Why God Hates Haiti - The frustrating theology of suffering.

Newsweek ^ | Jan 15, 2010 | Lisa Miller

[DogByte6RER]

Why God Hates Haiti

The frustrating theology of suffering.

By Lisa Miller | NEWSWEEK

Published Jan 15, 2010

From the magazine issue dated Jan 25, 2010

Haiti is surely a Job among nations. It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere: half its population lives on less than a dollar a day. With 98 percent of its forests felled and burned for firewood, Haiti is uniquely vulnerable to flooding from hurricanes. In 2008 four storms in as many weeks left a million homeless. Haiti has an infant-mortality rate worse than that of many African nations, and its people are plagued by disease: diarrhea, hepatitis, typhoid fever, dengue fever, malaria, and leptospirosis are rampant there. This litany doesn't even touch on Haiti's disastrous political history, most notably the reign of François (Papa Doc) Duvalier, who assassinated and tortured more than 30,000 in the 1960s.

Now, with as many as 100,000 dead in last week's earthquake, a sensible person of faith has to grapple with the problem of what scholars call theodicy. If God is good and intervenes in the world, then why does he make innocents suffer? Why, as Job might have said, would God "crush an impoverished people with a tempest and multiply their wounds without cause? He will not let them get their breath."

For Pat Robertson, the TV evangelist, the answer is simple: it's the Haitians' own fault, presumably for practicing voodoo. On the Christian Broadcasting Network last week, Robertson alluded to events leading up to the Haitian Revolution of 1791, history's rare successful slave revolt. On the eve of the revolt, insurgents gathered in a forest called the Bois Caiman to swear a blood oath.

[daniel1212]

Newsweek is the most anti-Christ of popular news magazines, and its objective, as seen in its concluding remarks, is to use this to promote atheism, rejecting out of hand that idolatry, and its fruits, or because of its fruits, bring eventual ruin.

The author calls Robertson’s remarks narrow and malicious, when in reality he was bemoaning their plight, and raising fund to help them, and it is Newsweek that is narrow and malicious, against God and the Bible.

[DarthVader]

Very interesting article a friend sent to me that is nearly 6 years old and very well referenced:

Analysis with Political and Social Commentary

Government Of The Devil, By The Devil, And For The Devil
By Tom Barrett (03/11/04)

“Haiti is the only country in the entire world that has dedicated its government to Satan. Demonic spirits have been consulted for political decisions, and have shaped the country’s history.” Thus speaks Reverend Doug Anderson, who grew up in Haiti with missionary parents, and served there along with his wife Dawn as a missionary until 1990. The leaders of Haiti make no attempt to hide their allegiance to Satan. Haiti’s government is a government of the devil, by the devil, and for the devil.

It is a matter of well-documented historical fact that the nation of Haiti was dedicated to Satan 200 years ago. On August 14, 1791, a group of houngans (voodoo priests), led by a former slave houngan named Boukman, made a pact with the Devil at a place called Bois-Caiman. All present vowed to exterminate all of the white Frenchmen on the island. They sacrificed a black pig in a voodoo ritual at which hundreds of slaves drank the pig’s blood. In this ritual, Boukman asked Satan for his help in liberating Haiti from the French. In exchange, the voodoo priests offered to give the country to Satan for 200 years and swore to serve him. On January 1, 1804, the nation of Haiti was born and thus began a new demonic tyranny.

At the time of the pact Haiti was France’s richest colony, and was known as the â€Pearl of the Antilles for its singular beauty. But it soon became one of the world’s poorest and most benighted nations. Scoffers may say that there is no connection between the fact that Haiti was the richest nation in the hemisphere, and then became the poorest after selling its national soul to Satan. But the scoffers can’t come up with a better explanation.

Voodoo is a practice based on a mixture of African spiritism and witchcraft. Depending on the source of one’s research, between 75 and 90 percent of Haitians practice voodoo. This seems to fly in the face of the fact that the country is predominantly Catholic. But, like their African ancestors, voodoo practitioners have no problem embracing multiple religions. In fact, most who practice voodoo believe they must be Catholic first.

Until recently, voodoo was practiced in secret. Practitioners would go to the Catholic Church on Sunday, and attend voodoo ceremonies deep in the woods at other times. Voodoo was forbidden during the colonial times, and the 32 Haitian governments that followed independence also suppressed the practice because of world condemnation. But on April 8, 2003, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide approved Voodoo as an officially recognized religion in Haiti (see links below). Voodoo priests can now perform marriages and other ceremonies previously reserved for Christian religions. “An ancestral religion, Voodoo is an essential part of national identity,” Aristide said in the decree recognizing Voodoo.

