Much to Andrew Sullivan’s chagrin, former Vice Presidential candidate and Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin is once again dominating the media. Touting her new book, duking it out with Levi, and chatting with Oprah. But while political junkies are taking bets as to whether she’ll run for President, the media blitz also draws us back into the folks who incubated her political career, and support her to this day. The spiritual-war loving neo-Charismatic, neo-Pentecostal movement known by some as the “Third Wave of the Holy Spirit”. Vehemently anti-Pagan and anti-Catholic, Palin publicly distanced herself from them during the campaign after an embarrassing video emerged showing her being blessed by a self-proclaimed African witch-hunter. Now, Talk to Action’s Bruce Wilson cites sources that Palin not only kept in contact with prominent Third Wavers (specifically Mary Glazier) throughout the campaign, but that they believed a terror attack would kill McCain and place her in the Oval Office.

“On September 22, with the 2008 presidential election little more than five weeks away, Glazier sent a prophetic “Warning of Imminent Attack” out through her prayer network [see 1, 2, 3]. Glazier later released a slightly sanitized version but her original “warning” concerned an “imminent” terrorist attack that could leave American in mourning with Sarah Palin “stepping into an office that she was mantled for.” Sarah Palin has been close to Mary Glazier throughout the entire course of Palin’s political career. On June 13, 2008 Mary Glazier told Christian leaders at a church conference held near Seattle that Palin had joined Glazier’s personal prayer group in 1989, around the time Palin went into politics…”

Who is Mary Glazier? She’s the Palin spiritual mentor who, as I’ve reported before, took credit for giving a Wiccan cancer and driving her out of the state of Alaska.

Mary Glazier is one of two religious leaders (along with Thomas Muthee) associated with Sarah Palin who claim to have successfully fought witches. Glazier has described a campaign of “prayer warfare” which she says her prayer group used to drive a woman, whom Glazier claimed was a witch, out of the state of Alaska. As Glazier told the Christian magazine SpiritLed Woman, for a 2003 article, “As we continued to pray against the spirit of witchcraft, her incense altar caught on fire, her car engine blew up, she went blind in her left eye, and she was diagnosed with cancer.”

So far from being a misguided youthful foray into a radical Christian sect, Palin’s friendship with these extremists is seemingly ongoing, and they believe she’s bound for greatness. So while some think Palin has simply become tabloid-fodder, a joke to be ignored, some will know that she’s haunted by these extremist supporters, and that “terror attack” is simply another word for “opportunity” in their eyes. Especially if you’re going to be stepping into an office you were “mantled” by God for. If in 2012 she does run against Obama, as some think she might, we better keep a close eye on Sarah’s friends.

“His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him — Mount Zion Lighthouse. A month later, he died. Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of “witch children” reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files. Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” “It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity,” said Gary Foxcroft, head of nonprofit Stepping Stones Nigeria.”

Many of these witch-hunting pastors belong to churches that are members of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) who say they can’t police their membership, though they can find it within themselves to collect membership dues. Indeed, the persecution of children for witchcraft is so “mainstream” in places like Nigeria that even the popular mega-pastors admit to horrid abuses.

“Helen Ukpabio is one of the few evangelists publicly linked to the denunciation of child witches. She heads the enormous Liberty Gospel church in Calabar … Ukpabio makes and distributes popular books and DVDs on witchcraft; in one film, a group of child witches pull out a man’s eyeballs. In another book, she advises that 60 percent of the inability to bear children is caused by witchcraft … “Witchcraft is real,” Ukpabio insisted, before denouncing the physical abuse of children. Ukpabio says she performs non-abusive exorcisms for freeHowever, she then acknowledged that she had seen a pastor from the Apostolic Church break a girl’s jaw during an exorcism. Ukpabio said she prayed over her that night and cast out the demon. She did not respond to questions on whether she took the girl to hospital or complained about the injury to church authorities.” and was not aware of or responsible for any misinterpretation of her materials. “I don’t know about that,” she declared.

