QUESTION: What are generational curses? Gerald Chimuka
RESPONSE: Thank you for your question; but, because I don’t know you, I don’t have any background or, at the very least, experience with this subject based on who asked it and why he asked it. All I can do is approach the matter from a conceptual standpoint, addressing the problem from a broad perspective as it is applied in our day.
Origins of the Teaching
The belief that ancestors curse (Generational Curses) or favor (Favor) one is as old as ‘Ancestor Worship’ (worship of forefathers). Aspects of ancestral worship may be found in almost every culture throughout the world, and it is within this style of worship that the teaching of generational curses and blessings was created. Early man believed that if his ancestors were appeased (dead or living), he would be blessed, and if they were insulted, he would be cursed. Genealogy and genetics, he believed, were also factors of future choices made by generations of the same bloodline.
When Judaism (a cult in the Bible) emphasizes their genealogies and prays to and through the god of their ancestors like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they are practicing ancestral Worship. I’m not sure modern Christians understand what it means to pray to the gods of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because it was ancestral worship for the Jews, not necessarily worshiping God apart from these Patriarchs.
The Jews insist on being blessed by the same patriarchal blessings as their forefathers. Before retiring, every patriarch must either bless or curse the next generation of his genealogy, like Noah (Genesis 9:20-27) and Jacob (Genesis 49) did. You either get the blessings of your ancestors or you get the curses of your family tree in the Old Testament. It was either a generational blessing, such as what Isaac receives following his blessed father’s death (Genesis 25:11), or a generational curse, such as Canaan (Genesis 9:20-27). In the second part of this response, I will show how this belief in Judaism evolved.
Many cultures, particularly African nations, still hold this belief, and people visit their ancestors’ graves to worship in praise, supplication, and repentance in order to secure success from previous generations. Numerous believers hold this belief firmly and deeply to this day, and it has been repackaged in many religions. Many religions pray and expect to be blessed through deceased saints, and believers pay homage to these religious dead saints’ tombs in the hopes of receiving blessings.
Through his deliverance ministries, the man Peter Derek V. Prince popularized the idea of generational curses in modern history, and the idea continues to be a belief system for many in churches to this day. This Pentecostal preacher, who was also a radio host, thought and taught that what people are going through today has a lot to do with what previous generations did.
The belief is that your parents (close relatives) worshiped and so did so on your behalf, making you either a beneficiary or a victim of the same. The previous generation either bestowed a blessing or a curse on the next. As a result, the term “Generational Curse” refers to a problem that is not only inherited, but also hereditary to some extent. At this point in one’s deliverance, some prophets and pastors may require worshipers to not only deny being a part of the evil covenants their relatives initiated them into, but also to completely denounce their family relatives in order to secure deliverance.
Without wishing to represent or mislead every Pentecostal, I will state that the term “generational curses” is widely used and praised in Pentecostal churches, and it has been promoted by deliverance ministries.
Genealogy
The Bible is a book of genealogies, and it contains a large number of them (Genesis 5:1-32; 11:20-26; Genesis 25:12-18; Exodus 6:16-25; 1Chronicles 1:1-9:44 Mathew 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-28). There is a cultural and theological rationale for these genealogies in the Canon, but for the purposes of this response, I will focus on the ancient writers’ desire for their readers and listeners to comprehend the relation to the character traits they are discussing. Genealogy literally means “the logic/study of the gene,” thus whenever you find a genealogy in the Bible, it’s asking you to pay attention to how the gene has mutated in both existence and practicality in previous generations.
Humans are, by definition, scientific beings. They are inquisitive and evidence-based humans, but the complexity of life is that the same human beings are overly spiritually superstitious. Man is a profoundly symbolic creature, and everything that happens to them has a meaning and is connected to something else. While humanity believes in physical heredity (the genetic heritage passed down by our biological parents—the transmission of traits such as eye color, blood type or disease, or behavioral) and can prove it through technology, humans also believe bloodline is a mystical determinant of one’s success or failure.
Chronic diseases are engraved in particular blood ties in science, and the scientific world has a biological explanation for this genealogy physiological problem; however, recurrent and repetitive patterns of problems in sociology and anthropology have no other explanation than BELIEF that one generation has passed on a particular problem to another generation. Before being adopted, the ability to identify and confirm generational social and physical curses in one’s lineage should be scientifically and theologically confirmed. All of this should be considered superstitions, hallucinations, and delusional mysticism unless there is a scientific (physiological) and a theological (religion) reason for a curse in one’s life.
Next, I’ll go through how the teachers of these generational curses came to this conclusion, as well as what we all miss out on when it comes to this issue.
God bless you, I invoke TRUTH, WISDOM, and FAITH (2Tim 2:7)
Priest M.I.T WHITE (+256-775-822833 for further inquiries)
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)
QUESTIONING TO BELIEVE, BELIEVING TO LIVE
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 