Spiritual Warfare

This morning, in catching up on some reading, I stumbled across a religious movement that is apparently spreading quickly through some conservative Christian circles, a practice known as spiritual mapping.

In this system, geographic locations are mapped based upon presumed demonic activity, activity triggered through the sins that were historically perpetrated in an area. These sins are addressed through prayer and political action in the hope that the demons will be vanquished.

For some reading this, the notion is laugh-out-loud funny. But having grown up in a conservative Christian community, I know that this is very serious work for some well-meaning folks. These people see the problems in their local area, want to fix them, and believe prayer - and political action - can help solve them. Heck, I believe that, too! I even understand the notion that specific areas are in need of different forms of healing. For example, I think Winston Salem is still suffering terribly from its history of racism, a deep, structural wound that has never been properly lanced, so we continue to feel the effects long after losing touch with the presenting problem.

But the devil is always in the details. For example, leaders of this movement have been linked to ideas like overthrowing democracy in favor of theocracy, imprisoning LGBT people on the basis of their being possessed by demons, or assigning "historic sins" in a community to particular groups of people, such as Jewish businesspersons, etc.

I'm going to do a bit more research since the mainstream media doesn't seem to have information on the movement, but probably does have coverage of leaders that might be instructive, particularly if those leaders are influencing politicians - and I would be shocked if they were not. If any readers locate interesting information, please link it back to me via comments.