Aristide has been a controversial figure since he became the first freely elected president in Haiti’s history in 1991, 200 years after the nation was dedicated to Satan. A defrocked Catholic priest, Aristide was expelled in 1988 from his order, the Salesians. He was a hero of the resistance to Haitian tyranny, then president, then exiled, then restored to the presidency by his close friend, Bill Clinton. One of his first acts was to express his support for reinstating the Voodoo pact that expired the year he was elected. He claimed that Voodoo was the “national religion†of Haiti, and a source of national pride.

Even before Aristide came to power, a U.S. embassy official in Port-au-Prince described Aristide as “a Marxist maniac.” Newsweek Magazine called him “the flaky Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide.” And none other than Henry Kissinger declared that he was a psychotic. While it is true that Aristide used Communism to gain power, I don’t believe he is psychotic. What many see as madness is simply the pure evil that emanates from the man.

The Media Research Center (see link below), which describes Aristide as a charismatic Marxist priest had this to say about the man: Aristide wasn’t much of a Democrat, paying people to beat up his opponents, and becoming wealthy from drug trafficking into the U.S. For a good, brief primer on Aristide, see Aristide Must Go, the editorial in the March 8 Weekly Standard. It explains how It is not the democratic authorities that are being overthrown in Haiti, but Aristide’s retinue of gunmen. (There is a link to this article below, as well.)

Aristide was only in office eight months before he was ousted and fled to the United States. There he effectively lobbied Bill Clinton and other government officials, convincing them that he was not the tyrant that Haitians said he was. After Clinton sent 20,000 American troops to install Aristide in power in 1994, the president-turned-dictator disbanded the army. But the civilian police force he replaced it with has also brutalized the Haitian people, engaging in summary executions as well as the drug-running that has made Aristide the richest man in Haiti. This drug money allows Aristide to live in a lavish mansion in a nation where the average yearly salary is $350.

As the Weekly Standard editorial by Christopher Caldwell says, Aristide, of course, did not create Haiti’s problems, but he profits from all of them. His ten years of direct and indirect rule have been a disaster. His regime has been democratic only in the Haitian sense of one man, one vote, one time. The last free and fair election in Haiti was in 1990, the closely monitored contest that brought Aristide to power. Even then, Aristide was making use of street violence orchestrated by his ‘vigilance committees. Four years ago, Aristide received over 90 percent of the vote in a presidential election so transparently corrupt that several American and European agencies reluctantly froze hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money.

With a mystifying regularity reminiscent of Saddam Hussein, Aristide has refused the simplest procedural inducements to unlock millions that could have been used to feed and treat his poorer compatriots. From humble beginnings as a Salesian slum priest, Aristide has become the richest man in Haiti. How? Last Wednesday in Miami, the Haitian mafioso Beaudoin Ketant, go-between for three Colombian cartels, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for transporting 30 tons of cocaine between Haiti and Florida. At his sentencing, Ketant said that Aristide “is a drug lord. He controlled the drug trade in Haiti. It’s a one-man show, your honor. You either pay him or you die.”

Caldwell goes on to relate how Aristide created a series of banks that paid absurd rates of interest, which enticed Haiti’s tiny middle class to deposit their hard-earned dollars. He then stole $90 million from the banks, effectively demolishing the middle class and creating a classic poor-against-rich uprising that resulted in his ouster.

Democrat almost-nominee John Kerry spoke out in support of Aristide prior to his resignation, saying “This democracy is going to be sustained. Democrat Charlie Rangel and the Congressional Black Caucus, along with such upstanding citizens as Reverend Jesse Jackson and Alcee Hastings (the former federal judge convicted of bribery), have been calling for the US to once again install Aristide in power following his recent resignation. They have been irresponsibly trumpeting his ridiculous lies about being kidnapped by the US and forced into exile. The obvious facts are that Aristide begged for US help and we protected him. When it became clear that the only way his safety could be assured was to leave the country, we provided transportation for him.

Had we not intervened, Aristide would have been dead in a matter of days, so furious were the people he had abused for years. He gladly boarded the plane, grateful for our protection. Now that he is safe, he is laying the groundwork for a possible comeback with his preposterous lies. Rangel, Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee and the rest of the Black Caucus should be ashamed of siding with a vicious dictator against their own country. I don’t have a bone of prejudice in my body against blacks. But I am greatly prejudiced against the members of this Caucus because of their constant use of the race card, whether or not race is an issue. It is clearly not the issue here. The fact that Aristide is black is not why his countrymen want him gone. It is because he is an evil man.

