Counting The Cost

Random thoughts on walking with Jesus in this turvy-topsy world

Drawn to the Supernatural

               I have always loved Halloween.     I love dressing up in crazy costumes and, of course, consuming large amounts of chocolate (although my friends and family will tell you that I do that every day of the year).     Before I became a Christian, I was drawn to Halloween because of the supernatural elements.      In an everyday hum-drum world, sometimes it is nice to have an escape into something otherworldly and mysterious.      Now that I am a Christian, although I still enjoy the festive parts of Halloween, I don't have that need to dabble in the supernatural.     Now, my whole life is supernatural!      Every moment of my life is filled with the presence of an invisible, eternal, all powerful Lord who is mysterious and otherworldly.      How awesome is that?     Well, my point in writing this, is to introduce the article I am posting below.      As a college student, I am around a lot of fellow students who are into New Age mysticism and pagan religions, and because of my own background, I can sympathize with their desire to be a part of a world beyond the ordinary.     I have also seen how empty and dark their lives can become when they lose themselves in that lifestyle.     That's why I try to share the Lord Jesus Christ with them whenever and however I can.      And that's also why I am going to be posting several articles about wicca and witches on my blog up until Halloween.     The same desires that pull people into the world of paganism and mysticism can also pull them towards the Lord who desires to make their lives extraordinary.                -Joy

Witch Path Would You Choose?
Written by Sarah E. Hinlicky

 

We were zipping down the interstate on our way to a concert one rainy summer afternoon when my best friend — let’s call her Sabrina — turned to me after a short lull in the conversation and said, “Does it bother you that I’m a witch?”

 

Had I actually known before that very moment that she was a witch, I might have had the wits about me to make an intelligent remark. As it was, I was so shocked by this unprovoked announcement that all I could manage was, “Well, I don’t exactly approve of it, but I’m not going to let it come between us.”

 

I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was. Sabrina’s religious wanderings had been the source of ongoing distress to me over the course of our five-year best-friendship. She and her family had been nominally Presbyterian when they were rich, and then nominally Catholic when they became unexpectedly poor, and after a while they gave up on church altogether. But those collected Sundays in the pews left very little impression on Sabrina. The everyday life of the Church — weekly worship, talk about sin and atonement, tithing — was much too dull for her to be troubled with. If the subject of religion came up at all, the conversation turned to icons, saints, candles, hell, miracles, relics and myths. The exotic stuff. All of which is the fair inheritance of Christians, but Christians have also put their total faith in the death and resurrection of Christ and try to live up to their baptismal vows — an “ordinary” matter that never much interested Sabrina.

 

I tried to change the subject. She didn’t want to. “This is my birthright,” she said. “I was born with this power. The women of my family have been witches for generations. My mom doesn’t know she’s a witch, but she has the power, too.”

 

My curiosity temporarily took over. “What powers do you have?” I dared to ask.

 

“I can tell when someone is going to die by looking at the bark on the trees,” she answered solemnly. “I can lock up the evil spirits released by ouija boards. I can communicate with the wolves.”

 

It sounds preposterous, I know. I was half inclined to laugh in her face at her self-delusions and half incensed that she presumed to know anyone’s time of death. (I had recently lost my grandmother in a singularly awful way, which greatly heightened my sensitivity.) Instead I politely acknowledged the intensity of her convictions and then succeeded at last in re-routing our discussion back to the concert.

