Exodus 22:18 says, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

Here in the states, where we don’t take the Old Testament seriously and that verse is an embarrassment most Christians would prefer to ignore, it doesn’t have too much of an affect.

But as the influence of Christianity is waning in the West, fundamentalist Christianity is being exported to other populations. And they, like the Old Testament “God,” apparently, do believe that there are witches.

In Swaziland, as recently as 2013, there was a law banning witches from flying above a height of 150 metres.

In the Central African Republic, as of 2010, witch cases took up 40% of the court system’s case load (You know how much we try drug crimes here in the states? For reference, that’s only 12% of our case load).

In another story written in 2014 about seven witches killed in Tanzania (East Africa) it is noted: “A local rights group, the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), has estimated as many as 500 “witches” are lynched every year, based on reports that counted some 3, 000 people killed between 2005 and 2011. Many of those killed were elderly women.”

Furthermore, here are some additional cliff notes on the problem from the United Nations Human Rights Office:

Reports from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) suggest that most of the 25,000 – 50,000 children living on the streets of the capital, Kinshasa are there because they have been accused of witchcraft and rejected by their families. In 2009 The Committee on the Rights of the Child noted that in the DRC “violence against children accused of witchcraft is increasing, and that children are being kept as prisoners in religious buildings where they are exposed to torture and ill-treatment or even killed under the pretext of exorcism.”

The Special Rapporteur on violence against women has highlighted the problem of witch hunts in India, Nepal and South Africa.

In Ghana it is thought as many as 2,000 accused witches and their dependents are confined in five different camps. Most of the camp inmates are destitute, elderly women and some have been forced to live there for decades.

The murder and persecution of people accused of witchcraft in Tanzania is better documented than in most countries. The figures vary widely but it is estimated as many as a thousand, mostly elderly Tanzanian women are targeted and killed annually.

In Angola, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has called for “immediate action to eliminate the mistreatment of children accused of witchcraft”.

In Papua New Guinea, provincial police commanders reportedly said there were more than 50 sorcery-related killings in 2008. Other sources have suggested much higher figures.

In Nigeria, the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network reports an increasing number of children abandoned or persecuted on the grounds they are witches or wizards.

“Yeah,” the Christian states. “That has to do with local customs. Completely and totally. It has nothing to do with the wonderful love of Christ in the Bible.”

If that’s the case, though you may have a remarkable set of rose-colored glasses here in the West as you send your missionaries out and send out your Bibles (I did once, too), the hard, brutal truth is that, currently, the killing of witches has a LOT to do with the Bible right now. And it’s extremely harmful ignorance to pretend that it doesn’t.

Because among the Christian churches, the ones most accused of witches….

Are children. Ages 4 to 10.

This is no surprise. The Bible’s attitude towards children is fairly disturbing. There are places in the Bible that say that parents who spare the rod hate their children, that folly is in the heart of children and the rod is needed to drive it out, that tell parents to “not withhold” punishment with the rod if they want to save the child’s soul from death, that state that a rod and reprimand brings wisdom but an undisciplined child is a disgrace, and that even state that disobedient children must be stoned to death.

“Get them while they’re young” seems to be, more or less, the Bible’s strategy.

Now, I know that here, you’re problem saying, “Oh, that’s just cultural. We don’t really believe that today, because if you interpret it like xyz, it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

Whatever. Here’s the thing: Not everyone has those tools. And I think that we should not be giving them an Old Testament with these things in it if we think they are unhealthy ourselves.

Because when we do, people do unspeakably horrific things. I mean — these parents care about their children. They are killing them, in spite of the pain it does to their own hearts and to their children’s wellbeing, because of a verse in a Bible we sent over.

To be explicit, I think we need to skip exporting Bibles (or, at least ones containing these verses) abroad; they are hurting people.

As The Guardian put it back in 2007, in Nigeria, where “almost everyone goes to church,” pastors have begun accusing children of being witches and offering to perform exorcisms on them. As the article states:

In a maddened state of terror, parents and whole villages turn on the child. They are burnt, poisoned, slashed, chained to trees, buried alive or simply beaten and chased off into the bush…. Even if the parent wants to keep the child, their neighbours may attack it in the street. This is not just a few cases. This is becoming commonplace. In Esit Eket, up a nameless, puddled-and-potholed path is a concrete shack stuffed to its fetid rafters with roughly made bunk beds. Here, three to a bed like battery chickens, sleep victims of the besuited Christian pastors and their hours-long, late-night services. Ostracised and abandoned, these are the children a whole community believes fervently are witches.

