Hurricanes, Barracudas, and Christianity

I'm watching CNN. The weather report is regarding Hurricane Ike that is about to slam into Cuba. It is already hitting Haiti, I think, and is on its way to Cuba. Haiti just got through dealing with Gustav that created quite a bit of damage and death.

Watching the footage of people fleeing to higher ground in Haiti, I am struck by the living conditions between Haiti and the U.S.

Enter a memory triggered.

When I went to a church much like Sarah Palin goes to currently, I remember the Pastor talking about Haiti and the extreme poverty there.
He taught along the lines of generational curses. Generational curses have become popular in the charismatic churches, the teaching basically goes like this: At some point in your (insert either family, country, wife's family), history, someone did something that God didn't like and a curse was place on your family, but it is laid at your feet: you allowed a Demon in and it has total influence over your mind and actions. According to their doctrine, a demon now has control over your family and that grip of demonic power has to be broken. Usually by a pastor or someone in the hierarchy of the church, or by direction, a large group of people will gather around you and lay hands on you and begin to scream "rebukes to the Devil". It is a good way of keeping the gullible attending.

So to sum it up, regarding Haiti, at some point in its history, some people went to the top of a mountain in Haiti and sacrificed a pig to the devil and that is why Haiti has so many problems. The congregants were instructed to pray and break that generational curse against the island and it's people, to break the demonic hold on the island.

Of course, (in the minds of the congregants), the oppression on the island has nothing to do with greater world powers exploiting and oppressing the people, and it certainly would have nothing to do with Anglo America.

One of the frightening things about a lot of these people in the right-wing Evangelical movement is their lack of education, their fear of others, and their closed minds. As well as their guns.

On the other hand, I know considerable amounts of people in these churches with advanced degrees and money but are just as gullible and xenophobic as their less educated counterparts, whom they look down on,(and the less educated envy the other and so on and on it goes.)

It goes farther. This generational curse crap is also used to explain why people in the US of African decent are poor and oppressed. It is taught that the oppression is spiritual rather than physical, that is by whites or the white government, and in order to prosper like the so-called mainstream you must accept Jesus, you must be baptized, you must interpret the Bible as it is taught by X,Y,Z church.

Blacks in the US, it is taught in these churches, have curses placed upon them because of their ancestors in Africa practicing their native religion. In other words, they are DESTINED, according to evangelicals, for poverty, strife, sickness and disease because of what their fore-people practiced spiritually, despite the christian doctrine and Jesus preaching that believing on him would set you free. It is a ploy to divide, oppress, and dominate. As well as create fear among people that "This could happen to you." It plays into long-simmering racial feuds as well as other issues.

This is another example of oppressive Christianity, (not Jesus' Christianity) as well as the ridiculous nonsense of pre-destination, or pre-ordaining of a certain people, usually white Anglo right-wing christians. Again. This is NOTHING like the real teachings of Jesus.

As time goes by I am going to search my past to articulate what I learned in these right-wing evangelical churches. Their doctrines are largely the same, and they are quite radical. Senator John McCain NOT Candidate McCain said it right when he called them (evangelicals) the "Agents of Intolerance". This is who Sarah Palin is in regards to her religion. I am well versed in the cult like hold the evangelicals have on their followers, and I know how easy it is for the same to ostracize, humiliate, embarrass, or punish individuals for perceived transgressions, or violation of their dress codes, etc.

Keep Palin out of the White House!