Above, an excerpt of the Christian horror movie 'End of the Wicked' by the wealthy and prominent Nigerian evangelical 'prophetess' Helen Ukpabio. In an expose that aired last night, filmmakers visited a village where everyone had seen the film, and where a girl has been ostracised for witchcraft. The locals are outraged when the child is brought back into the village, one man smiling as he tells us "I want to kill that small girl."
The Daily Telegraph reports, "ten years ago there were few cases of children stigmatised by witchcraft. But since then the numbers have grown at an alarming rate and have reached an estimated 15,000 in Akwa Ibom state alone."
Salaam writes: Obviously, one of the important issues to me when I named my site "Progressive Islam" was the problem of extremist deviance in the deen. However, one of the difficulties is that such a focus can create the appearance of there being an exceptional issue with extremism in this religion. The imbalance in coverage, if unaddressed, can spread dishonesty and can serve the goals of Islamophobes.
So I feel it is important to also cover stories that show that extremist deviancy is an interfaith problem, and that the heavy US media coverage of Islamic extremism, while understandable given 9/11, is arbitrary and selective.
So I'm interested in stories like this one not to divert attention from the ills of Islam, but to balance the coverage and diminish the possibility that someone could come away from this site with an impression of Islam exceptionalism in extremism.
And of course, I'm interested because it is the moral thing to do to try to draw attention to this and thereby contribute to the beginning of a movement that will confront this evil and end it.
The story is also noteworthy because the Pentacostal fanatics that are at fault here participate in the same Christianist movement that Sarah Palin follows, who very nearly became the second most powerful person in America.
Parents sometimes attack, torture and kill their own children when they become convinced they are witches.
Richard Bartholomew writes: Last night Channel 4 broadcast Saving Africa's Witch Children, as part of its Dispatches strand. The programme focused on children accused of being witches by Pentecostal pastors in Akwa Ibom state in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria, and the work of the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network. Several pastors were featured, including Helen Ukpabio, who has featured on this blog several times in the past, most recently here. The problem makes for grim viewing: we see children who have been horribly mutilated, and in one case left brain damaged after having had a nail driven through her skull; others appear withdrawn and tearful after being rejected by their families and threatened. We also see the hostility of aggressive and angry adults against the charity workers who challenge the witch teaching and offer support to children living rough.
The first pastor we meet is the rolex-wearing Bishop Sunday Ulup-Aya, who makes children drink a strange "poision destroyer" medicine made up of "African mercury", his own blood, and pure alcohol. He explains, in a jerky and giggling manner, that
I have power here on earth that is bound in heaven...I killed up to 110 people who was identified to be a witch...We have 2.3 million witches and wizards in Akwa Ibom.
His services cost "400,000?.
Also featured are Prophetess Cecilia Udoyeo and Franklin Udoeyo, of the Covenant Global Mission. They have a group of subdued children in a room at the back of their church; the prophetess tells us that
In the night we have to tarry [i.e. fight] with them, so they may not go to the coven, so we have to tarry with them until it is 5 and we know they cannot move again. The Spirit of God has overwhelmed them. That is why we will allow them to sleep by daytime.
Franklin adds, regarding one girl:
She has grown up to a level of becoming a Queen in the coven, so one day the lord helped me I was able to remove the crown, her power was removed.
The girl now sleeps in Franklin's bedroom. Some of the children have been living at the church for three years.
Ukpabio herself is then featured, and we are treated to scenes from her Christian horror film End of Wicked, which shows witch children eating human flesh, flying around, and making an man's eyes pop out. In 2000 only a few children were ever accused of witchcraft, but the upsurge since then - there are frequent arrivals at CRARN's shelter - is blamed by a local community leader, Chief Victor Emet, on Ukpabio and her film. The filmmakers also visit a village where everyone has seen the film, and where a girl has been ostracised for witchcraft. The locals are outraged when the child is brought back into the village, one man smiling as he tells us "I want to kill that small girl".
Movement's leader: 'I decree that vast amounts of wealth will be released supernaturally, even from godless and pagan sources... The enemy's camp will be plundered... Resistance will be impossible.' Includes fantastic tales of battling demons everywhere, boasts of contributing to the death of Mother Teresa.
C. Peter Wagner is the leader of the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement that has invented a mythology of demons unheard of in the Bible or any other religious text. 'The Queen of Heaven' is rendered as an especially fearsome spirit who prevents Catholics' prayers from reaching heaven. Wagner and a former voodoo priest turned evangelical and several others report to have travelled to Mount Everest to make war on the demon in the late 1990s. Somehow, as a result of this battle, Wagner claimed, Mother Teresa was killed.
