Christian Witchcraft

     Whenever we hear the word “witchcraft” most of us are prone to conjure up images reminiscent of Harry Potter, or of Macbeth’s witches standing over their cauldron. It is a natural connection we draw, because our understanding of the word is shaped by our cultural paradigm. In most cases this wouldn’t matter because most discussions on the subject would be held in light of our mutual cultural understanding. If you and I have the same understanding of the word then there is little room for misunderstanding, aside from figuring out if we are speaking metaphorically or literally, when we call someone a witch. What happens, on the other hand, when we apply our preconceived mental picture to a usage of the word from centuries ago, such as biblical texts? The picture of witchcraft you and I hold is based on a concept developed in Middle Ages Europe, centuries after the Bible was written. Our association would be meaningless to the people who wrote and received the teachings of the Bible. So the question becomes, what do we do with biblical teaching about witchcraft? Do we ignore the original meaning and intent of the authors, and superimpose our own ideas, or do we seek to understand the original intent and then prayerfully seek wisdom on how to contextualize those passages for our modern times? I believe the answer is the second option.

            The Bible did not have in mind a Medieval European witch, or a young wizard with a scar on his forehead heading to Hogwarts, when it warned against witchcraft. It was specifically referring to Ancient Near Eastern Sorcery as it was practiced by the nations surrounding Israel. At this point, it might seem easy enough to assume that these passages hold no relevance anymore because the “witches” in question, along with their cultures, are long dead. So we might as well just ignore them, or go back to burning J.K. Rowling books, because they hold no relevance to modern beliefs, right? Unfortunately, the teachings and ideas the Bible took issue with are not a thing of the past, as we might assume. In fact, these beliefs have experienced a resurgence in our time, and are being taught by two very different groups. The first group which has recycled many of the tenets of Ancient Near Eastern Sorcery is the New Age community. The second group is actually made up of Christians! Specifically those within the Word of Faith community.

Before you start picking up stones to throw at me, hear me out. First off, I am not calling people who believe Word of Faith theology witches, or trying to say they are bad evil people, or that we should break out the old Salem pyres for them. Many Word of Faith people are amazing men and women who truly love God and want to serve Him with all of their hearts. Some of the people who have had the most profound impact on my Christian walk and encouraged me to live whole-heartedly for God, are avid Word of Faith proponents. I am in no way seeking to belittle or condemn people who hold these beliefs. I will, however, attempt to demonstrate that several of the fundamental teachings of the movement hold a closer resemblance to Ancient Near Eastern Sorcery than to sound biblical teaching, and explain how these ideas initially began to be incorporated into Christianity. I should also disclose that I am, myself, a charismatic/Pentecostal leaning Christian. I believe in the gifts of the Spirit and I have personally witnessed miracles by God. Both my personal experience and the testimonies of Scripture and Christian history make it impossible for me to not fall into the charismatic camp to some degree. In other words, I am not seeking herein to discredit the ideas of believer’s authority or God’s working of miracles. I am instead addressing the fact that we charismatics often tend to hold to really bad theological foundations seeking to support and explain what our experience leads us to believe. 

I should also briefly share why I feel I am qualified to even be discussing this. There are certain ministers out there, who are great men of God who know the Scripture far better than me, who sometimes write books and go on crusades against all Charismatic/Pentecostal/Word of Faith believers and their teachings. The only problem is that, though they have a masterful grasp of theology and the Bible, they honestly don’t know much at all about the beliefs they are condemning. With this in mind, let me briefly share a few reasons that I believe I can speak knowledgably on the subject. My knowledge on the New Age Movement and the pagan elements of Ancient Near Eastern sorcery are based on the fact that I spent many years, before getting saved, in the New Age Movement. I spent hours in New Age book stores, and reading New Age books, while I sought for spiritual truth that I didn’t think was found in Christianity. This initial personal knowledge has been built upon over the years, especially in the realm of Ancient Near Eastern beliefs, as I have studied the cultures which the biblical authors encountered and lived in. As for the Word of Faith movement, I was also a part of it myself for quite a while. I even attended RHEMA Bible Training Center, which was considered by many to be the flagship training institution for Word of Faith ministers. I even sat in the classroom under Kenneth Hagan Sr. whom many Word of Faith ministers consider their father in the faith. I have read hundreds of Word of Faith books and spent several hours a day for several years listening to Word of Faith sermons. I am not speaking of these movements as someone who has merely glanced at them from a distance, or even as someone who simply attends a Word of Faith Church and hears a weekly sermon from the pulpit, but as someone who was a part of both movements and diligently and radically pursued their teaching, and was trained to be a minster in their own flagship Bible College.

