For these are the days when injustice will fall at the coming King

~Delirious?

Sunday night I decided to watch some TV for a change, instead of studying or listening to the trusty itunes playlist. It's the first time I've gone to bed truly angry at people in the world. It all felt kind of fitting though, with everything that had happened that day. Let's start from the beginning.

Sunday morning I went to church, as usual. Church has been rather interesting lately, and not in a good way. It's much different than what I'm used to and it really puts me off. Much different would be an understatement actually. For those that know me, you know how important my religious beliefs are...so this is a huge thing. Sunday they had a guest speaker who talked about how we're all products of our culture and we should strive to live more like the gospel showed us. Which makes sense.

At the end of the service the guest did an invitation time. Now, this church is odd in it's invitations. They do them every week. Anyone that would like prayer to be better in whatever they talked about that week is invited up front for prayer. The thing is, every week, it's the same people. And it's always the same people up front first. It's almost like folks are just seeing someone they view as spiritual wanting prayer so the others just follow thinking it makes them more spiritual. Or, maybe that's just my outside opinion.

Anyway...Sunday was by far the most uncomfortable situation I've been in. It was full on people violently shaking, screaming, crying and laughing at the same time, and falling to the ground. I almost ran out of the room.

Then came Sunday night and the TV. There was a documentary on about a very serious issue in Nigeria. Now, we all know how drawn I am to Africa, particularly children. This particular program was highlighting the issue of witches and wizards in Nigeria. In this culture, they believe that anything that bad happens, someone dying, someone becoming ill, or someone losing a job, is a product of witchcraft. The really sad part, is that the leaders of the churches are claiming to know who the witches are, and they point to the children. These children are then either abandoned by their parents, given to the church along with a full year's salary where the church claims they will cure the child, or mutilated or killed. Children! It's really sad and breaks my heart.

But looking back at the entire day I see how it's all so similar. People believe what people tell them to. Too often people take things at face value, based on what someone in power tells them, without ever figuring out what they believe. So in the end, we end up with abused children accused of witchcraft, people screaming out like they're possessed, or people drinking poison, all because the leaders told them so. Today is the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown cult mass murder-suicide. When will we learn?