Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 216 ｜ The Rise of Millennial Witches

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. So for

00:00:06.320 those of you who have missed Theology Mondays, you are in luck today. We are going to be talking

00:00:12.180 about two things that have happened, one cultural trend, and then one thing that a very famous

00:00:18.080 atheist said, and we are going to see what the Bible has to say about these things, what truth

00:00:23.480 has to say about these things, and to analyze how we should take a look at these two phenomenon from

00:00:31.740 a phenomenon, I think that is the plural form of that, from a Christian perspective, and we're not

00:00:39.200 talking about the primary today. You might be wondering how can you skip on something so big

00:00:44.600 that just happened. The reason that we're not talking about the Nevada caucus, or Nevada caucus,

00:00:49.460 one of you from Nevada messaged me and said that I said Nevada, and that was the wrong way to say it.

00:00:54.100 So the Nevada caucus is because I'm actually recording this the week before. So as I'm

00:01:00.180 recording this, I don't actually know the results. So I don't, I'm not a prophetess. And so I don't have

00:01:07.280 the ability to be able to guess what is going to happen then. But on Wednesday, we will talk about

00:01:13.720 that. We will break that down and all that good stuff. But for today, we are going to look at one

00:01:18.960 central theme. And that is the effect and the inherent nonsensical nature of godlessness. Okay,

00:01:26.040 let's get into all this. So I want to talk about something that Richard Dawkins, he is a very famous

00:01:33.000 atheist, something that he said on Twitter that caused a lot of uproar, not just from Christians,

00:01:41.800 not just from conservatives, but from people all across the spectrum. And we'll talk about why.

00:01:47.420 So he said, it's one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral grounds. It's

00:01:53.700 quite another to conclude that it wouldn't work in practice. Okay, of course it would. It works for

00:01:59.460 cows, horses, pigs, dogs, and roses. Why on earth wouldn't it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology.

00:02:07.100 So people freaked out about this. Now I will say it has a 25,500 likes and 4,000 retweets. So there were

00:02:16.140 some people who thought that, Hey, this is a really good idea. I'm so glad that Richard Dawkins

00:02:20.500 brought this up, but they did get ratioed. It got a ton of replies from people saying,

00:02:25.980 why would you say this? What was the point of saying this? This is totally just something that

00:02:30.420 we didn't need to see today was one tweet that I, that I saw. And of course I agree with that, but

00:02:35.480 I'm actually glad. I'm glad that he said this because he is saying the quiet parts out loud,

00:02:42.560 which is why wouldn't we, what's, what's wrong? Uh, he doesn't say this part and I'll get to this

00:02:48.240 in a minute, but really for the atheist, what is wrong with eugenics? So eugenics, the process

00:02:52.740 of basically breeding out any kind of imperfection. So breeding out any kind of disability, whether it

00:03:01.160 be autism, whether it be, uh, you know, down syndrome, uh, spina bifida, any of those things,

00:03:08.620 trying to create a perfect human race. So people could jump higher, could run faster, could be

00:03:15.000 smarter, whatever. Obviously this was endorsed, uh, by Nazi Germany to try to create a perfect

00:03:23.120 Aryan race. And so it doesn't really have the best history, but here we've got Richard Dawkins,

00:03:27.820 his gift to us on his Twitter was to say, you know, eugenics would probably work. Now when people

00:03:34.100 freaked out and the reason why people freaked out across the ideological spectrum is because

00:03:39.280 it doesn't matter what your political background is. Everyone knows someone with special needs.

00:03:43.700 Everyone knows someone who is imperfect because we're all imperfect in some way. And when you think

00:03:48.060 about some kind of higher government power, deciding who is most valuable, whether it's based on race,

00:03:54.900 whether it's based on sex, whether it's based on your IQ, uh, some kind of other cognitive ability,

00:04:01.820 your personality, whatever it is, if we get to the point to where you can even start to determine

00:04:06.380 all of that kind of stuff in the womb, um, is it possible to be able to cut out a portion of the

00:04:12.840 human race that doesn't fit this arbitrary standard of perfection that some kind of bureaucratic power,

00:04:18.780 uh, decides upon, uh, the reason why we freak out is because we all know someone, maybe even ourselves

00:04:25.960 that probably wouldn't fit into that arbitrarily def arbitrarily decided definition of perfection.

