Detroit Prayer Event Puts Muslim Community on Edge
Published November 11, 2011
| FoxNews.com
Detroit, which has one of the largest Muslim communities outside the Middle East, is reportedly bracing itself for a 24-hour prayer rally by a group that considers Islam among the ills facing the United States.
The gathering at Ford Field starts Friday and hopes to tackle issues such as the economy, race, same-sex marriage and abortion. But the decade-old organization known as the TheCall has characterized Detroit as a "microcosm of our national crisis" in all areas, including the "rising tide of the Islamic movement," MyFoxDetroit.com reports.
Leaders of TheCall believe a satanic spirit is shaping all parts of U.S. society, and it must be challenged through intensive Christian prayer and fasting. Such a demonic spirit has taken hold of specific areas, Detroit among them, organizers say. In the months ahead of their rallies, teams of local organizers often travel their communities performing a ritual called "divorcing Baal," the name of a demon spirit, to drive out the devil from each location.
The Practical Buddhist Responds
Tragicaly,TheCall is typical of militant religious organizations whose primary engines of power are fear and hatred. Fortunately, their arrogance and superstitious stupidity will limit their following to folks who have not formed an adult and independent conscience. These men and women are seduced by leaders who appeal to their basest instincts by clothing them in a twisted and unscriptural version of faith. It's no different from Muslim leaders bending the poor to violent politcal ends and acts, in direct defiance of the teachings and even the name of Islam. Taliban-like atrocities won't be tolerated here, at least not yet. But hatred is more and more popular, and even presidential candidates capitalize on it, however subtly.
How can an otherwise reasonable adult accept the pronouncements of demagogues who claim not only to know precisely who and where Satan hangs out at the moment, but who pretend they can concoct an exorcism ritual ("divorcing Baal") to banish him? I am baffled and horrified, not that it is happening in Detroit, but that it happens everywhere. I think no major religion can claim it never sponsored slavery, or war, or oppression of the poor, at some time in its history.
