catholicism and the spirits

i'm sure that books and books have been written about this subject, but i always find it fascinating from a cultural and missiological perspective.

in doing some work on haiti, dominican republic and cuba, it has been interesting to note that the Catholic "landlords" attempted to make conversion to Catholicism as easy as possible for their slaves who they had hauled over from africa. so with minimal instruction they mass converted them. part of the instruction was about the saints - which ones to pray to on which days. the africans took this to heart and began to insinuate their own saints and little gods into the equation, as well as a lot of spiritism. so we basically have paganism along traditional african lines, with a coating of Catholicism on top. imagine looking at a pie whose crust was nice and buttery and flaky but the content of the pie was rather nasty. you don't know what you get til you cut into it. the fact that people are more likely to see a witch doctor than a priest in these predominantly Catholic countries says something about the quality of faith there. some people might have theological issues with Catholicism, but the fact is that this is hardly representative of "proper" Catholicism.

and then it makes me wonder about evangelical mission activity. how much of the same are we doing - converting people to a thin veneer of westernized evangelical culture while underneath their hearts, their way of thinking, their values, the things that matter remain largely unchanged. i would assume that modern evangelicals are not guilty in the same fashion as the 16th century priest were, but it's an issue that anyone working in another culture would have to be aware of.