and twisted ways.”
Vodou, or voodoo as it used to be referred to, is a religion created by African slaves that combines some of their native religions with the Christianity of their captors. It has a fairly conventional structure, with a monotheistic God who is too distant and exalted to be reached and a host of spirits (loa) who serve as intermediaries. Replace the word “loa“ with the word “saint” or “angel,” and you’ll see why I call its structure conventional.
Vodou is sometimes called a “creole religion,” since like a creole language it grabs bits and pieces from other religions and combines them. Many of the loa are represented by Christian symbols like wooden crosses or icons. One figure is Ezili Dantor, who represents motherhood. Her depiction is obviously based on depiction of the Madonna and Child.
Ezili Dantor is an important name to Haiti. It was she who supposedly received the sacrifice of a black pig at the Bois Caiman Ceremony, symbolizing the birth of a new movement or a new country. She is very clearly and distinctly not intended to be a satanic figure. So why all these quotes from Charismatics and Evangelicals about “satanic” Haiti?
White Christian’s Burden
Pullquote: “As a nation, they have been mostly faithful to their deal with the devil. And in exchange, the spirits have given them nearly 200 years of turbulent and often miserable history.”
Vodou is not the only religion that Conservative Pentacostals and Evangelicals identify with Satan. C. Peter Wagner, president of the pentacostal Global Harvest Ministries, has publically linked Japanese Shinto with Statanism and proclaimed that the Sun Goddess Amaterasu is the “harlot” from Revelations. He has also attacked the “Queen of Heaven,” the demon he believes is preventing Catholics from embracing Charismatic Christianity.
All of this brings up a sticky question about the relationship between different religious populations. Most modern religions are all-encompassing, and don’t allow for an easy coexistence with the ideas of other religions. An individual can say that no one has a lock on the truth and there is no one way to know God, but this is harder for institutions.
Probably the best that can be hoped for is an insulting but stable status quo, such as the Jews who believe that Jesus was a prophet bringing “Judaism for Dummies” to the Gentiles who couldn’t handle the real thing. Or the Hindu who believe that the Buddha was one of many avatars of Vishnu. The middle ground is probably just believing that the other side is hopelessly deluded.
The worst is not only denying the validity of another religion but insisting on the right to interpret that other religion as intrinsically evil. It makes no difference to the people I’ve quoted that the Vodou worshipers have a completely different understanding of what happened at the Ceremony.
This smear is done with missionary zeal, and that is exactly its purpose. The idea of a Haitian pact with Satan gives Christian missionaries the rational they need for large scale missions to Haiti. It’s false, but that’s the least of it. It’s a kind of religious imperialism, the need to distort the other person’s belief in order to place yourself above them.
The medieval Jews had a tradition that Jesus was really a magician in the service of Beelzebub. Had history gone differently, a Christian minority might be forced to live with that smear. But looking at Robertson and many of his colleagues, I’m forced to think that the Jews may have been on to something.
Well said!
I used to be afraid of delivering mail to a particular house in my old town because it had a japanese mask hanging over the front door. Doh!
And demonizing extends beyond other religions and into culture. Everything from certain x-tian responses to Harry Potter (and even Narnia!), to Pokemon and Power Rangers, to politicians could have this logic applied to them (Obama comes to mind)
lol, speaking of Harry Potter…
i went to a very religious highschool and they once had an exorcism in the library to rid it of the demons that the new Harry Potter books brought in.
And that school is allowed to hand out diplomas?
Yes, but they are in crayon.
and all the R’s are backwards…
Holy balls. That’s insane. I would have had to drop out.
This chimes with a TV documentary about the ancient kingdoms of Africa I watched last night. Apparaently when the Portugese Jesuits had eventually sailed right around Africa they eventually came accross Ethiopia and a people who were already Christian, having arrived there via Judaism through their own history (They still claim direct cultural descent from Solomon). The Jesuits were of couse totally unable to deal with this so set about trying to convert them to “proper” Christianity. The Ethiopians chased the ships away and executed the Jesuits.
