This Day - Africa January 1, 2009
Editorial
Horrendous tales are told daily by news media around the world, but recent stories of unspeakable torture and murder of Akwa Ibom children under the guise of religion are depressing. It is a big paradox that 132 years after Mary Slessor stopped the killing of twins, unwanted babies, so-called baby witches and wizards in Calabar, some people in neighbouring Akwa Ibom would today try to eliminate the world's most vulnerable group.
On November 12, 2008, the British Television Station, Channel 4, aired a blood-chilling documentary on its Despatches programme entitled: Saving Africa's Witch children. The documentary was an expose of the cruelty and murder committed against the innocent children of Akwa Ibom State, branded as witches by some pastors. Featuring in the documentary were Garry Foxcroft, a 29 year Englishman and founder of Stepping Stones, a charitable organization based in Niger Delta, and Sam Ikpe-Itauma, founder of the charity, Child's Right and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN). The two activists have been combing the nooks and crannies of Akwa Ibom and rescuing babies (including two - month olds) from being tortured or killed.
The grisly evangelical documentary, which has drawn the ire of the civilized world, is replete with numbing footages: A five-year old orphan called Mary abandoned for allegedly causing the death of a local pastor; pastors exploiting the gullibility of desperate parents by charging exorbitant fees to carry out exorcism; a self-styled Bishop admitting killing 110 people and making a fortune from "deliverance ministries". The documentary ends with placard-carrying children protesting their innocence.
We unreservedly condemn the superstitious torture and murder of the Akwa Ibom children under any guise. Society owes the child the best it can give. Although belief in witches holds sway in African cosmology, using it as a paranoid excuse to brutalise children is unacceptable. A few years ago a prophetess was arraigned before the Ikeja High Court, Lagos for chopping off the fingers of two little girls whom she alleged were witches. Recently the brain of a 17 year old girl, who had been denounced as a witch, got damaged after a three-inch nail was driven into her skull.
This is sad. Our Constitution guarantees the exercise of religious freedom. But no freedom is absolute. Urgent steps must be taken to stop the trend nationwide. Happily the Bishop who confessed that he murdered 110 people has been charged to court. Let other culprits be similarly dragged to court.
We commend the speed with which Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State signed the Child Rights Bill into law banning abuse of children in the state. The government is also threatening to close down any religious organisation or revoke the certificate of occupancy of the building of any religious house indulging in child abuse or molestation. Although it is difficult to understand why it took the documentary to prompt the State, which has a good share of the police, into action, the action was better late than never.
It must, however, be noted that there are some cases of such barbarous acts in some other states of the federation, no matter how small. The Federal government must move quickly to stop the exercise of religious freedom mixed with idiotic superstition, animism and sorcery which snuffs out the lives of innocent children.
Only a debased generation would wage war against defenseless children. Children are future of the nation.
This article was found at:
http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=132013
Showing posts with label Pentecostal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pentecostal. Show all posts
30 Dec 2008
U.S. Supreme Court gets exorcism case of ex-Colleyville woman
Star-Telegram - Texas December 26, 2008
by Max B. Baker
The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to review the case of a former Colleyville woman who claims a forced traumatic exorcism left her so physically bruised and emotionally scarred that she later attempted to commit suicide.
A sharply divided Texas Supreme Court ruled in June that the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God staff and members are protected by the First Amendment because it involves an ecclesiastical dispute over religious conduct.
Laura Schubert Pearson described a wild night in 1996 that involved casting out demons from the church and two attempts to exorcise demons from her. Only 17 years old, the incident lead Pearson to eventually attempt suicide.
Pearson’s attorneys contend that the Texas Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision "dramatically and dangerously departs" from U.S. Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence, adding that someone’s religious beliefs do not excuse them from being held accountable under valid state laws that prohibit such things as assault and false imprisonment.
"We don’t know what kind of mischief the decision is going to create," because it tries to expand the universe of activities that are protected by the First Amendment’s freedom of religion precepts, said Scott Gant, the Washington D.C. attorney who is representing the Pearson and her family. "The Texas Supreme Court’s majority ignored some of the most relevant U.S. Supreme Court decisions and then misapplied others."
Forbidden territory
In briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, attorneys representing the now defunct church _ it has since merged with another Colleyville Church — contend the case is about a personal injury case regarding mental anguish damages that should be left for the state courts to decide.
Arguing that a similar claim has never been made in a United States court, David Pruessner, the church’s attorney, also wrote that "pursuing this tort path would take the courts into forbidden territory: protected religious conduct." He adds the Texas high court’s decision is consistent with the legal doctrine of ecclesiastical autonomy.
"It is fundamental that the Constitution embraces the right to be free from unwarranted governmental intervention," Pruessner’s brief states. The Dallas attorney could not be reached for comment on Friday.
Gant expects the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if it will consider the case by mid to late January.
Pearson is now 29 years old, married and lives in Georgia.
Spread eagle
What happened to Laura Schubert Pearson at the church spanned several days in the summer of 1996.
Pearson and her brother, Joey, were involved in church activities while there parents were out of town. On a Friday evening, the atmosphere at the church became "spiritually charged" when another youth said he saw a demon.
At the youth minister’s direction, the youth frantically anointed everything in the church with holy oil until they were exhausted and finally dismissed early Saturday morning.
At the Sunday evening worship services, Laura Pearson collapsed and church members "laid hands" on her and forcibly held her arms even as she cried, yelled and demanded to be let go. She was finally released after she calmed down and replied with requests to say the name Jesus.
The following Wednesday, during a youth service, Pearson reportedly began acting in the same manner, curling into a fetal position and asked to be left alone. Church members thought she was in distress and held her down in a "spread eagle" position. Pearson suffered carpet burns and scrapes on her back and bruised wrists.
After the exorcism, she dropped out of high school her senior year, began to cut herself as many as 100 times over several years, and refused to leave the house. Pearson slit her wrists with a box cutter.
Spiritual warfare
In his U.S. Supreme Court brief, Pruessner describes the activities at the Pentecostal Pleasant Glade church to cast out demons as "spiritual warfare" that is a controversial activity of the denomination.
To outsiders, while it may appear "weird," he said that tens of millions of Pentecostal followers pursue these beliefs without harm, including Alaska governor and former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Her father, Tom Schubert, is a former Assembly of God pastor and missionary. He has since quit the church.
"This was simply normal church life for (Pearson) and her family," Pruessner wrote.
The church’s attorneys told a Tarrant County jury that Pearson’s psychological problems actually were caused by traumatic events she witnessed while her parents were serving in Africa. They also continually argued that the ministers and staff were trying to help Pearson, not hurt her.
But her father questioned what happened and the family eventually sued. They said their daughter had been abused and falsely imprisoned, and the 2002 trial never touched on the religious aspects of the case.
A jury found the church and its members liable and awarded Pearson $300,000 for mental anguish, but the 2nd Court of Appeals in Fort Worth cut $122,000 from the verdict for loss of future income.
Dangerous practice
In the church’s appeal to the Texas Supreme Court, it raised the question of whether Pleasant Glades’ First Amendment rights regarding freedom of religion do not prevent the church from being held liable for mental distress triggered by what it described as a "hyper spiritualistic environment."
For the court to impose any legal liability on members would possibly have an unconstitutional 'chilling effect’ by compelling the church to abandon core principles, Justice David Medina wrote.
In a stinging dissent, Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson said the majority’s opinion is an "overly broad holding" that conflicts with well-settled legal and constitutional principles that could "prove to be dangerous in practice."
This article was found at:
http://www.star-telegram.com/northeast/story/1112895.html
12 Dec 2008
Saving Child Witches: A Nigerian Perspective
by Leo Igwe, executive secretary of the Nigerian Humanist Movement
Some months ago, a British film-maker drew my attention to the plight of children in Akwa Ibom State who had been accused of being witches and wizards and thrown out of their homes by their families and relatives. In August, I travelled to the city of Eket to meet with these kids and the individuals helping to look after them, to find out how my organization could offer help and support.
First of all, I met with Luckyimoh Inyang of Stepping Stones Nigeria. The UK branch of his organization is raising money to support these children. Mr. Inyang told me how they had been rescuing children who had been beaten, burnt and brutalized by their own parents, and he took me to a school block and a football field which some of these children had taken as their home. They sleep there at night and roam the streets during the day in search of food. We also met some of the kids on the streets, who were carrying plastic bags filled with rice, garri and soup. Mr. Inyang told me that was how the children were trying to survive: donations were not enough, so some of them try to support themselves by taking left over food items from ceremonies, even though they are sometimes physically attacked when they do this. The children looked sick, malnourished and unkempt.
After meeting with Inyang, I went to see Mr. Sam Ikpe-Ituama of the Child’s Rights and Rehabilitation Network. Sam and his wife manage a camp where some of the kids live. Sam had been taking care of these children in his house, but eventually he had to set up the camp, with a school and a dormitory, to accommodate the increasing number of child victims. Right now the camp has over 130 children; most of them are less than ten years old. I interviewed some of them and they told me about their horrible and traumatic ordeals. Two girls described how they had been chained to a window for days, before being starved, beaten and thrown into the bush to die by parents and relations who accused them of causing diseases and death in the family by bewitchment. Other kids explained how they had been taken to churches and subjected by pastors to various forms of torture, and inhuman and degrading treatment, all in the name exorcism and deliverance. Most of the children had scars on their bodies. Some were still nursing wounds which they sustained in the course of this terrible experience. I was totally shocked and dumbfounded by what I saw. Particularly, I was stunned to hear that many of the kids had been in the camp for over three years. It was obvious that the local authorities had neglected and completely ignored this tragic situation. I was told that some officials of the Akwa Ibom State Government had visited the camp, but that nothing had been heard afterwards. So the camp and children were surviving on the limited donations they were receiving from overseas.
So I was delighted to hear that on November 4, the documentary Saving Africa’s Witch Children was broadcast in the UK, on Channel 4. This documentary has brought to the attention of the world the pain, agony, abuse and trauma which these children have suffered and endured over the years. It has exposed to the world the intellectual anomie, cultural darkness, social stagnation, moral decadence and primitive mentality that prevail in Nigeria as a result of ignorance, poverty, superstition and religious fanaticism. It has also demonstrated graphically the greed, thievery, mischief and charlatanism of pastors and other men and women, who deceive, debase, defraud and degrade human beings in the name of God. Witch-hunting is history in the western world, but in Nigeria and in Africa it is an ongoing experience.
Now, the question is: How do we save these children?
First of all we need to raise money to support them and provide them with basic necessities of life: food, shelter, clothing and education. The children need medical care, counselling and rehabilitation programs. The government of Akwa Ibom State must wake up to its duties and responsibilities. The police should investigate and ensure that parents and the persons who perpetrated these atrocities – including the pastors who aided and abetted these criminal acts – are adequately punished.
More importantly long-term, we need to launch a nationwide campaign against superstition and belief in witchcraft. Nigerians should be told that witches are not real, and that witches and spirits are imaginary entities created by primitive minds during the infancy of human race to explain situations and issues they could not understand or resolve commonsensically. This campaign should be taken to all Nigerian schools, colleges and universities. It should be publicized over the radios and television, in the newspapers, in market places, in churches and mosques.
In particular, we need to check the activities of our so called pastors and other self styled men and women of God who use the Bible or Holy books to perpetrate and justify atrocious acts and human right abuses. These religious charlatans continue to act and preach in ways that reinforce the belief in witches and provoke acts of witch accusation, persecution and killing. This has been the driving force in Akwa Ibom State, and until Nigerians learn to reject superstition and irrationalism such tragedies will continue to occur.
In most cases pastors invoke the Biblical verse Exodus 22:8, which says “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live”, to justify their position, so we also need combat this wave of Pentecostalism that promotes literal interpretation and blind faith in the “word of God”. To save the witch-children in Nigeria and rescue this nation from witch-believing forces, we need to get all Nigerians to exercise their common sense, reason and critical intelligence when practicing or professing their religion or belief. This is especially important when they are reading, preaching and interpreting messages and doctrines contained in their holy books.
(c) Leo Igwe 2008. Permission granted for non-profit re-publication, although please acknowledge authorship. The author asserts his moral rights.
This article was found at:
3 Dec 2008
Persecuting the African child
Nigerian Tribune - December 2, 2008
It was easy for the notion of child witches or kindoki to gain a firm foothold in Angola as in many other African nations, as one of the key African beliefs is that of the potency of witchcraft.
Opinion | by Olusegun Fakoya
It was easy for the notion of child witches or kindoki to gain a firm foothold in Angola as in many other African nations, as one of the key African beliefs is that of the potency of witchcraft.
Opinion | by Olusegun Fakoya
Africa abounds with various forms of child abuses, arising mostly from prevalent poverty and ignorance. This notwithstanding, the paramount role of the child in the African setting has never been in question. However, the traditional African belief and attitude to children has been successfully fractured by those who have deliberately perverted traditional belief and infused it with a distorted dose of Christianity.
The near constant strife and the desperate civil war in the Congo DR which has killed over four million people since the late 1990s, orphaned many children, leaving other families intact but too destitute to feed themselves. This has created a festering opportunity for shirking family responsibilities and the transference of frustration on innocent children. In the Congo Republic, a surprising number of children are accused of being witches, and thereafter, beaten, abused or abandoned. Child advocates estimate that thousands of children living in the streets of Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, have been accused of witchcraft and cast out by their families, often as a rationale for not having to feed or care for them. There are over 50,000 homeless children on the streets of that lawless city, stealing, begging, and selling anything they can find, including themselves. The true number is incalculable but this estimate is certainly conservative.
Many of these abandoned kids are AIDS orphans. Others are the children of Congo’s desperate civil war, but a shockingly high proportion of these children are on the streets because of the mushrooming influence of the new revivalist churches who have comfortably carved a commercial niche for themselves in the business of “child kindoki”. Prof Hoskins stated that still more children are not on the streets but are held virtual prisoners in church compounds, apparently awaiting exorcism. In 2006, Congo’s Social Affairs minister, Bernard Ndjunga, estimated that as much as 50,000 children might just be illegally detained by churches specialising in the removal of kindoki.
It is perhaps natural to state that the situation in the Congo Republic would only be reflected in Angola, what with the country’s 27 years of civil war and social disharmony. The influx of Congolese pastors did not in any way help Angolans to peacefully come to terms with the effects of war and its consequential widespread poverty and hardship. Congolese pastors invaded Angola, bringing with them the message of kindoki and further destabilization of an already fractured society. In 2006, it was officially estimated that one northern Angolan town had over 400 abandoned and abused children stigmatised as witches. Same year, the United Nations Children Fund described the number of child witches in Angola as being massive. It was easy for the notion of child witches or kindoki to gain a firm foothold in Angola as in many other African nations, as one of the key African beliefs is that of the potency of witchcraft. It is commonly believed that witches can communicate with the world of the dead or other such supernatural plane, and usurp or “eat” the life force of others, bringing their victims misfortune, illness and death. Adult witches are said to bewitch children by giving them food and then using them to achieve their nefarious goals by bringing misfortunes to their families, causing illness, bad luck and death. In retaliation, gory tales abound of the atrocities committed against children in the fight back against child witches. Two cases were particularly significant. A mother blinded her 14-year- old daughter with bleach in an attempt to rid her of evil visions, while a father injected battery acid into his 12-year- old son’s stomach because he feared the boy was a wizard.
