At an hour when most people here are sleeping or sinning, the worshipers of the Spiritual Warfare ministry gather in the cold sanctuary of a neighborhood church to battle evil.
The students, taxicab drivers, homemakers and entrepreneurs, all Christians, mostly from French-speaking Africa, attend a midnight service four nights a week to seek deliverance from lust, anger, fear and sadness.
They sing. They pray fervently. Finally, they kick and shadowbox with what they contend is the real force behind life’s problems: the witches and devils whose curses they believe have ground down their families, towns, entire nations in Africa and that have pursued them to a new country, making it hard to find work, be healthy and survive.
“Some situations you need to address at night, because in the ministry of spiritual warfare, demons, the spirits bewitching people, choose this time to work,” said Nicole Sangamay, 40, who came from Congo in 1998 to study and is a co-pastor of the ministry. “And we pick this time to pray to nullify what they are doing.”
Founded by a Congolese couple, Spiritual Warfare is one of many ministries and congregations in the growing African diaspora in the United States and abroad grappling with witchcraft. In most other churches, Mrs. Sangamay said, you could not even raise the issue, let alone pray to combat its effects.
Those other churches might argue that such a focus on witchcraft is a relic of Africans’ old beliefs, a dangerously pagan preoccupation. But scholars say this is Christianity made profoundly African. Spiritual Warfare considers itself Pentecostal, and like many other Pentecostals, worshipers see the battle between God and Satan, or what they also call the Bible against witchcraft, shaping the world.
“Religion for them is not like in the West,” said Jacob K. Olupona, professor of African religious traditions at the Harvard Divinity School. “It’s not simply seen as meaning and reference to a transcendental order. Religion is seen as something that works. It has a utilitarian view, and people are looking for solutions in different angles and different ways.”
In the West, we’ve reduced demonic oppression to a psychological disorder. But the spirit realm IS real, and deserves our attention. Maybe part of the problem besetting American society today is the ignorance of the evil influences the Enemy has over us.
Now, before you accuse me of giving too much credence to the supernatural, I agree with C. S. Lewis in that there are two mistakes Christians can make when dealing with the devil and his minions:
1) granting them too much power, as in ‘a devil under every pew’ or
2) ignoring them as if they did not exist at all.
The devil is a defeated foe, yes. But like Germany was defeated after D-Day, the enemy keeps on fighting until he is finally rendered powerless and thrown into the pit at the end of time.
St. Paul warns: “Be watchful! For the enemy prowls around like a hungry lion seeking whom he may devour!” He then goes on to encourage us to put on the full armor of God to resist the enemy.
We had lost this perspective and need to regain it.
Peace
Jim Elliott <><
I’d pay money to watch you shadow box your demons Jim.
I’m afraid it’s not very spectacular, when I do it, I’m on my knees with my hands folded or raised in the air. Very little external drama. You’d waste your money.
Jim Elliott <><