Ukpabio is very much like the “spiritual warriors” here in America, except that her accusations of witchcraft and demonic possession fuel a trend of death and sorrow.

“Pastor Joe Ita is the preacher at Liberty Gospel Church in nearby Eket … There are nearly 60 branches of Liberty Gospel across the Niger Delta. It was started by a local woman, mother-of-two Helen Ukpabio … Many people in this area credit the popular evangelical DVDs she produces and stars in with helping to spread the child witch belief. Ita denies charging for exorcisms but acknowledges his congregation is poor and has to work hard to scrape up the donations the church expects. ‘To give more than you can afford is blessed. We are the only ones who really know the secrets of witches. Parents don’t come here with the intention of abandoning their children, but when a child is a witch then you have to say “what is that there? Not your child.” The parents come to us when they see manifestations. But the secret is that, even if you abandon your child, the curse is still upon you, even if you kill your child the curse stays. So you have to come here to be delivered afterwards as well,’ he explains patiently.”

The plight of “child witches’” is well known now, so where is the outrage and orchestrated refusal to send money to witch-hunting churches? Where is the Pentecostal-led movement to reverse this trend and isolate people like Helen Ukpabio? It seems almost non-existent, instead, acknowledged witch-hunters have been feted in America, giving blessings to prominent politicians. As for Ukpabio, she is no longer isolated to West Africa, and has a church in Rome. How far will this madness spread before the hundreds of church-bodies who have a stake in Africa do something?

“Please stop the pastors who hurt us,” said Jerry quietly, touching the scars on his face. “I believe in God and God knows I am not a witch.”

For those who want to help the witch-children, two good organizations to send money to are Stepping Stones Nigeria and CRARN (Child’s Right and Rehabilitation Network). We can also urge the press to continue to ask difficult questions of American churches that support witch-hunters but plead ignorance.

(Trigger Warning!) An Indian “witch” being beaten and paraded through her village.

“Murder and persecution of women and children accused of being witches is spreading around the world and destroying the lives of millions of people, experts said Wednesday … “This is becoming an international problem — it is a form of persecution and violence that is spreading around the globe,” Jeff Crisp of the U.N.’s refugee agency UNHCR told a seminar organized by human rights officials of the world body.”

According to some U.N. experts tracking the issue “at least” tens of thousands have died due to witch hunts, while millions have been beaten, abused, isolated, and turned into refugees. While economic hardship is given as a reason for the recent escalation in witch-related violence, experts at the UNHCR also claim that the rise can also be attributed to”religious practitioners” who exploit local fears and superstitions.

“Some religious practitioners make a living from exorcising alleged witches and charging exorbitant fees to those who request the ritual. In Foxcroft’s experience, the most vulnerable members of society – children and the elderly – are often the victims of these accusations.”

Who, exactly, are these “religious practitioners”? The IHEU is far more specific.

“Witchcraft is still widely practiced in many countries in Africa by witchdoctors who often use human body parts in their spells. Some witchdoctors employ gangs of young men to attack and kill victims, often young children, for their body parts, which are frequently removed while the victim is still alive. An estimated 300 people are killed each year in South Africa alone as a result of this practice. But horrific though this practice is, it is only part of the problem. In Nigeria, in both the Muslim North and the Christian South, witch hunts are not uncommon and this has led to a second form of abuse. Some unscrupulous pastors, many linked to Pentecostal churches, have a lucrative trade in making unfounded accusations of witchcraft against young children. [The pastors then agree to “cure” the witches for a substantial fee. Many children are being ostracized and abandoned by their parents as a result of these accusations.]“

These Christian pastors aren’t isolated to Africa, they tour churches in America bragging about their battles with the occult, and have established ministries in Ireland and the UK. Commingling with an increasing anti-occult fervor among some Western Christian groups. Meanwhile, actual modern Pagan communities in places like India and South Africa are facing the possible ramifications of intensifying witch-hunts and witch persecutions.

