Preacher Pat is not Pete

Pat Robertson needs to learn to keep his mouth shut.  His confident pronouncements about what God is doing are not even slightly helpful.  Other than making headlines, I cannot fathom what he would hope to accomplish by assigning motive to God.  He cannot know why events take place and what connection there is between events of the past and tragedies of the present. He has historically made moronic statements every time tragedy strikes.

That being said, it is true that on August 14, 1791, a group of houngans (voodoo priests), led by a former slave houngan named Boukman, did make a “pact with the Devil” at a place called Bois-Caiman. All present vowed to exterminate all of the white Frenchmen on the island. They sacrificed a black pig in a voodoo ritual at which hundreds of slaves drank the pig’s blood. In this ritual, Boukman asked Satan for his help in liberating Haiti from the French. In exchange, the voodoo priests offered to give the country to Satan for 200 years and swore to serve him. The slave rebellion commenced on 22 August 1791, and after 13 years of conflict, the slaves won their independence. On 1 January 1804 they declared Haiti the world's first independent black republic. An iron statue of a pig stands in Port-au-Prince to commemorate the "Boukman Contract.”

Former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a former Catholic priest who gained notoriety with the Catholic Church and popularity in Haiti in the late 1980s because of his liberation theology. Aristide was elected president in 1990, ousted in a coup in 1991, and re-elected as president in Nov 2000 (results disputed). He survived coup attempts in July and December 2001. November 2002 was marked by unrest and anti-government protests. In light of the historic and political facts it is therefore very interesting that in April 2003, President Aristide made voodoo an official religion in Haiti declaring, "voodoo is an essential part of national identity.”  Some suggest he renewed Boukman's contract.

When Robertson made his pronouncement, I’m sure this is what he was referring to. Haiti does seem to have some serious problems for reasons that aren’t at all clear. Some suggest that if Haiti had made a pact with the devil that they would be living lives of luxury.  They reason that the devil is fine with passing out goodies on this side of eternity.  But they forget, that the evil one's preference is to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10).  He would prefer to just destroy a herd of pigs rather than let them bask in sun and mud (Mark 5:11-13).  Haiti's remarkably impoverished status does make one wonder why things there are they way they are.  But Robertson is the last person in the world with a right to comment.  For that matter, even if there were any truth to his ramblings, people would now be less inclined to consider it.