00:04:33.340 So people freaked out at him. People started replying and saying, you know, this is ableist.

00:04:38.500 This is bigoted. This could be racist. This could be sexist. Of course, all of this is true.

00:04:43.360 We've seen what the one China or one, the one child policy did, uh, in China, where you've had

00:04:49.540 thousands and thousands and thousands of aborted babies up until the point of nine months old.

00:04:54.780 That's not just, uh, you know, uh, hyperbolic, uh, scare tactic. That is true. You should watch

00:05:01.180 the documentary one child policy. I think it's on Amazon prime. It is extremely eyeopening. Uh,

00:05:08.200 so we've seen the effects of at least if it's not called eugenics, eugenic type thinking and eugenic type

00:05:15.680 policy, uh, people don't like that. Whether you are on the right or the left, whether you are a

00:05:20.680 Christian or you're an atheist, it kind of makes you feel icky because it is all of the things that

00:05:27.060 the left says that they don't like. It is condescension based on some inherent quality.

00:05:31.580 So the color of your skin, the type of ability that you have, uh, the sexual organs that you have

00:05:37.220 and the right doesn't like it for the most part, because we believe at least Christian conservatives

00:05:42.680 believe that human beings are made in the image of God. And therefore we are inherently valuable and

00:05:48.660 not just inherently valuable, but inherently more valuable than any other species. And so

00:05:54.100 we are against the idea of eugenics. We don't believe in some kind of perfect human race. We

00:06:00.520 don't believe that people are more valuable based on their capability, based on their talent, based on

00:06:05.420 their cognitive ability. We believe that someone who is, um, completely physically disabled and

00:06:12.800 totally mentally disabled, someone who needs help to do everything physically, mentally,

00:06:19.100 uh, is unable to emote. We believe that that person is inherently and infinitely more valuable

00:06:26.820 than the most capable, the winningest horse, uh, or any kind of animal that you find capable or majestic

00:06:35.880 or valuable. Any kind of human being, regardless of their capacity, regardless of their capability,

00:06:41.400 regardless of their accomplishments, the Christian believes is inherently and infinitely more valuable

00:06:47.700 than any other member of any other species. However, uh, if you are an atheist, although there are a lot

00:06:54.480 of atheists that say what Richard Dawkins says, you know, that's so gross. Why would you even say that?

00:06:59.900 I'm completely morally against this. Here's the thing. And here's the point that I want to make.

00:07:05.120 The atheist really has no reason morally to be against this. And Richard Dawkins, I think,

00:07:14.040 knows this, but he lives in this crazy, constant state of contradiction and paradoxes in his mind

00:07:20.980 where he pretends to be a moral person. He pretends that righteousness, objective righteousness

00:07:25.920 exists. He pretends that an objective good exists. And yet he, uh, denies the existence of a standard

00:07:33.340 bearer. He denies the existence of, uh, an objective moral arbiter. And yet he purports

00:07:39.900 that some kind of objective goodness and objective badness does exist. And we see that. So he was very

00:07:46.400 frustrated that people were ratioing him, that people were saying, why would you even say this?

00:07:50.200 And he said, for those determined to miss the point, I deplored the idea of eugenic policy.

00:07:54.220 I simply said, deploring it doesn't mean it wouldn't work. Just as we breed cows to yield more milk,

00:07:59.800 we could breed humans to run faster or jump higher, but heaven forbid that we do it.

00:08:04.740 So he is trying to back up and say, whoa, I'm not saying that we should do it. I'm saying that we

00:08:11.000 could do it, that we have the capability to do it, but I'm totally morally against it. First of all,

00:08:16.800 if that's true, why even bring it up? Like there, yes, sure. There are lots of things that people

00:08:21.940 could do, but we don't talk about it. And we don't say, uh, we don't say, Hey, just FYI,

00:08:28.240 everyone, this morally reprehensible thing is possible, but we shouldn't do it. Why even bring

00:08:33.220 it into the conversation? But he thought that this was a good enough thought, not just to consider

00:08:37.900 in his own mind, not just to say in private conversation, not to, uh, you know, I don't

00:08:43.520 know, talk about privately in some other way or write a article about, he actually thought that,