If this trend isn’t seriously addressed soon, we may find this madness turning its eye towards “safe” occultists and Pagans in places like America, the UK, Australia, Brazil, and Canada. Don’t think it could happen? All it takes is a pseudo-militant occult-fighting Christian movement cross-pollinating with a reviving “Satanic Ritual Abuse” movement, stir in some anti-government populist anger and frustration, and you have all the makings for an American witch-lynching.

“When Bill Sparkman told retired trooper Gilbert Acciardo that he was going door-to-door collecting census data in rural Kentucky, the former cop drew on years of experience for a warning: “Be careful.” The 51-year-old Sparkman was found this month hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest, a law enforcement official said Wednesday, and the FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment.”

The anger and hardship that cries out for a scapegoat is right here in our backyard. Right now “socialism” or “the government” may be the popular/populist nightmare,  but that can change. A global epidemic of witch-hunts is our issue, not because we share some theological bond with a “witch” killed in Nigeria, or imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, but because we don’t live in an enlightened vacuum, free from the troubles of the “third world”. Nor will outraged Internet petitions stem the tide, what we need is a concerted international campaign of education, aid, and better policing in the “hot” spots like Nepal, Kenya, India, and Nigeria. Those who have grown powerful on witch-hunting rhetoric won’t go quietly, and only the surety of secular law can ensure some semblance of safety. Meanwhile, those of us who are “safe” need to realize that what happens to “witches” in India and Papua New Guinea is no longer a string of  isolated incidents that will always stay “over there”. A “global” problem means it could indeed happen here, and perhaps sooner than any of us would want to admit.

“Atop the hierarchy of demon spirits are the ‘territorial demons’, and squatting near the apex, over Mount Everest, is a purported global-level demon spirit called ‘The Queen of Heaven’ that prevents, according to Peter Wagner, prayers of Catholics, Muslims, and adherents to other supposedly illegitimate forms of religious belief, from reaching God. In 1997, while Wagner was still running the Colorado Springs World Prayer Center (a joint project of C. Peter Wagner and Tedd Haggard), that center mounted an expedition, conceived by former voodoo priestess turned evangelist Ana Mendez, to Mount Everest to do battle with the “Queen of Heaven.” Ana Mendez later suggested that the spiritual warfare waged by the expedition team may have helped contribute to the death of Mother Theresa.”

Bruce Wilson at Talk To Action, who has been doing the lions share of digging into this increasingly prominent fringe movement, has now dug up a 1993 video segment where Wagner reveals more of his rampant anti-goddess paranoia. As fellow religious blogger Richard Bartholomew points out, this time it’s all about how Japanese Sun Goddess Amaterasu is the “harlot” from the Book of Revelation.

“Japan, as a nation, is one of the nations of the world which has consciously, openly, invited national demonization.  And they do this though what’s called the Daijosai ceremony…where when a new Emperor comes in to power…And as a part of this ceremony the Emperor goes to this specially chosen…place…He eats rice that has been planted and harvested and chosen through witchcraft. And at a certain time that night the Sun Goddess visits him in person, and has sexual intercourse with the Emperor…So the emperor becomes one flesh with the sun goddess…There is a certain spiritual phenomenon…that’s called succubus…Since the present emperor slept with the Sun Goddess the stock market in Japan has gone down, never come up since. This has been a disastrous year, the first year the rice harvest failed, the first Japan has ever had to import rice.”

Naturally Bartholemew dissects and debunks Wagner’s crazy talk, but I doubt any “Third Waver” will listen. If Wilson is right, and Third Wave affilated churches are being recruited to make up the core of a newly revitalized “Religious Right”, we need to keep our eyes open concerning their rise. Should these extremists ever hold real politcal power, I can’t imagine it would be condusive to the growth and health of the modern Pagan movement. At the very least, we should be concerned that seemingly mainstream politicians are willing to ally themselves with groups that are so hostile to religious co-existence.

“Apparently from Newt’s perspective we Pagans are not Americans, for in his fatwa he warned Americans that they are surrounded by “Paganism.” … Three old white geezers giving their race and gender a bad name, speaking to a crowd that gives its religion a bad name.”