One of the notable propagators of kindoki in Congo DR is Prophet Onokoko who as at 1999, had over 230 children on his book, all accused of witchcraft. He employed what he termed “vomit up the devil system” to exorcise children of kindoki. This is the regurgitation of strange objects after these kids have been forcefully made to drink bizarre concoctions. There are other sects involved in these unwholesome practices in Congo, chief amongst which is the Combat Spirituel Church with its headquarters in Kinshasa and numerous branches all over the country and outside, United Kingdom inclusive.
Nigeria, being a land of opportunities and brimming with opportunists, , did not lag behind in wholeheartedly adopting the concept of child witches. It is instructive to note however that the end of the civil war in Nigeria, despite its resultant hardship with social disruptions, did not lead to an upsurge of this phenomenon.
But the current situation in Akwa Ibom State and other parts of the Niger Delta remains a shame. For as long as it is allowed to continue, it remains a stigma on Nigeria. For as long as it flourishes without restraint, for so long will it remain a blur on the conscience of the Christian Association of Nigeria and all those who at daggers drawn in defence of the impeccability of modern-day Pentecostalism. For as long as this unchecked instances of child abuse reign in Nigeria, for so long will men and women of good will and clear conscience the world over, continue to confront the problems created by a nation that has allowed its territory to become a nightmare for innocent children and mediocrity.
Children ostracised by being labelled as witches, pay a heavy price. Gone is the innocence associated with childhood, the care and embrace of loving parents. Such children become social outcasts, rejected by parents and communities, faced with insurmountable obstacles and subjected to indescribable tortures. The beneficiaries of these gory spectacles are the churches who engage in exorcism. Dubious exorcism at prohibitive costs. There is no point going into the details of this any longer, Mag Gavan film explains it in details and this film can be accessed online. The Nigerian phenomenon of child witches started attracting international attention as far back as 2005. Tracy McVeigh visited Esit Eket in 2007 in the course of investigating it and produced a film to document her findings. What Mag Gavan recently did was to add flavour to a simmering problem that refused to abate.
It is to be expected that Nigerians in the diaspora would not be left behind in manifesting the paranoia associated with the child witches phenomenon. The United Kingdom abounds with Nigerian-oriented churches practising the Nigerian version of Pentecostalism with its prejudices and notable flaws. This is said with reference to the unwholesome impact of non-Nigerian sects like that of Pastor Gilbert Deya and so many others from the African continent. In essence, Britain remains like a microcosm of Africa with our blemishes and impurities fully represented. The practice of kindoki is strongly rooted in the Congolese communities in the United Kingdom. Cases abound where parents have attributed ill luck in the UK to kindoki in their children. Often times, such children have been returned to the Congo for exorcism, some not to be seen again. Not too long ago, in Bradford, a Nigerian pastor was convicted of charges of child abuse. The abuse was directed to none other than his kids, whom he accused of possessing witchcraft.
Witchcraft apart, Nigerian kids face sundry abuses in the United Kingdom. Nigerians, pastors and non-pastors, bring children to the United Kingdom to work as housemaids, shop-helps and so on. Such kids are denied basic education which does not cost a dime in this clime. Education officials have lamented specifically about the abuses Nigerian kids are being subjected to. Kids are forced to participate in various demanding church activities, including being subjected to night vigils and prolonged fasting. The result is that sleeping during school hours remains the norm with associated poor performances.
Nigeria has actively continued to neglect the welfare of its citizens, adults and children alike. The concept of governance in Nigeria remains mired in corruption and political insensitivity. Manifestations of trappings of power and insensitivity of government to the citizenry are the order of the day.
Governments of the world need to come together in action and in deeds to tackle the menace posed by the phenomenon of kindoki or child witches. Africa as a continent can only become further impoverished by the sustenance of this retrogressive practice. In this age and time, what Africa needs is not the concept of child witches but technological advancement, economic, social and political emancipation. Africa needs enlightenment and not the concept of child witches. Africa needs prosperity and not further marginalisation by a hybrid religion that has done little to shake off the shackles of superstition and ignorance.
Dr Fakoya lives in London.
This article was found at:
http://www.tribune.com.ng/02122008/opinion.html
27 Nov 2008
Mercy Ministries exorcism books leaked
LiveNews.com - Australia
November 26, 2008
by Tim Brunero
'There's no exorcism - that's not how the program works': Hillsong's earlier denial
THE HANDBOOK: Leaked photocopies of the Mercy Ministries guide
Handbooks allegedly used to perform exorcisms on sick girls at the controversial Mercy Ministries residences in Sydney and on the Sunshine Coast have been leaked to LIVENEWS.com.au.
Mercy Ministries, which is bankrolled by the Pentecostal Hillsong Church, has previously denied performing exorcisms on residents.
The documents, obtained clandestinely by a girl who “escaped” the group’s clutches, shows counsellors how to rid ‘demons’ from girls struggling with anorexia, depression and drug addiction.
Mercy Ministries’ activities hit the headlines in March this year when former residents claimed they were subjected to exorcisms, were cut off from friends and family and had to sign over their Centrelink payments to the group.
Some of the young women say they had little or no access to the promised psychologists and other mental health professionals but were instead counselled by bible studies students whose solution to all problems was prayer.
Earlier this year the then head of Mercy Ministries, Peter Irvine, said exorcisms were not practised at the residences. Mercy Ministries has been forced to shut their Sunshine Coast residence.
“There’s no exorcism, no driving out of spirits it’s not how the program works,” he told Today Tonight’s Marguerite McKinnon earlier this year.
But the handbooks tell a different story and corroborate accounts given to LIVENEWS.com.au by former residents of Mercy Ministries.
In the handbook, under a section entitled ‘Identifying Additional Demons’ those practising the exorcism are advised to ask the demon’s name, but not for any more details.
“They sometimes talk: they may threaten the person or you. They have been know to say, ‘I am going to kill you,’ and other unsavoury phrases. Command them to be quiet in the Name of Jesus,” the book advises.
Later, the book, Restoring The Foundations, published by an American Christian group, warns those exorcising demons to be firm.
“The minister’s attitude is one of commanding,” it reads.
“He needs to be firm and prepared to press in. He does not need to be loud. (Demons are not deaf.) The ministers’ commanding attitude resembles that of a person speaking to a little “yappy” dog commanding him to go home and stop barking.
“We also want the ministry receiver to set his will to resist and then command the particular demon or grouping of demons to leave him, in Jesus’ name. This is repeated until the demons are gone.”
Later in the book, those performing the exorcism are given more complex techniques in a subheading called ‘What to do With Obstinate Demons’.
Later a list of ‘Scriptures that Demons Hate’ is provided.
“But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you,” is one such passage singled out.
The emergence of the exorcism handbook lends weight to other claims made by girls who went through the Mercy Ministries program.
Megan Smith (not her real name), who spoke to LIVENEWS.com.au earlier this year, said her panic attacks only got worse.
“I was self-harming,” she said.
“I was cutting my arm with anything I could get my hands on – scratching with anything from my nails to paper clips.
“I never really had a problem with self-harm beforehand. When you tell them about self-harming they said I was trying to get attention and I was taking their valuable time away from girls with real problems.”
Finally, she was subjected to an exorcism.
“The counsellor gave me a list of different demons – demon of anger, demon of unforgiveness, demon of pride, there were lots of them and I was told to go away and circle the demons I had in me or around me,” said Smith.
“I was really scared… they cast demons out of me, one by one, and they became quite excited and animated during the process, and spoke in tongues.
“It was the counsellors and myself and they put their hands on me and started praying one by one for each of the demons that were on the list to be cast out of me.
“After each demon was cast out I had to say ‘I confirm the demon of X has been cast out of me in the name of Jesus and is unwelcome to return.'
“The whole time I was there, all I heard was that I'm demonic.
“Even after the exorcism, when I had the next anxiety attack, I was told that they had already cast the demons out, so therefore I was obviously either faking it, or I had chosen to let the demons come back, in which case I was not serious about getting better.
“They kept telling us that the world can't help us, professionals with all their 'worldly qualifications' can't help us, only Mercy could because only they have God's power.
“So when I was kicked out for being 'demonic, unable to be helped, not worth a place at Mercy’ and because I had taken too long to pray to become a Christian... it left me worse than I had ever been before in my life.
“They told me I would never get better now because I had blown my chance. I started cutting my arms and wrists more than ever, with their voices echoing in my mind as I did it.”
Suicidal and self-harming after being removed from the program, which she now thought was her only hope, she went to see a “proper psychologist to prepare me to go back to Mercy to help me fit in better.”
“The psychologist had never heard of them but told me to stay away from them… that person helped me more in the 40 minute session – really listening to me and understanding me.”
LIVENEWS.com.au has contacted Mercy Ministries for comment and is still awaiting a response.
This article was found at:
http://livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/11/26/EXCLUSIVE_Mercy_Ministry_
exorcism_books_leaked
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Mercy Ministries exorcism books leaked
November 26, 2008
by Tim Brunero
'There's no exorcism - that's not how the program works': Hillsong's earlier denial
THE HANDBOOK: Leaked photocopies of the Mercy Ministries guide
Handbooks allegedly used to perform exorcisms on sick girls at the controversial Mercy Ministries residences in Sydney and on the Sunshine Coast have been leaked to LIVENEWS.com.au.
Mercy Ministries, which is bankrolled by the Pentecostal Hillsong Church, has previously denied performing exorcisms on residents.
The documents, obtained clandestinely by a girl who “escaped” the group’s clutches, shows counsellors how to rid ‘demons’ from girls struggling with anorexia, depression and drug addiction.
Mercy Ministries’ activities hit the headlines in March this year when former residents claimed they were subjected to exorcisms, were cut off from friends and family and had to sign over their Centrelink payments to the group.
Some of the young women say they had little or no access to the promised psychologists and other mental health professionals but were instead counselled by bible studies students whose solution to all problems was prayer.
Earlier this year the then head of Mercy Ministries, Peter Irvine, said exorcisms were not practised at the residences. Mercy Ministries has been forced to shut their Sunshine Coast residence.
“There’s no exorcism, no driving out of spirits it’s not how the program works,” he told Today Tonight’s Marguerite McKinnon earlier this year.
But the handbooks tell a different story and corroborate accounts given to LIVENEWS.com.au by former residents of Mercy Ministries.
In the handbook, under a section entitled ‘Identifying Additional Demons’ those practising the exorcism are advised to ask the demon’s name, but not for any more details.
“They sometimes talk: they may threaten the person or you. They have been know to say, ‘I am going to kill you,’ and other unsavoury phrases. Command them to be quiet in the Name of Jesus,” the book advises.
Later, the book, Restoring The Foundations, published by an American Christian group, warns those exorcising demons to be firm.
“The minister’s attitude is one of commanding,” it reads.
“He needs to be firm and prepared to press in. He does not need to be loud. (Demons are not deaf.) The ministers’ commanding attitude resembles that of a person speaking to a little “yappy” dog commanding him to go home and stop barking.
“We also want the ministry receiver to set his will to resist and then command the particular demon or grouping of demons to leave him, in Jesus’ name. This is repeated until the demons are gone.”
Later in the book, those performing the exorcism are given more complex techniques in a subheading called ‘What to do With Obstinate Demons’.
Later a list of ‘Scriptures that Demons Hate’ is provided.
“But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you,” is one such passage singled out.
The emergence of the exorcism handbook lends weight to other claims made by girls who went through the Mercy Ministries program.
Megan Smith (not her real name), who spoke to LIVENEWS.com.au earlier this year, said her panic attacks only got worse.
“I was self-harming,” she said.
“I was cutting my arm with anything I could get my hands on – scratching with anything from my nails to paper clips.
“I never really had a problem with self-harm beforehand. When you tell them about self-harming they said I was trying to get attention and I was taking their valuable time away from girls with real problems.”
Finally, she was subjected to an exorcism.
“The counsellor gave me a list of different demons – demon of anger, demon of unforgiveness, demon of pride, there were lots of them and I was told to go away and circle the demons I had in me or around me,” said Smith.
“I was really scared… they cast demons out of me, one by one, and they became quite excited and animated during the process, and spoke in tongues.
“It was the counsellors and myself and they put their hands on me and started praying one by one for each of the demons that were on the list to be cast out of me.
“After each demon was cast out I had to say ‘I confirm the demon of X has been cast out of me in the name of Jesus and is unwelcome to return.'
“The whole time I was there, all I heard was that I'm demonic.
“Even after the exorcism, when I had the next anxiety attack, I was told that they had already cast the demons out, so therefore I was obviously either faking it, or I had chosen to let the demons come back, in which case I was not serious about getting better.
“They kept telling us that the world can't help us, professionals with all their 'worldly qualifications' can't help us, only Mercy could because only they have God's power.
“So when I was kicked out for being 'demonic, unable to be helped, not worth a place at Mercy’ and because I had taken too long to pray to become a Christian... it left me worse than I had ever been before in my life.
“They told me I would never get better now because I had blown my chance. I started cutting my arms and wrists more than ever, with their voices echoing in my mind as I did it.”
Suicidal and self-harming after being removed from the program, which she now thought was her only hope, she went to see a “proper psychologist to prepare me to go back to Mercy to help me fit in better.”
“The psychologist had never heard of them but told me to stay away from them… that person helped me more in the 40 minute session – really listening to me and understanding me.”
LIVENEWS.com.au has contacted Mercy Ministries for comment and is still awaiting a response.
This article was found at:
http://livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/11/26/EXCLUSIVE_Mercy_Ministry_
exorcism_books_leaked
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25 Nov 2008
Losing My Religion [Book Review]
AG Think Tank - November 25, 2008
Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace by William Lobdell
Losing My Religion is William Lobdell’s memoir of becoming an evangelical, then a Roman Catholic, then a reluctant atheist. It is an engrossing and quick read. And unlike Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, Lobdell is not vicious. He disagrees with believers, but he does not despise them.
Lobdell is an award-winning journalist who covered the religion beat for the Los Angeles Times. As a one-time resident of Costa Mesa, California—where Lobdell lives—and a former reader of the Times, I personally know some of the people Lobdell reported on, and I remember reading some of his stories. His reportage on the sins of Paul and Jan Crouch and their Trinity Broadcasting Network sticks in my mind even to this day.
The book begins with Lobdell’s life in a mess. A friend tells him he needs God, and he ends up going to Mariners Church, an evangelical megachurch pastored by Kenton Beeshore. As he matures in his faith, he switches to St. Andrews Presbyterian, pastored by John Huffman. Eventually, however, he finds himself drawn to Catholicism, and he and his wife enroll in catechism classes.
At about the same time, he begins to cover a clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Orange Diocese, involving Father Michael Harris, the longtime principal of Mater Dei High School. In 1996, a one-time student at Mater Dei named Ryan DiMaria sued Harris and the Diocese and won a judgment of $5.2 million dollars. DiMaria also successfully forced the Diocese to reform the way it handled clergy sexual abuse cases.
