From The Back Pew: Learning a lesson about voodoo

On my way home Sunday, I decided to check out what other offerings Los Angeles radio had to offer on the lower end of the FM dial, where most of the city’s noncommercial stations exist.

I landed upon 89.3 KPCC, the well-known and respected NPR affiliate based out of Pasadena City College. The program was a new one for me, called “Speaking of Faith” from American Public Media.

The program featured a report from host Krista Tippett called “Living Vodou.” The episode takes an in-depth look into the growing field of the academic study of Haitian Vodou. The program’s guest was Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, a professor of Africology at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and a leading figure in the study of Haitian Vodou.

Several weeks ago I asked In Theory writers what they thought about stories that the Haitian earthquake had been a punishment by God, a consequence of the Haitian people’s practice of voodoo. I believe Rabbi Simcha Backman summed it up when he wrote: “When it comes to human suffering, there are no intelligible answers.”

However, the whole notion that voodoo practice caused the earthquake, to some, is just pure nonsense. So it goes without saying that voodoo deserves, like any other misunderstood faith, to be understood and studied.

First of all, voodoo is not a religion, Bellegarde-Smith said. It is a spiritual system: “It includes philosophy, technology, science and everything else. It invades all systems and fields. It is something that occupies one 24 hours a day.”

And for many Haitians who leave their native country, they become intrigued by it because it is a part of their culture, the professor said.

Voodoo is related to other African traditions like Santeria. Haitians who practice voodoo also combine it with Catholicism, because it was the official religion of colonizers during that era. Another example would be during the era of the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish, in which the Aztecs were forced to create a sort of hybrid religion made up of Catholicism and their worship of many gods, something that is practiced even to this day in some of the remote parts of that country.

I will not reveal too much about this episode here, but from listening to it, I learned that voodoo really does not deserve the reputation it has.

Get in touch MICHAEL J. ARVIZU is a reporter for the Burbank Leader, Glendale News-Press and La Cañada Valley Sun newspapers. He may be reached at (818) 637-3263 or by e-mail at michael.arvizu@latimes.com. Get in touch MICHAEL J. ARVIZU is a reporter for the Burbank Leader, Glendale News-Press and La Cañada Valley Sun newspapers. He may be reached at (818) 637-3263 or by e-mail at michael.arvizu@latimes.com.