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Over the years the Americo-Liberians have maintained their affinity for Baptist churches. But their decades-long monopoly on power came to a crashing halt in 1980 when disgruntled military insurgents assassinated President W. R. Tolbert, an ordained Baptist minister, like so many of Liberia's founding leaders.

In 1985 Samuel Doe became Liberia's first indigenous president, thanks to a questionable election, and his rule brought only increased corruption and violent repression against his tribe's historic opponents. Five years later another group of rebels assassinated Doe, which led to a three-way civil war that continued until 1997 and resulted in 200,000 dead and 1 million refugees. President Taylor emerged as the nation's leader in an election some considered fraudulent but most viewed to be reasonably fair according to Liberian standards.

Taylor is an odd amalgam of the diverse elements that form the current crisis in Liberia. He was born in 1948 to an Americo-Liberian family and educated in the United States, but resented his country's political and economic disparities. Doe appointed him to a high government position, but Taylor ultimately attacked his regime. Taylor coveted Sierra Leone's diamond wealth so his armies sponsored a 10-year conflict there that left 10,000 dead. His armies also enlisted child fighters and committed numerous crimes against humanity, including rape and murder.

When the BBC accused him of such atrocities, he responded with, "Jesus Christ was accused of being a murderer in his time." Last year he reportedly told 65,000 Liberians gathered for prayer, "I am not your president. Jesus is!" And according to the Washington Post, four years ago Taylor negotiated an $8 million deal with Pat Robertson to mine for gold in Liberia.

As if Christianity in Liberia hasn't suffered enough from corruption both within and also outside the churches, syncretism has threatened biblical faith. Secret societies and ancestor veneration continue to influence the nation's psyche. According to Operation World, "Freemasonry imported by the early settlers fused with indigenous tribal secret societies to become a pervasive influence that has corrupted and compromised politics and nearly every denomination, whether mainline, evangelical, or Pentecostal."

According to African scholar Stephen Ellis, Liberians perceive the spiritual realm as the truest reality, which explains the predominance of cultic activity during current and past civil wars. Sometimes they sacrificed humans and hired "heartmen" to ritually remove and digest their opponents' organs.

Yet in the midst of spiritual terror, humanitarian squalor, and murderous rampages, hope remains for Liberia as the world community seeks to bring much-needed political stability and charitable aid. Additionally, Pentecostalism has gained a receptive hearing among the inland tribes, whose pervasive mysticism meshes well with Pentecostal visions of the spiritual world.

So while Marines prepare to fulfill their mission, they step into the stream of history that knows the perils of intervening in tribal warfare but also the idealistic memory of liberty that brought many of the Liberians there.

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July (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47