Witchcraft again - Aiona, Hawaii Candidate For Gov., Tied to Witch-Fighting Evangelicals
Bruce Wilson printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Thu Oct 21, 2010 at 09:04:45 AM EST
[for related stories, see: Hawaii Candidate For Governor Claimed Membership in Group That Burns Native Art and New Apostolic Reformation Leaders Burn Native Art. for relevant background, see Links to Two Years of Articles on NAR, Including Aiona, ITN, and Transformation Hawaii]

"If you have any idols in your home, we're gonna burn 'em! If you have any witchcraft items in your home, we're gonna burn 'em!" -- Cindy Jacobs, faculty member, International Transformation Network
It's like something out of the Spanish Inquisition or from the depths of the European Medieval period, mysteriously transported to sunny Hawaii of 2010, at the height of a hotly fought campaign for governor no less. As the Associated Press reported yesterday, on a scandal roiling the Hawaii gubernatorial campaign, Republican candidate for governor James "Duke" Aiona is lashing out at the campaign of his Democratic rival Neal Abercrombie for allegedly promoting a video I've compiled which begins with a clip of Aiona, in July 2008, enthusiastically stating that he was a member of Transformation Hawai'i, which is a local chapter of the International Transformation Network.

Introduction: I first started covering the story of Lt. Governor James "Duke" Aiona and the International Transformation Network/Transformation Hawai'i last April, 2010, in a two part series, Transforming Hawaii [part one, part two.] In late April and early May 2010 I made two radio appearances on 1080 AM in Hawaii, on the Carroll Cox Show [April 26, May 2] to talk about Aiona and the ITN/Transformation Hawai'i. Shortly after the May 2nd show, Carroll Cox filed a state ethics charge against Duke Aiona for accepting over $7,000 for a personal trip Aiona and his wife made in late 2006 to Ed Silvoso's 16th International Institute on Nation Transformation in Mar del Plata, Argentina, where Aiona was filmed praying with the 1st Lady of Uganda Janet Museveni. The story, below, continues my coverage of this issue.

I will again be appearing on the Carroll Cox Show, Sunday October 24, at 8-9AM HST on 1080 AM. Free podcasts of the show will afterward be available at the Carroll Cox Show website podcast page - Bruce Wilson

As the AP describes,

"The video was produced by Bruce Wilson, who co-founded a blog about religion and politics. It includes clips of Aiona at a 2009 meeting in Hawaii of the International Transformation Network, an evangelical Christian group, and its local arm, Transformation Hawaii.

Other clips are of ITN's 2008 meeting in Argentina in which a pastor calls on followers to collect idolatrous objects to be burned, and of Aiona urging viewers to attend a 2005 ITN meeting in Hawaii...

Wilson said ITN leaders appear to believe gays are possessed by demons and native art should be destroyed.

"It would be hard for Duke Aiona to be more enmeshed in Transformation Hawaii," Wilson said. "I'm just observing, here's Duke Aiona. He's heavily involved with this movement. Here's what the movement believes." [emphasis mine]

Here's the video in question:

So Hawaii is being "transformed" - to what? And why? In April I wrote an extended two-part series describing Aiona's many ties to Transformation Hawaii, the International Transformation Network, and the right-wing evangelical campaign to remake the Aloha State, into a place free from witchcraft, idolatry, gay marriage, and other alleged scourges of all that's said to be good and wholesome.    

Transformation Hawai'i is a local chapter of an entity called the International Transformation Network, whose leaders appear fixated on fighting gay marriage and burning "idols", "witchcraft items", Books of Mormon, statues of Catholic saints, and native art.

Both Duke Aiona, his campaign, and allied media such as Hawaii's KITV, have decried the video and claimed it is "false", "misleading", deceitful (on and on) without describing the actual content of the video itself. As KITV's Daryl Huff writes,

"Governor candidate Duke Aiona on Wednesday said Neil Ab