Special thanks to @wyldraven and @JaneAnneT for their editing assistance.
I doubt that there is anyone who hasn’t heard about Pat Robertson’s comments following the unbelievable catastrophe that hit Haiti this past week. If you aren’t aware, the link below includes the video clip. While a number of blogs, news sources and others have chastised Roberston for the comment, there has been little real exploration of what he said or the historical record behind it.
I can’t find any positive perspective from which to view his comment, and I’ve thought a lot about this. In some regard, his remarks are the standard evangelical conservative response to everything: “Turn to God.” To homosexuals they say, turn to God. To the confused and hurting youth they say, turn to God. To the victims of one of the worst natural disasters to hit the Western Hemisphere they say, turn to God.
And he harms the people of Haiti, as well as all who listen to him, by trying to shroud his Christian arrogance with a pretend compassion for the people of Haiti. Much like the ex-gay ministries claim to love the men and women who seek guidance there, when in reality the very actions taken are harmful and soul-killing.
Robertson traces the problem of Haiti back to what he calls a true story, yet nothing could be further from the truth. For Robertson, it includes a pact with Satan, an idea meant to inspire fear and titillation. How exotic it sounds. How taboo! Few have tried to unpack this “true story”, except some have claimed it isn’t true. Most have simply expressed outrage that he said it.
And similar to the portrayal of homosexuals, Roberston fails to offer a true context and presentation of the reality for his “true story.” He begins, “They were under the heel of the French.” As if the people were the indigenous people under the control of a foreign power. Robertson fails to acknowledge, that the people being discussed were Africans brought by force to the area, as slaves. This is a critical point as simple as it may seem. The conservative Christian movement uses half-truths like this upon which it builds the judgements and conclusions they cast upon others.
But what of this pact with Satan? Historically, there does appear to be a story that a houngon (vodou priest) named Bookman led a ceremony where the people asked for assistance against the French and this is often labeled as the start of the revolution that ended slavery allowing the slaves to achieve freedom fort themselves.
Missing are a few facts however. First is the fact that Satan doesn’t really play a role in Vodou despite the Hollywood portrayal of the religion. Vodou, like Santaria, is a syncretic faith born from the melding of ancient African practices and belief systems with Catholicism. More likely, Bookman was calling upon the ancestors, not Satan, to make the people strong, and for that strength to allow them to rebuke their French oppressors.
For Robertson, the Catholics may be every bit as Evil as the pagans from which these people’s religion was formed. But it is still ironic that the very faith tradition Robertston slanders, grew out of the forced conversion to Christianity (even if it was Catholicism). Today, he calls on the Haitians to turn to God, but today’s invocation is no less damaging that the forced conversion of that earlier era.
How Religion has failed, or more correctly, how Christianity has failed, when this is all that such a public face of evangelicalism has to offer to a country where 85% of the population are Catholic.
If all of this wasn’t enough, there is a darker and more sinister side to Robertson’s comments. It is almost as if he was suggesting that the people were better off as slaves, than to rise up and cast off their oppressors. For Robertson, that religious ceremony conducted by Bookman was the start of the Haitian peoples’ problems. Many might argue it wasn’t that event but rather it was the forced enslavement of these people, originally from Africa, that could be deemed the start of their problems. The enslavement of these black tribes, at the hands of the rich white Europeans, who did it, with the blessings if their contemporary church. But Robertson urges the people of Haiti to turn to God.
Now, as then, the will ands desires of the people are unimportant. Some white man knows what is best for the black people of Haiti.
Robertson’s “true story”: Haiti “swore a pact to the devil” to get “free from the French” and “ever since, they have been cursed” | Media Matters for America.
6
Mar 10
Religion has Failed: Insanity of Christianity
Like some of her other pieces, I wasn’t originally going to write about it. I enthusiastically, take her text in and ponder it, allowing it to ferment and give rise to thoughts and ideas. But then, I started reading the comments. A number of them, are the standard, evangelical defensiveness and victim posturing, as if fundamentalists are the poor abused minorities. They wonder what they have done to deserve such scorn, whereas Janet’s op-ed doesn’t attack evangelicals in general at all, at least in my opinion. And there were the comments made by Bible thumpers, who characteristically pull out a few Bible passages, and offer them as if they are the answer to everything. Frighteningly, these seemed to be placed there as if they support the Ugandan move towards the execution of gays. But one caught my eye, and propelled me into this post:
Now, Janet is an adult and I’m sure has been called far worse before and will again, so no comment from me about the personal attack against her. But the quote I want to emphasize is this: “Jesus was crucified because of lies.” What a theologically insane thing to say! Especially when followed with a statement about God and liars, and preceded with the claim that Janet is a liar. This person can if they like, equate Janet’s option with a lie, and align her with other liars, and claim that God hates liars, but the assertion that Jesus was crucified because of lies can not be substantiated theologically. Depending upon how you read the Bible, Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead because it was God’s plan. It was ordained to be that way, even before his birth. It was a required element of the narrative, for without it, the resurrection would mean nothing. So, one has to wonder who is the one lying and what does it mean to suggest that God is unhappy with Janet’s ideas, but God has no problem that His greatest gift to humanity, the sacrifice of his Son is so misunderstood? My favorite character in the Bible is the apostle Paul, who can be quoted to support or condemn just about anything imaginable. He lived and wrote at a time, when he, and others were struggling to comprehend the experience of Jesus in the context of the Hebrew Faith in which it had occurred. It troubled Paul deeply, and his attempt to figure out the relationship between Jesus, the death and resurrection, and God’s promise to the Jews is an underlying theme through out all of his letters. What was the role of the Law of Moses and now, God’s covenant through Christ- how to reconcile these things? How many of today’s far-right Christian fanatics seem to have no sense of this issue or theological problem! They are stuck at the math equation of “2+2″ but seem oblivious to the fact that the result is “5″ and the equation and result can not be aligned. What’s wrong with Fundamentalism, and the evangelicalism that grows from it, is that it has no basis in a sound theology. It is a bastardization of Christian Faith and lacks realistic, meaningful, and thoughtful theological basis. The truly faithful ought to be outraged, and alarmed by this. Real Faith, Real theology, and Real religion lose when this insanity reigns. Those who label themselves as the unfaithful or non-believers are not killing God or the opportunity for Faith. It is the insane within the Fundamentalist movement who are destroying the value of Faith and religion in real life.