Curses are Okay; Mentioning Them is Bad
January 13th, 2010Nouveau Christianity Says “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
I can’t believe the responses I’m getting to my post about Pat Robertson, who pointed out that Haiti is cursed because of idolatry.
Curses on entire nations are as scriptural as the Ten Commandments. I can’t believe any Christian would say otherwise. I can think of a number of examples without opening a Bible.
1. Egypt was cursed because of the enslavement of the Jews. The nation endured ten plagues, including the slaying (by God) of all the firstborn males. Think about that. God himself killed young male children in Egypt, by the hundreds of thousands. God killed BABIES. Nice touchy-feely uber-tolerant liberal God, right?
2. God punished the Jews by allowing the Babylonians to blind the king, castrate his descendants, and take the cream of the population to Babylon in chains.
3. According to prophecy, God is going to punish the nations that divide Israel, and it’s not going to be a mild punishment. It’s going to involve death and unbearable suffering, on a grand scale.
If you want to suggest God doesn’t do these things any more, you’ll have to provide scripture. Prophecy says he is going to slaughter people IN PERSON, with the sword of his mouth. If he has changed, how can that be true? Prophecy is about the future.
I can’t believe people think God doesn’t punish sin. Do you want a list? Adam. Eve. Satan. Cain. Nebuchadnezzar. Ananias. Sapphira. The sons of Eli. Shiloh. Sodom. Gomorrah. Ahab. Jezebel. David. Absalom. Herod. Judas. How many do you want? Samson. Samson’s tormentors. Goliath. Go ahead; say “when.” Belshazzar. Everyone who lived before the flood, except Noah’s family. Pharaoh. Korah.
Look, this is ridiculous. It’s like arguing about whether Jesus was Jewish. I’m so obviously right, I shouldn’t have to point it out. Shut me up, and the Bible will still make it clear.
If it’s wrong to say someone is under a curse, then every evangelist should be silenced. Every time an evangelist tells someone to come to Christ, he is saying that person is under a curse. If you haven’t accepted Jesus, you are under a curse. That is the central issue of Christianity. If you don’t believe in curses, you are not a Christian, because you don’t believe anyone needs salvation.
If Pat Robertson says that, should we condemn him? It’s no different from what he said about Haiti. Caribbean idol worship is a great, great evil, and every Christian has an obligation to warn people when they’re in peril. How can any Christian argue with that?
I’ve said many times that I believed my family had been under a curse. Do you think I hate my family? I’ve said it about myself. Surely no one thinks I hate myself, or that I don’t want the best for myself.
Maybe idolatry isn’t the reason for the Haitian earthquake, but it is an invitation to disaster, and criticizing voodoo is a righteous act. Voodoo is evil, and it should be eradicated, and no Christian should be afraid to say so.
January 13th, 2010 at 7:47 PM
“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. ”
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Wouldn’t the 200 years be up already?
January 13th, 2010 at 8:00 PM
I happen to agree with you. It’s your blog and if anyone doesn’t agree they don’t have to stay.
January 13th, 2010 at 9:54 PM
True Christians do not judge other religions.
Exclaiming curse by cult is the passing of a judgement by the one making the exclaimation.
Voodoo is not the prevelant religeon in Haiti, Roman Catholicism is, though some churches do allow a certain amount of intermixed idolotry with the older Santarian worship.
Much can be argued about Catholics being idol worshippers also and it still has nothing to do with the earthquake.
I think you may be looking for meaning in horror and there is none.
Bad things happen to good AND bad people, it is just the way it is.
January 13th, 2010 at 11:32 PM
Germany should still be cursed for the Holocaust, but they continue to make kick-ass cars.
January 13th, 2010 at 11:43 PM
Can you point out any nations that have NOT had tragedies?
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Or are they all (past and present) cursed?
