One of the inspirations for me starting this blog, the Anchoress, wrote today on the supernatural. She took her article from this news item that appeared on Drudge and other news outlets a few days ago:
A renowned black magic practitioner performed a voodoo ritual Thursday to jinx President George W. Bush and his entourage while he was on a brief visit to Indonesia.
…
“I am doing voodoo, because other ritual would not work,” Pamungkas told reporters after he conducted the gory ritual about 1 kilometers from the palace.
To western minds — even to Christian western minds — this whole idea sounds silly. We either believe that there is no devil (and thus no demon minions) or we believe that demons are found in only isolated instances, like the Charles Manson murders. Even most conservative Christians are taught to believe that the devil and his demons are pretty much limited to tempting us and that anything more is the result of a fervid imagination or one too many slices of pizza before trundling off to bed.
Most of the world does not believe that way.
They believe in good and evil spirits — mostly evil ones who can sometimes be placated or manipulated — and they see the actions of these spirits, or what they believe are the actions of these spirits, in their day-to-day lives.
To my surprise, I found out from talking to former missionaries 25 or so years ago, and many times since, that they usually return from the missionary field believing in the direct actions of demons in everyday life. They are mostly quiet about it because it upsets the mission boards of the big denominations but it’s the rule rather than the exception that they enter the missionary the missionary field with nice, quiet, western Christian beliefs and leave the missionary field with their eyes wide open to the supernatural.
A man I know who uses his vacations doing missionary work in Zimbabwe told me of native peoples at events who were behaving perfectly normally one minute and the next minute were writhing on the ground like snakes or lizards, coughing up foul-smelling and colored materials, and screeching loudly or bellowing decidedly non-human guttural grouls. When prayed for in the name of Jesus Christ, they returned to their senses. He even once had a choking spell put on him by a witch doctor that he said almost killed him. This part-time missionary is no uneducated rube but is rather a well-respected, extremely bright network engineer who is not given to flights of fancy. He doesn’t see a demon behind every tree but has seen enough of the supernatural to know that it is for real.
In America and Europe, Satan has convinced most of us that he doesn’t exist or is nothing more than a tempter. We don’t believe in him enough. In the rest of the world, Satan has convinced the peoples that he is all-powerful and that there is no almighty God who opposes him and can come to their aid.
Different strategies, same outcome.
In light of the “hex” on Bush and his entourage, here are some news stories from today:
White House Staffer Robbed, Beaten In Waikiki…
Three motorcycles in Bush motorcade crash in Honolulu…
Coincidence? Maybe. But I know that Eva and I will be praying for deliverance for Bush and his entourage tonight.
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