Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Kenyan Pastor who blessed Palin chases witches at home

Zoe Alsop reports from Women's ENews that Bishop Thomas Muthee from Kiambu in Kenya who came to media attention when he blessed Sarah Palin before she was elected governor, claimed in 1989 to have rid Kiambu of witchcraft.

"We have not had a single accident since," Muthee said in one widely published sermon. "In fact, since that woman moved out of Kiambu, the entire atmosphere has changed. Whereas people used to be afraid to go out at night, now we enjoy one of the lowest crime rates in Kenya."

Muthee claimed that police rescued Mama Jane from a lynch mob at the time, and then whisked her away for good after gunning down a pet python they mistook for a demon.

But some residents of Kiambu were somewhat skeptical of Muthee's claims.

Not least among them is the herbalist Jane W. Njenga, a pastor with the African Mission of Holy Ghost Church, who is best known as Mama Jane.

She says she didn't own a pet python and she's never left her compound, located about a half-mile from Muthee's immense new church. Last week Women's eNews interviewed her there, next door to the Superkid Solid Foundation Faith in Every Footstep daycare center just off Kiambu's main street.

"If I am bad, why haven't people attacked me?" Njenga says. "Why haven't they burnt this building down? That is what people here do to witches."

A local health worker in Kiambu, Jane Karande, attributes the drop in road accidents to the introduction of speedbumps on local roads rather than exorcisms.

The Telegraph (UK) has the same story. Something is going on here...

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