Reading this background on Haitians, I’d be considering moving from Springfield. When you go to certain areas, there is a spiritual component that you can pick up on (same with certain businesses or megacorps). You could say you can sense areas where Satan and demons are more active as well as observing the signs in the people. And there is a certain uneasiness that you feel. Consequently, we drove through the Oglala Sioux Nation yesterday (Pine Ridge Indian Reservation mostly in South Dakota), and I felt more comfortable there than when in Fort Collins or Denver, Colorado (and you see more addicts and homeless in the big Colorado cities). And the wife and I are from California where we were born, migrating to Wyoming in 2020, and we won’t even set foot back in California. As Egypt was to the Israelites saved from bondage, California is to us.
https://protestia.com/2024/09/18/whos-moving-in-next-door-a-quick-debrief-on-haitian-religion/
As Haitians are in the process of colonizing small towns in the Midwest, displacing Americans and turning them into refugees, much has been said about the advantage that immigration brings to America. Of course, when there is a sizable population change (as has happened in Springfield, Ohio), it is not immigration but settler colonialism. Just as indigenous populations in the Americas had to grapple with the religion of the continent’s new conquerors, we, too, need to understand the religious underpinnings of those who are replacing us.
Haiti, characterized by President Trump as a “sh*&hole nation,” seems as accurate a description as can be given. When Trump characterized Haiti disparagingly, no shortage of celebrity outrage ensued, qualifying his description as RAciSt. But, it appears accurate when looking at the data. Haiti leads the world in homicide per capita, rape per capita, and other kinds of violent crime per capita, and it has the distinction as the 127th most dangerous nation (out of 163 nations) by the Global Peace Index. According to the International Rescue Committee, girls and women suffer the brunt of the violence, as gangs use rape of their foes’ female family members as retribution for perceived wrongs. And although the term shi&*hole appears crass, the description is apropos, as only 43% of the nation has access to running water according to the World Bank, and 31% practice “open defecation,” opting to not so much as dig a trench to hold their feces. Just as celebrities were winding down their criticism of President Trump, Haiti was thrown into civil unrest as a warlord named “Barbecue” took over and people began to cannibalize one another.
If America’s politicians cared about Americans, importing a potentially unlimited number of Haitians into the United States would not be on the list of priorities, but the Biden Administration has extended refugee status to all Haitians (without any kind of meaningful vetting) until February of 2026.
When Haitians do in America what they have done in Haiti, many “evangelical leaders” claim that patriotic Americans are guilty of “slander” and “hate” and “perpetuating smears” for doing little but reporting actual facts. For example, despite there being video evidence of rampant cannibalism in Haiti from 2019, 2021, and 2024 (at the very least), such claims are given the title of “rumor” and “systemic racism.” When American citizens report eye-witness testimony of Haitians capturing and butchering ducks from the local park, or cats and dogs from neighboring homes, a simple statement from government officials promoting settler colonialism saying “they’ve received no credible complaints” (only because they do not believe the citizens of their community are credible) is enough for the “fact-checkers” to play interference with the American public.
At the very least, one should surmise that if Haiti is such a terrible place that America should welcome all Haitians to her shores, Haiti has some systemic societal problems that will not disappear just because of a change of area code. And when Haitians begin to outnumber Americans, one should surmise that those problems will follow. Anything short of that is an assault on basic logic.
From a Christian perspective, is there something about Haiti’s accepted religious practices that has led to the societal collapse of that nation? Probably, yes.
According to the U.S. Department of State, 55% of Haitians are Roman Catholics, an unsurprising statistic for that part of Latin America. Their population primarily descends from slaves brought by the French (who were predominantly Roman Catholic) in the 15th Century. Despite gaining their independence in 1804 from the Spanish (France ceded the island to the Spanish in the 17th Century), Haitians held on to certain vestments of Papistry from their captors, combined with the occultic traditions of West Africa and the Nativist pagan religion of the Taino, who were the original inhabitants of the island before the Spanish arrival.
The Taino, who populated the Greater Antilles (Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico), observed religious animism and worshiped through the use of Zemis (wooden objects and various idols that they believed were endowed with spirits). Haitian Taino religion is similar to Santeria, a Cuban version that combines Taino occultism with Roman Catholicism and Spanish-African nativism.
As a part of Critical Theory, which has ravished the Third World as much as the First, many Haitians have joined what’s called the “Afro-Taino Reconnection,” an intentional society-wide renaissance of ancient Taino religion, as a means of “cleansing from internalized colonialism.” In other words, Haitians – at the behest of university-led anthropologists and culture studies professors – have intentionally dived back into the pagan religion of the island’s original inhabitants. The problem is, as one self-described “queer, two-spirit, Afro-Taino neurodivergent, disabled disruptor” wrote, this has led to “lateral violence” (societal facetiousness and unrest). That’s because the Taino religion, made in the image of the Taino deities, is abominably violent and factious. The religion had a traumatic impact on the health of the Taino people, with more than 250,000 of them dying by suicide (or by feeding poison to their infants) in Haiti within the 16th Century.
As the Taino religion mostly died out during Spanish colonization, another religion was combined with Roman Catholicism that became unique to Haiti, called Haitian Vodou. In this iteration of the occult, nativist African religion is combined with Papistry instead of nativist Taino religion. Along with influences from Catholicism (in particular, St. Dominique) it was curiously also influenced heavily by Freemasonry (many of the images and symbolism in Haitian vodou was directly borrowed from freemasonry). In fact, there are four Grand Lodges still active in Haiti, although they’re described as “almost unrecognizable to other Masonic orders outside Haiti” and include Vodou rituals rather than the norm.
Vodou is, in fact, the “national religion of Haiti.” Don’t let the stats on Catholicism fool you. Vodou is not exclusive, nor is Roman Catholicism in most places around the world where it is practiced. As the expression goes, “Haiti is 70% Catholic, 30% Protestant, and 100% Vodou.” Hospitals in Haiti universally have Vodou chaplains rather than Christian ones. Almost all ceremonies, public or private, include Vodou shaman. Hospital walls are painted with the Vodou nzambi (zombies), named after the West Congo African deity, who they believe is the god of the dead.
Vodou culture, along with adopting violence and terror as religious practices, is also sexually libertine.
Elizabeth McAlister, a religion scholar at Wesleyan University specializing in Haitian Vodou, says, “Many, many gays and lesbians are valued members of Vodou societies. There is an idea that Vodou spirits that are thought to be gay ‘adopt’ and protect young adults who then become gay.”
She goes on, “Vodou ‘does gender’ totally differently than the Christian tradition. After all, Vodou has gender fluidity at the core: men might become mediums for female spirits, women for male spirits.”
There is no concept of sanctification, self-improvement, or ascending to higher virtues in Vodou, she states, “Vodou tends to be radically unjudgmental. The alcoholic, the thief, the homeless, the mentally ill, all of these people are welcomed into a Vodou temple and given respect.”
As gang violence has surged in Haiti in recent years, news reports indicate that Vodou is surging in popularity like never before. And these are the people moving in next door in the American suburbs.
We should not be surprised that evangelicals like Russell Moore, who helped Muslims construct a Mosque in New Jersey, have no problem helping practitioners of the Occult invade the American homeland. We should not be surprised at their lectures, reminding us that Haitians are made in the Imago Dei (so are the children of Springfield, Ohio), as though the concept is lost on us. We should, perhaps, be surprised that the guilt-shaming has worked so well to keep American Christians silent about our concerns regarding who is moving next door.
The Great Commission calls Christians to “go ye, therefore, into all the world.” The Great Commission does not require bringing all of the world to us.