African Pentecostalism and Its Relationship to Witchcraft Beliefs and Accusations: Biblical Responses to a Pernicious Problem Confronting the Adventist Church in Africa

Abstract

The subject of witchcraft accusations once used to be a major discourse all around the world; especially in Europe and its colonies in North America (Jennings 2015:1). During that era, which curiously continued through the period of the Enlightenment and the Reformation, notable men like Martin Luther and John Calvin are reported to have believed in the existence of witches and spoken forcefully in support of their extermination (Kors and Peters 2001:262-262). Indeed, Luther is reported to have stated concerning witches, “There is no compassion to be had for these women; I would burn all of them myself, according to the law, where it is said that priests began to stone criminals to death” (263). In the succeeding centuries this phenomenon was eclipsed by the success of the missionary endeavor, which resulted in Africa, Latin America, and Asia emerging as collaborators on the global mission stage. However, in recent times, the subject of Witchcraft accusations has again resurfaced on the missions radar to the extent that the American Society of Missiology (ASM) dedicated an entire track of its annual missions conference to discussing this emergent phenomenon. Besides the ASM conference, the International Bulletin for Missionary Research (IBMR), in 2014 devoted an entire edition of its widely-read journal to articles on this same theme, highlighting reports from various regions of the world faced with this problem. In addition, mission scholar, Robert Priest and several mission colleagues