Church exorcises a 16 year old boy
Since we've been talking about religious therapies to erase homosexuality, you might take a look at this video, posted online, which is has caused a stir in the United States. I warn you: this is a disturbing film.
The 9-minute sequence is part of a 20-minute video posted by an American Pentecostal church called Manifested Glory Ministries, shows a 16-year-old boy being exorcised by the church's elders. This video was originally posted on the church's website, but has now been removed.
Church members gathered around the "ritual" are heard shouting. One woman yells, "Rip it from his throat!" Another shouts, "Come on, you homosexual demon! You homosexual spirit, we call you out right now! Loose your grip, Lucifer!" At one point the teenager may have vomited.
Human rights campaigners say the ritual as "abusive". The church's pastor denies that they are homophobic. "We believe a man should be with a woman and a woman should be with a man," the Rev. Patricia McKinney told The Associated Press. "We have nothing against homosexuals. I just don't agree with their lifestyle." She said the ritual was a "casting out of spirits" rather than a form of "exorcism", and claimed that the boy was 18-years-old. The teenager later confirmed that he was 16.
Is it time to have a serious conversation about religious abuse?
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Okay, let me kick this one off.
Assuming many regulars here will agree with Will that this is abusive, do you think it would still be abusive if he was over 18? (And is it more or less abusive than Michael Jackson?)
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Don't let my first line count me out!
Although I believe in the dark side of the supernatural, and in certain places and times there have been genuine manifestations of the demonic that need to be dealt with. I would agree that many of these exorcisms are abusive. I've watched a few documentaries on the Nigerian/Ugandan "Witch Children" which was absolutely horrific. I've found footage of grown men blatantly threaten aid workers and children in their care with death at sunset if they did not leave their village.
Check it out, I think it was a C4 documentary from Dispatches last October.
Horrifying stuff
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Could someone do a quick description as I can't see the video?
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No wish to view or comment on this specific case....
But regarding the "serious conversation about religious abuse"....
Q. How well did Christ assess and deal with this boy in Mark 9?
The Healing of a Boy with an Evil Spirit
14When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. 15As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.
16"What are you arguing with them about?" he asked.
17A man in the crowd answered, "Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. 18Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not."
19"O unbelieving generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me."
20So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.
21Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?"
"From childhood," he answered. 22"It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us."
23" 'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."
24Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"
25When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil[a] spirit. "You deaf and mute spirit," he said, "I command you, come out of him and never enter him again."
26The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, "He's dead." 27But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.
28After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"
29He replied, "This kind can come out only by prayer.[b]"
30They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, 31because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise." 32But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.
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Q. In Luke 11 what connection, if any, does Christ make between demonic possession and unwholeness in a person?
Luke 11
24 When an evil[h] spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, searching for rest. But when it finds none, it says, I will return to the person I came from. 25 So it returns and finds that its former home is all swept and in order. 26 Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before.
Q. How accurate a representation of traditional Christianity did CS Lewis make regarding devils?
"There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight."
- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
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PS Is it also time to have a serious conversation about the BBC giving an open platform to artists who admit to having sex with numbers of children in the developing world?
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The description in Mark is actually one of the most accurate and specific descriptions of what we would now call a Generalised Tonic-Clonic Seizure that survives from the ancient world. There is absolutely no doubt that the writer of Mark was familiar with the phenomenon of a GTCS.
It has NOTHING whatsoever to do with "demonic possession". Even in the account itself, Jesus did nothing that altered the natural history of this purely neurological phenomenon. There was no casting out. No exorcism. No healing. Things just carried on as normal, and we never hear of this poor boy again.
So, not only was there no demon, the gospel writer is actually without excuse; 400 years previously the Hippocratic document "The Sacred Disease" had determined that epilepsy was a NATURAL, not a "divine" phenomenon, was linked to the brain, and was in many cases hereditary. Some of the specifics were wrong, but that's to be expected. 400 years later, superstitious people in the Greek sphere of influence were still attributing this to made-up "demons". That is something of a tragedy.
As for this particular case, like OT, I haven't seen the video yet, but this is what you get when ignorant people are allowed to labour under their malignant superstitions, and civilised society lets them get away with it because "religious beliefs must be respected". That is rubbish. PEOPLE must be respected; BELIEFS must be held up to the light of Reason, and where they are shown to be nonsense, should be ditched.
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Seems to me to be one step away from trepanation for the removal of "evil spirits" and "demons". That they view homosexuality as a disease is reprehensible, and I imagine the psychological trauma of experiencing an exorcism first hand must be pretty horrific.
Barbarians every last one of them.
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So where is the follow-up? Did it work? If it didn't, will they have to do it again? Will they resort to stronger measures? Should they call in the big guns on this one, the Catholic Church? Now there's a religion that knows demons if ever their was one. BTW, will there be any prosecutions for child abuse? How does this rank compared to the parents who recently fought court ordered chemotherapy for their son suffering from a cancerous tumor? This seems far more inconsequential. Not necessarily without trauma but...
Observing the ritual, I see no reason to hope that the demon has been driven out. Perhaps those Pentacostalists should watch the movie "The Exorcist" several times and take some advanced courses. In the real world of exorcism, that looked to me like amateur night. I've got a suggestion. How about taking the kid to a pron movie, a strip club, and then a whore house. Those women might have more luck. It's probably what a psychotherapist would do and charge a lot more for. If that doesn't work then...there may be no hope at all. They'll all just have to learn to live with it.
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