Meanwhile, another Beliefnet blogger, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, suspects a bit of redirected anti-semitism.

“I am pretty certain that any time a non-follower describes any tradition, without at least the active presence of an actual believer or two, something bad is bound to happen. Any doubts? Think about how Judaism has been mangled over the centuries by non-Jews twisting it to meet their needs for a spiritual foil. My guess is that is what Newt was doing with paganism, and since it’s no longer acceptable in most quarters to do that with Judaism, he simply picked on another group which has fewer defenders. It was wrong to do to Jews, and it’s wrong to do to pagans.”

However, Bruce Wilson at Talk To Action sees something far more dangerous in Newt’s (and Huckabee’s) appearance at Rock Church than some lazy swipe at “paganism”.

“Leaders on the Christian right have been giving such speeches for decades, but the  two-day Rock Church conference was not business as usual. Rather, it showcased the rapid reconfiguration of the Christian right around the rising, highly militant but poorly understood charismatic wing of the new Christian right, a movement which includes both Ted Haggard and Sarah Palin.)”

Wilson goes on to look into Lou Engle (featured in “Jesus Camp”) , who presided over the event, and who has a long history of anti-abortion and anti-gay militancy (including providing a theological framework for the murder of doctors who perform abortions). It should surprise no-one that Engle has ties to C. Peter Wagner of the “Third Wave of the Holy Spirit”, with its emphasis on prayer-war and destroying the “Queen of Heaven” (who they see as the Virgin Mary of the Catholics, a major demon, and the Goddess of the Pagans all rolled into one).

If Gingrich, Huckabee, and other Republicans are nurturing these folks as the new core of a revived “Christian Right”, we better keep our eyes open. As Wilson points out, these Christians have an entirely different unifying rallying call.

“…the emerging face of a new type of fundamentalism in America that is multiethnic, multiracial and, because of that, can appear pseudo-progressive but which is in many ways farther right than traditional fundamentalism. The new axis of bigotry is no longer defined by racial and ethnic distinctions. It is religious supremacy.”

Maybe Gingrich, a recently converted Catholic, doesn’t realize the dog-whistle language he’s using. When you say “paganism” to these folks, it doesn’t merely mean secularists, or modern Pagans, or atheists, it also means Catholics, and any Christian who isn’t fully on-board with their mission of “religious supremacy”. They are just as proud of (allegedly) killing Mother Teresa as they are of (again, allegedly) blinding and giving cancer to a Wiccan with their prayers. Gingrich haphazardly invoking the spectre of “paganism” might make for good jokes, but it’s no laughing matter to the prayer warriors at Rock Church.

Supporters of the evangelist, prophet and apostle are hoping “a general in God’s army” and a host of prayer warriors will have more impact on ending the violence at the border than Mexican soldiers or police have had. More than 1,800 people have been killed in Juárez since 2007 in alleged drug violence. “The violence in Juárez has made news everywhere, and people are coming from all over to pray for our region,” said Moni Field, co-pastor at El Paso for Jesus. “God uses people like Ana Mendez Ferrellto mobilize believers to bring about change.” In a phone interview, Mendez Ferrell said she is looking forward to her visit to El Paso.”The (El Paso) conference is God’s appointment. Worship at a certain level can totally transform a region,” she said. “We’ve seen this happen in other parts of the world. Worship, as a weapon, can counter the evil and murdering.”

Ana Mendez Ferrell is quite proud of using prayer and worship as a weapon and brags about being a part of the infamous workings against the “Queen of Heaven” (aka the feminine divine/Mary in Catholicism) on her web site.

As a general in spiritual warfare, Ana has coordinated many of the most important prayer initiatives in the darkest places of the earth, confronting major territorial spirits.  The most difficult assault that she and her team undertook was the climbing of Mount Everest in 1997, which resulted in major spiritual breakthroughs in the 10/40 window.  Ana was also the special task coordinator for operation “Queens Palace,” the first worldwide prayer initiative, involving nearly 75 percent of the nations in the world in a war against a dominion of darkness known as the “queen of heaven.”