Steve
Bad history maybe, but not bad theology. Just unfashionable or politically incorrect. It actually is supported by Job which emphasizes both the suffering of the innocent and the existence of Satan and the power he is allowed by God.
Oops. That should have been a new comment. Not necessarily a response to Steve.
“Good” theology is whatever you can get the suckers to go along with.
LOL!!! True dat.
An old book claiming that Satan exists doesn’t make it so. And me writing the previous sentence doesn’t make it not so. What we are left with is the search for evidence which should show up all over the place if Satan is actually an active agent in the natural world as is claimed by that old book.
I didn’t say it was so. I just said it wasn’t bad theology, meaning that it is theology supported by what’s written in the Bible.
Sorry. I was not responding directly to you and should have made that clear. My comment concerns the theology/science ‘divide’. I suspect that there is no “good theology” other than ‘I don’t know’.
Oops. Just read this. You might want to ignore the followup.
Also the notion of God withholding his protection, as suggested by Pat is completely supported by Job.
The bad theology is that if you follow the Book of Job’s logic you cannot say that Haiti was caused by something that the Haitians did. The whole point of the Book of Job as summed up in the last few chapters is that God is more powerful that humans, and so he has the right to do whatever he wants to do to them with no reason necessary. You can’t stop him from doing bad things to you (either on his own or through his proxy Satan) by following the Law – you can’t stop him period. If he decides for whatever reason that you should be struck with boils, you’re struck with boils. It doesn’t matter if you’re a good person or a bad person, if you follow the Law to the letter or flout it, if you make all of the proper sacrifices or don’t. None of it matters because God is going to do what God is going to do and you don’t have the power to stop him or even to question why he does it.
So to say that the Haitians “caused” the earthquake by something they’ve done actually is bad theology by the Book of Job. Because God is going to do what God is going to do and to look for simplistic causes is to be like the men who scolded Job for not being “good enough” for God. God rebukes those men who, like Robertson, blame Job for his misfortune. Job’s not to blame, God is. God takes full responsibility for what happened to Job and tells Job that there’s nothing he could have done about it.
True. Yet, as always there are other morals that could be drawn from the story. Obviously the religious, who are the authors of theology, come to an antithetical conclusion. What logically follows from those conclusions you suggested is that God is a ‘celestial tyrant’ indifferent to human suffering. Clearly there are not many religious people who hold to that POV. I imagine they draw from it something like “It was a test of Job’s faith.” Something God does on occasion but it is not his usual way of operation. In Job he deviates for a moment from his general operating principle of punishing evil doers. Hey, I am not supporting Pat’s opinion. It’s bad for a lot of reasons, the least of which is its theology.
What I’m saying is that most Christian theology that I’ve read (and I’ve read quite a lot on my journey from believer to unbeliever) would refute Robertson’s interpretation as being invalid theology from a Christian standpoint, not from the standpoint of a non-believer begging them to be consistent with themselves. God just doesn’t work that way – if he did there would be more obvious smiting of unbelievers (not the smiting of their descendants a hundred or so years later) and less children dying of malnutrition. God does not provide that kind of evidence for his existence in the world – if he did there wouldn’t be atheists and the problem of theodicy would not exist.
So what Robertson is falling into here is bad theology that any trained theologian would (and many of them have, actually) call out. Partly because it makes God look bad (really bad) and partly because it provides for a falsifiable position on the existence of God, or at the very least on the existence of his attributes of omnipotence, omniscience and love of humanity. Theologians do not like to provide for falsifiable positions (it’s a good chunk of the reason why theology exists in the first place – to create rhetorical positions that prevent philosophers from refuting God via logic and to prevent scientists from refuting God via empiricism).
