(Editor’s Note: This is the second of three special opinion pieces by ABP Senior Columnist Jim Denison on Pat Robertson’s comments about the Haitian earthquake disaster. The first was published Jan. 14. Denison’s regular FaithLines column will continue to be published every other Monday, with the next column scheduled for publication Jan. 25.)
By Jim Denison
Is God punishing Haiti? Pat Robertson claims that Haiti is cursed by God because of a pact made by the island’s inhabitants with the devil. This alleged pact supposedly explains the deep poverty in the country as well as the January 12 earthquake, which has devastated the nation and left tens of thousands dead.
The earthquake was magnitude 7, estimated by the United States Geological Survey to be the equivalent of half-a-million tons of high explosives, or the energy of several nuclear bombs. Could this disaster be the judgment of God?
It is clear in Scripture that God sometimes brings natural disasters in response to human sin. Noah’s Flood, the Exodus, and the judgments of the Book of Revelation leap immediately to mind. However, there are four reasons why Robertson should not have put the Haiti tragedy in this category.
First, no one knows if the alleged Haitian pact with the devil actually happened. Robertson’s history is a bit fuzzy: he claims that this 1791 event occurred during the reign of Napoleon III, who didn’t come to power until 1848. What about the event itself?
Here’s what we know: on August 14, 1791, slaves in the northern part of Haiti gathered to begin a revolt against their French masters. Led by a voodoo priest named Dutty Boukman, this event has been called the Bois Caiman Ceremony. It is widely considered to have been the spark that spawned the revolution that ultimately expelled the French and established the Republic of Haiti in 1804.
Here the story blurs. One tradition claims that Boukman led his slave followers in a voodoo ritual in which they slaughtered a pig and drank its blood. Then they allegedly made their pact with the devil: if he would free their people from the French, they would serve his spirits on the island for the next 200 years. By dedicating their country to Satan, the legend goes, they caused the economic deprivation and natural disasters that have plagued Haiti over the last two centuries.
But, since their supposed pledge to the devil expired in 1991, how could it have caused the January 12 disaster? In April of 2003, then-Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide made voodoo (also called Voudou) an official religion in Haiti; some claim that this act renewed Haiti’s pact with the devil.
There’s another way to tell the story, however. Examine the allegedly Satanic prayer by Boukman at the Bois Caiman Ceremony:
“The god who created the earth; who created the sun that gives us light. The god who holds up the ocean; who makes the thunder roar. Our god who has ears to hear. You who are hidden in the clouds; who watch us from where you are. You see all that the white has made us suffer. The white man’s god asks him to commit crimes. But the god within us wants to do good. Our god, who is so good, so just, he orders us to revenge our wrongs. It’s he who will direct our arms and bring us the victory. It’s he who will assist us. We all should throw away the image of the white men’s god, who is so pitiless. Listen to the voice for liberty that speaks in all our hearts.”
White Europeans saw Boukman’s rejection of “the white man’s god” as a rejection of the God of the Bible. When he prayed to a different god, they claimed that he prayed to the devil. In fighting their slaves’ rebellion, such an interpretation obviously served their cause.
But Boukman never prayed specifically to the devil, or pledged himself and his followers to spirits for 200 years. And there is good reason to doubt whether Boukman even prayed the “prayer” attributed to him. His chant is considered inauthentic by some historians; there is no eyewitness account of it.
So what do we know for sure? There was a ceremony on August 14, 1791 that sparked the rebellion in Haiti. It probably involved the ritual slaughter of a pig and incorporated voodoo traditions. Nothing more can be known with certainty.
What about voodoo on the island? A Christian should have definite concern here. Missionaries in Haiti report that the widespread practice of voodoo remains a real obstacle to biblical faith. Disease could spread in Haiti after the earthquake since voodoo followers there do not allow the dead to be touched until all their rituals are completed. But if we blame the January 12 earthquake on voodoo, we must blame the January 13 earthquakes in Indonesia and the Philippines on Islam and Christianity, respectively.
As we will see, there are three more reasons why Robertson was wrong to blame Haiti for this tragedy. The first is that he called a legend a “true story.” As Jesus warned us (Matt. 7:24-27), it’s never a good idea to build a house on sand.