{"id":699,"date":"2010-08-26T12:34:30","date_gmt":"2010-08-26T12:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2010\/08\/modern-day-salem-witch-trials-kill-children-in-africa.html"},"modified":"2010-08-26T12:34:30","modified_gmt":"2010-08-26T12:34:30","slug":"modern-day-salem-witch-trials-kill-children-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/modern-day-salem-witch-trials-kill-children-in-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"Modern Day Salem Witch Trials Kill Children in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If this doesn&#8217;t convince you that evil is alive and well in our world, I don&#8217;t know what will. In 1692, nineteen people were convicted of witchcraft and hung in Salem, Massachusetts. What&#8217;s happening in Africa makes that look a blip on the radar compared to the number of children who are being killed. Their crime? They are witches and warlocks responsible for the death and calamity occurring in their villages.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2010\/WORLD\/africa\/08\/25\/nigeria.child.witches\/index.html\">CNN reports:<\/a>&nbsp;&#8220;<span class=\"Apple-style-span\">Pastors in southeast Nigeria claim illness and poverty are caused by witches who bring terrible misfortune to those around them. And those denounced as witches must be cleansed through deliverance or cast out.&nbsp;<\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">As daylight breaks, and we travel out to the rural villages it becomes apparent the most vulnerable to this stigmatization of witchcraft are children.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">This is yet another demonic attempt for the enemy to crush Africa&#8217;s future. To the systematic death plan of AIDS, malaria, consumption of dirty water, etc., now innocent children and especially, orphans, are falsely accused and killed.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">Other children at his orphanage bear the scars of being beaten, attacked with boiling water, and cuts from machetes. But these children are the ones lucky to be alive.<\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">&#8220;A child witch is said to be a witch when that child possessed with certain spiritual spells capable of making that child transform into cat, snake, vipers, insects, any other animal and that child is capable of wreaking havoc like killing of people, bringing diseases, misfortune into the family,&#8221; Sam said.&nbsp;<\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">&#8220;When a child is accused of being a witch &#8212; that child is hated absolutely by everybody surrounding him so such children are sent out of the home&#8230; But unfortunately such children do not always live long. A lot of them, they&#8217;re either killed, abandoned by the parents, tortured in the church or trafficked out of the city.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Pray for these children and pray for Africa.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If this doesn&#8217;t convince you that evil is alive and well in our world, I don&#8217;t know what will. In 1692, nineteen people were convicted of witchcraft and hung in Salem, Massachusetts. What&#8217;s happening in Africa makes that look a blip on the radar compared to the number of children who are being killed. Their&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-orphans"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Modern Day Salem Witch Trials Kill Children in Africa - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/modern-day-salem-witch-trials-kill-children-in-africa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Modern Day Salem Witch Trials Kill Children in Africa - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If this doesn&#8217;t convince you that evil is alive and well in our world, I don&#8217;t know what will. In 1692, nineteen people were convicted of witchcraft and hung in Salem, Massachusetts. What&#8217;s happening in Africa makes that look a blip on the radar compared to the number of children who are being killed. Their&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/modern-day-salem-witch-trials-kill-children-in-africa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-26T12:34:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Modern Day Salem Witch Trials Kill Children in Africa - Red Letters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/modern-day-salem-witch-trials-kill-children-in-africa.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Modern Day Salem Witch Trials Kill Children in Africa - Red Letters","og_description":"If this doesn&#8217;t convince you that evil is alive and well in our world, I don&#8217;t know what will. In 1692, nineteen people were convicted of witchcraft and hung in Salem, Massachusetts. What&#8217;s happening in Africa makes that look a blip on the radar compared to the number of children who are being killed. Their&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/modern-day-salem-witch-trials-kill-children-in-africa.html","og_site_name":"Red Letters","article_published_time":"2010-08-26T12:34:30+00:00","author":"Tom Davis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/modern-day-salem-witch-trials-kill-children-in-africa.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/modern-day-salem-witch-trials-kill-children-in-africa.html","name":"Modern Day Salem Witch Trials Kill Children in Africa - Red Letters","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-08-26T12:34:30+00:00","dateModified":"2010-08-26T12:34:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/modern-day-salem-witch-trials-kill-children-in-africa.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/modern-day-salem-witch-trials-kill-children-in-africa.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/modern-day-salem-witch-trials-kill-children-in-africa.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Modern Day Salem Witch Trials Kill Children in Africa"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/","name":"Red Letters","description":"Christian, Christian Inspiration, Christian News, Christian Activism News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92","name":"Tom Davis","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","caption":"Tom Davis"},"description":"Tom Davis currently serves as CEO of Children's HopeChest (www.hopechest.org), a global orphan care ministry headquartered in Colorado Springs. A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}