 

Power Beyond Belief
The name “witch” bears some examination. Most Americans, when they hear the word, conjure up mental pictures of hideous old hags with warts on their noses who try to ruin the good fortunes of virtuous young girls in medieval fairy tales. Those inclined to a slightly more positive image might think of pink-bubble Glinda in The Wizard of Oz. (“Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” she coos.) And the historically informed will shudder to recall the horrifically unjust Salem witch trials of 17th century Massachusetts. The witches you meet today don’t belong in any of these categories. Though they claim a more venerable pedigree, modern “Wiccans” have their origins entirely in this century, stemming from the deliberate revival of long-dead pagan practices by an Englishman named Gerald Gardner around the turn of the century. Witchcraft is just one part of the larger and vaguer “neopagan” movement, which in turn is one part of the even wider and vaguer New Age movement. None of these new “religions” can be rigidly classified — the notion of dogma is anathema to them — but one can at least accurately say that they are mystical, individualistic and decidedly non-Christian religious expressions reacting against a dominantly Christian society. Wicca specifically is composed mostly but not entirely of women, emphasizes the close ties between humanity and nature, and, if it professes belief in deities at all, those will generally be the Goddess and her consort, the Horned God, or the members of ancient pantheons (Celtic ones are especially popular). But all this is purely optional; the litmus test for witchcraft is not belief, but power.

 

In this light, it is extremely important to remember that witches are not Satanists. The two are often equated, a mistake that is not only unfair to Wiccans, but also fails to recognize the real (albeit different) danger in their practices. The very idea of radical evil in the form of Satan is rejected by witches, but this ironically leaves them all the more vulnerable to demonic infiltration. It is easy to see how becoming a Satanist obsessed with the devil is a recipe for trouble, but it’s a little harder to understand why repudiating his existence altogether is just as bad. The heart of the matter is that denying the devil makes it impossible to detect his evil presence in anything.

 

This has two insidious results. The first is the illusion of moral autonomy: without radical evil, there can’t be any such thing as sin. At best there are “little evils” that can be overcome by the individual efforts of well-meaning witches. The Wiccan ethical code is very simple: do harm to no one. But that presumes that each and every witch can know for herself exactly what is harmful and what is not. History shows countless examples of the damage done by people who thought that they were actually doing the good (without encouraging mass hysteria, I would like to point out that Hitler wanted to revive pagan German practices since their ethical priorities included ethnic cleansing). All religions have been guilty of serious wrongdoing, but paganism in particular has always been tied to blood (read: sacrifice) and soil (read: local ethnic preference) — a far cry from seeing every person created in the image of God. Although witchcraft today doesn’t indulge in such violence, it being a newly revived practice, the more witches emphasize their historical continuity, the more they’ll have to face up to this violent potential inherent in their beliefs.

 

The other result is the conjuring of spirits. Much of the actual practice of witchcraft relies on calling up various powers, whether as all-encompassing as the Goddess or as minor as tree or river spirits. Wiccan holidays are times of heightened activity between the mortal and immortal realms. The presupposition is, of course, that these spirits will either be indifferent at worst or benign at best to the interests of mere mortals. Sabrina spoke to me once about her acute awareness of the local powers in nature, and how she felt constrained to revere them. The spiritual danger in such a compulsion is dire. There is a very good reason why God-fearing people have been forbidden to conjure up spirits since Old Testament times: their interests are most decidedly not indifferent or benign. When witches are led to believe otherwise, it is a further reminder that the devil is the father of all lies. It’s an easy conquest: Sabrina, like many witches, denies the existence of truth, too.

 

Irreconcilable Differences
A year passed. Sabrina and I had once been enthusiastic correspondents, treating our epistle-writing as a highly evolved art form, but our communication began to wane. Not deliberately, or at least we didn’t think it was deliberately. I was about to graduate from college, embroiled in the writing of a senior thesis; she was in college also, a long way off from me, and too busy to sustain our old intimacy. We assumed that when the next summer came and we were near each other again, we could just pick up where we left off.

 

Of course, it wasn’t really that simple. Even on the rare occasions that we did scrounge up the cash to indulge in a chat on the phone, I sensed again something strange about her — or at least stranger than before. We seemed to be talking at cross purposes, not really connecting. There were lots of easy explanations for that, though — the long separation, bad moods, school stress. I put the witchcraft thing out of my head, wistfully hoping it was just a passing phase.