My biggest problem with this man is the fact that, not only did he make Voodoo an official religion, he used every device available to him to promote it. On the day that his government officially recognized Voodoo, he paid all the radio stations to play nothing but Voodoo music all day. He flew in 400 Voodoo priests from West Africa, the birthplace of the evil religion, to promote it.

A missionary couple who run an orphanage and a school for 400 children in Haiti sent a report to their supporters last summer (see the link to Religious Persecution Intensifies in Haiti below). It reads, in part, Last week a baby was stolen from the hospital in St. Marc. The reason the child is to be sacrificed to appease the Voodoo gods for the so-called special day of celebration. Can there be any question of the horribly evil nature of this religion that former priest Aristide promotes?

And now for the good news. Even with Aristide’s support and promotion, Voodoo in Haiti is doomed. God’s people have gone on the offensive, and the blood pact that has kept Haiti in darkness for 200 years has been broken.

I first heard this account from Bishop Joel Jeune at a meeting of the Gospel Crusade Ministerial Fellowship (www.GCMF.org). Jeune is the Coordinator of Haiti for the GCMF and oversees 64 churches there.

The link, US Department of State Report of Religious Freedom below contains this report: In early August 1997, three evangelical pastors were arrested near Cap Haitien after they had proceeded with plans to hold a religious revival at Bois Caiman. Bois Caiman has a strong patriotic significance for Haitians, since it is the site of a legendary 1791 voodoo ceremony at which slaves swore to rise up against their masters and risk death rather than continue to live in bondage. The resulting slave rebellion was a precursor to the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804).

The pastors, who had been prohibited by the authorities from holding the revival on the actual anniversary of the ceremony, proceeded instead with plans to hold the event several days before the anniversary, hoping to rid the area of malevolent influences. This offended much of the local populace and local authorities, who arrested pastors Joel Jeune, Jean Berthony Paul, and Gregor Joseph on August 4. They were released on the orders of a judge on August 6.

The government account tells only part of the story. In the link Haiti - God’s country after a ‘holy invasion’ you will see the following and much more (very exciting reading):

“On 14 August 1997, God’s people in Haiti experienced a historic victory over Satan, a milestone in winning our country back for God. The reason lies in history. The slaves brought here from Africa have suffered incredibly for many years. On 14 August 1791, a slave leader by the name of Boukman called a secret meeting in a wood called Bois-Caiman near Cap Haitien, which was attended by a large number of slaves. They celebrated a satanic ceremony, sacrificing a pig and drinking its blood, swore to serve the Devil and dedicated Haiti to him. For 206 years, Bois-Caiman was a very holy place, a high place which could only be entered by witch doctors during Voodoo ceremonies. For 206 years, they have been meeting there every August 14 to sacrifice to Satan.

“A number of Christian leaders, including Paul and Gerald Clerie of ‘Vision: Haiti’ and Christian leaders among the large numbers of Haitians in the USA, Canada, France and other countries, called Christians to unite on 14 August 1997 to pray and fast that Haiti would return to God. In Haiti’s towns, villages and mountains, Christians came together to fast and pray, held victory marches in the streets and a large event in the capital from 6am to 10pm during the holy invasion.

Our church members started their march in front of the President’s palace and marched for 6 hours to the place where the satanic ceremony took place 206 years ago. We had informed the government and media of our intentions weeks before the event, and were told that the witch doctors would be there, as they were every year. When we arrived, they had hidden themselves, unable to directly confront the Christians. It was a significant spiritual battle to reach the tree under which the pig was sacrificed in the original ceremony. We formed a Jericho march, circling the magic tree seven times. On the seventh time around, God gave many people a vision of the Devil fleeing from the area. The Christians were overjoyed. We cancelled the satanic contract and broke the curse, before celebrating communion and dedicating the area as a place of prayer. We also declared 14 August to be a national prayer day, on which people should pray that Haiti will return to God.

On the same day, several witch doctors were saved during the events in the capital. Three days after our holy invasion, the witch doctors returned to Bois-Caiman to bring their sacrifices and call on the spirits. After days of effort, nothing happened, because we had commanded the spirits never to return and dedicated the area to Christ.

The witch doctors complained to the government and media. At first, the government also protested, speaking in a press release of ‘terrible damage to a Voodoo holy place in which no Christian had set foot for 206 years.’ By the grace of God, the government relented and respected our legal right as Haitians to gather at any place on Haiti, including Bois-Caiman, where they now allow all Christian groups to meet. The place is now very popular, and local Christians gather there daily for prayer and fasting. All Haitians now know that the country no longer has a pact with the Devil; the contract has been cancelled, the curse broken.