Participants in these workings take credit for everything from the death of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa to giving Wiccans cancer. They are willing “soldiers” in an organized network of malefic “black” magic workings that they justify and sanctify by claiming they are merely casting out demons. While the El Paso Times makes a quick note that Mendez Ferrell is “controversial”, it is couched in a way they makes her seem heroic rather than monstrous. It gives no background in what sort of “workings” these “generals”, “warriors”, and “soldiers” do. How many Christians will attend thinking it a normal prayer service to end violence only to find themselves enmeshed with a spiritual paramilitary.

While it is certainly the right of the “Third Wave” to practice their religion freely, journalists need to be a bit less credulous, do actual research on religious organizations, and understand the inherent dangers of spiritually militaristic groups that declare “war” on other faiths. It seems all too easy for these “warriors” to veer into actual physical violence should their goals not be accomplished on an acceptable time-line. As for their spiritual “targets” (ie most of the people who read this blog), we need to keep our eyes open, and not assume these extremists have faded away simply because an election didn’t go their way.

“According to the Christian Science Monitor, six months of fervent prayer and research identified the source of the witchcraft as a local woman called Mama Jane, who ran a “divination” centre called the Emmanuel Clinic … after Pastor Muthee declared Mama Jane a witch, the townspeople became suspicious and began to turn on her, demanding that she be stoned. Public outrage eventually led the police to raid her home, where they fired gunshots, killing a pet python which they believed to be a demon. After Mama Jane was questioned by police – and released – she decided it was time to leave town, the account says.”

Since then, many have wondered, what happened to Mama Jane? Was she really driven out? Was she killed by a mob, as so many other accused “witches” have been in Kenya? Luckily Zoe Alsop, who happened to be working as a journalist in Kenya, found Mama Jane alive and well and living in Kiambu.

“…some residents of Kiambu were somewhat skeptical of Muthee’s claims. Not least among them is the herbalist Jane W. Njenga, a pastor with the African Mission of Holy Ghost Church, who is best known as Mama Jane. She says she didn’t own a pet python and she’s never left her compound, located about a half-mile from Muthee’s immense new church. Last week Women’s eNews interviewed her there, next door to the Superkid Solid Foundation Faith in Every Footstep daycare center just off Kiambu’s main street. ‘If I am bad, why haven’t people attacked me?’ Njenga says. ‘Why haven’t they burnt this building down? That is what people here do to witches.’”

In fact, just about every claim made in Muthee’s witchcraft adventure has turned out to be false. The decrease in traffic deaths? New paving and speed bumps. Police killed a demon-snake? Mama Jane never owned one. Though one thing is true, Muthee did try to label her as a witch and have her killed or driven out.

“When Muthee came, he took a loudspeaker into the street and he told people to pray for seven days that I would die,” Njenga says. “If I was not known in the town, I could not have survived even to put my children through school.”

One wonders if Muthee’s tale of victory over witchcraft was invented to impress his Western backers. No doubt his church gets plenty of fat donations from fellow “spiritual warriors” impressed by his bravado and willingness to engage in campaigns of demonization and incitement that would be illegal here in America. As one community health worker tells Alsop, the best way to get rich quick in Kenya is to build a church, and Muthee is nothing if not rich. Instead of the mighty witchcraft fighter, come to America to lay his blessings on the faithful, he has been exposed as a Christian con-man making a quick buck.
]]> http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/10/alive-and-well-in-kiambu.html/feed 7 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/10/update-ii-palins-anti-pagan.html http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/10/update-ii-palins-anti-pagan.html#comments Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:01:00 +0000 Jason http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/10/update-ii-palins-anti-pagan-coreligionists.html Just when I thought this story couldn’t go even further down the Christian extremist rabbit-hole, up pops another revelation about a Sarah Palin coreligionist.

