Today witchcraft, wicca, the occult, spiritism, neopaganism, and various New Age beliefs and practices seem to be everywhere. While Christianity is in decline in the West, these other counterfeit spiritualities are on the increase. What should Christians make of all this? Here I will offer what Scripture says, and in future articles I will further explore this in various ways.

A recent headline caught my attention: “Scotland may pardon thousands of ‘witches’ it executed hundreds of years ago.” The article went on to say this: “Attorney Claire Mitchell leads activist group Witches of Scotland, which wants to have the names of the convicted legally cleared, a written apology letter from the government and a monument established in their memory.” nypost.com/2022/01/07/scotland-may-pardon-thousands-of-witches-it-executed-hundreds-of-years-ago/
This made me think of the famous line by C. S. Lewis in his preface to The Screwtape Letters: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”
If in times past some folks were overly concerned by such things, today most folks are too little concerned – or worse yet, they actually celebrate and promote such things. The Scottish situation (which the church is expected to go along with) is a case in point.
As to the issue of witchcraft trials (both in Europe and America), I have already penned a piece trying to provide some context and background to the situation. You can find that article here: billmuehlenberg.com/2015/01/19/on-the-witchcraft-trials/
Today witchcraft, wicca, the occult, spiritism, neopaganism, and various New Age beliefs and practices seem to be everywhere. While Christianity is in decline in the West, these other counterfeit spiritualities are on the increase. What should Christians make of all this? Here I will offer what Scripture says, and in future articles I will further explore this in various ways.
The Bible of course clearly condemns all of these activities, be it witchcraft, divination, necromancy, astrology, fortune-telling, spiritism, communicating with the dead, and so on. Here are just some of the passages that can be appealed to:
Exodus 22:18 You shall not permit a sorceress to live.
Leviticus 19:26, 31 You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying…. Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 20:6, 27 And the person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute himself with them, I will set My face against that person and cut him off from his people…. A man or a woman who is a medium, or who has familiar spirits, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them.
Deuteronomy 18:9-12 When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.
1 Samuel 15:23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. NKJV
2 Kings 21:5-7 And he [Manasseh] built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. Also he made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.
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At the end of the second chapter of 2 Kings we read the shocking climax of the vicious she-bears. As he retraces his steps, Elisha passes through Bethel, the notorious center of false worship in Israel. At that moment, some “small boys came out of the city and jeered at him.” This is not a couple of bored children using inappropriate language to an adult—there are at least forty-two of them. The word for “small boys” can equally mean “youth,” which in the context seems to make much more sense. In all likelihood, this is not a few unruly children being disrespectful to an adult; this is a mob of hostile youths. 

23He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” 24And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two shebears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. 25From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.
A Shocking Incident
At the end of the second chapter of 2 Kings we read the shocking climax of the vicious she-bears. As he retraces his steps, Elisha passes through Bethel, the notorious center of false worship in Israel. At that moment, some “small boys came out of the city and jeered at him.” This is not a couple of bored children using inappropriate language to an adult—there are at least forty-two of them. The word for “small boys” can equally mean “youth,” which in the context seems to make much more sense. In all likelihood, this is not a few unruly children being disrespectful to an adult; this is a mob of hostile youths. This hostility is also reflected in their abuse. “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” is an interesting choice of language. This is not innocent teasing of a follicle-challenged stranger—for a start, Elisha’s head would have been covered, so this is a deliberate, targeted insult.
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Written by Jonathan L. Master |
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Over the last ten years, PCA members made several overtures designed to initiate the withdrawal of the PCA from the NAE. Each time these overtures were voted down. In this case, although it was clear that many within the denomination’s administration favored maintaining membership in the NAE … the vote from the floor was not close. The will of the body was clear.

The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) was founded in 1973. At that time, its identification with the evangelical movement was so strong that its members, when deciding on the name for the fledgling denomination, briefly considered calling it the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The PCA’s connection to evangelicalism was also signified by its membership in the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which it joined in 1974. That membership ended last month, when the PCA voted at its annual General Assembly to leave the NAE.
The NAE is an activist organization based in Washington, D.C. It seeks to speak and lobby for its constituents in the broader culture and within the political machinery of our nation’s capitol. The NAE describes its history this way: “The National Association of Evangelicals was founded in 1942 as a fresh voice for biblical, Christ-centered faith that was meant to be a ‘middle way’ between the fundamentalist American Council of Christian Churches and the progressive Federal Council of Churches.” Today, many denominations and networks belong to the NAE, including the Evangelical Free Church, the Salvation Army, the Free Methodist Church USA, and the Wesleyan Church.
The middle way is hard to maintain. While most of the public positions of the NAE have broad, perhaps universal, support among PCA churches, some are more contested. This was a concern for some at the General Assembly. Much of the commentary since the withdrawal has centered on the “Fairness for All” legislation that the NAE supported. This legislation, in attempting a compromise, would in fact enshrine the reigning ideology of gender and sexuality into law, while offering few religious protections. This issue no doubt lurked in the background, and it played a slight role in the public debate on the assembly floor.
The public arguments for leaving the NAE also had little to do with the term “evangelical” itself or with its historical precedents. The concerns were broad, relating to the freedom of conscience given to individual Christians and congregations on matters of policy about which the Scriptures and our confession do not speak clearly. While many issues of public ethics are clear and therefore binding, and others about which the denomination has made public statements, there are many other political issues about which there has historically been wide diversity in the Christian church, and no clear consensus in our ecclesiastical or denominational tradition. The NAE, however, speaks loudly on many contested issues: creativity and the arts, gun violence, COVID, foster care, international poverty, and voting, to name just a few. Those arguing for separating made allusions to NAE support for bipartisan immigration reform and the strengthening of nuclear treaties.
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