In 1991, 200 years after his predecessors had dedicated Haiti to Satan, Jean-Bertrand Aristide became president of Haiti and attempted to renew the contract. In 1997, the contract was broken forever. In 2003, in a last desperate attempt to retain power, Aristide made Voodoo an official religion. And now he is gone. Let us pray that Haiti, with its newfound freedom, will turn to the one true God.

US Department of State Report of Religious Freedom

http://www.cesnur.org/testi/irf/irf_haiti99.html

Haiti - God’s country after a ‘holy invasion’

http://www.jesus.org.uk/dawn/1998/dawn9802.html

Victory Over Voodoo in Haiti

http://www.christian-connection.org/print.php?sid=299

Religious Persecution Intensifies In Haiti

http://www.andyfigueroa.net/haiti.htm

Haiti; Satan’s Stronghold

http://www.raptureme.com/rap16.html

Breaking the Blood Pact

http://www.newdirections.org/index.php/pressroom

Aristide Approves Voodoo as an Official Religion

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/archives/00002966.html

Voodoo – It’s Official in Haiti

http://www.ccgm.org.au/articles/ARTICLE-0070.htm

Aristide Defends Record

http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/5060184.htm

ARISTIDE MANSION

http://www.salon.com/news/1999/03/12news.html

Media Research Center http://www.mediaresearch.org/printer/cyberalerts/2004/cyb20040302pf.asp

Pearl of the Antilles

http://www.rminet.org/retreat_center.htm

Aristide Must Go The Weekly Standard

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/795ywram.asp

Aristide Claims He Was Kidnapped from Haiti

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040306/wl_nm/haiti_aristide_dc_1

Islamic Influences on Haitian Voodoo

http://www.webster.edu/%7Ecorbetre/haiti/voodoo/islam.htm

The Challenges Facing Haiti

http://www.webster.edu/%7Ecorbetre/haiti/bookreviews/arisfarmplum.htm

(Printer friendly version) Email: Tom Barrett

Tom Barrett has been an ordained minister for 30 years. He has written for local and national publications for most of his life, and has authored several non-fiction books. He has been interviewed on many TV and radio programs, and speaks at seminars nationwide. Tom is the editor and publisher of Conservative Truth, an email newsletter read by over fifty thousand weekly which focuses on moral and political issues from a Biblical viewpoint.

Send Feedback To Tom Barrett Site: http://www.conservativetruth.org

[daniel1212]

Thanks. I saw this in one of first searches, but looking for reliable sources re “it is a matter of well-documented historical fact that the nation of Haiti was dedicated to Satan 200 years ago” has not been successful.

Good article here however, http://www.amren.com/ar/2001/04/index.html#cover

“America, America, God shed His grace on thee” is so true. The foundation of a country, and its leaders, is so critical, and Divine providence was so manifests in ours. Also critical is how the succeeding generations were raised as well. See here: http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/CauseEffect.html

Also, sneak preview of recent work, by God’s grace, http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/Statistical_Correlations.html

[200 Motels]

Hitchens had a great article today. Its not about “god” or the “devil”, its just placement in the world. Haiti has been a thugocracy for decades, and its in a bad spot on the globe.

The concept of a “god” or a “devil” punishing this badly placed plot of land with terrible governments is just silly talk.

[daniel1212]

Correction, more reading shows that good article to be racists. I am not.~~~~

[Moe Tzadik]

CIA factbook says...

Roman Catholic 80%, Protestant 16% (Baptist 10%, Pentecostal 4%, Adventist 1%, other 1%), none 1%, other 3%

note: roughly half of the population practices voodoo

Hmmmm, if those numbers are correct, a significant percentage are RC who practice voodoo or are voodooians who practice RC???

[daniel1212]

One common saying is that Haitians are 70% Catholic, 30% Protestant, and 100% voodoo. Leslie Griffiths, renowned expert on Haiti former head of the British Methodist Church, stated that “Voodoo is part of the air that Haitians breathe”. In April of 2003 Haiti’s Catholic President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, declared voodoo to have the same legal status as other religions, such as Roman Catholicism. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2985627.stm

[Vigilanteman]

Wow! Maybe Pat Robertson’s statement wasn’t as goofy as it sounded.

[TexasRepublic]

“Haiti is an experiment that proves that Africa was helped by colonial rule.”

It does not seem that primitive societies are comfortable with the concept of government beyond the tribal level. Nor do many of those people regard anyone besides themselves. Corruption destroys any country.

[wardaddy]

The problem is that most Haitians have never known better.

