Today my Ugandan
friend Dorothy invited me to go to church with her; it was a Pentecost church.
I call myself catholic, so I normally attend catholic masses, but I would attend
just about any church as long as they believe in Jesus. So I went to the
Pentecost church with Dorothy. Anyway, I am not writing this blog to talk about
religion, I am writing it to talk about what happened in church today.
Today’s sermon was
about praying and asking God for protection; protection from evil spirits that is. The evil spirits that the pastor was referring to are
witchcraft, wicca, sorcery and other uses of black magic. The sermon was very
interesting to me because I don’t believe in witchcraft and all the other
stuff, and the fact that it was being discussed in church, by a pastor, was
just intriguing. The pastor started the sermon by saying that witchcraft is becoming more and more common
in the community and it is very sad that some members of the church and their relatives are partaking in this practice. He went on saying that spirits of sorcery have attacked
several community and church members causing sudden malfunction in marriages,
unemployment, and death. At one point, he shouted, “My heart tells me that some
of you in here are under witchcraft attack right now. I am
here to awaken you because some of you are ignorant of what is happening. My
brothers and sisters, we need to pray and tell the devil and his followers enough is enough”. I couldn’t believe
what I was hearing. Not only because I was doubtful of what he was saying, but
also because I never thought of witchcraft as sermonic.
The pastor was
standing at the altar facing us, the audience. Behind him was an overhead with a list of “the signs of witchcraft” displaying on it. The
signs were as followed:
1.
Loss of
peace
2.
Unexplainable sickness and/or death
3.
Unexplainable financial loss and delays
4.
Tensions in relationships/marriages
5.
Failure/closures of churches and other religious
institutions
He reassured everyone in church that if these things were
happening, then they were certainly under the attack of witchcraft. As he went
on taking about the signs in detail, in my head I was thinking about a million
things that could cause the things listed above that were not related to
supernatural forces.
Why did
the sermon intrigue me?
As you already know I came here to do a research project and
my proposal for the project is regarding the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes
about sickle cell anemia (SCA) among parents/caregivers of children with the
disease in Uganda. I’ve read tens of research papers on SCA published by
African researchers from all over Africa and one thing they all had in common
was that there is a huge knowledge gap about
Sickle cell diseases between care-givers/the general public and healthcare
workers. Most people in “Africa”, specifically Sub-Saharan Africa, believe
that SCA is either something to do with witchcraft or a curse from GOD. Only a
few of them believe it to be a medical problem. Today’s sermon explains where
such beliefs come from. During the time I’ve been here, I’ve learned that
religion is stronger than politics and anything else and hence people are more
likely to listen to religious leaders than doctors or anyone else. This not
only impacts the way society operates, but it also affects the way people
respond to health policies and such. Anyway, I can’t wait to see what I come up
with at the end of my project. I wonder if the results will be similar to those suggested by the researchers whose work I’ve read.
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| The pastor (whose name I don't remember) praying for and with church members |
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| Another shot of the pastor praying for church members |
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