 

It’s much easier to see now the source of our increasing personal distance. Christianity and paganism cultivate very different sorts of virtues. The latter emphasizes power: ritual is a flexing of spiritual mastery that thrives on secrecy, itself a potent kind of power. Magic spells are a means manipulating the natural world — there’s no such thing as “unnatural” in Wicca — using body and mind as a channel to control natural powers. But the lust for power spills over into the daily life of witches, well beyond the moonlit meetings for magic. Sabrina described to me once the difficulties she was having concealing her witchliness from her boyfriend. She was going away for a weekend with another witch, and she told him, coyly, that they would be doing some “stuff.” What “stuff”? inquired the naturally suspicious boyfriend. She eluded the answer, and then agonized over what to tell him. It was perfectly clear, though, that the real thrill was not in any of the “stuff” she was planning on doing, but on having such a stupendous secret to withhold or bestow as she pleased.

 

Christian spiritual values are quite the opposite. Christianity is the story of giving up power again and again in obedience to the all-powerful God, who in turn gave up His power in the ultimate humiliation of weakness on the cross. The disparity between Christianity and paganism in this respect could hardly be greater. Sabrina unwittingly drove the point home to me once when she thanked me again for the silver St. Brigid’s cross I brought her from a trip to Ireland. “I believe the Goddess was using you a bit,” she said. “It’s one of the most powerful talismans I’ve ever seen.” I could barely contain my fury; in fact, I felt positively violent. I wanted desperately to rip it right from the chain that hung around her neck. Nothing could be more offensive to me than her perversion of the cross on which my Savior died for the sake of her pagan power-play.

 

Witch Came First
That year of bare-bones friendship was the beginning of the end. The real end began rather innocently: we had some miscommunications via email (a medium that makes it notoriously difficult to convey the exact nuances of expression without resorting to endless smiley faces) and needed to clear the air. That was easily accomplished; they really were just silly misunderstandings. But in the process of patching things up, I inquired if this was not at root a matter of our increasingly great “religious” differences.

 

“Sarah,” she bluntly told me, “I have tried and I cannot be anything but a pagan.” I rather doubt she really tried. In any event, she was very pleased with her new identity as a witch. It had been a process of enormous self-discovery, and she had been very sorry not to include me in it. But now that we were being honest about these things, she hoped I would take a look at her new world. Even if I didn’t agree with it, I could at least recognize the beneficial change it wrought in her. Instead, I spent the weekend wondering whether I should be angrier at her for making that awful choice, or at God for not calling her more irresistibly to be a Christian.

 

I knew already that our friendship was over. But it is vitally important to understand just why it was over. It was never a matter of hating her, or damning her, or even thinking that two people with different religious commitments couldn’t be friends. I would have lost the certainty that she could offer me good advice when I was in a crisis, but that was a fairly minor aspect of our friendship. No, it came down to a direct challenge to my faith: she wanted me either to roundly condemn her to the fire and brimstone and try to burn her at the stake (which would prove that Christians are intolerant bigots), or to fully affirm her chosen religion as a totally legitimate, true and morally compelling option (which would concede that Wicca is not idolatry).

 

Naturally, I had no intention of persecuting her; quite aside from that being a decidedly un-Christian thing to do, I loved her too much to want to hurt her, and I still pray for her eventual conversion. Persecution can never accomplish that. But supporting her was equally impossible. She was willfully stumbling into the hands of powers who had slyly persuaded her that she was still in control. As her best friend, I couldn’t endorse that, no matter how much it meant to her or how good her own intentions were. Even when witches band together wanting nothing more than a loving spiritual support group, it doesn’t change the ugly facts of reality.

 

We debated these matters back and forth and got nowhere. She tried to beg off by insisting that she still did believe in the Holy Trinity and Jesus the redeeming Son of God. (How this fits in with her proclamation that she could be nothing but a pagan is beyond me; but then, postmodern witches can reject reason quite as easily as revelation.) A classic theological distinction came to mind: the distinction between the mere assent that even demons have, and the faith which puts complete trust in the love of God. Sabrina might have sense enough to believe that the God of Christians exists, but she wouldn’t worship Him herself. That would require too much humility.

