they sacrificed a pig, they took an oath together that they would fight the french. they d get possessed by their spirits who then say to them, we re your back-up. two weeks later they start poisoning wells and lighting fires and the revolution is on and the white french are freaked because the africans have this multi-pronged rebellion. by 1804, they liberate the country and declare it independent, they apolish slavery, and they make every haitian person a free citizen who is eligible to, you know, work the land and be equal. so in a sense, vodou becomes this force for liberation. it was unthinkable to the west, to france, that a non-christian power could overcome a christian power. tha conflict is still going on, the idea of this conflict between christianity and vodou and what it means for the
through the roof, and infant mortality rates are the highest in the western hemisphere. [ speaking foreign language ] he s a passer from illinois coming to haiti to preach the gospel for years. in 2014, he moved his family here permanentlynd while he doesn t have his own congregation, he goes from chur to church preaching to haiti s rapidly growing community of evangelicals. tell me about that conflict between christianity and vodou. the protestant evangelical understanding is that the spirits of vodou are demons. and then their authority comes from satan. there is good and there is evil.
one that s been, i think really misunderstood for many, many years by the western world. what draws know vodou is the belief that there is no division between the physical and the spiritual realms. christianity says we are bodies now, but that one day we will be spirits. vodou says we are both. spirit and body. the dead are as real and as present as the living. there is no boundary between them.
catholicism of the slave masters. the result is a religion that comes in a thousand different forms and borrows from everywhere. when catholics first encountered vodou, they absorbed it into catholicism, transformed into catholic saints. which is why the lawa looks like the virgin mary. years later, when protestant missionaries arrived in haiti, they simply ignored the lawa. things changed in the devastating earthquake in 2010 which left the country in ruins. a wave of missionaries arrived and in the process converted thousands to christianity.
ever since the devastating earthquake that nearly destroyed haiti, money has been rolling in from evangelical churches abroad and more and more haitians are turning their backs on vodou in favor of the gospel. what was it about christianity, particularly the evangelical brand of chrtianity that drew you in? [ speaking foreign language ] jacques is an assistant pastor at tabernacle. he grew up the son of a vodou priest and priestess, abandoned it and left his family when he converted to christianity at the age of 18. [ speaking foreign language ] one of the things that vodou does in haiti will often say is