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Apologia Report 15:1 (1,006)
January 13, 2010
Subject: The Rise of Latin American Islam
In this issue:
AMERICAN RELIGION - Pew survey measures American drift away from organized faith toward mix and match approach
DEPROGRAMMING - Federal government approach to militants seeks to turn them away from violence
ISLAM - South America seeing rapid growth of Muslim communities
WITCHCRAFT - Books & Culture review flags African witchcraft crime
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AMERICAN RELIGION
"Dogma Is Out, Personal Experience and Eastern Faiths Are In" (no byline) -- the Hindu Press International [2] wire for Dec 13 '09
sources this piece to the New York Times (link included below). It
begins: "The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a report on Wednesday that is bound to stir conversation about the increasingly complicated cacophony of spirituality in America - a mash-up of traditional faiths, fantasy and mythology.
"Entitled 'Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,' the report
[www.tinyurl.com/ykcvdwl] points out that many Americans are now choosing to 'blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs' and that 'sizable minorities of all major U.S. religious groups' said that they have had supernatural experiences, like encountering ghosts.
"For the first time in 47 years of polling, the number of Americans who said that they have had a religious or mystical experience, which the question defined as a 'moment of sudden religious insight or awakening,' was greater than those who said that they had not. ...
"Twenty percent of Protestants and 28 percent of Catholics said
they believe in reincarnation, which flies in the face of
Christianity's rapture scenario [though what they should have
contrasted reincarnation with is resurrection, not rapture - RV].
Furthermore, about the same percentages said they believe in
astrology, yoga as a spiritual practice and the idea that there is
'spiritual energy' pulsing from things like 'mountains, trees or
crystals.' ...
"16 percent of Protestants and 17 percent of Catholics said that they believe that some people can use the 'evil eye' to 'cast curses or spells that cause bad things to happen.' ...
"Since 1996, the percentage of Americans who said that they have been in the presence of a ghost has doubled from 9 percent to 18 percent, and the percentage who said that they were in touch with someone who was dead has increased by nearly two thirds, rising from 18 percent to 29 percent. ...
"The report is further evidence that Americans continue to cobble
together Mr. Potato Head-like spiritual identities from a hodgepodge of beliefs - bending dogmas to suit them instead of bending themselves to fit a dogma. And this appears to be leading to more spirituality, not less." <www.tinyurl.com/ydgawfb>
Writing for the Wall Street Journal (Dec 11 '09), Stephen
Prothero's take on the Pew study adds that "large numbers of American Christians affirm beliefs that their theologians have long denounced as heretical: 23% believe in astrology, 22% in reincarnation and 21% in yoga as a spiritual practice." He concludes: "As a scholar of religion, I am supposed to simply observe all this without rendering any judgment, but I can't help feeling that something precious is being lost here...." <www.tinyurl.com/yam6jw8>
Also see <www.tinyurl.com/ye5wykp>.
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DEPROGRAMMING
"Deradicalizer used in case of 5 Muslim men arrested in Pakistan" by Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister -- this CNN piece, dated Dec 10 '09, begins: "They are a little like the deprogrammers who try to coax young - and not so young - impressionable people out of cults. But if anything, their work is more important. They are in the middle of a web that includes would-be terrorists, distraught families and anxious federal authorities.
"Deradicalizers find themselves busier than ever, dealing with
young Muslim men who live in America but want to wage jihad in
Pakistan, Somalia or Afghanistan. Influenced by radicalized friends or preachers, sometimes by what they read, see and hear on the Internet, they become fixated by a sense of injustice toward Muslims around the world."
The authors note that "one of the most experienced of these
deradicalizers was intimately involved in efforts to find five young
men who vanished from their homes in northern Virginia at the end of November. On Wednesday, Pakistani officials reported the arrest of the five in the town of Sargodha in Punjab." Many details are explained further. <www.tinyurl.com/yem7cax>
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ISLAM
"Muslim numbers soar in Latin America's Islamic resurgence" by Alfonso Daniels -- reports that "Brazil is experiencing an Islamic boom, with reliable estimates indicating that the Muslim population has increased from a few hundred thousand to 1.5 million this decade alone, out of a total population of 190 million. This is clear as mosques emerge throughout the country, some financed by Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. ...
"Paulo Daniel Farah, an expert on Islam at Sao Paulo University,
said: 'Islam is growing everywhere in Latin America, but especially in Brazil, since Muslim slaves were brought here from Africa in the 19th century, a part of the history that only began to be studied in
schools and universities by law in 2003.'
"They led the main rebellions against slavery, mainly the Malê
Revolt in 1835 in Salvador de Bahia - the largest urban slave uprising in the Americas - which was followed by decades of repression. They championed values of equality and social justice embodied in Islam, a message that rings very strongly today as blacks remain the poorest segment in the country together with Indians.
"This explains why conversions are especially strong among
Afro-Brazilians who make up half of the country's population, many of whom come from black empowerment movements in search for their past identity. <www.tinyurl.com/yd2anun>
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WITCHCRAFT
Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa, by Adam Ashforth [1] -- an excellent source for understanding and responding to the nightmare in Africa and other underdeveloped nations. That a book published in 2005 would be reviewed here, in a magazine that usually covers newer material, is an encouraging sign that the often misunderstood problem of witchcraft in the third world may finally be seeing an increase of desperately needed attention from the rest of the globe.
Early on Ashforth acknowledges: "While Wiccans and other Neo-Pagans sometimes apply the term 'witch' to themselves, this is altogether different from 'witch' conceptualized as a person who is blamed for other people's misfortunes and deaths. It is the latter which this article addresses."
Significantly, reviewer Robert J. Priest, "an anthropologist [who]
serves as professor of Mission and Intercultural Studies and director of the PhD program in Intercultural Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School," reports that Ashforth believes "no one can understand life in Africa without understanding witchcraft."
Unfortunately, in Ashforth's analysis the underlying causes of the
problem, a scapegoat mentality in response to social frustrations
fueled by a pack mentality, overlook the influence of superstition.
Priest provides ample insight by reporting that "witch accusations seldom depend on actually observing witch action. Since the mechanisms by which witches are said to work, whether through psychic power or through manipulating occult substances (herbs, animal fats, graveyard dirt), are believed to be secret and even invisible, affliction and malice are the primary evidence for witch activity available for examination. Gossip becomes the medium through which 'witches' are identified."
After a suspicious incident, "everyone moves into a mode of gossip designed to deny or conceal their own asocial sentiments and to identify a solitary individual who all can agree is the single
repository of evil. That is, people often accuse others of the very
witch-like sentiments which they themselves harbor.
"Half a million traditional healers (inyangas and sangomas) in
South Africa make their living by divining and combating witchcraft - that is, by ratifying the 'witch' diagnosis, and hinting at a relative
or neighbor who should be blamed for the affliction." Priest includes plenty of material from Ashforth's descriptive examples which review the many selfish motivations involved on the part of the perpetrators.
Priest also reviews the pros and cons of various Christian
responses to witchcraft in Africa. This is followed by brief biblical
analysis and a good evaluation of possible solutions to the overall
problem. Books & Culture, Nov 25 '09, <www.tinyurl.com/yepeomm>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa, by Adam Ashforth (Univ of Chicago Prs, 2005, paperback, 376 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/yaq7o99>
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