The McCain campaign, during the 2008 election, has repeatedly attacked Barack Obama for advocating that the U.S. federal government seek more wealth equality in America, by "spreading the wealth."
But McCain's running mate Sarah Palin is closely associated, as noted in a recent New York Times story, with "spiritual warfare", an aggressive approach to evangelizing developed by the leaders of a worldwide religious movement which promotes a religiously based wealth transfer scheme as a means to implement theocracy.
As the top leader of the New Apostolic Reformation, which extensive evidence suggests is Sarah Palin's chosen religious and political movement, C. Peter Wagner proclaimed, on June 21, 2006, that "God has declared through His prophets that the wealth of the wicked will be released to the Kingdom of God."
Wagner detailed his religiously based wealth transfer scheme to power a theocratic takeover, stating "I declare that this wealth will be distributed for the extension of the Kingdom of God by the apostles that God has set in the church." Wagner made clear that that human agency would be a part of his wealth transfer scheme, and Wagner specifically singled out the "godless":
"I decree that vast amounts of wealth will be released supernaturally, even from godless and pagan sources... The enemy's camp will be plundered... Resistance will be impossible. Jesus will put all things under His feet." - C. Peter Wagner
Both Muthee and Glazier are also high level leaders in the New Apostolic Reformation, which over the last decade has rapidly expanded as an international movement within Neocharismatic "renewal" groups within Christianity estimated to have 295 million members worldwide.
It is a movement organizing on a massive scale for religious, social and ideological takeovers in entire nations, such as in Brazil. Thomas Muthee is a personal friend of the top leader of the New Apostolic Reformation, C. Peter Wagner, and Muthee has played a key role in promoting "spiritual warfare" concepts that have powered rapid growth of Wagner's movement.
Goodstein's story did not name the New Apostolic Reformation movement but verified Sarah Palin's association with religious leaders who practice "spiritual warfare" and, as Goodstein accurately detailed,
spiritual warfare "adherents believe that demonic forces can colonize specific geographic areas and individuals, and that "spiritual warriors" must "battle" them to assert God's control, using prayer and evangelism. The movement's fixation on demons, its aggressiveness and its leaders' claims to exalted spiritual authority have troubled even some Pentecostal Christians."
Goodstein went on to note that Sarah Palin had (in the summer of 2008) "delivered an enthusiastic graduation speech for a class of young spiritual warriors in June at the Wasilla Assembly of God, the church in which she was raised." Goodstein's story went on to mention that Palin, as Alaska governor, had appointed a spiritual warfare advocate to an Alaska State suicide prevention council, a story first covered by this author.
Most significantly of all Laurie Goodstein's story recognized Thomas Muthee's international stature as a celebrity, to millions internationally, because of his role in a globally distributed instructional video series promoting "spiritual warfare" concepts:
"Bishop Thomas Muthee, the Kenyan preacher shown on the YouTube video anointing her as she ran for governor, is celebrated internationally as an effective spiritual warrior who led a prayer movement that drove a witch out of his town in Kenya. The removal of the witch, Bishop Muthee says, resulted in a drop in crime, alcoholism and traffic accidents."
Thomas Muthee is in fact one of a handful of leaders, clustered around Muthee's personal friend C. Peter Wagner, who have pioneered the development of "spiritual warfare" concepts, terminology and methods.
Muthee has held several top leadership positions in Wagner's organizations and networks including serving, in the late 1990's, on the International Advisory Board of the World Prayer Center. That Center was founded in the mid 1990's as a joint effort of C. Peter Wagner and Ted Haggard, founder of the Colorado Springs New Life Church and later the head of the National Association of Evangelicals.
While Thomas Muthee served on that World Prayer Center board, an expedition authorized by Wagner and planned by Mexican former Voodoo priestess, now a Christian evangelist, Ana Mendez, went to Mount Everest to battle what Wagner and others in his movement have described as a global demonic spirit, centered over Everest, that blocks the prayers of Catholics and members of other religions from reaching God. That Spiritual Warfare expedition, as claimed in writings by Wagner and Mendez, may have contributed to the death of Mother Theresa.
Video above: A reminder of where Muslims stand in the religious right's culture war agenda. Video by popular Christian Zionist speakers Walid and Theodore Shoebat to market a book written by Theodore Shoebat.