Why is this happening? The Huffington Post, in and article provided by the associated press, stated in 2010:

The idea of witchcraft is hardly new, but it has taken on new life recently partly because of a rapid growth in evangelical Christianity. Campaigners against the practice say around 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria’s 36 states over the past decade and around 1,000 have been murdered. In the past month alone, three Nigerian children accused of witchcraft were killed and another three were set on fire. Nigeria is one of the heartlands of abuse, but hardly the only one: the United Nations Children’s Fund says tens of thousands of children have been targeted throughout Africa.

This is truly tragic. And there is proof that this belief is rampant in the theology in several African countries. For example, take this article written by authors in South Africa:

The research has clearly shown how witchcraft has been a serious problem amongst God’s people throughout the history of humankind. For that matter, Africans can in no way justify the value of witchcraft to their lives (cf. Nyirongo 1997:186). Similarly, Africans cannot claim confusion over the condemnation of witchcraft because the principles derived from both the Old and New Testament clearly demonstrate God’s denouncement and punishment of witchcraft. The church cannot condone such practices in any way and must make a concerted effort to oppose it in every way. As previously noted in this article, the belief in witchcraft is found in all Africans societies and it is the responsibility of the church to counsel those members who still struggle with this issue. On balance the principles derived from the Bible may serve as part of the foundation to resolve and clear up any uncertainty about witchcraft in the lives of Africans.

What does “a concerted effort to oppose [witchcraft] in every way” look like in practice? Torturing children.

This needs to end. This isn’t about points on the Christian side vs. points on the atheist side. This is about something that is terrible and tragic and horrible that the Bible is aiding and abbetting. It needs to stop. Really. Like, can you hear me shouting through this screen? Stop it. Stop it. Stop sending Bibles with that verse in them to Africa. Stop supporting those ministries. Just stop it. Please.

Some people, thankfully, are trying to make a difference — among them the Africans Unite Against Child Abuse group. But faith groups — including groups in the UK — refuse to take serious action to stop this from happening because of the Bible, and so children continue to be tortured and killed for being witches:

AFRUCA runs different programmes for helping families, and works with organizations, particularly churches, because many parents justify their methods by referencing cultural or religious values. ‘Spare the Rod and spoil the child is one she hears often. AFRUCA works with churches to help them understand how to change their views and practice so as not to harm children. They say they’ve reached over 2, 000 parents in the course of their work. Although Ariyo hesitates to criticize church groups, she says that in most cases and AFRUCA deals with about 12 cases a year –they are usually linked to a particular church; not all churches do these things and it’s important she stresses, to distinguish between churches that do and churches that don’t. Despite that nuanced approach, AFRUCA’s ongoing campaign for the UK government to make calling children witches illegal, hasn’t got much support from faith groups, because the idea of witches is biblically sanctioned. Church groups will support their work on harm-prevention for children but won’t support a ban on calling children witches, many citing passages from Exodus that instruct ‘ do not suffer a witch to live’.

In fact, one of the witch-hunting churches from aforementioned Nigeria is setting up shop in the UK. A man named David Oyedepo is a major pastor in Nigeria, and his organization David Oyedepo Ministries International planned in 2014 to put a school smak dab in the UK. And its justification was those same scriptures:

A statement on the David Oyedepo Ministries International website links “disobedience” with “witchcraft”, stating: “As far as God is concerned, disobedience is as terrible as witchcraft. 1 Samuel 15:23a says: For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. May God not catch you as a witch. His Word also says, “Do not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18).…”

This is serious. And it shows no signs of slowing down. As the New York Times reports:

Far from fading away, thanks to digital interconnectedness and economic development, witch hunting has become a growing, global problem. In recent years, there has been a spate of attacks against people accused of witchcraft in Africa, the Pacific and Latin America, and even among immigrant communities in the United States and Western Europe.

And that last part is true — in the UK this is becoming an increasingly serious problem.

Now, I’m not saying that the ENTIRETY of the killings are due to the Bible. But it would help a shit-ton if people quit evangelizing in those areas, bringing a Bible that says, “do not suffer a witch to live” with them. As the Times continues:

Another factor, particularly in Central Africa and its diaspora communities, is the advent of revivalist churches, in which self-styled pastor-prophets rail against witchery and demon possession. They often claim to specialize in the casting out of evil spirits, sometimes charging for the service. Many of those congregations have emerged from Western evangelizing efforts.

So…I’m asking…stop bringing the Bible to Africa — at least those problem verses. Let’s start telling the truth and embracing it ourselves, because lies hurt people.

Witches do not exist.

People do. There are no demons, no angels, no God. There’s just us and the one life we have to love our friends, family, and neighbors.

Let’s get on that. Please. At least think about it.

Thank you for reading.

[Featured Image via Christine Olson under CCL 2.0]