Having said that I should amend – most American Evangelical Fundamentalist Christianity is based on Bad Theology – the kind of theology that makes trained theologians grit their teeth at best and start shouting unkind things about the preacher making the claims parentage at worst. Because most American Evangelical Fundamentalist Christian preachers do not have any kind of theological training beyond being “inspired by the Holy Spirit” to start up their own church and pass a hat around for money from the gullible. So they say whatever it comes into their heads to say based on however they happen to read the Bible on a given day.
This is part of the reason why it’s so easy to poke holes in American Evangelical Fundamentalist Christian positions – most of them are ridiculous, full of contradictions, and obviously nonsense to anyone who isn’t a member of the religion who takes it all on faith. This is also why people like Karen Armstrong and others accuse folks (like Dawkins or Hitchens) who tackle this kind of Christianity head-on of attacking a “straw-man” version of Christianity – because it IS a “straw-man” version of Chrisitianity, even if it is a straw man set up by other Christians and worshiped as a god.
Thanks, Jer – very interesting comment.
That is a good point. The preachers I have heard comment on theologians are as condemning of them as they are of atheists. Are there any preachers anywhere that have good theology? Or is theology the preserve of non-preaching academics?
That’s a great way to put it. I’ve always considered theology* to be at its heart a tool of apologetics, drawing its conclusions from an intricate self-confirming framework which is too inconsistent and loopholed to be compared to actual philosophy – or logic.
*) Here I’m talking about theology as it is used in religion. I’m aware theology is also taught secularly.
Sure, you can interpret Job differently, but Jer’s interpretation is pretty clearly expressed in the story itself. Job seeks vindication for his unfair suffering, and DOES NOT GET IT. God’s answer is not that Job was being treated justly, but that Job was not even in a position to question God’s justice. Or as Ecclesiastes put it, “Who can make straight what God has made crooked?” Admittedly, there is an epilogue to the story in which Job is returned everything he lost. This is ridiculous and not connected thematically with the rest of the book. (Actually, some respected scholars would dispute that last statement. Regardless, it is certainly not connected philosophically with the rest of the book). The frame story that discusses God and Satan having a little wager and that ends with Job getting everything back is a Jewish rendition of a very old pagan story that is used to give context to the poetry, which makes up the bulk of the book and which presents the age old question: “Why do we suffer?” There isn’t really an answer.
The other book that addresses this question, which I alluded to, is Ecclesiastes. Essentially, Ecclesiastes does not believe God’s work can be understood at all, nor does he believe that God necessarily treats people fairly. He specifically states that he has seen the innocent suffer while the wicked prosper, and that this is a great evil. Ecclesiastes says many things, actually, but I find this to be an important and relevant piece.
So from the theological standpoint of Job and Ecclesiastes, it is incorrect to attribute suffering to sin, though it is also incorrect to question God as to why we suffer. We just have to put up with what he gives us and make the most of it. This is, naturally, the exact opposite of what Pat Robertson is saying.
But keep in mind, the theology expressed by these two books is almost the exact opposite of what is expressed in the entire rest of the Bible. To reconcile this, many Christians have a very contrived and silly way of interpreting these two books that makes them orthodox Jewish texts. I don’t know how they deal with verses like “Do not be too righteous, and do not act too wise; why should you destroy yourself?” (Ecc. 7:16 NRSV) I think they just ignore them.
. I don’t know how they deal with verses like “Do not be too righteous, and do not act too wise; why should you destroy yourself?” (Ecc. 7:16 NRSV) I think they just ignore them.
They don’t have to ignore them if they don’t know they exist. Most Christians don’t actually read the Bible beyond the short excerpts and scattered quotes that their priest/minister/preacher reads out to them on Sundays (and on Wednesdays for some). Those that do delve deeper generally either find ways to ignore them as you say or read them in such a way that they comport with their own religious beliefs or are so shocked by what has come before it all that they’re already sliding away from literal interpretations of the book and into finding metaphoric readings anyway. (Those folks may take Ecclesiastes as it’s meant to be read – I find that the atheists and the liberal Christians both tend to find Ecclesiastes read “literally” a fine book of the Bible – it’s the “literalists” who seem to need to find metaphoric ways to interpret Ecclesiastes).