Lobdell was disheartened at the way the episcopal hierarchy covered for abusive priests and vilified their victims, using strong-arm legal tactics to silence them. Even more, he was utterly shocked by how pliant congregations rallied to the side of their abusive priests rather than to the side of the children those priests had molested. As he began reporting on clergy sexual abuse in other dioceses, Lobdell saw the same pattern of cover-up, vilification, and strong-arm legal tactics play out over and over again. This pattern delivered a “spiritual body blow” to Lobdell’s faith, which never recovered. (And despite completing catechism, Lobdell decided not to join the Catholic church after all.)
Losing My Religion is memoir, not apologetic. Lobdell narrates his story of “de-conversion” rather than offering airtight arguments for disbelief. Nevertheless, the corruption of the Catholic church, not to mention the sinfulness of television evangelists, is the main reason he offers for his loss of faith. If the Christian God exists and does what the Bible says he does, surely Christians should be better than they are. He raises additional objections based on the problem of evil, the ineffectiveness of intercessory prayer, and the hard-to-believe stories of the Bible.
As the pastor of an evangelical church who is trained in both philosophy and theology, I find Lobdell’s arguments less than convincing. They are the standard objections to Christianity for which the standard replies suffice, at least in my opinion. But as I wrote above, Lobdell’s narrative is engrossing. I cheered his initial conversion and mourned his (hopefully not final) apostasy. I’m quite sure that Lobdell’s story is the story of many a parishioner who wants to believe but can’t because of the sins of the church.
As an Pentecostal pastor, I recommend reading this book as a spiritual discipline. Christians can be too smug in their beliefs and too self-righteous in their actions to see the incredible evils that are taking place right under their noses within their own churches. And if the church doesn’t live according to the Bible, why should it expect anyone else to.
This article was found at:
http://www.agthinktank.com/
?p=382
RELATED ARTICLES ON THIS BLOG
Record number of German Catholics renounce church membership in 2010 over clergy child abuse scandals
Defections increase as thousands leave German Catholic church in wake of clergy abuse scandals
Growing number of Belgians join global movement to de-baptize from Catholic church
Catholic Church changes canon law on defection, status of thousands of Irish wanting to leave church in limbo
Defections from Catholic church increase after publication of Ryan report on clergy abuse in Ireland
Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace by William Lobdell
- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Collins (February 24, 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0061626813
- ISBN-13: 978-0061626814
Losing My Religion is William Lobdell’s memoir of becoming an evangelical, then a Roman Catholic, then a reluctant atheist. It is an engrossing and quick read. And unlike Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, Lobdell is not vicious. He disagrees with believers, but he does not despise them.
Lobdell is an award-winning journalist who covered the religion beat for the Los Angeles Times. As a one-time resident of Costa Mesa, California—where Lobdell lives—and a former reader of the Times, I personally know some of the people Lobdell reported on, and I remember reading some of his stories. His reportage on the sins of Paul and Jan Crouch and their Trinity Broadcasting Network sticks in my mind even to this day.
The book begins with Lobdell’s life in a mess. A friend tells him he needs God, and he ends up going to Mariners Church, an evangelical megachurch pastored by Kenton Beeshore. As he matures in his faith, he switches to St. Andrews Presbyterian, pastored by John Huffman. Eventually, however, he finds himself drawn to Catholicism, and he and his wife enroll in catechism classes.
At about the same time, he begins to cover a clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Orange Diocese, involving Father Michael Harris, the longtime principal of Mater Dei High School. In 1996, a one-time student at Mater Dei named Ryan DiMaria sued Harris and the Diocese and won a judgment of $5.2 million dollars. DiMaria also successfully forced the Diocese to reform the way it handled clergy sexual abuse cases.
Lobdell was disheartened at the way the episcopal hierarchy covered for abusive priests and vilified their victims, using strong-arm legal tactics to silence them. Even more, he was utterly shocked by how pliant congregations rallied to the side of their abusive priests rather than to the side of the children those priests had molested. As he began reporting on clergy sexual abuse in other dioceses, Lobdell saw the same pattern of cover-up, vilification, and strong-arm legal tactics play out over and over again. This pattern delivered a “spiritual body blow” to Lobdell’s faith, which never recovered. (And despite completing catechism, Lobdell decided not to join the Catholic church after all.)
Losing My Religion is memoir, not apologetic. Lobdell narrates his story of “de-conversion” rather than offering airtight arguments for disbelief. Nevertheless, the corruption of the Catholic church, not to mention the sinfulness of television evangelists, is the main reason he offers for his loss of faith. If the Christian God exists and does what the Bible says he does, surely Christians should be better than they are. He raises additional objections based on the problem of evil, the ineffectiveness of intercessory prayer, and the hard-to-believe stories of the Bible.
As the pastor of an evangelical church who is trained in both philosophy and theology, I find Lobdell’s arguments less than convincing. They are the standard objections to Christianity for which the standard replies suffice, at least in my opinion. But as I wrote above, Lobdell’s narrative is engrossing. I cheered his initial conversion and mourned his (hopefully not final) apostasy. I’m quite sure that Lobdell’s story is the story of many a parishioner who wants to believe but can’t because of the sins of the church.
As an Pentecostal pastor, I recommend reading this book as a spiritual discipline. Christians can be too smug in their beliefs and too self-righteous in their actions to see the incredible evils that are taking place right under their noses within their own churches. And if the church doesn’t live according to the Bible, why should it expect anyone else to.
This article was found at:
http://www.agthinktank.com/
?p=382
RELATED ARTICLES ON THIS BLOG
Record number of German Catholics renounce church membership in 2010 over clergy child abuse scandals
Defections increase as thousands leave German Catholic church in wake of clergy abuse scandals
Growing number of Belgians join global movement to de-baptize from Catholic church
Catholic Church changes canon law on defection, status of thousands of Irish wanting to leave church in limbo
Defections from Catholic church increase after publication of Ryan report on clergy abuse in Ireland
23 Aug 2008
Sex Abuse Trial Takes Bizarre Twist
ABC26 WGNO News - New Orleans
August 22, 2008
by Jon Huffman
AMITE — THE TRIAL OF A FORMER PASTOR FROM PONCHATOULA ACCUSED OF MOLESTING HIS TWO YOUNG SONS TOOK A STRANGE TWIST THIS MORNING.
IN OPENING STATEMENTS, DEFENSE ATTORNEYS PORTRAYED THE CHARGES AS THE DEMENTED FANTASIES OF ONE POWERFUL CHURCH MEMBER WHO CONVINCED OTHER CONGREGANTS IT WAS TRUE.
THEY PAINTED A PICTURE OF THE HOSANNA CHURCH AS AN ALMOST JIM JONES-LIKE CULT HEADED BY A CHARISMATIC LEADER.
FIRST UP, PROSECUTORS PROMISED JURORS THEY WOULD SEE VIDEOTAPES OF FORMER PASTOR LOUIS LAMONICA'S TWO SONS DESCRIBING SEXUAL MOLESTATION BY THEIR FATHER IN GRAPHIC DETAIL.
AND, THEY ADDED, JURORS WOULD READ LETTERS OF CONFESSION WRITTEN BY LAMONICA HIMSELF.
BUT THEN THE DEFENSE GOT ITS TURN, PAINTING THE SHOCKING PICTURE OF A PENTECOSTAL CHURCH TURNED INTO A FANATICAL CULT HEADED BY A SELF-DESCRIBED PROPHET NAMED LOIS MOWBRAY.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY MICHAEL THIEL CLAIMED MOWBRAY VIRTUALLY IMPRISONED FORMER PASTOR LAMONICA INSIDE THE CHURCH AND SUBJECTED HIM TO SLEEP DEPRIVATION UNTIL HE MADE FALSE CONFESSIONS OF CHILD RAPE, ANIMAL SACRIFICES, AND SATANIC RITUALS.
THIEL SAID MOWBRAY TOLD THE DEFENDANT "IF YOU THINK OR DREAM ABOUT SOMETHING, THEN YOU'VE DONE IT. YOU MUST CONFESS...I'VE HAD A VISION WHERE GOD TOLD ME YOU ARE MOLESTING YOUR TWO SONS. YOU MUST CLEANSE YOUR SOUL BY WRITING A CONFESSION."
THE DEFENSE CLAIMS MOWBRAY HOUNDED THE FORMER PASTOR FOR MONTHS UNTIL HE BROKE DOWN AND CONFESSED TO FALSE ACCUSATIONS.
BOTH OF LAMONICA'S SONS WILL BE CALLED AS WITNESSES, AND DEFENSE ATTORNEY THIEL PROMISED JURORS BOTH WOULD TESTIFY THAT NO MOLESTATION EVER HAPPENED.
HOWEVER, PROSECUTOR DON WALL TOLD JURORS THEY WOULD SEE VIDEOTAPES IN WHICH BOTH BOYS DESCRIBE MOLESTATION BY THEIR FATHER IN GRAPHIC DETAIL.
THE TRIAL IS EXPECTED TO LAST WELL INTO NEXT WEEK.
This article was found at:
http://abc26.trb.com/news/wgno_news_082108sexabusetrialstarts,
0,790313.story
August 22, 2008
by Jon Huffman
AMITE — THE TRIAL OF A FORMER PASTOR FROM PONCHATOULA ACCUSED OF MOLESTING HIS TWO YOUNG SONS TOOK A STRANGE TWIST THIS MORNING.
IN OPENING STATEMENTS, DEFENSE ATTORNEYS PORTRAYED THE CHARGES AS THE DEMENTED FANTASIES OF ONE POWERFUL CHURCH MEMBER WHO CONVINCED OTHER CONGREGANTS IT WAS TRUE.
THEY PAINTED A PICTURE OF THE HOSANNA CHURCH AS AN ALMOST JIM JONES-LIKE CULT HEADED BY A CHARISMATIC LEADER.
FIRST UP, PROSECUTORS PROMISED JURORS THEY WOULD SEE VIDEOTAPES OF FORMER PASTOR LOUIS LAMONICA'S TWO SONS DESCRIBING SEXUAL MOLESTATION BY THEIR FATHER IN GRAPHIC DETAIL.
AND, THEY ADDED, JURORS WOULD READ LETTERS OF CONFESSION WRITTEN BY LAMONICA HIMSELF.
BUT THEN THE DEFENSE GOT ITS TURN, PAINTING THE SHOCKING PICTURE OF A PENTECOSTAL CHURCH TURNED INTO A FANATICAL CULT HEADED BY A SELF-DESCRIBED PROPHET NAMED LOIS MOWBRAY.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY MICHAEL THIEL CLAIMED MOWBRAY VIRTUALLY IMPRISONED FORMER PASTOR LAMONICA INSIDE THE CHURCH AND SUBJECTED HIM TO SLEEP DEPRIVATION UNTIL HE MADE FALSE CONFESSIONS OF CHILD RAPE, ANIMAL SACRIFICES, AND SATANIC RITUALS.
THIEL SAID MOWBRAY TOLD THE DEFENDANT "IF YOU THINK OR DREAM ABOUT SOMETHING, THEN YOU'VE DONE IT. YOU MUST CONFESS...I'VE HAD A VISION WHERE GOD TOLD ME YOU ARE MOLESTING YOUR TWO SONS. YOU MUST CLEANSE YOUR SOUL BY WRITING A CONFESSION."
THE DEFENSE CLAIMS MOWBRAY HOUNDED THE FORMER PASTOR FOR MONTHS UNTIL HE BROKE DOWN AND CONFESSED TO FALSE ACCUSATIONS.
BOTH OF LAMONICA'S SONS WILL BE CALLED AS WITNESSES, AND DEFENSE ATTORNEY THIEL PROMISED JURORS BOTH WOULD TESTIFY THAT NO MOLESTATION EVER HAPPENED.
HOWEVER, PROSECUTOR DON WALL TOLD JURORS THEY WOULD SEE VIDEOTAPES IN WHICH BOTH BOYS DESCRIBE MOLESTATION BY THEIR FATHER IN GRAPHIC DETAIL.
THE TRIAL IS EXPECTED TO LAST WELL INTO NEXT WEEK.
This article was found at:
http://abc26.trb.com/news/wgno_news_082108sexabusetrialstarts,
0,790313.story
30 Jul 2008
Hillsong accused of closet zealotry
Brisbane Times - July 29, 2008
by Paul Bibby
STUDENTS opting out of scripture classes at a Sydney high school are being invited to attend a personal development program run by the Hillsong Church where they are hearing personal testimonials from church members, a teacher at the school says.
The teacher's federation representative for Cheltenham Girls High, Doug Williamson, said non-scripture students at the school were being invited to join the Shine program, where they were exposed to religious content.
Hillsong Church says Shine is non-religious and the volunteers who conduct the program do not evangelise, but Mr Williamson said children had been told stories about finding religion.
"My understanding is that on a number of occasions the facilitators have spoken about their own lives and how they came to be members of the Hillsong Church," Mr Williamson said. "It is inappropriate for students to be subjected to this kind of closet evangelism."
Speaking through the NSW Department of Education's media unit, the school's principal, Susan Marshall, told Fairfax Media all parents were informed the Shine program was run by Hillsong and had to sign a permission slip.
She said there was no evidence to suggest testimonials were provided during the program and that "if they were, the program would be terminated".
But Mr Williamson said he believed many parents were not fully aware of what the classes involved, and that without constant monitoring, there was "no way to know exactly what's going on".
A parent from another Sydney school said students at her child's school were automatically enrolled in the Shine program if they chose not to attend scripture.
"When you tick the box [for non-scripture] you are automatically told that your child will be enrolled in Shine," the parent said. "It appears that they don't have enough teachers to supervise the kids if they don't do scripture, so they just bung them in Shine. It's an alarming situation because most of the mums and dads don't even know it's happening."
The NSW Greens yesterday called for Shine to be suspended while allegations that it put an unhealthy and inappropriate emphasis on physical appearance were investigated. It joined the NSW Federation of Parents and Citizens in expressing concern that the program could damage the self-esteem of the at-risk girls it purported to help.
Hillsong Citycare said grooming was an aspect of the program but not its main focus.
This article was found at:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/hillsong-accused-of-closet-zealotry/2008/07/28/
1217097182682.html
by Paul Bibby
STUDENTS opting out of scripture classes at a Sydney high school are being invited to attend a personal development program run by the Hillsong Church where they are hearing personal testimonials from church members, a teacher at the school says.
The teacher's federation representative for Cheltenham Girls High, Doug Williamson, said non-scripture students at the school were being invited to join the Shine program, where they were exposed to religious content.
Hillsong Church says Shine is non-religious and the volunteers who conduct the program do not evangelise, but Mr Williamson said children had been told stories about finding religion.
"My understanding is that on a number of occasions the facilitators have spoken about their own lives and how they came to be members of the Hillsong Church," Mr Williamson said. "It is inappropriate for students to be subjected to this kind of closet evangelism."
Speaking through the NSW Department of Education's media unit, the school's principal, Susan Marshall, told Fairfax Media all parents were informed the Shine program was run by Hillsong and had to sign a permission slip.
She said there was no evidence to suggest testimonials were provided during the program and that "if they were, the program would be terminated".
But Mr Williamson said he believed many parents were not fully aware of what the classes involved, and that without constant monitoring, there was "no way to know exactly what's going on".
