{"id":5233,"date":"2025-07-10T07:07:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T07:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/occultists-pressure-pastors-and-churches\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T07:07:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T07:07:22","slug":"occultists-pressure-pastors-and-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/occultists-pressure-pastors-and-churches\/","title":{"rendered":"Occultists Pressure Pastors and Churches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Secret occult societies in Sierra Leone regularly threaten pastors and churches. &ldquo;We came for fellowship, and we were attacked right at the church,&rdquo; said Pastor Joshua Ramine. The societies are groups that practice occult rituals, including bodily mutilation and allegedly even the ritualistic killing of humans to appease spirits. The groups have been known to surround churches with hundreds of people to harass and intimidate Christians and stop their worship services. &ldquo;They shouted while we were singing,&rdquo; Joshua said. &ldquo;But I said, &lsquo;No, let&rsquo;s continue singing.&rsquo; They shouted away. &#8230; It was so noisy. Even all night they will go and disturb.&rdquo; Christians in Sierra Leone request prayer for strength to stand firm in the face of such threats and that the Lord will soften the hearts of society members so that they will be saved from darkness.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/globalprayerguide\/sierra-leone\/\">Click here<\/a> to find out about Christian persecution in Sierra Leone and learn how to pray.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.icommittopray.com\/request\/2848\/sierra-leone-christians\/\" target=\"_blank\">Post a prayer for Sierra Leone Christians on iCommitToPray.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Secret occult societies in Sierra Leone regularly threaten pastors and churches. &#8220;We came for fellowship, and we were attacked right at the church,&#8221; said Pastor Joshua Ramine. The societies are groups that practice occult rituals, including bodily mutilation and allegedly even the ritualistic killing of humans to appease spirits. The groups have been known to surround churches with hundreds of people to harass and intimidate Christians and stop their worship services. &#8220;They shouted while we were singing,&#8221; Joshua said. &#8220;But I said, \u2018No, let&#8217;s continue singing.&#8217;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-i-commit-to-pray","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Occultists Pressure Pastors and Churches - Stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/occultists-pressure-pastors-and-churches\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Occultists Pressure Pastors and Churches - Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Secret occult societies in Sierra Leone regularly threaten pastors and churches. &quot;We came for fellowship, and we were attacked right at the church,&quot; said Pastor Joshua Ramine. The societies are groups that practice occult rituals, including bodily mutilation and allegedly even the ritualistic killing of humans to appease spirits. The groups have been known to surround churches with hundreds of people to harass and intimidate Christians and stop their worship services. &quot;They shouted while we were singing,&quot; Joshua said. &quot;But I said, \u2018No, let&#039;s continue singing.&#039;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/occultists-pressure-pastors-and-churches\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-07-10T07:07:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"vomtechsupport\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"vomtechsupport\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/occultists-pressure-pastors-and-churches\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/occultists-pressure-pastors-and-churches\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"vomtechsupport\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/#\/schema\/person\/5ff286fd5505fccd2d5ebfd9d4203216\"},\"headline\":\"Occultists Pressure Pastors and Churches\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-10T07:07:22+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/occultists-pressure-pastors-and-churches\/\"},\"wordCount\":178,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/occultists-pressure-pastors-and-churches\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/assets.persecution.com\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/VOM-Stories-iCommit-PlaceholderV2.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"iCommitToPray\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/occultists-pressure-pastors-and-churches\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/occultists-pressure-pastors-and-churches\/\",\"name\":\"Occultists Pressure Pastors and Churches - 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