January 14th, 2010 at 12:16 AM
I’ll be the first to admit that the daily posts on religion sometimes get to me. That being said, you hit the nail on the head with both this AND the Pat Robertson post. Most likely, the “Christians” responding to Robertson are of the “Jesus would be a liberal” variety. Unfortunately, that kind of stuff keeps me from most churches. I’m 33, but I don’t understand why 4-5 hymns sung by a choir aren’t enough. The touchy-feely stuff pi$$es me off.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:27 AM
A few points:
* All the examples of God’s wrath that you reference are from the Old Testament. I thought the point of John 3:16 et seq. was that there was a new arrangement — summed up in John 3:35-36: “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” In other words, with the New Testament, God seems to have gotten out of the mass-smiting business, and now the deal is not “shape up or get smitten in this life,” but “accept salvation through Jesus and be saved, or else you’re doomed in the afterlife.” In other words, grace has supplanted wrath.
* Haiti lies on a fault zone, which has been seismically active for tens of thousands of years before people started practicing voodoo there. It is not at all unusual for there to be an earthquake there: the latest one was just the worst in the last 200 years or so, which statistically speaking is not really a big deal.
* Although a good portion of the population of Haiti has some belief in voodoo, the island is over 80% Catholic and over 90% Christian. Yes, some of that Christianity is compromised by superstition, but much of it is not. This earthquake did not seem to discriminate in whose house it pancaked or who got crushed under the rubble. Plenty of good Christians got squashed along with the idolaters. To tell those Christians’ families that they deserved to get squashed because some of their neighbors practiced voodoo is insensitive at best, and orifice-like at worst.
January 14th, 2010 at 7:39 AM
Haiti has been in such crap shape for so long, a curse is as good an explanation as any. But leaving aside the issue of God and curses, it’s obvious to me that there are several things wrong about their culture that have contributed to the mess they are in now. A lot of the deaths are due to the fact that they have no building codes whatsoever, and the buildings just collapsed. (When your presidential palace falls to pieces that’s your sign right there.) And there isn’t much of an infrastructure for anything else either. It’s all the signals of a populace that wasn’t paying attention to the important stuff.
I’ve never been impressed by voodoo either, or voudoun as the Enlightened are supposed to call it. Academics have given it all sorts of fancy explanations: it’s a “syncretic” religion, yadda yadda. And we’re supposed to respect it because it’s supposed to be “natural” and “colorful” as opposed to cold, clean, sterile Christianity. But if you’re worshipping Christian “saints” who are also supposed to be gods of some old African religion, the Bible passage about not being able to serve two masters comes to mind. (Also you’re not supposed to worship Christian saints anyway.) But it all seems to me to be the same as Wicca and other trendy pagan fads: you get to play around with dolls and candles and ceremonies and cast spells and think you’re doing something, and it’s taking up all your money and time. And you think that your dolls and spells are really magical and powerful instead of false idols. And you just let other things — like cleaning up your society, getting rid of corruption in your government, building a house that won’t fall down in the next stiff wind — fall by the wayside. This can’t be healthy.
January 14th, 2010 at 8:57 AM
That reminds me of the year I read through the
Bible noting all the passages that referred to fearing God. Nobody wants to hear it.
January 14th, 2010 at 8:58 AM
This is all part of a widespread problem where society eschews the hard truth. Example: “He’s not handicapped, he’s differently abled.”
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I’ve said for a long time that God dislikes Haiti. How else to you explain it’s utter failure as a nation and society? How many times have we went the military in there to try to quell something or give them some momentary stability? How else do you explain the rampant HIV? Hurricanes? Floods? Famine? Corruption? And now this earthquake?
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Frankly, the one of the only good things that’s ever come out of Haiti that I can think of is Barbancourt rum. It’s one of the precious few rums worth consuming.
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Go to Google Earth or Google Maps and look at the satellite imagery long the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Notice the stark difference. The trees are almost all gone in Haiti.
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Haiti and the DR share an island and it’s not big. Explain to me how the DR can be relatively prosperous for a nation in that region and Haiti can be little more than a cesspool of despair.
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I feel for those that are suffering in Haiti. I will donate some to relief, but I just hope and pray that people there will turn away from all that has brought this on.
January 14th, 2010 at 8:59 AM
“* All the examples of God’s wrath that you reference are from the Old Testament.”
