Faith-Based Child Abuse: Assaulting Kids Labeled Witches

When Christians in America insist that children need more religion in their lives and that the absence of state-endorsed religion in places like public schools is the source of America's social problems, remind them about how much good Christianity has been doing for children in Nigeria. Here, the growth of Pentecostalism — an especially superstitious form of Christianity — has led to the equally powerful growth in accusations against children of being witches and warlocks.

These accusations have led to horrific violence perpetrated against innocent children by their own parents and other family members. As little as ten years ago the number of "child witches" was relatively small, though nevertheless a real problem. Popular Pentecostal preachers have in the interim been a primary reason why there are now around 15,000 child witches in just one state alone. This could make even the early modern European witch hunts look like love festival.

The devil's children are "identified" by powerful religious leaders at extremist churches where Christianity and traditional beliefs have combined to produce a deep-rooted belief in, and fear of, witchcraft. The priests spread the message that child-witches bring destruction, disease and death to their families. And they say that, once possessed, children can cast spells and contaminate others.

The religious leaders offer help to the families whose children are named as witches, but at a price. The churches run exorcism, or "deliverance", evenings where the pastors attempt to drive out the evil spirits. Only they have the power to cleanse the child of evil spirits, they say. The exorcism costs the families up to a year's income.

During the "deliverance" ceremonies, the children are shaken violently, dragged around the room and have potions poured into their eyes. The children look terrified. The parents look on, praying that the child will be cleansed. If the ritual fails, they know their children will have to be sent away, or killed. Many are held in churches, often on chains, and deprived of food until they "confess" to being a witch.

The ceremonies are highly lucrative for the spiritual leaders many of whom enjoy a lifestyle of large homes, expensive cars and designer clothes.

Source: Telegraph

This news story makes a point of saying that most Christians in the region are moderate and that every state has adopted a Child Rights Act making abuse illegal, but that hasn't been enough to even slow the growth of witch accusations, never mind stop them — and not a single pastor has been convicted of a single offense. So either these Christians aren't nearly so moderate as is believed, or the numbers of moderate Christians is too small to make a difference, or they just don't care what's happening to all the children around them.

The extent to which profit may be playing a role here should not be underestimated — but it also shouldn't be treated as mutually exclusive with religious factors. Religion has always been an important means for acquiring wealth, power, status, etc. I'm not saying that everyone who has ever chosen religion as a career path has done so for the sake of such goals, just that the quest for such goals and religion often go together.

This is especially true in less advanced societies where other paths are not as available. They might be limited to people of particular tribal or familial backgrounds, there might not be enough industrial advancement to support many other paths, the overall economy may not allow for many opportunities, etc. In these and many other circumstances, even a mildly charismatic person with mediocre academic skills can do reasonably well for themselves as a preacher or religious leader of some sort.

As in politics and other fields where populism leads to power, a lot more money can be made and power acquired through the cultivation of fear. Unless there are enemies at the gates, people won't come to you for protection and advice; when they do come to you for protection and advice, though, they give you social power. From this you can get quite a lot of money which, in turn, leads to even more power.

Helen Ukpabio, a self-styled prophetess of the 150-branch Liberty Gospel Church, made a film, widely distributed, called End of the Wicked. It tells, in graphic detail, how children become possessed and shows them being inducted into covens, eating human flesh and bringing chaos and death to their families and communities.

Mrs Ukpabio, a mother of three, also wrote a popular book which tells parents how to identify a witch. For children under two years old, she says, the key signs of a servant of Satan are crying and screaming in the night, high fever and worsening health - symptoms that can be found among many children in an impoverished region with poor health care.

The preacher says that her work is true to the Bible and is a means of spreading God's word. "Witchcraft is a problem all over Nigeria and someone with a gift like me can never hurt anybody," she says. "Every Nigerian wants to watch my movies." She denies that her teachings and films could encourage child abuse.

Even though money and power are surely factors in this, I don't think we should imagine that Helen Ukpabio isn't 100% sincere here. Perhaps a highly qualified psychologist could, after extensive interviews, arrive at a reliable conclusion as to whether or not she's lying to herself as well as others but we just aren't in such a position. There's no reason to doubt that she believes she is being true to the Bible, that she believe she is spreading God's word, and that she believes none of her actions could possibly hurt anyone.

Haven't Christians throughout history told themselves and others the exact same things while participating in heinous activities that led to the suffering of untold numbers of people?

"Any Christian would look at the situation that is going on here and just be absolutely outraged that they were using the teachings of Jesus Christ to exploit and abuse innocent children," says [Gary Foxcroft, 29, programme director for the UK charity Stepping Stones] whose expose of what he describes as "an absolute scandal" will be screened in a Channel 4 documentary on Wednesday.

Can anyone even remotely familiar with Christian history be the least bit surprised at Christianity being used to help justify or encourage the exploitation of the powerless? Sure, the powerless have been effective at also using Christianity to drive their own efforts at liberation, but it's an undeniable fact that Christianity has, throughout the past two millennia, been closely aligned with the status quo and the "powers that be" — political, economic, social, and religious. You don't do that without being part of the exploitation of the powerless.

"Christianity in the Niger Delta is seriously questionable, putting a traditional religion together with Christian religion - and it makes nonsense out of it," [Sam Itauma] says. "If you are not rich and don't have anything to eat, you look to blame someone. And if you don't get anything, you blame it on the witches."

I don't think Sam Itauma knows enough about the history of Christianity. It doesn't take much time studying it to realize that Christianity has always, and from the very beginning, incorporated elements of "traditional religion" in its surroundings. Much of what people treat as normal, traditional aspects of Christianity can in fact be traced, at least in part, to ancient pagan practices from around Europe. Missionaries who took Christianity around the rest of the world always had to accommodate at least some indigenous practices, traditions, and customs.

In fact, it was this ability to compromise just enough to make new converts feel comfortable without undermining core elements that allowed Christianity to spread as far as it did and survive as well as it has. Christianity was able to adapt to new and changing environments, a key element for the survival of any organism, ideology, or idea. So the fact that Christians in the Niger Delta are accommodating local beliefs about witches is hardly surprising or unusual, especially given the fact that Christianity already has a long history of belief in and violent oppression of accused witches. Even the violence against accused witches is hardly new and surprising — it's only the age of the accused where a new factor is appearing.

 

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