From the NY Daily News:
A Brooklyn principal has reprimanded a sixth-grade teacher for selling students a book that tells how to “recognize those serving Satan and bring them to Jesus.”
Steven Arizmendi sold “He Came to Set the Captives Free” to four of his students at Junior High School 220 in Sunset Park for $5 apiece. The science teacher also loaned copies of the evangelical novel to eight students.
He Came to Set the Captives Free was written by Rebecca Brown, who is also the author of Prepare for War; her books were perhaps the most baroque concoctions to emerge from the bogus “Satanic Panic” Christian paperback genre of the 1970s and 1980s that led to so much misery and paranoia.
He Came to Set the Captives Free is the pseudo-biography of a mentally-disturbed woman named Elaine, whom Brown latched onto when she was working as a doctor. Here’s an extract from a summary:
For seventeen years, Elaine served her master, Satan, with total commitment. Then she met Dr. Rebecca Brown, who served her master, Jesus Christ, with equal commitment. Elaine, one of the top witches in the U.S. clashed with Dr. Brown, who stood against her alone. In the titanic life-and-death struggle that followed, Dr. Brown nearly lost her life. Elaine, finding a power and love greater than anything Satan could give her, left Satan and totally committed her life to Jesus Christ.
This group which secretly calls itself The Brotherhood, is made of up people who are directly controlled by, and worship, Satan. It is a rapidly growing and very dangerous cult. It has two major centers in the U.S. – the West coast, mostly in the Los Angeles-San Francisco area, and another in the mid-western U.S. where Doctor Brown lives.
…They all go by code names at their meetings so that, should they meet each other on the street, often as not they would not know each other’s name. They are rigidly disciplined by Satan and his demons. They practice human sacrifice several times a year and animal sacrifice on a monthly basis. The human sacrifices are most often babies–born our of wedlock to various cult members, cared for by the doctors and nurses within the cult so that the mother is never seen in a hospital…
But it’s not just Satanists: demons and angels abound, as well as Satan himself, “in human form”, and the book is also anti-Catholic. Elaine tells us that:
I have been to Mecca, Israel, Egypt, also the Vatican in Rome to meet with the Pope. All my trips were for the purpose of coordinating Satan’s programs with satanists in other lands, as well as meeting with various government officials to discuss aid to their countries in the form of money. A few did not know that I was a satanist, but thought I was associated with a powerful wealthy organization of some kind. People asking for money don’t ask too many questions. The Pope knew very well who I was. We worked closely both with the Catholics (especially the Jesuits) and the high-ranking Masons.
It was during this time that I met many of the well known Rock music stars. They all signed contracts with Satan in return for fame and fortune.
Brown has all kinds of bizarre advice about how to resist demonic attacks – for instance, in Prepare for War we learn that vegetarianism is a Satanic plot, because meat protein offers protection. Her lurid tales were comprehensively debunked in an article entitled “Drugs, Demons and Delusions: The ‘Amazing’ Saga of Rebecca Brown”, by G. Richard Fisher, Paul R. Blizard and M. Kurt Goedelman, which can be read here; a further essay of interest can be seen here.
Brown’s works were originally published by Jack Chick (who provided illustrations), but He Came to Set the Captives Free is now published by Whitaker House. Brown has a ministry, called “Harvest Warriors”, and apparently she visits various church groups; I noted in 2004 that Brown has one champion in Mark Dawes, a journalist with the Jamaica Gleaner. He wrote a gushing profile ahead of a visit by Brown to the island:
Some have dismissed the writings of Dr. Brown, claiming she fabricated some of the stories and there are a few Web sites that denounce her as a fraud. But then if one is exposing the ugliness of Satan shouldn’t one expect to be labelled in order to be disregarded?
Rebecca Brown’s writings are Biblical, and to the extent it assaults a conservative Christian mind set, it is radical. She says, for example, that werewolves and vampires do exist.
She cites scripture verses such as Leviticus 26:6,22 to make the point that wild beasts belong to the Lord and evil beasts (of which vampires and werewolves are numbered), belong to Satan. Similarly she cites other references to evil beasts in Ezekiel 8:9-10, Titus 1:12:13a, Jude 7-11.
A werewolf, she says, is a particular kind of demon that inhabits a person who enters into “a God-forbidden relationship with demons.”
Her work is also very popular in Ghana and Nigeria, as has been noted by Paul Gifford (see African Christianity: Its Public Role).
(Hat tip: Ed Brayton)
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