From Rightwingwatch: For those hoping that a victory by Barack Obama might somehow restrain or moderate the Religious Right ... well, you are going to be disappointed since the Right is already looking ahead and planning on reconstituting itself by rallying around Sarah Palin and launching an all-out culture war:
"An Obama victory will galvanize social conservatives for 2010 and 2012 and they will look for a standard bearer they can rally around," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of America's largest evangelical group.
Land told Reuters the candidate most likely to "rally the troops" under an Obama administration looked to be McCain's running mate Sarah Palin.
The Alaska governor has excited the evangelical base but her strident opposition to abortion rights and other hard-core conservative positions have alienated more moderate voters.
William Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League which opposes abortion rights, said religious conservatives were bracing for a new phase in the "culture wars."
"I've been on the phone the last couple of days with some of my friends ... and we're getting ready for the biggest culture war battles ever," Donohue said.
"There is nobody in the history of the United States who has run for president who is a more enthusiastic supporter of abortion rights than Obama," he said.
Putting Sarah Palin one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.
laska enters its 50th-anniversary year in the glow of an improbable and highly memorable event: the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate. For the first time ever, an Alaskan is making a serious bid for national office, and in doing so she brings broad attention and recognition not only to herself, but also to the state she leads.
Alaska's founders were optimistic people, but even the most farsighted might have been stretched to imagine this scenario. No matter the outcome in November, this election will mark a signal moment in the history of the 49th state. Many Alaskans are proud to see their governor, and their state, so prominent on the national stage.
Gov. Palin's nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency -- but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.
Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.
From Rightwingwatch: Brian Williams asked Sarah Palin if "an abortion clinic bomber [is] a terrorist under this definition" and she answered, "Now others who would to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities, I don't know if you're gonna use the word 'terrorist' there, but it's unacceptable, and it would not be condoned of course on our watch."
As others have noted, it's disturbing that after 7 murders, 17 attempted murders, 41 bombings, 175 acts of arson and hundreds of cases of death threats, stalking, assault, and break-ins, Palin doesn't think it's appropriate to use the T-word.
But what has been mostly overlooked is the fact that the comments by Palin, a self-described "hardcore pro-lifer," run contrary to the longstanding position of American law enforcement.
....
The FBI defines domestic terrorism, logically enough, as "the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or its territories without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." In other words, Palin is out of step with the FBI.
During an interview with NBC's Brian Williams which aired tonight, Gov. Sarah Palin offered two contradictory statements in the span of just a few minutes. When asked who is "an elite," Palin answered: "Oh, I guess just people who think they're better than anyone else." Moments later, here's how Palin responded when asked if she's a "feminist":
I'm not gonna label myself. And I think that's what annoys a lot of Americans - especially in a political campaign - is to start trying to label different parts of America, different backgrounds.
Palin seemed not to realize that, just minutes earlier, she was labeling different parts of America.
Ali at ThinkProgress writes: Today, the New York Times reports on the "heavily male" crowds at rallies for Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), where her "stoutest defenders are often the Joe Sixpacks in her crowds." A few of the men interviewed noted Palin's physical appeal:
- "Mr. McLain wore a 'Proud to be voting for a hot chick' button[.]"
- "Yes, some men come to ogle the candidate, too. 'She's beautiful,' said a man wearing a John Deere T-shirt in Weirs Beach. 'I came here to look at her,' he said, and his admiration for Ms. Palin's appearance became more and more animated. Sheepish over his ogling, he declined to give his real name ('Just call me "John Deere"')."
In September, a McCain campaign ad argued that complimenting Palin on her appearance was "sexist." Does the McCain campaign believe that these supporters - who are echoing other prominent conservatives - are sexist too?
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded Friday. The politically charged inquiry imperiled her reputation as a reformer on John McCain's Republican ticket.
Investigator Stephen Branchflower, in a report by a bipartisan panel that investigated the matter, found Palin in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain.
The inquiry looked into her dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, who said he lost his job because he resisted pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce with the governor's sister. Palin says Monegan was fired as part of a legitimate budget dispute.
The report found that Palin let the family grudge influence her decision-making even if it was not the sole reason Monegan was dismissed. "I feel vindicated," Monegan said. "It sounds like they've validated my belief and opinions. And that tells me I'm not totally out in left field."
Branchflower said Palin violated a statute of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.
"I disagree," said Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein. "In order to violate the ethics law, there has to be some personal gain, usually financial. Mr. Branchflower has failed to identify any financial gain."