Indeed there are quite a few very educated capable folks there but the bulk of the evergrowing populace is simply incapable of possessing the tools to prosper beyond anything other than fieldwork or sweatshops...either of which would be welcomed there and rightly so but are quite scant.

10 million folks in a mostly hardscrabble area the size of Maryland....over 50% illiterate...

Despot after despot...a tiny bourgeoisie 200 years in the making after they massacred the original capitalized class or drove the survivors off...

I don't think Voodoo helps anything personally...I do not find it benign like the relativist folks do but I don't think it's God's wrath either (but who knows for sure)...Lord knows it would seem they have been punished enuff already

Sad little fact is that Haiti worked better for more folks under the Duvaliers especially nutty Papa Doc but...and a huge BUT.....one was not free to speak one's mind....Papa Doc was brutal but it was a "trains ran on time" sorta thing....relative to how Haiti usually is

[dfwgator]

Duvalier did what precisely Mugabe is doing today in Zimbabwe. Steal property from the productive class and distribute it to his thugs, the Tonton Macoutes. He drove out most anyone who was educated. Of course the blacks supported him, since his victims tended to be the lighter-skinned mulattoes.

[Brugmansian]

Rather than follow the American Revolutionaries' example of reason and enlightenment, Haiti seems to have perpetuated 220 years of "The Reign of Terror" in the same fashion as The French Revolution...

The American revolution was not based on "reason and enlightement". In New England, it was in large part a religious war. The opening shot was the `1750 sermon A Discourse concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers. That provided the colonists with the justification for revolt. Thousands of other sermons followed. Parliament's 1766 Declaratory Act, which declared parliament had control over the colonies "in all cases whatsoever" was, to the clergy, blasphemy. It incited the revolt.

Franklin told Paine to burn his "Age of Reason" rather than publish it. Paine and other Jacobins were detested by the founders and framers (after they used them to incite the revolution). Jefferson did gave Paine a stroke by inviting him to the White House but that caused a scandal.

Haiti, on the other hand, did follow the "reason and enlightment" of the French revolution. The worse aspects of it.

[wardaddy]

I spent 4 years there....not a fan of Duvalier but many Haitians I knew thought the country as a whole functioned better....these folks subsequently became Cedras supporters down the road

Duvalier was in conflict with the mulatto business class to some degree but his son married a beauty from one of the leading families of that group...Michelle Bennett....I actually knew the Bennett sisters after his fall through their married kin...the Mourras of whom crazy Sammy Mourra ran for office last go around I think

The black populace did not like Baby Doc marrying lite.

Unlike Rhodesia there were no farms of much size to break up and give to anyone...that had been done after the slave revolt played out through various subsequent wars/massacres

Papa Doc did have a crony system in the business class but there were non African Haitians who played along too and yes the Macoutes got paid but many of them were nothing more than vigilante enforcers

They were biz class Macoutes but also a lot of dummies with guns. The Duvalaiers had to have biz class allies too.

many of the roads there we built when we occupied the joint...

it is a hopeless place but...we can help folks from dying right now...espcially babies and I hope we do

[TypeZoNegative]

This is what happens when you worship European culture.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Hitchens had a great article today. Its not about “god” or the “devil”, its just placement in the world. Haiti has been a thugocracy for decades, and its in a bad spot on the globe."

Nice theory. Contradicted by facts, though. The Dominican Republic (which shares the same geographic location, being the other half of the exact same island), has many fewer problems than Haiti. Both have been "thugocracies" over much of their existence. Perhaps the DR had a higher class of thugs.

[Jackknife]

I care about the plight of fellow humans when tragedy strikes, but in this case, I could care less about this cesspool of a country.

[DarthVader]

Hitchens is an Christian hating atheist who has no faith so anything that comers from his mouth is silly talk. King David in Psalm 14 was aptly inspired by the Holy Spirit to brand such people.

Psalm 14

1Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
there is no one who does good.

2The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind
to see if there are any who are wise,
who seek after God.

3They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse;
there is no one who does good,
no, not one.

4Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon the Lord?

5There they shall be in great terror,
for God is with the company of the righteous.
6You would confound the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is their refuge.

7O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!
When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people,
Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.

[DarthVader]

That’s right and we should start doing more research before we knee jerk bash like many do on this forum without checking their facts.

[RoadTest]

If you get your theology from Newsweek, you’re on your own.

[daniel1212]

Indeed. The author of that article, Lisa Miller, is the same one who vainly sought to educate us on what the Bible really says about homosexuality, and whom Robert A. J. Gagnon (who is not even a Christian fundamentalist) refuted. http://www.robgagnon.net/NewsweekMillerHomosexResp.htm