"Christian Witches"

A real thing, coming this Easter.

Some time back, I read this article about the rise of witchcraft. Two sets of numbers stuck out to me in it. The first is that the number of Wiccans has grown from about 8,000 to 340,000 in the U.S. from 1990-2008. The second is that it currently looks like there are about 1.5 million Americans "identify as Pagan or Wicca," a higher number that mainline Presbyterianism (1.4 million).

I read it, and thought it interesting, but didn't really connect the dots until I read this article about the first "Christian Witches Convention," set for April 2019 in Salem, MA.

Let's just say this right now: there is no such thing as a "Christian Witch."

You might be a Christian who has fallen into witchcraft, or been lured into it by peers or culture, but if you stay there, you no longer be a follower of Christ. It is sin, and just as with all other sin there is a call to reject it and repent. Falling into sin doesn't condemn a follower of Christ automatically, but choosing to stay there and not fight against it will.

I could go through each and every Scripture that warns against it, but in the interest of space and time I will simply list several of them: Deut. 18:10-14; I Chr. 10:13; 2 Chr. 33:6; I Sam. 15:23; Acts 8:9-13; Acts 19:17-20; Gal. 5:19-20, and more.

Notice: the warnings appear in both the Old and New Testaments. It had no place with God's people in the past, and it has no place with God's people today. To live as a witch is to live in sin, Scripture leaves no room for it.

To get on with the main point however, we need to deal with what these people are teaching, namely that Jesus was a sorcerer, the Bible is a grimoire, and the Christianity and Witchcraft are compatible. I hope that last statement has been adequately answered above.

First, to imply that Jesus was a sorcerer is, simply put, blasphemy. To be a sorcerer Jesus would have to break Old Testament law, which would be sin, which would mean He could not die a perfect sacrifice for sin. It is a straight line from one to the other. Furthermore, to claim Jesus as a sorcerer because of His miracles is a fallacy. They broke the laws of nature in order to prove He was the Son of God. The miracles Jesus performed went far beyond what any of the prophets and people God used in the Old Testament did, as a proof of who He was. If you are going to live in agreement with the statement "Jesus was a sorcerer," you are living in blasphemy.

Second, to say the Bible is a grimoire is ludicrous on its face. The Bible is a book of history that shows the path God has taken in order to bring all peoples to Himself. It is the history of the world and the church, and it is the Word of God to bring salvation to all men. To relegate it to the place of a book of magic is to take it from the highest place to the lowest. It is to steal from it its position as God's Word to save all mankind and turn it into a trinket for our own personal aggrandizement, power, and glory.

If you do happen to watch the video at the end of the article about the convention, I encourage you to notice the large number of red flags throughout it. The constant use of "oh my God," the theme of the witches ball (American Horror Story: Apocalypse), her desire to see someone attend dressed as Michael Langdon, literally the spawn of Satan in the show ("however, I like him" she says), or his "witchy mother," who was a "servant of Satan", as she states.

This is something to watch out for in our churches today. Wicca is one of the fastest growing (if not the fastest growing) religion in the United States, and it is likely to only accelerate. It is a perfect match for our postmodern culture, and we need to be prepared for it. Do not take this lightly. It is real and it is growing. Teach yourself and others to stand firm in Christ alone, so we do not fall into the mindset of saying something "isn't a big deal," or that it "won't affect me." Those are traps of the the most dangerous kind. We must know what it means to stand in Christ, or we will find ourselves standing in anything but Him.