“On June 13, 2008 Mary Glazier told attendees at the “Opening the Gate of Heaven on Earth” conference, who represented many of the New Apostolic Reformation’s top leaders, that she had been present at the inception of Sarah Palin’s political career and that Palin was in her personal prayer group : ‘There was a twenty-four year old woman that God began to speak to about entering into politics. She became a part of our prayer group out in Wasilla. Years later, became the mayor of Wasilla. And last year was elected Governor of the state of Alaska. Yes! Hallelujah! At her inauguration she dedicated the state to Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’”

Who is Mary Glazier? She is the founder of Windwalkers International, and is a key figure in the Third Wave/New Apostolic Reformation movement. Part of C. Peter Wagner’s inner circle. Wagner, as I have pointed out before, is the man who is waging a war on the “Queen of Heaven”, whom he equates with pre-Christian goddesses, Islam, and Mary within the Catholic Church.

“Peter Wagner appears to be afflicted with a rather bizarre form of paranoia. He sees the world controlled by a demonic force he calls “the Queen of Heaven.” He sees this demon in everything from ancient Moon goddess religions to Islam (e.g., the crescent moon), to environmentalism (Gaia), feminism, witchcraft, and even in mainstreem Christianity (e.g., Catholic respect of Mary as the Mother of Jesus). That’s the purpose of the book, to help you, too, see that all these disparate religions are really united, and that the Virgin Mary is the demon behind it all.”

Glazier’s claims directly tie Palin into the world of anti-Pagan spiritual warfare. While some conservatives have defended the anti-witchcraft blessing of Palin by Thomas Muthee saying it was acceptable because of his cultural context, Glazier, who has her own witchcraft story, has no such excuse.

“In 1995, Mary mobilized a prayer network for Alaska’s prisons and began experiencing spiritual warfare as never before. She had received word that a witch had applied for a job as chaplain of the state’s prison system… Mary recalls, “As we continued to pray against the spirit of witchcraft, her incense altar caught on fire, her car engine blew up, she went blind in her left eye, and she was diagnosed with cancer” … “Ultimately, the witch fled to another state for medical treatment. Soon after, revival visited every prison in Alaska. At the women’s correctional facility in Anchorage alone, 55 of 60 inmates found Christ. “Ask largely,” Mary says. “Intercessory prayer is making a major difference in North America.”

I’ll give you a moment for this to sink in. Glazier and her prayer warriors claim to have made God blind and give cancer to a Wiccan chaplain. Is this anything but the most malefic of magic? Any Pagan who proudly claimed to have given a Christian cancer, or put out one of the eyes of a Christian, would be rightly shunned and rebuked. Within this community of extremist Christians Glazier and her fellow prayer warriors are lauded as heroes, holy warriors striking a blow against Satan and the “Queen of Heaven”. While these warriors are quick to post disclaimers saying their efforts are “merely” spiritual, who knows what an unbalanced mind would do with this sort of rhetoric.

This adds to the questions I would love to ask Sarah Palin (not that she’s taking questions). Not just if she approves of the spiritual warfare techniques of the Third Wavers, but if she personally prayed for harm to come to one of our own (she was still deeply enmeshed in the movement back in 1995 after all). Sadly, while Obama and McCain were grilled on their religious stances, we’re supposed to take it on faith that she will respect the rights of non-Christian faiths should she be elected?
]]> http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/10/update-ii-palins-anti-pagan.html/feed 10 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/09/update-palins-anti-pagan-coreligionists.html http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/09/update-palins-anti-pagan-coreligionists.html#comments Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:28:00 +0000 Jason http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/09/update-palins-anti-pagan-coreligionists.html Since I first posted about Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin’s troubling co-religionists, the mainstream press and several major blogs have homed in on the blessing Palin received from the African Bishop Thomas Muthee.

“Palin describes the visit of Pastor Thomas Muthee to the Wasilla Assembly of God in 2005. “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. And he was praying ‘Lord make a way, Lord make a way,’” Palin remarked. “And I’m thinking, this guy’s really bold, he doesn’t even know what I’m going to do, he doesn’t know what my plans are,” she continued. “And he’s praying not ‘oh Lord if it be your will may she become governor,’ 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,” she added.”