Perhaps the best place to begin is with a brief overview of how elements of Ancient Near Eastern Sorcery found their way into Christianity in the first place. As with almost every form of heresy throughout church history, it likely was not introduced with malicious intent to mislead and deceive the faithful. It was, rather, the result of well-intentioned men seeking to understand spiritual and theological issues in light of their experience and personal surroundings. Most heresy is merely a wrong or insufficient answer to a sincere question. These particular beliefs were largely introduced through the writings and ministry of a man named E. W. Kenyon. Kenyon was highly involved in the New Age movement before he was saved, and when he began to seek to understand Christian spiritual truths, he did so through the existing paradigm of New Age thought. Ultimately he ended up superimposing New Age ideas with Christianity and “Christianizing” them by changing out key terms with more Christian sounding terms like “faith” or “confession”. The result was a hybrid of classical theological terms being used to express new ideas, or rather very old pagan ideas which were new to Christian thought. Kenyon’s teachings became popular among certain ministers, such as Kenneth Hagan, Charles Capps, and Oral Roberts and over the years they built upon the foundation Kenyon had laid. As the years have rolled on these doctrines have been reinforced through a system of biblical interpretation that ignores important hermeneutical principles such as the importance of interpreting the scripture in context. Verses are plucked out of their context and held out alone, or coupled with other verses out of context, in order to give a façade of biblical support. For the sake of pseudo-brevity I will move on from this highly abbreviated history and transition into discussing three pillar tenets of Ancient Near Eastern Sorcery and how the doctrines of the Word of Faith mirror them.

One of the major sources of power for an ANE (Ancient Near Eastern) Sorcerer was the belief in a creative force which was found in all of creation. This force is what gave substance to the world and held it all together. The sorcerer could harness this creative force inside of them and release its power, through the use of ritual or spoken words, in order to create or bring about what they willed. Similarly, Word of Faith ministers teach that all believers have a creative force inside of them, which they call “faith”, and that we release the creative power of this “faith” through our spoken words. Whatever we speak and confess we create by the power of our faith. This is why, if they hear you saying negative things, they may tell you to “stop speaking those things over your life” because they believe that your words release that creative force which comes from the “faith” inside of you. It is often even taught that not only Christians have this creative force within them, but that all people possess this creative force because we are all made in God’s image. As can be seen with my example above about speaking things over your life, this creative exercise is not truly subject to God’s will, or even necessarily His direct involvement, but is entirely contingent on what you speak and create with the “faith” that is inside of you. Otherwise it would be impossible to speak anything into existence that was not God’s will. This concept of “faith” diverges greatly from the traditional and biblical concept of faith which is always rooted in the person of God and our trust and dependence upon Him. Faith is one of the most powerful forces in existence, but it is not a creative energy within us that turns us into semi-autonomous “little gods”. It is rather a trust in God which binds us together with Him in a relational manner and trusts in His faithfulness completely.

            A second, but closely related, tenet of ANE sorcery was the belief that the world was governed by natural spiritual laws. The ANE sorcerer was one who knew those laws and were able to manipulate them as a source of their power. These particular powers were not necessarily the result of any “divine or demonic act”, they were merely the recognition and manipulation of laws which were immutable. Likewise, Word of Faith teaching is built largely upon this same foundational premise. One of the most obvious manifestations, in Word of Faith theology, is in the principle of “seed faith”, though it is highly evident throughout the entire theological system. Much of the teaching of Word of Faith ministers revolves around the idea of working “God’s laws” in order to produce the desired results. The only real difference between ANE sorcery and the Word of Faith on this point is that Word of Faith ministers say the laws were established by the God of Christianity, while ANE sorcerers believed they were established by different gods or were just part of nature. In both cases the results rest, not upon dependency to God or even relationship with God, but upon the knowledge and manipulation of the natural/spiritual laws. It is certainly true that there are laws of nature and that God has established moral and spiritual laws, but they do not work the way either of the above groups teach. It should also be noted that Christianity is not based on approaching God through a legal system of manipulating spiritual laws. Christianity is not a religion of legalism, but is entirely based upon relationship. God is the sovereign maker of laws, but He is not bound by them in such a way that He is obligated to do anything just because we worked the system correctly. We are never to approach God, through Jesus, on the basis of the law.

            A third path to power in ANE sorcery was rooted in the power of a name. It was believed that if you could learn the name of a god, or spirit, or being of power, that you could invoke that name in order to move the named one to do whatever it is that you are invoking its name to accomplish. In essence, knowledge of a true name gave the practitioner a claim on the power of the being they named. We see this in the Word of Faith movement in their doctrines concerning the name of Jesus. They interpret the phrase “In Jesus name” overly literally and treat the name itself like it is some sort of magic word which releases God’s power over a situation. By not understanding the meaning of the ancient idiom of things being done “in the name of ______” they have left behind a solid Christian interpretation and ventured into a New Age influenced interpretation that is almost identical to ANE sorcery. What the phrase actually means is to do something in the character and nature of the one named, exactly how they would have done it themselves if they were there. It is a representative phrase, as opposed to an incantation.

            There are other points of convergence between the Word of Faith and Ancient Near Eastern sorcery, but these are three of the most prominent ones. Nothing in what I have written is meant to belittle the power of Faith or to undermine a belief that God moves powerfully and miraculously in the lives of believers today. God is still alive and active in the world and He still moves powerfully on the Earth through His people, as well as sovereignly by His Spirit. What we are in need of, is a theology that embraces the reality of God’s power and a believer’s authority, without crossing the line into Christian witchcraft or exalting men unduly and robbing God of glory that is rightfully His alone. Many of the doctrines of the Word of Faith tread dangerously close to idolatry in that they attribute to man that which belongs only to God. Rather than focusing on a relational foundation of faith that places all power and sovereignty in the hands of God who goes with us and works through us, it elevates man to the level of being “little gods” exercising autonomous creative power through the manipulation of spiritual laws and their own creative force of faith.