 

There was one other matter: if she really was coming into contact with superhuman forces, the consequences could only be disastrous. I couldn’t drag her out of a dangerous situation, but I had the responsibility to keep myself away from it. My fondness for her personally was completely clouded over by my recoiling horror at the situation she had put herself in. I was willing to accept any consequences, as long as I had no traffic with these pretenders to godly power. The tragedy was that she had become the point of contact between them and me.

 

My prediction was right: our friendship went down in flames. She openly scorned my vocation to theology and accused me of deeming her unworthy of my love. The friend I once knew was gone, and I didn’t recognize the replacement. The new Sabrina was a monument to spiritual blindness.

 

The whole dreadful experience was not without its spiritual repercussions for me as well. I was forced to turn my heart inside out and examine my motives. It wouldn’t do for me to lose my dearest friend out of some deep-seated desire to be a martyr. And every time I declared the sole truth of the Gospel against the lies of idolatry, I had to fight off my own demons of pharisaism. I constantly feared that my presentation of the divine word of love would be unloving — and drive her even further away from it.

 

All these flaws were present in me to some extent; for all my good intentions, I’m still a sinner in need of gracious correction. Finally, though, I was granted the peace of heart — if not mind — to know that this was a sacrifice required of me, and, however reluctantly, I gave it up to God. We can never choose our own crosses, after all, and the crosses that are presented to us are usually the ones we want least to carry. I couldn’t have managed it without the love of Christ guiding me through it. But ultimately it was a choice of the ultimate thing in my life: was I going to value friendship above all else, or my God? The seductive notions of tolerance that float around our American culture want us to think that staying on good terms with everybody is the most important thing in the world. There’s a grain of truth in that. Our relationships are of extraordinary, even cosmic, importance in our lives. But they can never take priority over the baptismal commitment to our Lord and Savior. At some point, even friendships fail; but God in heaven never does.

 

 

 

Copyright © 2001 Sarah E. Hinlicky. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
Sarah E. Hinlickyis completing her M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary and is a frequent contributor to Boundless.

 

 

The complete text of this article is available at http://www.boundless.org/2001/features/a0000503.html

 

posted by: Jrobbins at 14:44 | link | comments (1) |
witch path would you choose

The Challenge: Radical Faith

Don't be Afraid to be a Renegade

Written by Whitney Hopler

 

 

 

The following is a report on the practical applications of David Foster's new book, A Renegade’s Guide to God: Finding Life Outside Conventional Christianity, (Warner Faith, 2006).

 

 

 

 

Jesus never meant for you to be crushed under the weight of rigid rules and self-righteous religious agendas. You can still love Him with deep conviction if you break free and start living as a renegade for God – someone who rejects conventional religion yet embraces faith with a passion.

 

So go ahead and trade religion for real life in Jesus.  Here’s how:

 

 

 

* Understand that God loves you as you are, not as you ought to be. Stop futile efforts to earn God’s love and accept the fact that there’s absolutely nothing you can do to make Him love you any more or less. Know that He loves you deeply and unconditionally right now.

 

 

 

* Seek transformation instead of just a moral makeover. Recognize that God doesn’t want you simply to change your morals for the better; He wants you to give Him your whole heart so He can transform you into a different person. Know that real faith transcends just adopting a certain lifestyle, joining a certain denomination, or espousing certain political views. Understand that true and lasting change is internal, not external.

 

 

 

* Get rid of shame. Don’t allow people to pile shame on you for past sins with which you’ve already dealt properly. Have confidence that, if you respond to guilt in a healthy way by confessing and repenting, you can count on God’s forgiveness. Remember that once God forgives you, you are free. Accept His forgiveness and move on with your life in peace.