A parent from another Sydney school said students at her child's school were automatically enrolled in the Shine program if they chose not to attend scripture.
"When you tick the box [for non-scripture] you are automatically told that your child will be enrolled in Shine," the parent said. "It appears that they don't have enough teachers to supervise the kids if they don't do scripture, so they just bung them in Shine. It's an alarming situation because most of the mums and dads don't even know it's happening."
The NSW Greens yesterday called for Shine to be suspended while allegations that it put an unhealthy and inappropriate emphasis on physical appearance were investigated. It joined the NSW Federation of Parents and Citizens in expressing concern that the program could damage the self-esteem of the at-risk girls it purported to help.
Hillsong Citycare said grooming was an aspect of the program but not its main focus.
This article was found at:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/hillsong-accused-of-closet-zealotry/2008/07/28/
1217097182682.html
28 Jul 2008
Family resolves to take fight over exorcism to Supreme Court
Star-Telegram, Texas
July 27, 2008
by Max B. Baker
Laura Schubert Pearson was an impressionable 17-year-old when friends in her church youth group thought demons possessed her.
Repeatedly, over two days, the youth pastor, his wife and others held the girl down on the floor of the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God Church in Colleyville, even as Pearson screamed, fought and begged to be released.
They cast it as wrestling with the devil.
But she said it was "like being pummeled by this very large group. These were our friends, people we hung out with."
The 1996 episode left her physically and emotionally scarred, and "this stuff is still hard to talk about," Pearson told the Star-Telegram after the Texas Supreme Court dismissed her lawsuit against the church June 27. The majority said the courts can’t get involved in a religious debate over church doctrine.
Pearson, now 29 and living near Atlanta with her new husband and her children, said: "You can’t use your religious beliefs to get away with harming a child."
After the exorcism, she dropped out of high school her senior year, began to cut herself as many as 100 times over several years, and refused to leave the house. Pearson slit her wrists with a box cutter.
Her father, a former missionary and minister, became an agnostic.
But Pearson and her parents, Tom and Judy Schubert, say they are willing to go to the U.S. Supreme Court in their fight against a church they once loved.
As the parents see it, Pleasant Glade members abused their daughter in the same way a husband or a boyfriend abuses a wife or a girlfriend — and all under the guise of serving the Lord.
"This is so much bigger than myself," Pearson said.
"This is about not allowing the cover of religion to permit physical abuse in a church, and particularly to a child," Pearson added.
Called out-of-control
The Rev. Lloyd McCutchen, who later merged the Pleasant Glade church with another congregation to create the Assembly of God Church in Colleyville, did not return calls seeking comment. But in 2002, he said that the congregation was a "Bible-believing Pentecostal church. For this we make no apologies."
David Pruessner, the church’s attorney, has repeatedly described Pearson as an out-of-control, attention-seeking teenager who he once said "breathes in attention the same way we breathe in air."
In court testimony, church members did not deny holding her down.
"None of them had a personal vendetta," Pruessner said. "She was in a church service and screaming and in a lot of pain, so they were stepping forward to help her."
Pearson already suffered from psychological problems caused by traumatic events she witnessed while her parents were missionaries in Africa, including "beatings and burnings," Pruessner claimed in court documents.
In a 1992 letter to church officials from Cameroon, Tom Schubert said Pearson had fallen into a "terrible depression" and often can be found "curled up on her bed."
Pruessner said the fact that Pearson has been able to attend college and is on her way to getting her second degree — something she claimed during the 2002 trial that she would never be able to do — is evidence that this episode has been "blown out of proportion."
"One of the easiest claims to make is that someone has caused you an emotional injury," Pruessner said.
Six difficult days
Although it happened more than 12 years ago, Pearson says it is still hard to talk about those harrowing six days in June 1996.
Pearson and her brother, Joseph, had been left with their older sister, Amy, while their parents went on a fundraising trip in Indiana. She was going to hang out with the church youth group and work at her part-time job. On June 7, a Friday, Pearson went to the church to help the youth group prepare for a garage sale. At about midnight, one of the teens rushed in saying he had seen a demon in the darkened sanctuary.
Rod Linzay, the youth pastor, urged everyone to anoint the sanctuary with holy oil. They rapped on pews. They prayed. They propped a cross against the doors to keep demons out or drive them out. They were up until early morning.
"I had been around [the church] all of my life, but I had not experienced anything of this sort. . . . After being up all of those hours and involved in all of that, it was easy to believe what was going on was real," she said.
Exhausted, Pearson went home and then to work but was unable to sleep that night. By the time she returned to the church on Sunday evening, she had been up for 72 hours.
It was then that people believed demons had possessed her and the first exorcism was performed. Pearson said she collapsed on the floor out of exhaustion. During the trial, doctors suggested she was hypoglycemic. She clenched her fists, gritted her teeth, made guttural sounds, cried and yelled.
"I was moving my head back and forth, and I hear people saying things are wrong with me and the youth pastor’s wife saying it was the demons," Pearson said. They held her down, but after the thrashing stopped, Pearson was allowed to get up after saying the name Jesus.
On Wednesday, Pearson returned to the church. After hearing a sermon about "putting on the whole armor of God to fight off the devil," Pearson said she went off to a corner, curled into a fetal position and prayed.
When another youth asked to pray for her, Pearson refused. Eventually, she was held spread-eagle on the floor. She fought those holding her and asked to be let go. They said "it was the devil talking," Pearson said.
McCutchen then entered the room. He tried to calm Pearson and told her to "just say the word Jesus." Eventually, he called Pearson’s parents, who came and took their "dazed" daughter home. Later they saw the bruises and carpet burns. Soon she began having nightmares about hands and faces coming out of her bedroom walls to grab her.
When her senior year in high school started later that summer, Pearson suffered such a strong anxiety attack that she attended school for only one day. In October, she cut her wrists with a dull box cutter at work. She later tried to overdose on her medications. Pearson was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. "My health was so poor. I weighed about 87 pounds. . . . I was afraid to go out of the house," she said.
Turning the corner
In November 1998, the family left Texas, and Tom Schubert resigned as an Assemblies of God minister and missionary. The Schuberts moved to Georgia to be near the wife’s family.
Tom Schubert worked as manager of an auto-parts store but eventually got degrees in counseling. Now 56, he is retired and on disability after being diagnosed with severe osteoporosis, which has caused spinal fractures.
Schubert has lost his faith, while his wife and daughter continue to believe.
"I do not hold the religious views I once held," Schubert said. "I don’t know what is out there. I don’t think what is out there is what I thought was there in the past. . . . I don’t believe in demons and such. . . . I doubt that God exists."
Their son, Joseph, who witnessed at least one of the exorcisms, also struggled with what happened and eventually dropped out of school.
He now works for a company that builds trade-show exhibits.
Pearson said she has started to rebuild her life. "For the first several years, it was very, very difficult, dealing with nightmares and feeling out of control," Pearson said. "Getting my bearing again was very hard to do."
Her first marriage ended in divorce, but she credits the birth of her daughter, now 7, with turning her life around. She also has a 5-year-old son.
She remarried on the day the Texas Supreme Court tossed out her lawsuit.
Pearson got an associate degree in criminal justice, then decided to continue her education and will soon complete a degree in social work. In her internship, she works with children from broken homes who have been in abusive situations.
"I wanted to understand why good people do bad things or why bad things happen to good people," Pearson said. "I had a lot of questions I needed legitimate, honest answers to."
This article was found at:
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/786870.html
July 27, 2008
by Max B. Baker
Laura Schubert Pearson was an impressionable 17-year-old when friends in her church youth group thought demons possessed her.
Repeatedly, over two days, the youth pastor, his wife and others held the girl down on the floor of the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God Church in Colleyville, even as Pearson screamed, fought and begged to be released.
They cast it as wrestling with the devil.
But she said it was "like being pummeled by this very large group. These were our friends, people we hung out with."
The 1996 episode left her physically and emotionally scarred, and "this stuff is still hard to talk about," Pearson told the Star-Telegram after the Texas Supreme Court dismissed her lawsuit against the church June 27. The majority said the courts can’t get involved in a religious debate over church doctrine.
Pearson, now 29 and living near Atlanta with her new husband and her children, said: "You can’t use your religious beliefs to get away with harming a child."
After the exorcism, she dropped out of high school her senior year, began to cut herself as many as 100 times over several years, and refused to leave the house. Pearson slit her wrists with a box cutter.
Her father, a former missionary and minister, became an agnostic.
But Pearson and her parents, Tom and Judy Schubert, say they are willing to go to the U.S. Supreme Court in their fight against a church they once loved.
As the parents see it, Pleasant Glade members abused their daughter in the same way a husband or a boyfriend abuses a wife or a girlfriend — and all under the guise of serving the Lord.
"This is so much bigger than myself," Pearson said.
"This is about not allowing the cover of religion to permit physical abuse in a church, and particularly to a child," Pearson added.
Called out-of-control
The Rev. Lloyd McCutchen, who later merged the Pleasant Glade church with another congregation to create the Assembly of God Church in Colleyville, did not return calls seeking comment. But in 2002, he said that the congregation was a "Bible-believing Pentecostal church. For this we make no apologies."
David Pruessner, the church’s attorney, has repeatedly described Pearson as an out-of-control, attention-seeking teenager who he once said "breathes in attention the same way we breathe in air."
In court testimony, church members did not deny holding her down.
"None of them had a personal vendetta," Pruessner said. "She was in a church service and screaming and in a lot of pain, so they were stepping forward to help her."
Pearson already suffered from psychological problems caused by traumatic events she witnessed while her parents were missionaries in Africa, including "beatings and burnings," Pruessner claimed in court documents.
In a 1992 letter to church officials from Cameroon, Tom Schubert said Pearson had fallen into a "terrible depression" and often can be found "curled up on her bed."
Pruessner said the fact that Pearson has been able to attend college and is on her way to getting her second degree — something she claimed during the 2002 trial that she would never be able to do — is evidence that this episode has been "blown out of proportion."
"One of the easiest claims to make is that someone has caused you an emotional injury," Pruessner said.
Six difficult days
Although it happened more than 12 years ago, Pearson says it is still hard to talk about those harrowing six days in June 1996.
Pearson and her brother, Joseph, had been left with their older sister, Amy, while their parents went on a fundraising trip in Indiana. She was going to hang out with the church youth group and work at her part-time job. On June 7, a Friday, Pearson went to the church to help the youth group prepare for a garage sale. At about midnight, one of the teens rushed in saying he had seen a demon in the darkened sanctuary.
Rod Linzay, the youth pastor, urged everyone to anoint the sanctuary with holy oil. They rapped on pews. They prayed. They propped a cross against the doors to keep demons out or drive them out. They were up until early morning.
"I had been around [the church] all of my life, but I had not experienced anything of this sort. . . . After being up all of those hours and involved in all of that, it was easy to believe what was going on was real," she said.
Exhausted, Pearson went home and then to work but was unable to sleep that night. By the time she returned to the church on Sunday evening, she had been up for 72 hours.
It was then that people believed demons had possessed her and the first exorcism was performed. Pearson said she collapsed on the floor out of exhaustion. During the trial, doctors suggested she was hypoglycemic. She clenched her fists, gritted her teeth, made guttural sounds, cried and yelled.
"I was moving my head back and forth, and I hear people saying things are wrong with me and the youth pastor’s wife saying it was the demons," Pearson said. They held her down, but after the thrashing stopped, Pearson was allowed to get up after saying the name Jesus.
On Wednesday, Pearson returned to the church. After hearing a sermon about "putting on the whole armor of God to fight off the devil," Pearson said she went off to a corner, curled into a fetal position and prayed.
When another youth asked to pray for her, Pearson refused. Eventually, she was held spread-eagle on the floor. She fought those holding her and asked to be let go. They said "it was the devil talking," Pearson said.
McCutchen then entered the room. He tried to calm Pearson and told her to "just say the word Jesus." Eventually, he called Pearson’s parents, who came and took their "dazed" daughter home. Later they saw the bruises and carpet burns. Soon she began having nightmares about hands and faces coming out of her bedroom walls to grab her.
When her senior year in high school started later that summer, Pearson suffered such a strong anxiety attack that she attended school for only one day. In October, she cut her wrists with a dull box cutter at work. She later tried to overdose on her medications. Pearson was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. "My health was so poor. I weighed about 87 pounds. . . . I was afraid to go out of the house," she said.
Turning the corner
In November 1998, the family left Texas, and Tom Schubert resigned as an Assemblies of God minister and missionary. The Schuberts moved to Georgia to be near the wife’s family.
Tom Schubert worked as manager of an auto-parts store but eventually got degrees in counseling. Now 56, he is retired and on disability after being diagnosed with severe osteoporosis, which has caused spinal fractures.
Schubert has lost his faith, while his wife and daughter continue to believe.
"I do not hold the religious views I once held," Schubert said. "I don’t know what is out there. I don’t think what is out there is what I thought was there in the past. . . . I don’t believe in demons and such. . . . I doubt that God exists."
Their son, Joseph, who witnessed at least one of the exorcisms, also struggled with what happened and eventually dropped out of school.
He now works for a company that builds trade-show exhibits.
Pearson said she has started to rebuild her life. "For the first several years, it was very, very difficult, dealing with nightmares and feeling out of control," Pearson said. "Getting my bearing again was very hard to do."
Her first marriage ended in divorce, but she credits the birth of her daughter, now 7, with turning her life around. She also has a 5-year-old son.
She remarried on the day the Texas Supreme Court tossed out her lawsuit.
Pearson got an associate degree in criminal justice, then decided to continue her education and will soon complete a degree in social work. In her internship, she works with children from broken homes who have been in abusive situations.
"I wanted to understand why good people do bad things or why bad things happen to good people," Pearson said. "I had a lot of questions I needed legitimate, honest answers to."
This article was found at:
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/786870.html
26 Jul 2008
Hillsong hits schools with beauty gospel
Sydney Morning Herald - July 26, 2008
by Paul Bibby
EVERY Tuesday afternoon during the first term at Matraville Sports High School, a group of young women take part in classes intended to boost their self-esteem. Some have personal problems, others have behavioural issues, while a few simply go because their friends do.
For the next two hours they learn a range of skills including how to put on make-up, do their hair and nails, and walk with books balanced on their heads.
The program, called Shine, was created by the Hillsong Church. It is being run in at least 20 NSW public schools, numerous small community organisations and within the juvenile justice system.
Hillsong describes Shine as a "practical, life-equipping, values-based course" and its website is awash with glowing testimonials from young women whose lives have been improved by learning about "being a good friend" and "learning about myself".
But serious concerns have been raised by teachers, adolescent developmental experts and parents groups. They say the program is inappropriate for troubled young women, that the under-qualified facilitators are reinforcing gender stereotypes. and that some parents have not been properly informed.
Shine was originally developed by the CityCare arm of Hillsong as an explicitly religious program. The church says it is now "community-based, not religious-based" but, as recently as 2005, promotional material referred to young women's "created uniqueness".
"Through skin care, natural make-up, hair care, nail care girls discover their value and created uniqueness," the material says.
The term has been omitted from more recent material but the beauty classes remain, as do etiquette and deportment lessons.