00:08:49.060 you know what, this is good enough to tweet and to go out there and to make sure that people

00:08:53.200 share and like, and see thousands of times. That's how highly he thought of this consideration that

00:08:59.520 he held in his mind. And then he realized that human beings, whether Richard Dawkins wants to

00:09:05.420 admit it or not, are all inherently moral because we are made in the image of God. And so whether or not

00:09:11.520 we deny objective morality, all of us as image bearers of God have this, uh, have this instinct in us

00:09:18.240 when something is wrong, when something is icky, when something we know is, uh, corrupt or depraved,

00:09:25.320 and we're not even sure why that speaks to the fact that we are made in God's image, that all of us

00:09:31.680 have an objective morality that is buried, uh, deep inside us that God gave us that when he realized

00:09:37.540 that, Oh yeah, people reacting this way because they don't like this because they have a higher view

00:09:42.520 of the human race than this, he backs up and he has, Oh no, no, no, I don't, I don't think that we

00:09:48.060 should do this. This is no, this is wrong. This is wrong. And here's the question. Why, why is it

00:09:54.780 wrong for Richard Dawkins, who is an atheist for any atheist that is mad at Richard Dawkins saying that

00:10:01.640 we should, uh, or that we could do eugenics? If he said we should do eugenics, why would any atheist

00:10:09.880 be mad at that? Uh, if you believe in evolution, like if you believe that we came from the big bang,

00:10:17.300 that that is, that we are just one grand cosmic accident. If you believe that human beings have

00:10:24.500 no inherent value outside of our capability. If you believe that we are no more important than any

00:10:30.460 other animal. In fact, we are just animals. Like if you don't believe that we have souls that give

00:10:35.280 us value, if you don't believe that we are made in the image of God, if you don't believe that there

00:10:39.280 is at least at the very least a higher power that is saying, this is the objective standard of right

00:10:45.580 and wrong, then why, why do you believe that eugenics is wrong? What, what would be wrong with it? If you

00:10:53.060 believe in survival of the fittest, then why not create a human race according to atheist thinking,

00:10:59.580 survival of the fittest thinking, why not create a human race, um, that has the best capabilities,

00:11:06.960 the largest capacity for success, the largest capacity for health? What is, what is wrong with

00:11:13.540 that? And then that just goes to the bigger question. What is morality? What is a should or

00:11:18.620 shouldn't? Because the fact of the matter is, um, in the atheist worldview, there is no objective

00:11:25.120 should or shouldn't beyond what you feel or beyond what advances the human race. According to the

00:11:32.120 atheistic thinking, everything that we feel, everything that exists, um, exists or everything

00:11:36.840 that we do, we do because it at one time helped our ancestors survive and carry on. Uh, if that is the

00:11:45.360 case, what to you is wrong with eugenics? Not even speaking about the fact that actually there's a lot of

00:11:52.020 studies that say eugenics wouldn't work with the human race because we're actually a lot more

00:11:56.040 complex than an ape or some other animal, but that's the question. What is a should, what is a

00:12:03.280 shouldn't? What is a moral right? What is a moral wrong? If you do not believe that there is a moral

00:12:09.380 arbiter, if you do not believe, as C.S. Lewis said in mere Christianity, a grand, a supreme moral

00:12:16.660 lawgiver. And it's funny because Richard Dawkins, obviously he famously denies the existence of God.

00:12:22.660 And then he goes on to say that it's wrong, that it's wrong that we shouldn't do eugenics with human

00:12:27.220 beings. Well, why? Why not? Why? If you are an atheist, why not? If you don't believe that there is, uh,

00:12:36.780 any inherent value in human beings beyond what they can do, what would be wrong with creating a perfect

00:12:42.520 human race? But atheists exist in this world of paradoxes that they cannot reconcile because they

00:12:49.740 are unwilling to say why they believe in a morality, why they believe in a right and wrong, why they

00:12:56.420 believe that there is any kind of objective standard of righteousness or goodness or decency. Uh, now they

00:13:03.480 do, they do believe in morals. They do have standards. As Richard Dawkins says, he does think that eugenic

00:13:08.820 policy is wrong, but he can't tell you why. Um, and that's the problem with, uh, a large portion of