Or simply make use of selective memory to forget the bits they don’t like; or simply fail to connect one story to the other (thus ignoring potential contradictions).
Good comment, Michael. I’ve also always found Job despicable as a religious story because God is so clearly using the “Might makes right” arguments.
His entire self justification boils down to, “I am the baddest mofo around. Who are you to question me? If I kill your family, give you boils, and impoverish you, you better just say, ‘thank you sir, may I have another’ because if you don’t, I will just keep piling it on and you can’t do shit to stop me.”
The story of Job has a very important purpose. CONTROL and FEAR. My dad was an evangelical minister who loved that story – a man who would not renounce god in the face of tragedy (that god caused). As a kid, my interpretation was that punishment was arbitrary, violence impending, and nothing was safe. What is love? Would I kill my child’s family and give him boils to test his love for me? That would be insane, wouldn’t it? Christians hold god to an unbelievably LOW moral standard. Things we would never tolerate from people, they worship in god! It’s quite insane. And the scars from a christian upbringing never really leave, although years of therapy, positive affirmations, and a complete rejection of religion goes a very long way toward healing.
This article has a bit of a personal impact on me. My dad is a retired pastor, and is mentor to this real JERK of a pastor. Arrogant, sexist, legalistic. This pastor goes to Haiti to bring bibles and teach the locals how to be protestant preachers. He was planning one of his regular trips there just before the earthquake. Now, in the face of tragedy, is he going to help with the relief effort??? NO! He’s going to…delivery bibles and teach the locals to be preachers. I think his view is that there is no point helping people with compassion and food, when they’re going to hell anyway! (‘cuz of all that voodoo & shit…)
Christians – I ask you. How can you subscribe to a belief system that has such evil consequences? Fear, lack of compassion, incoherence, craziness (ie love & violence).
NIce article. I never knew so much about vodou.
Of course, ever since Pat Robertson’s comments I can’t help thinking: Is Pat Robertson’s god such a jerk that an enslaved people had to make a deal with the embodiment of evil on earth to get out of bondage? Where was his ever-lovin’ god when the Haitians were under the heel of the French and why would this all-compassionate god punish them generations later for the horrible crime of wanting to not be slaves?
Of course, nearly everything that Pat Robertson and his ilk say make me go WTF?
But God IS for slavery. Isn’t there someone in the New Testament who tells slaves to obey their masters?
Paul does.
And in the old testament you don’t have any law against slavery, only rules to follow with your slaves (or to sell your daughter)
The cultural destruction that missionaries cause makes my blood boil. Not only does it destroy a unique culture on the Earth, but it hurts the individuals who have their entire way of life taken from them. Further, missionaries prey on the desperate, exchanging things that the impoverished need to live in exchange for brainwashing them. That sucks!!!!!!!!
:(
My mother has friends who have been missionaries to Japan since the end of World War 2. They have not been successful. Today Japan’s Christian population is about 2%. Most of their converts seem to be young Japanese women looking for an American husband. I remember once when the missionaries stayed at my parent’s house, they brought three beautiful young Japanese women. I never had a great social life in high school, but having three pretty women to show around town was fun. For a few days I got a taste of what is must be like to be handsome and popular in high school. All three of these women went on to marry American men.
My father (a WW2 vet of the Pacific war, who survived the war with a deep respect for the Japanese and when never racist towards Asians) once asked me why I believe Christianity hadn’t taken root in Japan. I told him you are asking the Japanese to exchange a mythology where the Japanese are the center of the universe to one where the Jews are the center of god attention. The second reason was by all social-economic conditions the Japanese were doing better then most Christian countries. Why should the Japanese leave a belief system that was working for them?