The statute says "any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that (public) trust."
Think Progress reports: This afternoon, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) gave a "sharply worded" speech full of "verbal assaults" directed at Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). At one point, McCain asked, "Who is the real Barack Obama?" A member of the crowd yelled out, "a terrorist!" McCain paused while the audience laughed at the comment, and then continued with his attack - without condemning or admonishing the audience member.
....
The Washington Post reports that when Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) attacked Obama during a speech in Florida this morning, one audience member shouted, "Kill him!"
'I don't want to be played by the girl-strings anymore. Shaking our heads and wringing our hands in sympathy with Sarah Palin is a disservice to every woman who has ever been unfairly dismissed based on her gender, because this is an utterly fair dismissal, based on an utter lack of ability and readiness.'
From Rebecca Traister at Salon.com: Is this the week that Democrats and Republicans join hands -- to heap pity on poor Sarah Palin?
At the moment, all signs point to yes, as some strange bedfellows reveal that they have been feeling sorry for the vice-presidential candidate ever since she stopped speaking without the help of a teleprompter.
Conservative women like Kathleen Parker and Kathryn Jean Lopez are shuddering with sympathy as they realize that the candidate who thrilled them, just weeks ago, is not in shape for the big game. They're not alone. The New Republic's Christopher Orr feels that Palin has been misused by the team that tapped her. In the New York Times, Judith Warner feels for Sarah, too! And over at the Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates empathizes with intelligence and nuance, making clear that he's not expressing pity. Salon's own Glenn Greenwald watched the Katie Couric interview and "actually felt sorry for Sarah Palin." Even Amy Poehler, impersonating Katie Couric on last week's "Saturday Night Live," makes the joke that Palin's cornered-animal ineptitude makes her "increasingly adorable."
I guess I'm one cold dame, because while Palin provokes many unpleasant emotions in me, I just can't seem to summon pity, affection or remorse.
Don't get me wrong, I'm just like all of the rest of you, part of the bipartisan jumble of viewers that keeps one hand poised above the mute button and the other over my eyes during Palin's disastrous interviews. Like everyone else, I can barely take the waves of embarrassment that come with watching someone do something so badly. Roseanne Barr singing the national anthem, Sofia Coppola acting in "The Godfather: Part III," Sarah Palin talking about Russia -- they all create the same level of eyeball-squinching discomfort.
But just because I'm human, just because I can feel, just because I did say this weekend that I "almost feel sorry for her" doesn't mean, when I consider the situation rationally, that I do. Yes, as a feminist, it sucks -- hard -- to watch a woman, no matter how much I hate her politics, unable to answer questions about her running mate during a television interview. And perhaps it's because this experience pains me so much that I feel not sympathy but biting anger. At her, at John McCain, at the misogynistic political mash that has been made of what was otherwise a groundbreaking year for women in presidential politics.
With her vice presidential nomination, Sarah Palin has become the ultimate religious-right success story. Ever since the Christian Coalition was formed using the infrastructure of Pat Robertson's 1988 presidential run, the movement has focused on building power from the ground up, turning conservative churches into little political machines. "I would rather have a thousand school board members than one president and no school board members," Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed said in 1996. Palin, who got her start in a local church-backed political struggle, is very much the product of Reed's strategy.
She has not always governed as a zealot; in fact, she's a bit of a cipher, with scant record of speeches or writings on social issues or foreign policy. Nevertheless, several people who've dealt with her say that those concerned about church-state separation should be chilled by the idea of a Palin presidency. "To understand Sarah Palin, you have to realize that she is a religious fundamentalist," said Howard Bess, a retired liberal Baptist minister living in Palmer. "The structure of her understanding of life is no different from a Muslim fundamentalist."
Naomi Wolf writes: Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state.
You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand "Palin Power." A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections -- but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control. Remember, Russia has Presidents; Russia holds elections. Dictators and gangs of thugs all over the world hold elections. It means nothing. When a cabal has seized power you can have elections and even presidents, but you don't have freedom.
I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her -- not McCain's -- speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies -- not McCain's -- to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners -- this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit -- but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain.
Then I saw and heard more. Palin is embracing lawlessness in defying Alaskan Legislature subpoenas -- this is what Rove-Cheney, and not McCain, believe in doing. She uses mafia tactics against critics, like the police commissioner who was railroaded for opposing handguns in Alaskan battered women's shelters -- Rove's style, not McCain's. I realized what I was seeing.
