The Deepest Roots: Part 2

Many animists believe in hard words;  words that  have power over the health/well-being of others. Unless they understand the real message of scripture, they can assume that there is similar power in our Christian vocabulary. Jacob Loewen tells of how a South American tribal man interpreted Christianity in that way:

"It is wonderful to be a Christian," he said. "Now we have ever so many hard words than before. You can heal your friends, or you can kill your enemies, whenever you want to. All you have to do is to kneel behind them in a prayer meeting and while everyone else is praying out loud you just whisper the appropriate hard words, breathe on the person, and it happens  like that. For example, if you should say words like tutechan, wikik, kisimasi (temptation, wicked, Christmas) or any other of the bad hard words, the person will die like a fly. If, however, you use words like kang, epong, klaiki (God, heaven, Christ) or any of the other good hard words, the person will be well before you know it.