The Hoodoo Truth: The Christianity Of Hoodoo

The number one thing that turns many people off from hoodoo/rootwork/conjure, is the Christianity associated with it. However, the Christianity of the practice is not, I repeat, not the typical, hardcore, fundamentalist Christianity that most people are familiar with. Instead, the type of Christianity found in hoodoo is more aptly described as "folk religion". So what is folk religion? Well, bluntly it is the religion of the people, disconnected from official religious stances or teachings. Now, as far as level of "religiosity" goes, individual workers will vary in their level of religiousness. Some don't attend church but many do. However, when the workers of the past used Christianity in their work they were not just saying empty prayers or reciting words from a book they didn't believe in. Quite the opposite! Workers fully believed in the biblical God, in Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the prophets and the saints, etc. Christianity was not used to mask "witchcraft" as many fundamentalists have claimed.

I've touched on this before but until people understand how Christianity and the Bible were used to justify slavery and atrocities against non-whites then they will not understand how most conjure workers are closer to the "True Christianity" than most Christians today. If you read your bible then you know that Christians are supposed to be magical. Christians are supposed to be able to heal, to raise the dead, to take up serpents, and be impervious to poisons. It's all in the good book if Christians would simply read the bible. So in this example hoodoo folk are far closer to being true Christians than the majority of Christians today who think that God calls them to do nothing. The typical fundamentalist Christian, especially among whites, has zero spiritual power. That's the opposite of conjure folk.

So in conclusion, please realize that the Christianity of hoodoo/rootwork/conjure, is not the "shove-it-down-your-throat" variety where people in fancy clothes like to sit there and judge you. That's not the Christianity of hoodoo. The Christianity of hoodoo is meant to set you free.