The program has set alarm bells ringing for psychologists such as Dianna Kenny, an adolescent development expert at the University of Sydney. "They are essentially saying you are not appropriate as you are and we're going to show you how to be appropriate," Professor Kenny said.
"We don't have control of our physical characteristics. To emphasise that takes away from the autonomy of people as individual human beings. That runs completely contrary to what we know about adolescent development.
"We do want our young people to feel good about themselves, but what [they] need is help from professional counsellors."
Most of the facilitators who deliver Shine in Sydney classrooms have no university counselling qualifications, although Hillsong says they must have some qualifications or experience.
In some schools, Matraville Sports High included, the program is run by careers or physical education teachers. At other schools, including Alexandria Park, Glenwood and Cheltenham Girls, it is run by young recruits from Hillsong's leadership college.
Schools pay Hillsong to run the program, with parents asked to pay for books and materials such as hair spray and make-up.
"Over the last two or three years teachers have been coming to us with concerns about Shine," said the president of the Hills Teachers Association, Sui-Linn White. "It is the gender stereotypes that they are imposing. The focus on skin care, nail care, hair care - it objectifies women … These are things women fought against for centuries - they've got no place in a public school."
One teacher from a Hills district school, who asked not to be named, said Shine facilitators had run activities that undermined other teachers. "They were asking the kids to talk about which of the teachers they didn't like."
He said parents may not have been properly informed. "I don't know whether the parents, knowing what we know now, would have put their kids in. I don't know whether the school would have hired them in the first place."
Parents groups from Queensland and the Northern Territory have complained that their schools have tried to sneak Shine in almost unnoticed.
"In our view, this is a way of getting religion into schools through subterranean means," said one parent, Hugh Wilson. "The principal or the chaplain decides it's a good idea and, next thing you know, your kids are being taught about make-up by the Hillsong Church."
The church says parents have been overwhelmingly supportive of the program.
This article was found at:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/hillsongs-beauty-gospel/2008/07/25/1216492732905.html?page=
fullpage#contentSwap1
by Paul Bibby
EVERY Tuesday afternoon during the first term at Matraville Sports High School, a group of young women take part in classes intended to boost their self-esteem. Some have personal problems, others have behavioural issues, while a few simply go because their friends do.
For the next two hours they learn a range of skills including how to put on make-up, do their hair and nails, and walk with books balanced on their heads.
The program, called Shine, was created by the Hillsong Church. It is being run in at least 20 NSW public schools, numerous small community organisations and within the juvenile justice system.
Hillsong describes Shine as a "practical, life-equipping, values-based course" and its website is awash with glowing testimonials from young women whose lives have been improved by learning about "being a good friend" and "learning about myself".
But serious concerns have been raised by teachers, adolescent developmental experts and parents groups. They say the program is inappropriate for troubled young women, that the under-qualified facilitators are reinforcing gender stereotypes. and that some parents have not been properly informed.
Shine was originally developed by the CityCare arm of Hillsong as an explicitly religious program. The church says it is now "community-based, not religious-based" but, as recently as 2005, promotional material referred to young women's "created uniqueness".
"Through skin care, natural make-up, hair care, nail care girls discover their value and created uniqueness," the material says.
The term has been omitted from more recent material but the beauty classes remain, as do etiquette and deportment lessons.
The program has set alarm bells ringing for psychologists such as Dianna Kenny, an adolescent development expert at the University of Sydney. "They are essentially saying you are not appropriate as you are and we're going to show you how to be appropriate," Professor Kenny said.
"We don't have control of our physical characteristics. To emphasise that takes away from the autonomy of people as individual human beings. That runs completely contrary to what we know about adolescent development.
"We do want our young people to feel good about themselves, but what [they] need is help from professional counsellors."
Most of the facilitators who deliver Shine in Sydney classrooms have no university counselling qualifications, although Hillsong says they must have some qualifications or experience.
In some schools, Matraville Sports High included, the program is run by careers or physical education teachers. At other schools, including Alexandria Park, Glenwood and Cheltenham Girls, it is run by young recruits from Hillsong's leadership college.
Schools pay Hillsong to run the program, with parents asked to pay for books and materials such as hair spray and make-up.
"Over the last two or three years teachers have been coming to us with concerns about Shine," said the president of the Hills Teachers Association, Sui-Linn White. "It is the gender stereotypes that they are imposing. The focus on skin care, nail care, hair care - it objectifies women … These are things women fought against for centuries - they've got no place in a public school."
One teacher from a Hills district school, who asked not to be named, said Shine facilitators had run activities that undermined other teachers. "They were asking the kids to talk about which of the teachers they didn't like."
He said parents may not have been properly informed. "I don't know whether the parents, knowing what we know now, would have put their kids in. I don't know whether the school would have hired them in the first place."
Parents groups from Queensland and the Northern Territory have complained that their schools have tried to sneak Shine in almost unnoticed.
"In our view, this is a way of getting religion into schools through subterranean means," said one parent, Hugh Wilson. "The principal or the chaplain decides it's a good idea and, next thing you know, your kids are being taught about make-up by the Hillsong Church."
The church says parents have been overwhelmingly supportive of the program.
This article was found at:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/hillsongs-beauty-gospel/2008/07/25/1216492732905.html?page=
fullpage#contentSwap1
18 Jul 2008
Mercy Ministries claim exorcisms cure mental illness and drug addiction
LiveNews.com - Australia
July 19, 2008
How to cure anorexia with exorcisms
by Tim Brunero
Exorcisms to cure mental illness and drug addiction, locking vulnerable people away from friends and family, prayer as a solution to all problems – sounds like psych ward from last century. But actually it’s just the ‘Mercy Way’.
The once mighty ‘Mercy Ministries’, a secretive outfit that purports to treat young women with mental illness, is now in serious trouble.
Bankrolled by controversial Pentecostal group the ‘Hillsong Church’ and Hillsong-aligned Gloria Jean’s coffees the group has been the subject of a number of complaints to authorities. They’ve already closed one of their two facilities.
Women who’ve been through its programs say the main ‘treatment’ they were prescribed were exorcisms and prayer study, supervised by bible studies students. That’s whether they were dealing with anorexia, anxiety disorders or substance abuse.
And all the time being kept virtually as prisoners - cut off from the outside world with no TV or newspapers, with severely restricted access to friends and family and made to even ask permission to go to the toilet.
Nowhere was the promised phalanx of mental health professionals, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and dieticians. Just bible studies students whose answer to all questions was more prayer.
Three former residents told LIVENEWS.com.au they were left in a worse state after going to stay at Mercy Ministries – which still operates in a house in Sydney’s Glenhaven.
Meg Smith (not her real name) says she went to Mercy because of the group’s promise of free treatment for her anxiety disorder and panic attacks.
But she quickly became disheartened after “free” meant signing over her Centrelink payments to the group and “treatment” didn’t include proper access to doctors, psychologists and social workers.
“The 'counsellor' I had was not qualified to treat mental illness... nobody there was. She was in the middle of a mercy 'in-house program' to teach her how to prayer counsel,” says Smith.
“I spent months there and the only 'therapy' I had was prayer readings and an exorcism.”
She paints a disturbing picture - where a group of vulnerable girls isolated in a suburban home and forbidden to leave or form friendships on pain of being expelled – followed a punishing daily routine.
A seven o’clock wake up call and a stint of cleaning was followed by bible reading.
After that came a “praise” session where the girls would stand in a circle, eyes closed, singing along to Christian music and jumping on the spot with arms outstretched.
After locked food cupboards were opened for a piece of fruit or a few tablespoons of yoghurt it was back to class – usually taking notes from audio tapes by Joyce Meyer, an American evangelist.
After lunch, homework, letter-writing and recreation were followed by more cleaning and bible study.
Smith began to get worse.
“I was having lots of panic attacks… they seemed to be getting worse at ministry,” she said.
“I couldn’t work out why, apart from being away from friends and family and my support network.
“I was self harming – I was cutting my arm with anything I could get my hands on – scratching with anything from my nails to paper clips.
“I never really had a problem with self harm beforehand. When you tell them about self harming they said I was trying to get attention and I was taking their valuable time away from girls with real problems.”
Finally Smith was told she would have to have what she describes as an ‘exorcism’.
“The counsellor gave me a list of different demons – demon of anger, demon of unforgiveness, demon of pride, there were lots of them and I was told to go away and circle the demons I had in me or around me,” said Smith.
“I was really scared… they cast demons out of me, one by one, and they became quite excited and animated during the process, and spoke in tongues.
“It was the counsellors and myself and they put their hands on me and started praying one by one for each of the demons that were on the list to be cast out of me.
“After each demon was cast out I had to say ‘I confirm the demon of X has been cast out of me in the name of Jesus and is unwelcome to return.'
“The whole time I was there, all I heard was that I'm demonic.
“Even after the exorcism, when I had the next anxiety attack, I was told that they had already cast the demons out, so therefore I was obviously either faking it, or I had chosen to let the demons come back, in which case I was not serious about getting better.
“They kept telling us that the world can't help us, professionals with all their 'worldly qualifications' can't help us, only Mercy could because only they have God's power.
“So when I was kicked out for being 'demonic, unable to be helped, not worth a place at Mercy and because I had taken too long to pray to become a Christian... it left me worse than I had ever been before in my life.
“They told me I would never get better now because I had blown my chance. I started cutting my arms and wrists more than ever, with their voices echoing in my mind as I did it.”
Suicidal and self harming after being removed from the program, which she now thought was her only hope, she went to see a “proper psychologist to prepare me to go back to Mercy to help me fit in better.”
“The psychologist had never heard of them but told me to stay away from them… that person helped me more in the 40 minute session – really listening to me and understanding me.”
Smith, who is on the mend after a long process, is not alone.
Other women who spoke to LIVENEWS.com.au described being “literally bible bashed” and supervised during limited visits to GPs and psychiatrists.
One Patricia (not her real name) says when she approached staff with problems she was asked if she had prayed about it.
“In the end I stopped going to staff members because they just didn’t seem to help me and that’s one of the things they commented on… but how can you when they’re not actually helping you?” she said.
“I went to the psychiatrist three times in eight months I was there to get medication – and I was always accompanied in the session by a staff member.
“Once I told the psychiatrist what I was feeling and when we got back to the house I was yelled at because I hadn’t told the staff there… Now I go to the psychiatrist every two weeks – that’s the kind of care you need when you’re acutely unwell.
“Four to six weeks after I got kicked out I tried to kill myself and I almost succeeded and it was because I didn’t think I could live or get better without Mercy because it was just so ingrained into me.”
Since the former clients of Mercy Ministires began telling their stories, high profile “sponsors” listed on their website have disappeared. No longer do Rebel Sport, Bunnings Warehouse or LG electronics have anything to do with with the group.
Gloria Jean’s coffees, which once had collection boxes for the groups in all their stores, and whose former managing director, Peter Irvine, was a director at Mercy, still maintains conspicuous support.
The group have closed their Queensland centre but the Sydney facility remains open for business – still without scrutiny from government authorities.
Ready to continue to dispense their peculiar kind of care to the most vulnerable.
This article was found at:
http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/07/18/How_to_cure_anorexia_
with_exorcisms_101
RELATED ARTICLES ON THIS BLOG
Australian church affiliated with US fundamentalists opens school to teach how to raise the dead and cure cancer
Hillsong: Exorcism in the suburbs
They sought help, but got exorcism and the Bible
They prayed to cast Satan from my body
Hillsong accused of closet zealotry
Hillsong hits schools with beauty gospel
Mercy Ministries exorcism books leaked
Mercy Ministries claim exorcisms cure mental illness and drug addiction
Lives at risk when vulnerable patients taken in by cult-like groups
Cult-rescue group 'concerned about' Mercy Ministries
July 19, 2008
How to cure anorexia with exorcisms
by Tim Brunero
Exorcisms to cure mental illness and drug addiction, locking vulnerable people away from friends and family, prayer as a solution to all problems – sounds like psych ward from last century. But actually it’s just the ‘Mercy Way’.
The once mighty ‘Mercy Ministries’, a secretive outfit that purports to treat young women with mental illness, is now in serious trouble.
Bankrolled by controversial Pentecostal group the ‘Hillsong Church’ and Hillsong-aligned Gloria Jean’s coffees the group has been the subject of a number of complaints to authorities. They’ve already closed one of their two facilities.
Women who’ve been through its programs say the main ‘treatment’ they were prescribed were exorcisms and prayer study, supervised by bible studies students. That’s whether they were dealing with anorexia, anxiety disorders or substance abuse.
And all the time being kept virtually as prisoners - cut off from the outside world with no TV or newspapers, with severely restricted access to friends and family and made to even ask permission to go to the toilet.
Nowhere was the promised phalanx of mental health professionals, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and dieticians. Just bible studies students whose answer to all questions was more prayer.
Three former residents told LIVENEWS.com.au they were left in a worse state after going to stay at Mercy Ministries – which still operates in a house in Sydney’s Glenhaven.
Meg Smith (not her real name) says she went to Mercy because of the group’s promise of free treatment for her anxiety disorder and panic attacks.
But she quickly became disheartened after “free” meant signing over her Centrelink payments to the group and “treatment” didn’t include proper access to doctors, psychologists and social workers.
“The 'counsellor' I had was not qualified to treat mental illness... nobody there was. She was in the middle of a mercy 'in-house program' to teach her how to prayer counsel,” says Smith.
“I spent months there and the only 'therapy' I had was prayer readings and an exorcism.”
She paints a disturbing picture - where a group of vulnerable girls isolated in a suburban home and forbidden to leave or form friendships on pain of being expelled – followed a punishing daily routine.
A seven o’clock wake up call and a stint of cleaning was followed by bible reading.
After that came a “praise” session where the girls would stand in a circle, eyes closed, singing along to Christian music and jumping on the spot with arms outstretched.
After locked food cupboards were opened for a piece of fruit or a few tablespoons of yoghurt it was back to class – usually taking notes from audio tapes by Joyce Meyer, an American evangelist.
After lunch, homework, letter-writing and recreation were followed by more cleaning and bible study.
Smith began to get worse.
“I was having lots of panic attacks… they seemed to be getting worse at ministry,” she said.
“I couldn’t work out why, apart from being away from friends and family and my support network.
“I was self harming – I was cutting my arm with anything I could get my hands on – scratching with anything from my nails to paper clips.
“I never really had a problem with self harm beforehand. When you tell them about self harming they said I was trying to get attention and I was taking their valuable time away from girls with real problems.”
Finally Smith was told she would have to have what she describes as an ‘exorcism’.
“The counsellor gave me a list of different demons – demon of anger, demon of unforgiveness, demon of pride, there were lots of them and I was told to go away and circle the demons I had in me or around me,” said Smith.
“I was really scared… they cast demons out of me, one by one, and they became quite excited and animated during the process, and spoke in tongues.
“It was the counsellors and myself and they put their hands on me and started praying one by one for each of the demons that were on the list to be cast out of me.
“After each demon was cast out I had to say ‘I confirm the demon of X has been cast out of me in the name of Jesus and is unwelcome to return.'
“The whole time I was there, all I heard was that I'm demonic.
