We shy away from discussion of spiritual warfare in the United States, but Ghana is perhaps on the front line of spiritual warfare in a way we don’t want to acknowledge.

People in Ghana are torn between Christianity, spirit worship with the many African Traditional Religions and Muslim influence.  It is not uncommon for a Christian family to have some involvement in spirit worship.

It was my sister who made the very clear connection to spiritual warfare when my blog was hacked with some pretty ugly stuff while I was in Africa.  After I returned, I made a joking comment that the evil spirits had been exorcized from my blog.  The demons that possessed my blog infected my wife’s PC making it impossible for us to communicate by email.  And, the battery in my Mac crapped out due to my stupidity of leaving it on and unattended for nine days.

At about the time my blog was invaded by evil spirits at the hand of a clever hacker, I was dealing with a woman clearly on the battleground of the spiritual world.  It seemed clear to me that she was dealing with spiritual warfare.  She was a member of the church in Zaremtenga and was experiencing significant personal problems.  I asked her if spirit worship was going on in her house.  When she said it was, I offered an explanation of God’s requirement for undivided worship.  I encouraged her to remove the idols and altars from her house.

We encountered similar situations throughout the village.  It was not uncommon to enter a house and see an altar covered with fresh chicken feathers or a fresh goat skull hanging from the doorpost.

The spirit worship in the East Mamprusi region is obvious and easy to identify.  Our idol worship is not a blatant.  But, it is real.  We suffer much because of our idol worship.  Are their fresh chicken feathers on the altar at your door today?  How about a goat skull?  Probably not, but there are things that are just as repulsive.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 6:33 am and is filed under Adventure, Africa Mission, Christianity, Church, Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.