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Ananias and Sapphira are not in the Old Testament. Neither are Herod and Judas. The prophecies regarding God’s intention to slaughter Israel’s enemies are in the Old Testament, but they are about the future. The notion that the Old Testament is somehow obsolete is ridiculous. Jesus cited it constantly, and he said heaven and earth would pass away before one “jot or tittle” of the tanakh.
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“Yes, some of that Christianity is compromised by superstition”
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Christianity that accommodates demon worship is not Christianity. Jesus made it clear that we were to worship God EXCLUSIVELY, and only after accepting salvation through the crucifixion. God punished the Israelites, who worshiped God and Baal. For that matter, he punished people for worshiping him incorrectly.
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“To tell those Christians’ families that they deserved to get squashed because some of their neighbors practiced voodoo is insensitive at best, and orifice-like at worst.”
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Show me one person who has said they deserved it.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:01 AM
“True Christians do not judge other religions.”
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Jesus said he was the only way to the Father. What Bible are you reading? Our whole purpose on earth is to bring people away from other religions, which we consider evil.
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Jesus used the term “synagogue of Satan” to criticize the ideas of some of his contemporary Jews. If judging other religions is wrong, Jesus wasn’t a Christian.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:05 AM
““It is a matter of well-documented historical fact that the nation of Haiti was dedicated to Satan 200 years ago.”
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So much for “apocryphal.”
January 14th, 2010 at 9:37 AM
“That reminds me of the year I read through the
Bible noting all the passages that referred to fearing God. Nobody wants to hear it.”
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Could be worse. They used to beat prophets and saw them in half.
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The liars will always be popular. Telling the truth will always get you in trouble.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:43 AM
“Go to Google Earth or Google Maps and look at the satellite imagery long the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Notice the stark difference. The trees are almost all gone in Haiti.”
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That is true. The contrast isn’t shocking and extreme, but it is indisputably there.
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Commenters are pointing out that bad things happen in other countries. Sure, but catastrophe is routine in Haiti. Not many countries have that characteristic.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:57 AM
“True Christians do not judge other religions.”
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This is one of the very dumbest comments put here in all the years I’ve been reading.
January 14th, 2010 at 10:29 AM
My main problem with Pat Robertson is not that he pointed out that Haiti is under a curse, it’s the way he went about it. Our Lord did not say to the adulterous woman “You did this to yourself, and you deserve it. You made your bed now lie in it.” He told those who were there to judge her “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” I’m trying to quote from memory, so my phrasing may be inaccurate. Pat Roberson is demonstrating a lack of compassion in his remarks. I’m glad he’s collecting and sending aid. I regret his remarks, which I do not find to be helpful. None of us are without sin, so we should not be casting stones. We should be helping and trying to encourage them toward Christianity in addition to helping them materially.
January 14th, 2010 at 11:17 AM
For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life. Romans 3:23. For everyone that thinks that judgment and punishment for sin only takes place in the Old Testament and that once Jesus came to earth it was all about love and warm fuzzies, think again. Jesus came to eradicate sin, but he doesn’t force himself on people. God does judge in the New Testament and like Steve H. says if you know him the “curse has been removed.” Being a follower of Christ doesn’t remove the evidence of sin but just the status. We still suffer with sickness and death because of original sin. I’ve experienced personal tragedy over the last few years but it doesn’t mean that I am cursed or that God is punishing me. When tragedy strikes, it may be obvious whether God is disciplining his people or punishing because of sin. For the people of Haiti, the blessing of God may not be upon them because of the history of voodoo-ism. And judgment is very clear in the New Testament, just read the epistles. They speak of right living versus wrong, sinful living and if we engage in the latter without repentance, we will not spend eternity with Him. I pray for the Haitians and their country and compassion fills my heart but it might be possible that their country is cursed. Only God knows.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:49 PM
“Wouldn’t the 200 years be up already?”
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And one expects Satan to honor that end of things?
January 14th, 2010 at 4:54 PM
““Wouldn’t the 200 years be up already?”
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And one expects Satan to honor that end of things?”
The 200 years of demon worship since would likely have extended the old goat’s lease on the place.