Muthee is feted by fellow Christians in America and in Africa for driving out the “spirit of witchcraft” that resided in the village of Kiambu, Kenya. Now it seems this wasn’t purely spiritual warfare on the part of Muthee, but involved stirring up mobs and driving a local fortune-teller out of town.

“According to the Christian Science Monitor, six months of fervent prayer and research identified the source of the witchcraft as a local woman called Mama Jane, who ran a “divination” centre called the Emmanuel Clinic … after Pastor Muthee declared Mama Jane a witch, the townspeople became suspicious and began to turn on her, demanding that she be stoned. Public outrage eventually led the police to raid her home, where they fired gunshots, killing a pet python which they believed to be a demon. After Mama Jane was questioned by police – and released – she decided it was time to leave town, the account says.”

As I pointed out previously, this isn’t some isolated third-world preacher, Muthee has toured America, received mainstream press coverage, and gave 10 consecutive sermons at Wasilla Assembly of God (Palin’s former church). He is a strong proponent of the spiritual warfare tactics endorsed by “Third Wave” Christian churches. Knowing that she was willingly blessed by an anti-witch fanatic, someone who has helped stir up the kind of mobs responsible for the horrific deaths of innocent men and women in Kenya, makes me reiterate my previous closing statement on this matter.

“What Pagans need to know, especially those who are considering voting Republican, is if Palin condemns or rejects the spiritual warfare teachings of the Third Wave movement. A movement that essentially espouses malicious Christian magic. Pagans have seen first hand that the religious opinions of Presidents have been used in the past by government agencies to deny us our legal rights. What would happen if our vice president thought we should be supernaturally eradicated?”

Does Palin still credit Muthee (via the power of “Jesus”) with “making a way” to power for her? Does she know and approve of Muthee’s spiritual war against “witches”? I think it would be important to know these things before election day.
]]> http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/09/update-palins-anti-pagan-coreligionists.html/feed 2 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/09/starhawk-on-sarah-palins-god.html http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/09/starhawk-on-sarah-palins-god.html#comments Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:55:00 +0000 Jason http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/09/starhawk-on-sarah-palins-god.html Starhawk has jumped into the Sarah Palin fray over at her On Faith blog:

“Whenever I hear someone say, “God is on my side,” I think, “Yep! Just another argument for polytheism.” Because, hey, Sarah Palin’s God may want her to build the pipeline, but I’ve had personal communication from Thundering Herds of Reindeer Gods that say, “No way!” Ereshkigal the Goddess of the Mesopotamian underworld is raging mad at the number of innocent children’s souls she’s had to process since the U.S. started bombing Iraq–she doesn’t like that sort of thing. And the great, protective Earth Spirits who sleep in the bottom of oil reserves are roaring in my ear, “Disturb us at your peril!” You think I’m kidding, perhaps. Think again.”

Starhawk goes on to say the she has no problem with “weird and irrational religious beliefs”, but fears that Palin wont uphold the Constitution or respect America’s religious diversity. Meanwhile, in the comments, Athena lets us in on some ongoing Pagan spellwork.

“It may interest you that several Pagans from around the country are going to work with the spirits of Wolf, Bear, and Moose to cut through the lies and negativity about the campaign, and let the truth come forth. Since Gov. Palin allowed hunting of wolves and bears from helicopters, as well as hunts moose, we thought that it would be appropriate to call on these Power Animals for healing and truth-telling.”

Are these spells already working? Here are some recent Palin-related stories: Sarah Palin’s record on Alaska Native and Tribal issues (more), religion professor Anthea Butler says that Palin’s “[spiritual] warrior spirit is the reason why her candidacy excites the conservative base…”, Esther Kaplan gives you a Palin pastor primer, and Dan Kennedy wonders how “exotic” Palin’s personal theology truly is.

Truly the “Queen of Heaven” works in mysterious ways.
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