Cursed Land of the Cannibals!

New Apostolic Reformation preacher Lou Engle has made some controversial comments about race (see here, here, and here). Another New Apostolic Reformation preacher, Cindy Jacobs, also made controversial comments about Native Americans in a recent edition of God Knows, where she accused early Native Americans of practicing cannibalism and leveling curses.

Mike and Cindy Jacobs devoted four weeks of the God Knows series to ways that the earth responds to human sin. The Jacobs claimed that the earth can be defiled from individual and corporate sin, but it can also be healed through Christian prayer and repentance. Household unrest, failures in ones life, and other problems can result from living on defiled land, they alleged. To boot, defilements may reduce the fertility of the land, thereby preventing abundant growth, they claimed.

As opposed to poor soil fertility, high soil salinity, or pollution? I thought.

The Jacobs urged viewers to research the history of their land through spiritual mapping to find out if any sinful influences defiled the area. For example, slavery and massacres are two historic horrors that can defile a landscape, Cindy Jacobs claimed. If Jacobs is correct, one wonders why acts of slavery (i.e., Leviticus 25:44-46, Deuteronomy 20:14) and carnage (i.e., Numbers 21:34-35, Numbers 25:1-5, Numbers 33:50-53) condoned in the Bible did not defile the land.

At several points in the broadcast, the Jacobs blamed prior indigenous inhabitants for alleged defilement of the land. At the 1:35 mark, Mike Jacobs asserted that the practices of previous cultures can contaminate land, citing the historic inhabitants of Mexico as an example.

"I'm reminded that when we were in Mexico recently that there's an issue that they have that we saw from going to an anthropological museum there and in it, we found out what the worldview was of the original inhabitants of the land. See, one of the things that we talk about is that you may be experiencing the results or the consequences of what some previous culture even did on your land. Until that land's defilement is removed, Satan still has a legal right to cause ... the land not to produce like God would intend for it to produce."

At the 10:53 mark, Cindy Jacobs claimed that churches failed to prosper in part of West Virginia because it had been designated as a hunting ground by early Native Americans.

"For instance, there was a place in West Virginia. No church could prosper, and we found out when we studied that land that it had been designated by the natives as a hunting ground, and they put a curse on anybody who tried to live on their hunting ground, that they would be cursed if they ever tried to live there rather than use it for hunting properly. And the land was spewing out people, so they went and repented of that and broke that curse in the name of Jesus, and you know, there was change in that area."

At the 13:02 mark, Cindy Jacobs attributed strife in Texas congregations to cannibalism among early Native American inhabitants of the region. Instead of encouraging viewers to discover the roots of congregational strife, such as miscommunication or clashing personalities, Jacobs attributes strife in Houston and Galveston to cannibal Indians (!).

"You go and you you study the area, and you find out what happened. What did the indigenous people worship, you know? And if they did blood sacrifice, like, We found some area that are very very violent because the former culture was a murderous, violent--like in Texas here, and all the coast around Houston and Galveston, some of that area, the Native American people were cannibals and they ate people, and so you can see a manifestation of that in the churches where people turned against people and kind of cannibalized other people's ministries. So there's been a lot of prayer over that in Houston, Texas. They've done a lot of intercession over that and broke the curses on the land."

She praised the Response Rally for allegedly helping this "defiled" land rejoice once more at the 13:47 mark.

"We just had a prayer meeting in Houston a little week ago. The governor of Texas really as an individual instigated this. Thirty-five thousand people showed up to pray, and it was only a prayer meeting call within three months. Three month period of time. And what happened? The land is starting to rejoice because of that prayer."

Finally, an obligatory homophobic remark found its way into the discussion at the 18:42 mark, when Cindy Jacobs offered viewers advice for healing defiled land with their congregations.

"This is what you do. Study where you live, and then get together ... If it's a church, get your elders together. Ask forgiveness for any past sins in the church. If there were splits in the church, if there was any adultery, any kind of sexual sin at all, homosexuality, any kind of sin, affairs or whatever the pastors might have had of any kind, and ask forgiveness of that in the name of Jesus."

Once again, non-Christian religions and same-sex relations are branded as evil by a fundamentalist Christian. Two groups that have long experienced oppression -- Native Americans and LGBTs -- once again find their practices demonized by a Christian preacher. I personally found such comments tasteless in the way they framed traditional Native American religion.

(Hat tip to Right Wing Watch)



For additional commentary, visit the following links.

Scotteriology: Insane for Jesus: Cindy Jacobs (Again)

Lez Get Real: Perry's Prophetess of Misinformation