 

 

 

* Stand out rather than fitting in. Understand that God’s goal isn’t for you to just be compliant and fit into a bland and boring group of nice people. Celebrate the unique person God created you to be, and don’t be afraid of standing out in a crowd. Reject labels from people who don’t know you well, and let people get to know you. Embrace God’s purposes for your life, and don’t settle for anything less. Use the distinctive talents He has given you to contribute to the world in ways that only you can. Overcome apathy and don’t waste the time you have. Pursue significance, putting your faith in action to make the world a better place because you lived. Discover true fulfillment by investing your life in what matters most.

 

 

 

* Dream big. Be bold about asking God what His dreams are for you; you will likely find that many of them are beyond what you’ve been dreaming for yourself. Then have the courage to embrace those dreams. Don’t let negative people discourage you from pursuing big dreams. Be willing to take whatever risks are necessary to follow God’s dreams for you, trusting that He will provide all you need along the way. Don’t be one of those people who looks back in regret for not having tried; give your best to pursuing your dreams, and look forward to them coming true.

 

 

 

* Have fun. Know that it’s not wrong to want to have fun. Remember that God wants you to be filled with joy.

 

 

 

* Trade safety for adventure. Recognize that true faith isn’t about safety from the challenges of our fallen world; it’s about engaging that world in redemptive ways. Abandon the false notion of Jesus as some kind of sweet, safe figure who makes you feel warm and fuzzy. Understand that He is the all-powerful God of the universe, and a relationship with Him will cost you everything, but be worth everything. Ask Him to give you the courage you need to live the adventurous life He wants for you. Be willing to take whatever risks you need to take and make whatever sacrifices you need to make to follow where He leads. Know that doing so will change you in profound ways.

 

 

 

* Seek conversion. Don’t settle for religion that doesn’t truly change you. Instead, confront the truth of your sins, express genuine remorse for them, take responsibility, repent, and receive God’s forgiveness and transformation.

 

 

 

* Give it your all. Understand that life with God is much more than simply going to church once a week; it involves a constant, growing connection to Him. Live your faith on Monday through Saturday just as much as you do on Sunday. Give your mind, body, and spirit completely over to something bigger than yourself – the Gospel. Let Jesus change your thoughts and behavior so His love is reflected in all aspects of your life – at home, at work, at play, at rest, and everywhere else. Get to know God’s heart, trust His love, and follow His lead. Ask Jesus to help you show the world you’re His disciple by demonstrating love, honesty, trust, freedom, joy, generosity, humility, and a hunger for Him.

 

 

 

* Be authentic. Don’t worry about projecting a certain image to others. Don’t cave into pressure to pretend to be someone you’re not. Realize that God is much more concerned about your true heart than about your appearance. Ask God to help you discover who He created you to be and to give you the confidence to be yourself with other people.

 

 

 

* Recognize that it’s all about love. Understand that no amount of good works you do will count for anything unless there’s love behind them. Remember that what matters most is simple: loving God and others. Make it a priority to let God’s love flow through you every day, in practical ways that bless other people.

 

 

 

* Distinguish Jesus from Christianity. Remember that real faith isn’t about a religious system; it’s about a relationship. Keep your focus on Jesus. Rather than just trying to get people to join a church, help them encounter Jesus and connect to Him above all.

 

 

 

* Know the reasons behind what you believe. Don’t just buy into faith simply because your parents did or because you want to fit in or please others. Seriously think about what you personally believe, and why. Be able to tell others why you’ve chosen faith.

 

 

 

* Trust. Realize that trusting Jesus is the key that unlocks all the treasures of heaven here on Earth. Understand that even when you don’t understand a situation or can’t predict its outcome, you can rely on the fact that you do know Jesus and trust that He will act according to what’s best for you. Remember that nothing is impossible for you if you call God on His promises and attempt whatever He leads you undertake.

 

 

 

* Embrace freedom. Watch out for people who claim to know it all and charlatans and cheats who claim to speak for God. Remember that, when you’re in a strong relationship with Jesus, you’re free to think for yourself. Exercise your freedom from pressure to please others or to fit into their agenda.