Controversy rages of Haiti’s ‘devil pact’ accusation: CEN 1.22.10 p 7. January 25, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Haiti, Syncretism.trackback
Pat Robertson, the religious broadcaster and onetime presidential candidate, has sparked controversy in the United States for his comments blaming last week’s Haitian earthquake on the country’s pact with the devil.
Robertson, who in 2005 linked Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States to the country’s legalization of abortion and its moral decadence, suggested Haiti’s sufferings were self-inflicted.
Following a fund raising segment for victims of the Haiti earthquake broadcast on The 700 Club on Jan 14, Robertson said “something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French,” he said “and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story, and so the Devil said OK it’s a deal. And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they’ve been cursed by one thing after another and are desperately poor.”
Haiti is in “desperate poverty,” he said, and “we need to pray for them a great turning to God and out of this tragedy. I’m optimistic something good may come but right now we’re helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable,” Robertson said.
While the theology behind Robertson’s observation has been roundly criticized, the “pact to the devil” he described was a reference to the Bois Caïman ceremony that took place at the start of the Haitian Revolution in 1791.
At a meeting in the Caïman forest outside the modern city of Cap Haitien a group of slave leaders gathered in 1791 to plan a revolt against the island’s white planters and free mixed-race population.
The conspirators closed their meeting with the invocation of prayers by a voodoo priest, Dutty Boukman, who allegedly urged slaves to “throw away the image of the god of the whites who thirsts for our tears and listen to the voice of liberty that speaks in the hearts of all of us.”
The ceremony was concluded by the sacrifice of a pig, whose blood was mixed with human blood and drank by the celebrants, who offered oaths of secrecy and loyalty. While over 95 per cent of Haiti’s population is Christian, a majority are said also to believe in Voodoo—and the imagery of Haiti’s curse through its pact with the devil is recounted in times of national turmoil.
The response to Robertson’s comments from American religious leaders was uniformly negative. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler observed that Robertson’s remarks were “theological arrogance matched to ignorance.”
Rice University sociologist Michael Lindsay, who interviewed Robertson for Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, told Christianity Today the controversial broadcaster “continues to distinguish himself as American evangelicalism’s most flamboyant spokesperson. When tragedies strike, people naturally ask questions about why bad things happen to the innocent, and millions of Americans see the hand of God or the devil at work in natural calamities,” Lindsay said.
“But few religious leaders today draw the kinds of explicit connection as Pat Robertson has done with the Haitian earthquake. Robertson’s comments reflect as much his rhetorical flourish and skill as a ratings booster as they do his theology.”
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