Where else would we get the understanding of our God?
Discovering Christian Witchcraft updates:
Got a solid 2K words in Monday, and we're back at our regular writing schedule! I'd taken March off to finish the 10 Week Christian Witch Intro course, which is now open and available for you to check out. The book work continues steadily now, with us tunneling through more Bible verses people often throw at you when trying to discredit your path.
Looking to get this chapter done this week, and then it's on to the next: a chapter about why Christian witchcraft would even be something you'd want to do. Given that I'm reading a book called Jesus and John Wayne this month, I'm sure I'll have plenty of reasons to talk about.
But let's get into today's blog, now!
"Christian witch? You need to read your Bible!"
I can't explain how funny this comment is.
Something that has always confused me (and amused me) is when Christians tell me, a Christian witch, to "read the Bible" or "come back to Jesus." As if I don't have a picture of Jesus right on my altar, or three very fat tomes full of the canonical Scripture (and many secondary, scholarly books about said Scripture). They quote Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Samuel, Galatians, Corinthians, and Revelation to me as if I haven't read these verses.
As if I haven't at the very least had the capacity to plug them into Google and get a quick glance.
And one thing that always struck me as exceptionally funny is that, while many Christians will tell me that the only thing I need to understand Scripture is the guidance of the Holy Spirit... they won't accept the way in which the Holy Spirit guides me. Because I can take a glance at Revelation 18:23 and know that this verse had nothing to do with actual magic, even if it mentions sorceries.
I know there's more to it than that. Even in the context it's written, I understand the subtext: it's not about magic, but fraudulent, deceiving practices designed to con people. But too many folks get tripped up by that word there, sorcery—they take it too literally.
So, do Christian witches read the Bible? Of course. But why do they read it, and how do they understand it?
THE BIBLE AS A BLEND OF MYTH AND HISTORY
I think the first thing that screws with people's heads, if they've been raised the mainstream way, is considering that the Bible is not literal. It's a blend of myth and history, much the same way any other religion's base texts are. We read them because they give us a sense of history, letting us know the story of how the religion originated (say, with Abraham) and the many battles and political struggles that occurred over many centuries, as well as the political climate around the time of Jesus and the way it shaped the thoughts of great writers like St. Paul. But even if there are historical accounts, we understand that there is a good helping of mythos embedded in their too, just as there was with, say, the Trojan War.
I mean, it goes without saying that we understand that a person could not possibly, actually, physically birth a child via a literally splitting headache, like Zeus bore Athena. (At least, I hope not, else any headaches I have in the future will make me more anxious, and thus make the headache worse.)
What I find interesting, though, is that there is a long history of Jewish and Christian people alike battling with theological concepts, including whether or not the Bible can actually be taken literally. Maybe the Garden of Eden is a real place that exists physically somewhere? Jewish scholars and mystics throughout the ages have considered this. They've also considered that maybe it's an allegory about a certain quality of the soul (as the Tree of Life and Knowledge are fundamental pieces of both Jewish Kabbalistic, and later, general occultist Qliphotic ideas of enlightenment). Others, like Rabbi Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, have said that maybe it's even a real place, but one that isn't literal: a spiritual plane that people once had access to before the whole Apple Debacle.
And is Jesus literally the Son of God, or just a very powerful prophet? Is He fully man and fully human, or half and half, or actually fully divine (i.e basically just God in a flesh-suit)? These debates raged in the first couple centuries of Christianity's rise, with church fathers bitterly debating about it (and Roman polytheist critiques twisting their knives deeper in the wound by insisting that Jesus was just a very pious man, or worse, that He was neither Son of God nor incredible prophet, but just some hack magician that picked up some cool tricks in Egypt).
The point is that there's no real consensus as to whether or not the Bible, or anything theologically important in it, means any one thing. While most official stances posit that the Bible is the "sacred Word of God," that doesn't mean that God meant every single thing to be taken super literally. True can be true literally, or it can be true figuratively, too, showing the way to spiritual and philosophical truths that need parables and stories to understand.
