Churches Involved in Torture, Murder of Thousands of African Children Denounced as Witches

We have looked at this issue before and I find it both frightening and disgusting - Christian churches in Africa branding children as "witches" and then causing them to be tortured and/or killed. Equally frightening is the fact that many of the Neanderthal elements within the Episcopal Church in the USA are aligning themselves under the leadership of such utterly deranged nutcases and homophobes. It's as if the members of these break away parishes have had a collective lobotomy or some similar mind destroying procedure because of the homophobia. Not surprisingly, this increasing phenomenon tracks with the spread of evangelical Christianity in Africa. Would that the professional Christians in this country stopped worrying about what gays do in the privacy of their own homes and sought to stem the torture and murder of children and the abject poverty endured by so many people throughout the world. But then, that would require actual adherence to the Gospel message - something these false Christians find impossible. Here are some highlights from the Washington Post on the ongoing torture and murder of child "witches" (the Los Angeles Times, Star Tribune, Daily Press and numerous other newspapers are carrying the story as well):

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EKET, Nigeria -- The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall. 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.

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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.

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The idea of witchcraft is hardly new, but it has taken on new life recently partly because of a rapid growth in evangelical Christianity. Campaigners against the practice say around 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria's 36 states over the past decade and around 1,000 have been murdered. In the past month alone, three Nigerian children accused of witchcraft were killed and another three were set on fire. Nigeria is one of the heartlands of abuse, but hardly the only one: the United Nations Children's Fund says tens of thousands of children have been targeted throughout Africa.

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The Mount Zion Lighthouse - also named by three other families as the accuser of their children - is part of the powerful Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria. The Fellowship's president, Ayo Oritsejafor, said the Fellowship was the fastest-growing religious group in Nigeria, with more than 30 million members.

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Ignorance and religious extremism are ugly things. Combined, they are a deadly mix. Shockingly, it is those with this type of mindset that are increasing calling the shots in the Anglican Communion and other denominations that are seeing explosive growth in the undeveloped world while rational, educated church members in the developed world refuse to believe in the lunacy that slavish adherence to fundamentalist dogma produces. One cannot help but wonder whether religion is a greater force for evil than good when confronted with stories like this one.