Britain’s Witch Children
Dispatches goes undercover in some African churches in the UK, where evangelical pastors perpetuate a strong belief in witchcraft. They preach that some people are possessed by evil spirits, and that these spirits bring bad luck into the lives of others.
The only way to rid the possessed from the witchcraft spell and lift their curse is to ‘deliver’ them: a kind of exorcism that can be very traumatic. Some pastors charge significant sums of money to perform these deliverances.
Read more and watch online: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-67/episode-1
Last night’s Dispatches programme on Channel 4 highlighted the harm caused to children in the UK, almost all of whom come from an African background, by church pastors who are apparently labelling them as witches or as in some way “possessed”. The Churches’ Child ProtectionAdvisory Service (CCPAS) condemns such behaviour wherever it exists and over the past few years has worked with statutory and other agencies to expose and deal with such abusive practices.
Where Dispatches has uncovered evidence of such abusive behaviour, we hope and expect that it would be passed on to the police immediately. This is so that it may be thoroughly investigated and proper protection be given to the children involved.
But viewers of the programme need to understand that, shocking as these instances undoubtedly are, huge progress have been made over the past few years in developing and implementing effective child protection policies in African churches in the UK.
Continues: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jul/27/religion-witches-africa-london-exorcism
The guardian article is largely a whitewash, which attempts reassure the public that this abominable practice is in decline when the very fact it exists at all is an utter disgrace for which the bible itself is ultimately and undeniably responsible, “thou shall not suffer a witch to live” Exodus 22:18.
Give poor ignorant people a book and tell them that it is “the” truth as set down by God Almighty and watch the inevitable atrocities unfold. Christianity can not wash its hands of this, it is an indelible disgrace to human decency that a child, a child!, can be accused of being a witch in Britain in the 21st century!!
Christianity is as amoral now as it ever was and those who claim it has changed are deluding themselves, the atrocities of its creed simply play themselves out in places that are obscured from the scrutiny of the popular press. Moderates may claim they are good people, but in the face of such brutality they must surely think themselves a minority within their own creed. Oh when shall we be rid of this madness?!