No matter what, though, revealing these truths at all and the way people of the Bible perceive them tells a Christian witch something about the character of the God they worship, which really, is the main reason anyone of any religion would want to read their holy texts: to know who it is they're really worshipping.
THE BIBLE AS A WAY TO LEARN THE CHARACTER OF GOD
Is God compassionate or wrathful? Is He forgiving or jealous? Is He all-knowing or not?
These are the things a witch would generally want to know about any deity they set out to worship or work with, and it's no different for a Christian witch. By reading the Bible, we come to understand God as the complex, nuanced, and many-layered being that He is. We can be comforted knowing that God, while demanding a certain code of conduct for the sake of a functional and not-totally-messy society, is one who sticks to that code and applies it across peoples for their benefit, as per Deuteronomy 10:17-18:
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.
And yes, He is compassionate, but that compassion can show itself in His wrath, in mighty, brutal punishment against the wicked—not just feel-good words and fuzzy rays of sunshine. For example, in Exodus 22:23-24:
If you do mistreat [the foreigner, widow, fatherless], and they cry out to Me in distress, I will surely hear their cry. My anger will be kindled, and I will kill you with the sword; then your wives will become widows and your children will be fatherless.
(And this is an excellent reminder to people who follow God: not only are we not exempt from His wrath, but we're the ones first in line to feel it, because we should know better than to mistreat vulnerable people in our communities, which is exactly what this verse warns against.)
Of course, there are also comforting verses about God's character, too. For a worrywart like myself, it's nice to know that Jesus would huff and look at me sideways for it, just like He did in Matthew 6:25-34 to all those who worried:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
God: He's tough, He's strict, He knows what He wants—but He's also gentle and kind and comforting when He knows we're too tired to carry on. That's good to know for us Christian witches, and that's why we read this gigantic epic that spans thousands of years.
THE BIBLE AS A BLUEPRINT AND TEMPLATE FOR SPELLWORK
Lastly, the Bible is a fantastic spellbook.
I know somewhere, someone reading this just gasped out loud and clutched their pearls and had a whole moment about using the Bible in witchcraft! But seriously, have you ever picked up the Book of Psalms? That stuff is a goldmine of magical power, given how many topics it covers (like health, fortune, etc.). And if a Christian witch has anyone making their life miserable, well... Psalm 109 is essentially spiritual napalm.
Add to that the many wonderful notes in the Gospel, about not worrying, about being at peace, about being youthful at heart, and you have yet more fodder for any number of spells you could ever want. Hell, I used John 14:27 to create an amulet that would help me remember to be more peaceful and gentle in my day to day life:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
The use of Bible verses as spells covers a wide range of spiritual traditions, including Afro-Caribbean traditions like Hoodoo, which originated among the many victims of slavery that were brought to the Americas. Going further back in time, too, you see how easily witchy practices are embedded in the fabric of many people's Catholic faith via Catholic folk magic. Benedicaria, or Italian folk magic, especially combines Catholic Saints, Bible verses and special days like Ash Wednesday, and pre-Christian folk traditions into one melting pot of holy magic.
Combine that with the sheer power the Word of God has (as we can see in the pieces of Qu'ran tucked into Islamic amulets or hand-written pieces of Scripture slipped into Jewish home protections like the Mezuzah), and you've honestly got some weapons-grade magic.
So of course, of course, a Christian witch reads their Bible. That's how they learn about the history and context of their faith, that's how they learn about the character of their God, and that's how they get some kickass fuel for their spells.
Sara Raztresen is a Slovene-American writer, screenwriter, and Christian witch. Her fantasy works draw heavily on the wisdom she gathers from her own personal and spiritual experience, and her spiritual practice borrows much of the whimsy and wonder that modern society has relegated to fairy-and-folktale. Her goal is to help people regain their spiritual footing and discover God through a new (yet old) lens of mysticism.
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