God Hates Witches

Followup to: God damn America (and Iraq)

During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after doing its duty in but a lazy and indolent way for eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.

Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.

—Mark Twain, "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice" (1890)

It is the year 2008, and witchcraft isn't real. It never was real, and it never will be. Some people may claim to be witches, but there's nothing supernatural about them. They aren't actually casting spells, summoning spirits or speaking to the dead. It's completely ridiculous that I should even have to say something so obvious, but it seems this isn't as obvious as I expected. In the previous update, I included a video of Sarah Palin speaking at the Wasilla Assembly of God in June of this year. After her remarks on God's plan, she mentioned her history with another pastor:

We forgot to talk about Pastor Muthee, yeah. As I was mayor, and Pastor Muthee was here, and he was praying over me, and you know how he speaks. And he's so bold, he's praying, "Lord, make a way, Lord, make a way", and I'm thinking, this guy's really bold. He doesn't even know what I'm gonna do, he doesn't know what my plans are, and he's praying, not "Oh, Lord, if it be your will, may she become governor", whatever, no, he just prayed for it. He said "Lord, make a way and let her do this next step", and that's exactly what happened. So again, very, very powerful coming from this church, so that was awesome about Pastor Muthee.

During the 16 October 2005 service at the Wasilla Assembly of God, Kenyan bishop Thomas Muthee laid hands upon Palin and prayed for her:

We are asking you as the body of Christ in this valley, make a way for Sarah, even in the political arena. Make a way, my God. Bring finances her way, even for the campaign in the name of Jesus, and above all, give her the personnel. Give her men and women that will back her up in the name of Jesus. [...]

Father, we thank you today. We come against every hindrance of the enemy standing in her way today, in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus! Every form of witchcraft is what you will rebuke, in the name of Jesus. Father, make a way now, in Jesus' name. Amen.

That's right, witchcraft. Every form of it. Many people think this is quite bizarre, and I count myself among them—you don't need protection from something that isn't real (not that the incantations of prayer, at times indistinguishable from witchcraft, are any more effective). Of course, we can't tell for sure whether Palin believes in witchcraft, though I really hope someone will ask her. Others, including The View's token mental defective Elisabeth Hasselbeck and flat-earth agnostic Sherri Shepherd, consider witchcraft protection to be standard operating procedure for churches. And I don't think it is.

A long time ago, I attended Roman Catholic and Lutheran (WELS) churches for several years. I didn't really see the point, but my family wanted to go there for some reason. The Catholics believed wafers and wine were literally transformed into the body and blood of Jesus, and only appeared to be wafers and wine because . The Lutherans, rejecting this doctrine as absurd, instead taught us that human evolution never happened, carbon dating is a lie, dinosaurs didn't exist, fossils were buried underground to test our faith, and the devil could speak to us via Ouija boards. Yes, we woke up early every Sunday just to learn about these fascinating topics. And in spite of all this freaky misinformation, nobody ever told us witchcraft was something real, let alone something we needed protection from. The Lutherans even said it was perfectly fine for kids to read the Harry Potter series, as long as they knew witchcraft wasn't real.

Thomas Muthee takes a somewhat different approach, not only positing the existence of witchcraft, but actively fighting against it. In 1988, he and his late wife were studying theology in Scotland when they were "called by God" to move to Kiambu, a suburb of Nairobi ravaged by poverty and violent crime. No spiritual communities had been able to thrive in Kiambu, and Muthee spent several months fasting and praying for advice. Eventually, he identified the source of the town's problems: the "demonic influence" of Mama Jane, a fortune-telling witch who ran a "divination clinic" from her house. Muthee believed her witchcraft was causing numerous fatal car accidents on the road near the clinic, and in 1989, he recruited 200 people to his "Prayer Cave" in the basement of a grocery store. Working in shifts, they fasted and prayed against Mama Jane 24 hours a day; in response, she left ashes, feathers and animal horns outside the cave.

This "spiritual warfare" continued for several months, until Muthee demanded that Mama Jane either convert to Christianity or leave town. She declined, at which point the situation deteriorated rapidly. When three teenagers were killed in another car accident near her clinic, the townspeople rioted, calling for her to be stoned to death. The police raided the clinic, shooting and killing her pet python, which they believed was a "demon". Mama Jane left Kiambu shortly thereafter, and Muthee's ministry became wildly successful.

Muthee is clearly an asshole of the highest order, and his actions are reprehensible in the extreme. When I said people who believe God is on their side are dangerous, that wasn't a joke. This isn't a joke. Muthee was so convinced he had God's approval, he launched his ministry by leading a gang of superstitious nimrods on a literal witch hunt to attack an innocent woman. The Kiambu incident was an eruption of die-hard militant ignorance: inexcusable stupidity and pure unbridled lunacy, coalescing into violence that could have been so easily avoided, if not for the presence of Thomas Muthee. He is completely insane and utterly remorseless. His relationship with reality is tenuous at best, and his delusions inspire primitive behavior more suited to 1689 than 1989. And he enjoys telling numerous congregations the outrageous story of how his ministry began; indeed, he's proud of it.