“Even after the exorcism, when I had the next anxiety attack, I was told that they had already cast the demons out, so therefore I was obviously either faking it, or I had chosen to let the demons come back, in which case I was not serious about getting better.
“They kept telling us that the world can't help us, professionals with all their 'worldly qualifications' can't help us, only Mercy could because only they have God's power.
“So when I was kicked out for being 'demonic, unable to be helped, not worth a place at Mercy and because I had taken too long to pray to become a Christian... it left me worse than I had ever been before in my life.
“They told me I would never get better now because I had blown my chance. I started cutting my arms and wrists more than ever, with their voices echoing in my mind as I did it.”
Suicidal and self harming after being removed from the program, which she now thought was her only hope, she went to see a “proper psychologist to prepare me to go back to Mercy to help me fit in better.”
“The psychologist had never heard of them but told me to stay away from them… that person helped me more in the 40 minute session – really listening to me and understanding me.”
Smith, who is on the mend after a long process, is not alone.
Other women who spoke to LIVENEWS.com.au described being “literally bible bashed” and supervised during limited visits to GPs and psychiatrists.
One Patricia (not her real name) says when she approached staff with problems she was asked if she had prayed about it.
“In the end I stopped going to staff members because they just didn’t seem to help me and that’s one of the things they commented on… but how can you when they’re not actually helping you?” she said.
“I went to the psychiatrist three times in eight months I was there to get medication – and I was always accompanied in the session by a staff member.
“Once I told the psychiatrist what I was feeling and when we got back to the house I was yelled at because I hadn’t told the staff there… Now I go to the psychiatrist every two weeks – that’s the kind of care you need when you’re acutely unwell.
“Four to six weeks after I got kicked out I tried to kill myself and I almost succeeded and it was because I didn’t think I could live or get better without Mercy because it was just so ingrained into me.”
Since the former clients of Mercy Ministires began telling their stories, high profile “sponsors” listed on their website have disappeared. No longer do Rebel Sport, Bunnings Warehouse or LG electronics have anything to do with with the group.
Gloria Jean’s coffees, which once had collection boxes for the groups in all their stores, and whose former managing director, Peter Irvine, was a director at Mercy, still maintains conspicuous support.
The group have closed their Queensland centre but the Sydney facility remains open for business – still without scrutiny from government authorities.
Ready to continue to dispense their peculiar kind of care to the most vulnerable.
This article was found at:
http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/07/18/How_to_cure_anorexia_
with_exorcisms_101
RELATED ARTICLES ON THIS BLOG
Australian church affiliated with US fundamentalists opens school to teach how to raise the dead and cure cancer
They sought help, but got exorcism and the Bible
They prayed to cast Satan from my body
Hillsong accused of closet zealotry
Hillsong hits schools with beauty gospel
Mercy Ministries exorcism books leaked
Mercy Ministries claim exorcisms cure mental illness and drug addiction
Lives at risk when vulnerable patients taken in by cult-like groups
Cult-rescue group 'concerned about' Mercy Ministries
1 Apr 2008
Of Prayer and Penicillin
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Think Out Loud
How do you navigate the intersection of culture, faith, medicine, and law?
Wednesday, Apr. 2
Listen and participate at:
http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/
Faith healing is back in the news.
In 1999, after several children in Oregon City's Followers of Christ Church died from conditions that could have been treated medically, the state legislature removed a religious defense from criminal negligence statutes. In particular, the new law meant that religious beliefs -- including the belief that prayer, not medical intervention, is the appropriate way to heal sick children -- was no longer a viable legal defense. (The legislative minutes from the bill's public hearing makes for interesting reading.)
Nine years later, prosecutors have pursued criminal charges under this 1999 law for the first time. The case involves Carl Brent Worthington and Raylene Marie Worthington, whose 15-month-old daugther Ava died last month from bacterial pneumonia and a blood infection. A state medical examiner found that both conditions could have been treated with antibiotics. According to chief deputy district attorney Greg Horner, as quoted today in The Oregonian, the grand jury has charged that the couple's "failure to provide medical care caused the death of their daughter."
This case may be new, but many of the questions it brings up have been with us for a while. At the heart of the issue is the tension between religious freedom and child welfare. But it also resonates with other sticky questions at the intersection of medicine, culture, and state law, such as the Texas Gov. Rick Perry's unsuccessful attempt to require that young girls be given the HPV vaccine. Or mandatory immunizations in public schools (and advice about how to avoid unwanted immunizations.)
Have you had to deal with these issues in your own life -- as a religious adherent, or a doctor, or a patient? Have you chosen to seek medical care for your children as a result of Oregon's 1999 law? How do you personally navigate your faith, your approach to medicine, and your children's health?
GUESTS:
Show airs Wednesday, Apr. 2
Think Out Loud
How do you navigate the intersection of culture, faith, medicine, and law?
Wednesday, Apr. 2
Listen and participate at:
http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/
Faith healing is back in the news.
In 1999, after several children in Oregon City's Followers of Christ Church died from conditions that could have been treated medically, the state legislature removed a religious defense from criminal negligence statutes. In particular, the new law meant that religious beliefs -- including the belief that prayer, not medical intervention, is the appropriate way to heal sick children -- was no longer a viable legal defense. (The legislative minutes from the bill's public hearing makes for interesting reading.)
Nine years later, prosecutors have pursued criminal charges under this 1999 law for the first time. The case involves Carl Brent Worthington and Raylene Marie Worthington, whose 15-month-old daugther Ava died last month from bacterial pneumonia and a blood infection. A state medical examiner found that both conditions could have been treated with antibiotics. According to chief deputy district attorney Greg Horner, as quoted today in The Oregonian, the grand jury has charged that the couple's "failure to provide medical care caused the death of their daughter."
This case may be new, but many of the questions it brings up have been with us for a while. At the heart of the issue is the tension between religious freedom and child welfare. But it also resonates with other sticky questions at the intersection of medicine, culture, and state law, such as the Texas Gov. Rick Perry's unsuccessful attempt to require that young girls be given the HPV vaccine. Or mandatory immunizations in public schools (and advice about how to avoid unwanted immunizations.)
Have you had to deal with these issues in your own life -- as a religious adherent, or a doctor, or a patient? Have you chosen to seek medical care for your children as a result of Oregon's 1999 law? How do you personally navigate your faith, your approach to medicine, and your children's health?
GUESTS:
- Bruce Starr: State senator (R-Hillsboro), District 15
- Lane Borg: Partner at Greenlick & Borg
- Rita Swan: President of Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD, Inc.)
Show airs Wednesday, Apr. 2
Child's death tests Oregon law on faith healing
The Oregonian - April 1, 2008
Parents plead not guilty in their 15-month-old daughter's death
by Jessica Bruder - The Oregonian Staff
An Oregon City couple who tried to heal their dying daughter with prayer walked hand-in-hand into a crowded Clackamas County courtroom Monday and pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment.
Carl Brent Worthington, 28, and Raylene Marie Worthington, 25, are the first parents prosecuted since Oregon cracked down on faith-healing deaths nine years ago, according to legislators and legal experts. If convicted, they could spend more than six years in prison.
National advocates for religious freedom and child welfare have been following the Worthington case, and reporters shadowed the defendants from the moment they arrived Monday at the Clackamas County courthouse, flanked by attorneys.
The Worthingtons, members of Oregon City's Followers of Christ Church, barely spoke a word as Judge Kathie Steele explained the charges. In subdued voices, they answered "yes" and "yes, your honor" to acknowledge they could face prison time, then dodged television cameras as they left the courtroom.
They remain free on $250,000 bonds. A trial is set for mid-June.
Their 15-month-old daughter, Ava Worthington, died at home March 2 from bacterial bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection. Both conditions could have been treated with antibiotics, according to Dr. Christopher Young, a deputy state medical examiner. Her breathing was further compromised by a benign, four-inch cyst on her neck that had never been medically addressed, Young said.
The Followers of Christ, a non-denominational congregation with roots in the 19th-century Pentecostal movement, came under state scrutiny in the late 1990s after several church children died from medically treatable conditions. The deaths prompted the Oregon Legislature to remove religious shield laws for parents who treat gravely ill children solely with prayer, setting the stage for the Worthington case.
A spokeswoman for the Christian Science Church, which lobbied for Oregon's original faith-healing shield laws, acknowledged that the church has been following the Worthington case but declined to comment.
Shawn Peters, author of "When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children and the Law," a book that includes passages on Oregon City's Followers of Christ Church, said the Worthington case "will be the test for the new law in Oregon."
Peters said it's hard to say whether faith-healing deaths are increasing or decreasing across the United States, but he noted that they are continuing. Two weeks after Ava Worthington's death, an 11-year-old Wisconsin girl died from an undiagnosed diabetic attack after her parents tried to heal her with prayer. The parents in the Wisconsin case have not been charged with a crime.
Between 1999, when the new law took effect, and the Worthington case, prosecutors found no incidents of significant medical neglect among Followers of Christ Church members.
The Worthingtons were indicted Friday after a Clackamas County grand jury heard testimony from medical examiner Young, child-abuse detective Michelle Finn, and three relatives of Carl Worthington: his parents, Guy and Julie Worthington, and his sister, Danielle Fullington.
The grand jury brought two charges: second-degree manslaughter and second-degree criminal mistreatment. The parents' "failure to provide medical care caused the death of their daughter: That's what the grand jury's charged them with," explained chief deputy district attorney Greg Horner.
The Worthingtons reportedly also have a young daughter.
The Department of Human Services confirmed that the agency has "an open case with the family, and as is normal when we have an open case, we pay attention to other children in the family, "said Greg Parker, DHS spokesman. "The family is working with us."
On Monday, a pair of defense attorneys representing the Worthingtons said they were waiting to see reports and evidence in the case and wouldn't comment on the charges.
"They're presumed innocent at this time, and we ask that no one prejudge them," said attorney John Neidig, who represents Raylene Worthington. "They have not had the time to breathe properly since this tremendous tragedy, and we hope to provide them with a little privacy and respect."
Reporter Steve Mayes contributed to this report. Jessica Bruder:
503-294-5915
; jessicabruder@news.oregonian.com
This article was found at:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/
oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/
120702031416210.xml&coll=
7&thispage=1
Parents plead not guilty in their 15-month-old daughter's death
by Jessica Bruder - The Oregonian Staff
An Oregon City couple who tried to heal their dying daughter with prayer walked hand-in-hand into a crowded Clackamas County courtroom Monday and pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment.
Carl Brent Worthington, 28, and Raylene Marie Worthington, 25, are the first parents prosecuted since Oregon cracked down on faith-healing deaths nine years ago, according to legislators and legal experts. If convicted, they could spend more than six years in prison.
National advocates for religious freedom and child welfare have been following the Worthington case, and reporters shadowed the defendants from the moment they arrived Monday at the Clackamas County courthouse, flanked by attorneys.
The Worthingtons, members of Oregon City's Followers of Christ Church, barely spoke a word as Judge Kathie Steele explained the charges. In subdued voices, they answered "yes" and "yes, your honor" to acknowledge they could face prison time, then dodged television cameras as they left the courtroom.
They remain free on $250,000 bonds. A trial is set for mid-June.
Their 15-month-old daughter, Ava Worthington, died at home March 2 from bacterial bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection. Both conditions could have been treated with antibiotics, according to Dr. Christopher Young, a deputy state medical examiner. Her breathing was further compromised by a benign, four-inch cyst on her neck that had never been medically addressed, Young said.
The Followers of Christ, a non-denominational congregation with roots in the 19th-century Pentecostal movement, came under state scrutiny in the late 1990s after several church children died from medically treatable conditions. The deaths prompted the Oregon Legislature to remove religious shield laws for parents who treat gravely ill children solely with prayer, setting the stage for the Worthington case.
A spokeswoman for the Christian Science Church, which lobbied for Oregon's original faith-healing shield laws, acknowledged that the church has been following the Worthington case but declined to comment.
Shawn Peters, author of "When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children and the Law," a book that includes passages on Oregon City's Followers of Christ Church, said the Worthington case "will be the test for the new law in Oregon."
Peters said it's hard to say whether faith-healing deaths are increasing or decreasing across the United States, but he noted that they are continuing. Two weeks after Ava Worthington's death, an 11-year-old Wisconsin girl died from an undiagnosed diabetic attack after her parents tried to heal her with prayer. The parents in the Wisconsin case have not been charged with a crime.
Between 1999, when the new law took effect, and the Worthington case, prosecutors found no incidents of significant medical neglect among Followers of Christ Church members.
The Worthingtons were indicted Friday after a Clackamas County grand jury heard testimony from medical examiner Young, child-abuse detective Michelle Finn, and three relatives of Carl Worthington: his parents, Guy and Julie Worthington, and his sister, Danielle Fullington.
The grand jury brought two charges: second-degree manslaughter and second-degree criminal mistreatment. The parents' "failure to provide medical care caused the death of their daughter: That's what the grand jury's charged them with," explained chief deputy district attorney Greg Horner.
The Worthingtons reportedly also have a young daughter.
The Department of Human Services confirmed that the agency has "an open case with the family, and as is normal when we have an open case, we pay attention to other children in the family, "said Greg Parker, DHS spokesman. "The family is working with us."
On Monday, a pair of defense attorneys representing the Worthingtons said they were waiting to see reports and evidence in the case and wouldn't comment on the charges.
"They're presumed innocent at this time, and we ask that no one prejudge them," said attorney John Neidig, who represents Raylene Worthington. "They have not had the time to breathe properly since this tremendous tragedy, and we hope to provide them with a little privacy and respect."
Reporter Steve Mayes contributed to this report. Jessica Bruder:
503-294-5915; jessicabruder@news.oregonian.comThis article was found at:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/
oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/
120702031416210.xml&coll=
7&thispage=1
27 Mar 2008
Pastor gets 4 years for sex assault on woman
The Toronto Star
March 27, 2008
by Peter Small
A Toronto pastor who sexually assaulted and deliberately impregnated a parishioner, threatening her with evil spirits unless she yielded to his demands, has been sentenced to four years in prison.
Rev. Frank Seeko Lawrence "grossly abused his position as pastor and spiritual healer by threatening a vulnerable and trusting young woman," Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba said yesterday.
On Jan. 10, a jury convicted the 59-year-old man of sexually assaulting the victim, while acquitting him of assaulting and threatening to kill her. Jurors also acquitted the father of 11 of sexually assaulting another woman by whom he also fathered a child.
Belobaba ruled that the jury's verdict means the pastor of Toronto Mount Zion Revival Church is guilty of fondling and touching, as well as five to 10 instances of forced sexual intercourse, between April and December 2003, when the victim was 24. The Toronto-born woman, who cannot be named, gave birth to a girl as a result.
"He fully intended to make her pregnant and he succeeded in doing so," the judge said. Belobaba quoted Lawrence as once asking the woman, "What is taking you so long to get pregnant?" and warning her, "If you're using any birth control, the spirits will know."
The victim's mother brought her to Lawrence for spiritual healing when she was 17. He gave her "spiritual baths," for which he charged $150, to get rid of evil spirits.
In early 2003, she argued with her mother, left home and began renting a room in Lawrence's house.