There's no way around it: Muthee is a radical terrorist, driven by a dangerous extremist ideology. When it comes to religious freedom, it's his way or the highway. You might think Sarah Palin wouldn't pal around with someone so deranged, but she evidently has no problem attending his sermons and receiving his blessings against "witchcraft". She even thinks his prayers helped her become governor. For those of us who know witchcraft isn't real, pythons aren't demons, and there are no gods playing Risk with our planet, the possibility of Palin becoming vice president or even president is deeply unsettling. Ted Haggard, the evangelical preacher who bought meth from a male prostitute, spoke to President Bush or his advisers on a weekly basis. How much influence could Thomas Muthee wield over a McCain/Palin administration?

On the other hand, maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing:

An unusual video showing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, being blessed by a Kenyan bishop against witchcraft has rattled liberal bloggers and fueled scorn among her detractors, but religious experts say the matter has been blown out of proportion by ignorance and intolerance.

The video of a Kenyan bishop asking Jesus to protect Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin from "witchcraft" has turned into a political witch hunt, says one Harvard expert who found "nothing unusual" about the blessing.

"He was giving an African prayer to an American Christian," said Jacob K. Olupona, a Harvard African studies professor. "His prayer reflects his own background and his own training and his own world view. America may not believe in witchcraft, but witchcraft is a reality (in Africa)."

"Witchcraft is a sad reality in many parts of Africa, resulting in scores of deaths in Kenya over the past two decades. Bishop Muthee's blessing, then, was simply a reflection of his cultural understanding of evil. While others are not obliged to accept his interpretation, all can be expected to respect it. More than that—Muthee should be hailed for asking God to shield Palin from harmful forces, however they may be manifested. And for this he is mocked and Palin ridiculed?

"We know that many cultural elites have a hard time embracing religion, but is it too much to ask that they at least show some manners when discussing subjects which most Americans hold dear?"

Does Africa have its own version of reality now? Actual witchcraft doesn't occur anywhere, but belief in witchcraft is much more prevalent in Africa than America. Beliefs inform actions, and it's a terrible mistake to write this off as just another manifestation of harmless nonsense. For some reason, people can't seem to keep this particular belief to themselves:

• Last week, three people in Malawi died a few minutes after a mob forced them to drink a "potion" to cleanse them of witchcraft.
• This September, 13 people at a soccer game in the Congo were killed in a riot after a player was accused of using witchcraft against the opposing team.
• This May, a mob in Kenya accused 11 elderly people of being witches, burned them alive and set their homes on fire. Fearing for their lives, the victims' families went into hiding.
• This April, a family of three in South Africa were held captive by a mob of villagers who suspected them of witchcraft. They were subsequently hacked to death.
• This March, two children in Malawi aged three and seven were torched to death by two sisters, in order to "exorcise" them of witchcraft.
• In June of 2007, a lynch mob accused three women in Uganda of being witches, held a secret trial, hunted them down, beat them with stones and axes, and burned them alive.
• In May of 2007, an elderly couple in India were accused of witchcraft, dragged out of their home, beaten and burned on a pyre by a mob that included some of their relatives.
• In August of 2006, five people in Assam, India were killed by tribesmen who suspected them of witchcraft. In Assam, 200 people have been killed in the five years prior for practicing witchcraft.
• In March of 2006, a family of five in Assam were publicly beheaded by a mob of 200 villagers after an unofficial trial accusing them of witchcraft. Carrying the heads, they marched to a police station, where six of them were arrested. An officer said they thought "the killings would appease the gods."
• In Angola, dozens of young children are abandoned by their families, brutally tortured and even murdered after being accused of witchcraft.
• In 2004, a mob in Tanzania accused seven people of practicing witchcraft, and killed them with machetes and stones.
• In 2003, an eight-year-old girl in Britain was cut and beaten by her aunt and two other women until she admitted to practicing witchcraft. They rubbed chili peppers in her eyes, stuffed her inside a laundry bag and said they were going to drown her in a river.
• In 1998, a vigilante group in Kenya burned 10 suspected witches, all of them elderly.

Apparently we're expected to show some manners and respect a belief that has directly caused hundreds of horrific murders in modern times—after all, there's nothing unusual about it. Otherwise, we're cultural elites exhibiting our ignorance and intolerance of this admirable practice. Incredible, isn't it? Bill Donohue and his fellow "religious experts" have accomplished nothing less than a total inversion of all reasonable standards of behavior. There's nothing more intolerant than burning children to death, and there's nothing more ignorant than defending the completely erroneous belief that led to these atrocities. The sad reality is that none of this would have occurred were it not for acceptance of the ridiculous idea that witchcraft is real. And Thomas Muthee is part of the problem.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

—Voltaire, Questions sur les miracles (1765)

Update, 25 October 2008: It turns out Thomas Muthee completely fabricated the witch hunt story. (Isn't there some commandment about lying?) Jane Njenga (Mama Jane) never left town, and she's even a pastor at her own church, half a mile away from Muthee's. She did not own a pet python. Though it's good to know she wasn't driven out of town by psychos, this raises some interesting points about Muthee. He considered the witch hunt tale to be worth lying about, and he told the story to people who would think his actions were righteous rather than despicable. He tried to appeal to the worst inclinations of humanity: mindless bloodlust that prizes mob justice over even a moment of cool-headed reason. He fantasizes about violently forcing his dangerous delusions upon others, and he attempts to draw followers who share this perversion. This speaks poorly of his character, to put it mildly.