A month later the sexual assaults began. "He took advantage of her belief in curses ... and he threatened her with evil spirits if she didn't acquiesce to his sexual advances," the judge said.
Outside court, defence lawyer Anthony Robbins said he would be seeking bail today pending appeal. "My client is innocent. I cannot comment on the reasonableness of the sentence," he said.
By way of mitigation, the judge noted that Lawrence has no criminal record and is much loved and admired by his parishioners, to whom he is "generous and compassionate." Nine female and two male supporters were in court yesterday.
This story was found at:
http://www.thestar.com/News/
GTA/article/356967
March 27, 2008
by Peter Small
A Toronto pastor who sexually assaulted and deliberately impregnated a parishioner, threatening her with evil spirits unless she yielded to his demands, has been sentenced to four years in prison.
Rev. Frank Seeko Lawrence "grossly abused his position as pastor and spiritual healer by threatening a vulnerable and trusting young woman," Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba said yesterday.
On Jan. 10, a jury convicted the 59-year-old man of sexually assaulting the victim, while acquitting him of assaulting and threatening to kill her. Jurors also acquitted the father of 11 of sexually assaulting another woman by whom he also fathered a child.
Belobaba ruled that the jury's verdict means the pastor of Toronto Mount Zion Revival Church is guilty of fondling and touching, as well as five to 10 instances of forced sexual intercourse, between April and December 2003, when the victim was 24. The Toronto-born woman, who cannot be named, gave birth to a girl as a result.
"He fully intended to make her pregnant and he succeeded in doing so," the judge said. Belobaba quoted Lawrence as once asking the woman, "What is taking you so long to get pregnant?" and warning her, "If you're using any birth control, the spirits will know."
The victim's mother brought her to Lawrence for spiritual healing when she was 17. He gave her "spiritual baths," for which he charged $150, to get rid of evil spirits.
In early 2003, she argued with her mother, left home and began renting a room in Lawrence's house.
A month later the sexual assaults began. "He took advantage of her belief in curses ... and he threatened her with evil spirits if she didn't acquiesce to his sexual advances," the judge said.
Outside court, defence lawyer Anthony Robbins said he would be seeking bail today pending appeal. "My client is innocent. I cannot comment on the reasonableness of the sentence," he said.
By way of mitigation, the judge noted that Lawrence has no criminal record and is much loved and admired by his parishioners, to whom he is "generous and compassionate." Nine female and two male supporters were in court yesterday.
This story was found at:
http://www.thestar.com/News/
GTA/article/356967
25 Mar 2008
Former Clinton pastor sentenced to three years in prison for inappropriately touching a 7-year-old girl
Utica Observer-Dispatch
February 29, 2008
By ROCCO LaDUCA
UTICA —
When the Rev. William Procanick put his hand on the Bible during his sex-abuse trial in Oneida County Court earlier this year, he swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
But as the former Clinton pastor was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for inappropriately touching a 7-year-old girl at his home last March, Judge Michael L. Dwyer said Procanick sacrificed his honesty the day he testified.
“As a minister of God, you got on the stand and you lied,” Dwyer told Procanick, the 54-year-old former pastor of Resurrection Assembly of God church on Kirkland Avenue.
A jury found Procanick guilty Jan. 22 of first-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.
Dwyer said he believes Procanick was being honest when he told the girl's mother in a recorded phone call that he was wrong to caress the girl's body while she was trying to fall asleep.
However, Procanick instead testified in court that he did nothing wrong other than spend time alone with the girl, who was a friend of the family, Dwyer noted.
If Procanick had accepted responsibility from the beginning instead of straying from the truth, Dwyer said, Procanick would likely have faced a lesser punishment and possibly avoided jail time.
“The truth would have set you free,” Dwyer said. “You had a chance to be a man and say, 'I made a mistake.' But as always, the cover-up is much worse than the original crime.”
Procanick's defense attorney, George Aney, noted that Procanick still received a sentence less than the maximum, which was up to seven years in prison.
“It's considerably less than the maximum, but considerably more than he deserved,” Aney said.
Aney also took issue with how Dwyer and the victim's mother used harsh language to attack Procanick's Christian values.
“You are just an evil man,” the victim's mother said Friday in court. “You lied, and you had your wife lie. And all these people who showed up in court to support you, did you lie to them, too?”
The Observer-Dispatch does not identify sex-abuse victims and their families.
The victim's mother said her daughter is still waking up scared at night because of what happened, and she continues to see a therapist. The young girl also feels that everybody is mad at her, the mother said.
Assistant District Attorney Doug DeMarche Jr. then read a note written by the girl, who did not appear in court Friday.
“Bill made me sad and scared,” DeMarche read. “I thought I did something wrong, because I trusted him.”
Dwyer gave Procanick an opportunity to speak in court, but Procanick had nothing to say to the victim and her family.
Aney did not plan to speak in court, he told Dwyer, but he felt obligated to respond to what the victim's mother said about Procanick and his wife.
“I believe she shows her own lack of Christianity by referring to people as liars,” Aney said.
After the sentencing, Aney further commented about what was said in court.
“I respect Judge Dwyer for what he said this morning, but I have to say I disagreed with him,” Aney said. “I have every right to express my feelings, and my feelings are that we are not permitted to call anybody a liar. That's a judgment someone higher than I makes.”
DeMarche, however, said he can understand why the girl's mother spoke of Procanick in such harsh terms.
“She had a lot of faith and trust in Mr. Procanick, and he violated that trust,” DeMarche said. “I think she's justified in being angry.”
This story was found at:
http://www.uticaod.com/
homepage/x1637676857
February 29, 2008
By ROCCO LaDUCA
UTICA —
When the Rev. William Procanick put his hand on the Bible during his sex-abuse trial in Oneida County Court earlier this year, he swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
But as the former Clinton pastor was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for inappropriately touching a 7-year-old girl at his home last March, Judge Michael L. Dwyer said Procanick sacrificed his honesty the day he testified.
“As a minister of God, you got on the stand and you lied,” Dwyer told Procanick, the 54-year-old former pastor of Resurrection Assembly of God church on Kirkland Avenue.
A jury found Procanick guilty Jan. 22 of first-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.
Dwyer said he believes Procanick was being honest when he told the girl's mother in a recorded phone call that he was wrong to caress the girl's body while she was trying to fall asleep.
However, Procanick instead testified in court that he did nothing wrong other than spend time alone with the girl, who was a friend of the family, Dwyer noted.
If Procanick had accepted responsibility from the beginning instead of straying from the truth, Dwyer said, Procanick would likely have faced a lesser punishment and possibly avoided jail time.
“The truth would have set you free,” Dwyer said. “You had a chance to be a man and say, 'I made a mistake.' But as always, the cover-up is much worse than the original crime.”
Procanick's defense attorney, George Aney, noted that Procanick still received a sentence less than the maximum, which was up to seven years in prison.
“It's considerably less than the maximum, but considerably more than he deserved,” Aney said.
Aney also took issue with how Dwyer and the victim's mother used harsh language to attack Procanick's Christian values.
“You are just an evil man,” the victim's mother said Friday in court. “You lied, and you had your wife lie. And all these people who showed up in court to support you, did you lie to them, too?”
The Observer-Dispatch does not identify sex-abuse victims and their families.
The victim's mother said her daughter is still waking up scared at night because of what happened, and she continues to see a therapist. The young girl also feels that everybody is mad at her, the mother said.
Assistant District Attorney Doug DeMarche Jr. then read a note written by the girl, who did not appear in court Friday.
“Bill made me sad and scared,” DeMarche read. “I thought I did something wrong, because I trusted him.”
Dwyer gave Procanick an opportunity to speak in court, but Procanick had nothing to say to the victim and her family.
Aney did not plan to speak in court, he told Dwyer, but he felt obligated to respond to what the victim's mother said about Procanick and his wife.
“I believe she shows her own lack of Christianity by referring to people as liars,” Aney said.
After the sentencing, Aney further commented about what was said in court.
“I respect Judge Dwyer for what he said this morning, but I have to say I disagreed with him,” Aney said. “I have every right to express my feelings, and my feelings are that we are not permitted to call anybody a liar. That's a judgment someone higher than I makes.”
DeMarche, however, said he can understand why the girl's mother spoke of Procanick in such harsh terms.
“She had a lot of faith and trust in Mr. Procanick, and he violated that trust,” DeMarche said. “I think she's justified in being angry.”
This story was found at:
http://www.uticaod.com/
homepage/x1637676857
27 Feb 2008
Children are targets of Nigerian witch hunt
The Observer - UK
December 9, 2007
Evangelical pastors are helping to create a terrible new campaign of violence against young Nigerians. Children and babies branded as evil are being abused, abandoned and even murdered while the preachers make money out of the fear of their parents and their communities
by Tracy McVeigh in Esit Eket
The rainy season is over and the Niger Delta is lush and humid. This southern edge of West Africa, where Nigeria's wealth pumps out of oil and gas fields to bypass millions of its poorest people, is a restless place. In the small delta state of Akwa Ibom, the tension and the poverty has delivered an opportunity for a new and terrible phenomenon that is leading to the abuse and the murder of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children. And it is being done in the name of Christianity.
Almost everyone goes to church here. Driving through the town of Esit Eket, the rust-streaked signs, tarpaulins hung between trees and posters on boulders, advertise a church for every third or fourth house along the road. Such names as New Testament Assembly, Church of God Mission, Mount Zion Gospel, Glory of God, Brotherhood of the Cross, Redeemed, Apostalistic. Behind the smartly painted doors pastors make a living by 'deliverances' - exorcisms - for people beset by witchcraft, something seen to cause anything from divorce, disease, accidents or job losses. With so many churches it's a competitive market, but by local standards a lucrative one.
But an exploitative situation has now grown into something much more sinister as preachers are turning their attentions to children - naming them as witches. In a maddened state of terror, parents and whole villages turn on the child. They are burnt, poisoned, slashed, chained to trees, buried alive or simply beaten and chased off into the bush.
Some parents scrape together sums needed to pay for a deliverance - sometimes as much as three or four months' salary for the average working man - although the pastor will explain that the witch might return and a second deliverance will be needed. Even if the parent wants to keep the child, their neighbours may attack it in the street.
This is not just a few cases. This is becoming commonplace. In Esit Eket, up a nameless, puddled-and-potholed path is a concrete shack stuffed to its fetid rafters with roughly made bunk beds. Here, three to a bed like battery chickens, sleep victims of the besuited Christian pastors and their hours-long, late-night services. Ostracised and abandoned, these are the children a whole community believes fervently are witches.
Sam Ikpe-Itauma is one of the few people in this area who does not believe what the evangelical 'prophets' are preaching. He opened his house to a few homeless waifs he came across, and now he tries his best to look after 131.
'The neighbours were not happy with me and tell me "you are supporting witches". This project was an accident, I saw children being abandoned and it was very worrying. I started with three children, then every day it increased up to 15, so we had to open this new place,' he says. 'For every maybe five children we see on the streets, we believe one has been killed, although it could be more as neighbours turn a blind eye when a witch child disappears.
'It is good we have this shelter, but it is under constant attack.' As he speaks two villagers walk past, at the end of the yard, pulling scarfs across their eyes to hide the 'witches' from their sight.
Ikpe-Itauma's wife, Elizabeth, acts as nurse to the injured children and they have called this place the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network, a big name for a small refuge. It has found support from a charity running a school in the area, Stepping Stones Nigeria, which is trying to help with money to feed the children, but the numbers turning up here are a huge challenge.
Mary Sudnad, 10, grimaces as her hair is pulled into corn rows by Agnes, 11, but the scalp just above her forehead is bald and blistered. Mary tells her story fast, in staccato, staring fixedly at the ground.
'My youngest brother died. The pastor told my mother it was because I was a witch. Three men came to my house. I didn't know these men. My mother left the house. Left these men. They beat me.' She pushes her fists under her chin to show how her father lay, stretched out on his stomach on the floor of their hut, watching. After the beating there was a trip to the church for 'a deliverance'.
A day later there was a walk in the bush with her mother. They picked poisonous 'asiri' berries that were made into a draught and forced down Mary's throat. If that didn't kill her, her mother warned her, then it would be a barbed-wire hanging. Finally her mother threw boiling water and caustic soda over her head and body, and her father dumped his screaming daughter in a field. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she stayed near the house for a long time before finally slinking off into the bush.Mary was seven. She says she still doesn't feel safe. She says: 'My mother doesn't love me.' And, finally, a tear streaks down her beautiful face.
Gerry was picked out by a 'prophetess' at a prayer night and named as a witch. His mother cursed him, his father siphoned petrol from his motorbike tank and spat it over his eight-year-old face. Gerry's facial blistering is as visible as the trauma in his dull eyes. He asks every adult he sees if they will take him home to his parents: 'It's not them, it's the prophetess, I am scared of her.'
Nwaeka is about 16. She sits by herself in the mud, her eyes rolling, scratching at her stick-thin arms. The other children are surprisingly patient with her. The wound on her head where a nail was driven in looks to be healing well. Nine- year-old Etido had nails, too, five of them across the crown of his downy head. Its hard to tell what damage has been done. Udo, now 12, was beaten and abandoned by his mother. He nearly lost his arm after villagers, finding him foraging for food by the roadside, saw him as a witch and hacked at him with machetes.
Magrose is seven. Her mother dug a pit in the wood and tried to bury her alive. Michael was found by a farmer clearing a ditch, starving and unable to stand on legs that had been flogged raw.
Ekemini Abia has the look of someone in a deep state of shock. Both ankles are circled with gruesome wounds and she moves at a painful hobble. Named as a witch, her father and elders from the church tied her to a tree, the rope cutting her to the bone, and left the 13-year-old there alone for more than a week.
There are sibling groups such as Prince, four, and Rita, nine. Rita told her mum she had dreamt of a lovely party where there was lots to eat and to drink. The belief is that a witch flies away to the coven at night while the body sleeps, so Rita's sweet dream was proof enough: she was a witch and because she had shared food with her sibling - the way witchcraft is spread - both were abandoned. Victoria, cheeky and funny, aged four, and her seven-year-old sister Helen, a serene little girl. Left by their parents in the shell of an old shack, the girls didn't dare move from where they had been abandoned and ate leaves and grass.
The youngest here is a baby. The older girls take it in turn to sling her on their skinny hips and Ikpe-Itauma has named her Amelia, after his grandmother. He estimates around 5,000 children have been abandoned in this area since 1998 and says many bodies have turned up in the rivers or in the forest. Many more are never found. 'The more children the pastor declares witches, the more famous he gets and the more money he can make,' he says. 'The parents are asked for so much money that they will pay in instalments or perhaps sell their property. This is not what churches should be doing.'
Although old tribal beliefs in witch doctors are not so deeply buried in people's memories, and although there had been indigenous Christians in Nigeria since the 19th century, it is American and Scottish Pentecostal and evangelical missionaries of the past 50 years who have shaped these fanatical beliefs. Evil spirits, satanic possessions and miracles can be found aplenty in the Bible, references to killing witches turn up in Exodus, Deuteronomy and Galatians, and literal interpretation of scriptures is a popular crowd-pleaser.
Pastor Joe Ita is the preacher at Liberty Gospel Church in nearby Eket. 'We base our faith on the Bible, we are led by the holy spirit and we have a programme of exposing false religion and sorcery.' Soft of voice and in his smart suit and tie, his church is being painted and he apologises for having to sit outside near his shiny new Audi to talk. There are nearly 60 branches of Liberty Gospel across the Niger Delta. It was started by a local woman, mother-of-two Helen Ukpabio, whose luxurious house and expensive white Humvee are much admired in the city of Calabar where she now lives. Many people in this area credit the popular evangelical DVDs she produces and stars in with helping to spread the child witch belief.
Ita denies charging for exorcisms but acknowledges his congregation is poor and has to work hard to scrape up the donations the church expects. 'To give more than you can afford is blessed. We are the only ones who really know the secrets of witches. Parents don't come here with the intention of abandoning their children, but when a child is a witch then you have to say "what is that there? Not your child." The parents come to us when they see manifestations. But the secret is that, even if you abandon your child, the curse is still upon you, even if you kill your child the curse stays. So you have to come here to be delivered afterwards as well,' he explains patiently.
'We know how they operate. A witch will put a spell on its mother's bra and the mother will get breast cancer. But we cannot attribute all things to witches, they work on inclinations too, so they don't create HIV, but if you are promiscuous then the witch will give you HIV.'
As the light fades, he presents a pile of Ukpabio's DVDs. Mistakenly thinking they are a gift, I am firmly put right.
Later that night, in another part of town, the hands of the clock edge towards midnight. The humidity of the day is sealed into the windowless church and drums pound along with the screeching of the sweat-drenched preacher. 'No witches, oh Lord,' he screams into the microphone. 'As this hour approaches, save us, oh Lord!'
His congregation is dancing, palms aloft, women writhe and yell in tongues. A group moves forward shepherding five children, one a baby, and kneel on the concrete floor and the pastor comes among them, pressing his hands down on each child's head in turn, as they try to hide in the skirts of the woman. This is deliverance night at the Church of the True Redeemer, and while the service will carry on for some hours, the main event - for which the parents will have paid cash - is over.
Walking out into the night, the drums and singing from other churches ring out as such scenes are being repeated across the village.
It is hard to find people to speak out against the brutality. Chief Victor Ikot is one. He not only speaks out against the 'tinpot' churches, but has also done the unthinkable and taken in a witch to his own home. The chief's niece, Mbet, was declared a witch when she was eight. Her mother, Ekaete, made her drink olive oil, then poison berries, then invited local men to beat her with sticks. The pastor padlocked her to a tree but unlocked her when her mother could not find the money for a deliverance. Mbet fled. Mbet, now 11, says she has not seen the woman since, adding: 'My mother is a wicked mother.'
The Observer tracked down Mbet's mother to her roadside clothing stall where she nervously fiddled with her mobile phone and told us how her daughter had given her what sounded very much like all the symptoms of malaria. 'I had internal heat,' she says, indicating her stomach. 'It was my daughter who had caused this, she drew all the water from my body. I could do nothing. She was stubborn, very stubborn.' And if her daughter had died in the bush? She shrugged: 'That is God's will. It is in God's hands.'
Chief Victor has no time for his sister-in-law. 'Nowadays when a child becomes stubborn, then everyone calls them witches. But it is usually from the age of 10 down, I have never seen anyone try to throw a macho adult into the street. This child becomes a nuisance, so they give a dog a bad name and they can hang it.
'It is alarming because no household is untouched. But it is the greed of the pastors, driving around in Mercedes, that makes them choose the vulnerable.'
In a nearby village The Observer came across five-year-old twins, Itohowo and Kufre. They are still hanging around close to their mother's shack, but are obviously malnourished and in filthy rags. Approaching the boys brings a crowd of villagers who stand around and shout: 'Take them away from us, they are witches.' 'Take them away before they kill us all.' 'Witches'.
The woman who gave birth to these sorry scraps of humanity stands slightly apart from the crowd, arms crossed. Iambong Etim Otoyo has no intention of taking any responsibility for her sons. 'They are witches,' she says firmly and walks away.
And by nightfall there are 133 children in the chicken coop concrete house at Esit Eket.
· Watch the video: Child witches in Africa
To sign petitions against this religious child abuse please visit http://childwitches.blogspot.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/
2007/dec/09/tracymcveigh.theobserver
December 9, 2007
Evangelical pastors are helping to create a terrible new campaign of violence against young Nigerians. Children and babies branded as evil are being abused, abandoned and even murdered while the preachers make money out of the fear of their parents and their communities
by Tracy McVeigh in Esit Eket
The rainy season is over and the Niger Delta is lush and humid. This southern edge of West Africa, where Nigeria's wealth pumps out of oil and gas fields to bypass millions of its poorest people, is a restless place. In the small delta state of Akwa Ibom, the tension and the poverty has delivered an opportunity for a new and terrible phenomenon that is leading to the abuse and the murder of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children. And it is being done in the name of Christianity.
Almost everyone goes to church here. Driving through the town of Esit Eket, the rust-streaked signs, tarpaulins hung between trees and posters on boulders, advertise a church for every third or fourth house along the road. Such names as New Testament Assembly, Church of God Mission, Mount Zion Gospel, Glory of God, Brotherhood of the Cross, Redeemed, Apostalistic. Behind the smartly painted doors pastors make a living by 'deliverances' - exorcisms - for people beset by witchcraft, something seen to cause anything from divorce, disease, accidents or job losses. With so many churches it's a competitive market, but by local standards a lucrative one.
But an exploitative situation has now grown into something much more sinister as preachers are turning their attentions to children - naming them as witches. In a maddened state of terror, parents and whole villages turn on the child. They are burnt, poisoned, slashed, chained to trees, buried alive or simply beaten and chased off into the bush.
Some parents scrape together sums needed to pay for a deliverance - sometimes as much as three or four months' salary for the average working man - although the pastor will explain that the witch might return and a second deliverance will be needed. Even if the parent wants to keep the child, their neighbours may attack it in the street.
This is not just a few cases. This is becoming commonplace. In Esit Eket, up a nameless, puddled-and-potholed path is a concrete shack stuffed to its fetid rafters with roughly made bunk beds. Here, three to a bed like battery chickens, sleep victims of the besuited Christian pastors and their hours-long, late-night services. Ostracised and abandoned, these are the children a whole community believes fervently are witches.
Sam Ikpe-Itauma is one of the few people in this area who does not believe what the evangelical 'prophets' are preaching. He opened his house to a few homeless waifs he came across, and now he tries his best to look after 131.
'The neighbours were not happy with me and tell me "you are supporting witches". This project was an accident, I saw children being abandoned and it was very worrying. I started with three children, then every day it increased up to 15, so we had to open this new place,' he says. 'For every maybe five children we see on the streets, we believe one has been killed, although it could be more as neighbours turn a blind eye when a witch child disappears.
'It is good we have this shelter, but it is under constant attack.' As he speaks two villagers walk past, at the end of the yard, pulling scarfs across their eyes to hide the 'witches' from their sight.
Ikpe-Itauma's wife, Elizabeth, acts as nurse to the injured children and they have called this place the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network, a big name for a small refuge. It has found support from a charity running a school in the area, Stepping Stones Nigeria, which is trying to help with money to feed the children, but the numbers turning up here are a huge challenge.
Mary Sudnad, 10, grimaces as her hair is pulled into corn rows by Agnes, 11, but the scalp just above her forehead is bald and blistered. Mary tells her story fast, in staccato, staring fixedly at the ground.
'My youngest brother died. The pastor told my mother it was because I was a witch. Three men came to my house. I didn't know these men. My mother left the house. Left these men. They beat me.' She pushes her fists under her chin to show how her father lay, stretched out on his stomach on the floor of their hut, watching. After the beating there was a trip to the church for 'a deliverance'.
A day later there was a walk in the bush with her mother. They picked poisonous 'asiri' berries that were made into a draught and forced down Mary's throat. If that didn't kill her, her mother warned her, then it would be a barbed-wire hanging. Finally her mother threw boiling water and caustic soda over her head and body, and her father dumped his screaming daughter in a field. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she stayed near the house for a long time before finally slinking off into the bush.Mary was seven. She says she still doesn't feel safe. She says: 'My mother doesn't love me.' And, finally, a tear streaks down her beautiful face.
Gerry was picked out by a 'prophetess' at a prayer night and named as a witch. His mother cursed him, his father siphoned petrol from his motorbike tank and spat it over his eight-year-old face. Gerry's facial blistering is as visible as the trauma in his dull eyes. He asks every adult he sees if they will take him home to his parents: 'It's not them, it's the prophetess, I am scared of her.'
Nwaeka is about 16. She sits by herself in the mud, her eyes rolling, scratching at her stick-thin arms. The other children are surprisingly patient with her. The wound on her head where a nail was driven in looks to be healing well. Nine- year-old Etido had nails, too, five of them across the crown of his downy head. Its hard to tell what damage has been done. Udo, now 12, was beaten and abandoned by his mother. He nearly lost his arm after villagers, finding him foraging for food by the roadside, saw him as a witch and hacked at him with machetes.
Magrose is seven. Her mother dug a pit in the wood and tried to bury her alive. Michael was found by a farmer clearing a ditch, starving and unable to stand on legs that had been flogged raw.
Ekemini Abia has the look of someone in a deep state of shock. Both ankles are circled with gruesome wounds and she moves at a painful hobble. Named as a witch, her father and elders from the church tied her to a tree, the rope cutting her to the bone, and left the 13-year-old there alone for more than a week.
There are sibling groups such as Prince, four, and Rita, nine. Rita told her mum she had dreamt of a lovely party where there was lots to eat and to drink. The belief is that a witch flies away to the coven at night while the body sleeps, so Rita's sweet dream was proof enough: she was a witch and because she had shared food with her sibling - the way witchcraft is spread - both were abandoned. Victoria, cheeky and funny, aged four, and her seven-year-old sister Helen, a serene little girl. Left by their parents in the shell of an old shack, the girls didn't dare move from where they had been abandoned and ate leaves and grass.
The youngest here is a baby. The older girls take it in turn to sling her on their skinny hips and Ikpe-Itauma has named her Amelia, after his grandmother. He estimates around 5,000 children have been abandoned in this area since 1998 and says many bodies have turned up in the rivers or in the forest. Many more are never found. 'The more children the pastor declares witches, the more famous he gets and the more money he can make,' he says. 'The parents are asked for so much money that they will pay in instalments or perhaps sell their property. This is not what churches should be doing.'
Although old tribal beliefs in witch doctors are not so deeply buried in people's memories, and although there had been indigenous Christians in Nigeria since the 19th century, it is American and Scottish Pentecostal and evangelical missionaries of the past 50 years who have shaped these fanatical beliefs. Evil spirits, satanic possessions and miracles can be found aplenty in the Bible, references to killing witches turn up in Exodus, Deuteronomy and Galatians, and literal interpretation of scriptures is a popular crowd-pleaser.
Pastor Joe Ita is the preacher at Liberty Gospel Church in nearby Eket. 'We base our faith on the Bible, we are led by the holy spirit and we have a programme of exposing false religion and sorcery.' Soft of voice and in his smart suit and tie, his church is being painted and he apologises for having to sit outside near his shiny new Audi to talk. There are nearly 60 branches of Liberty Gospel across the Niger Delta. It was started by a local woman, mother-of-two Helen Ukpabio, whose luxurious house and expensive white Humvee are much admired in the city of Calabar where she now lives. Many people in this area credit the popular evangelical DVDs she produces and stars in with helping to spread the child witch belief.
Ita denies charging for exorcisms but acknowledges his congregation is poor and has to work hard to scrape up the donations the church expects. 'To give more than you can afford is blessed. We are the only ones who really know the secrets of witches. Parents don't come here with the intention of abandoning their children, but when a child is a witch then you have to say "what is that there? Not your child." The parents come to us when they see manifestations. But the secret is that, even if you abandon your child, the curse is still upon you, even if you kill your child the curse stays. So you have to come here to be delivered afterwards as well,' he explains patiently.
'We know how they operate. A witch will put a spell on its mother's bra and the mother will get breast cancer. But we cannot attribute all things to witches, they work on inclinations too, so they don't create HIV, but if you are promiscuous then the witch will give you HIV.'
As the light fades, he presents a pile of Ukpabio's DVDs. Mistakenly thinking they are a gift, I am firmly put right.
Later that night, in another part of town, the hands of the clock edge towards midnight. The humidity of the day is sealed into the windowless church and drums pound along with the screeching of the sweat-drenched preacher. 'No witches, oh Lord,' he screams into the microphone. 'As this hour approaches, save us, oh Lord!'
His congregation is dancing, palms aloft, women writhe and yell in tongues. A group moves forward shepherding five children, one a baby, and kneel on the concrete floor and the pastor comes among them, pressing his hands down on each child's head in turn, as they try to hide in the skirts of the woman. This is deliverance night at the Church of the True Redeemer, and while the service will carry on for some hours, the main event - for which the parents will have paid cash - is over.
Walking out into the night, the drums and singing from other churches ring out as such scenes are being repeated across the village.
It is hard to find people to speak out against the brutality. Chief Victor Ikot is one. He not only speaks out against the 'tinpot' churches, but has also done the unthinkable and taken in a witch to his own home. The chief's niece, Mbet, was declared a witch when she was eight. Her mother, Ekaete, made her drink olive oil, then poison berries, then invited local men to beat her with sticks. The pastor padlocked her to a tree but unlocked her when her mother could not find the money for a deliverance. Mbet fled. Mbet, now 11, says she has not seen the woman since, adding: 'My mother is a wicked mother.'
The Observer tracked down Mbet's mother to her roadside clothing stall where she nervously fiddled with her mobile phone and told us how her daughter had given her what sounded very much like all the symptoms of malaria. 'I had internal heat,' she says, indicating her stomach. 'It was my daughter who had caused this, she drew all the water from my body. I could do nothing. She was stubborn, very stubborn.' And if her daughter had died in the bush? She shrugged: 'That is God's will. It is in God's hands.'
Chief Victor has no time for his sister-in-law. 'Nowadays when a child becomes stubborn, then everyone calls them witches. But it is usually from the age of 10 down, I have never seen anyone try to throw a macho adult into the street. This child becomes a nuisance, so they give a dog a bad name and they can hang it.
'It is alarming because no household is untouched. But it is the greed of the pastors, driving around in Mercedes, that makes them choose the vulnerable.'
In a nearby village The Observer came across five-year-old twins, Itohowo and Kufre. They are still hanging around close to their mother's shack, but are obviously malnourished and in filthy rags. Approaching the boys brings a crowd of villagers who stand around and shout: 'Take them away from us, they are witches.' 'Take them away before they kill us all.' 'Witches'.
The woman who gave birth to these sorry scraps of humanity stands slightly apart from the crowd, arms crossed. Iambong Etim Otoyo has no intention of taking any responsibility for her sons. 'They are witches,' she says firmly and walks away.
And by nightfall there are 133 children in the chicken coop concrete house at Esit Eket.
· Watch the video: Child witches in Africa
To sign petitions against this religious child abuse please visit http://childwitches.blogspot.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/
2007/dec/09/tracymcveigh.theobserver
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