00:13:15.660 the scientific community and even the technological community is that the capability to be able to do

00:13:21.740 something scientifically or technologically, uh, with technological innovation grants a lot of people

00:13:28.740 in that community, the license to actually do it. So it's never a question of, is this good for

00:13:35.440 people? Is this good for society, but can we do it? And if we can do it, then we will do it. Um,

00:13:43.440 and so I find Richard Dawkins's argument very weak. That's his argument that we can do it,

00:13:49.300 but we shouldn't do it on the basis of nothing except for feelings. I just don't find that very

00:13:55.120 compelling. I would love for Richard Dawkins to give a good argument for why morally it is wrong

00:14:02.500 to do what he is proposing. We can do and not use some kind of higher standard of morality that is

00:14:10.420 given by a higher standard bear, um, and not use that as the basis of his argument. It's just

00:14:17.160 impossible. Um, again, if you believe that the only standard of morality is what has ever advanced

00:14:24.640 humanity, starting with our ancestors to now, then you're going to have to answer that question.

00:14:30.260 And what's, what's the reason I actually had an atheist reach out to me not that long ago.

00:14:34.360 And he's like, he was like, you know, I am an atheist. I'm kind of an agnostic. And I've pondered

00:14:39.500 this question forever of where I get morality, why I believe some things are right. And some things

00:14:44.200 are wrong. And I don't know. I just kind of feel it to me that takes so much more faith. I mean,

00:14:51.040 atheists laugh at Christians all the time for having the belief in the things that we do,

00:14:56.540 or they laugh at anyone who believes in God and just says, Oh, that's, you know, I get this a lot.

00:15:02.140 Oh, just your sky daddy, which is just a funny phrase. Um, and you just believe in this fairy

00:15:08.800 tale tale book in this fiction. Well, you, your beliefs honestly take a lot more faith, um, than

00:15:17.700 mind you. Now, I don't know if that's objectively true, but it takes faith. It takes faith to believe

00:15:23.240 in the atheistic worldview that we're all just doing everything that we're doing for basic

00:15:28.780 survival and based on feeling. I don't believe that. I believe that we were all made in the

00:15:34.280 image of God. And therefore we've all got the same instinct for morality. And there's all,

00:15:39.060 all the same instinct, uh, against the things that God calls bad. Now we are sinful human beings. We are

00:15:45.940 fallen human beings. And so we resist that. And without Christ, we are dead in our sin. And so we don't

00:15:52.500 know which way is up. That's how you get someone like Richard Dawkins, uh, purporting this kind of

00:15:57.860 stuff and the other crazy things that he puts forward. Um, but I think that that is a much

00:16:04.340 more, uh, a much more formidable idea than the idea that we're just all kind of moving along by some

00:16:11.980 accidents and, uh, figuring out morality as we go. I think that's just a little, a little bit too

00:16:19.140 far-fetched for me, but this is the nature of godlessness. The nature of godlessness is

00:16:24.080 confusion. Thankfully, according to the Bible, Christians serve a God of peace, not a God of

00:16:31.240 confusion. And without God, you constantly see confusion. You constantly, you constantly see

00:16:37.440 contradictions. And we're going to talk about, uh, another contradiction that we see and another,

00:16:42.220 uh, symptom of godlessness in our society in just a second. Here's a trend that I've been wanting to

00:16:47.540 talk about for a long time. And that is the upward trend of witchcraft that is very prevalent among

00:16:55.300 young women. So you and I, all the young women that are listening to this podcast and I are, uh,

00:17:02.000 the target audience for witchcraft these days. Now it's not the witchcraft of yesteryear. It's not the

00:17:08.840 pointy hats, like hocus pocus type thing where people have this like, you know, steamy cauldron and

00:17:15.960 they're putting, I don't know, chicken feet and sawed off fingers into it and casting spells from

00:17:22.580 a spell book from 1482. That's not what witchcraft looks like today. It looks a lot trendier. It looks

00:17:29.940 a lot prettier. It looks a lot lighter. It looks a lot more fun. It looks like a bunch of celebrities

00:17:35.900 that we really admire, uh, circling up and setting their intentions for the year. And if you're thinking,

00:17:43.260 you know, that's not witchcraft at all. You are just being dramatic. Well, I want to read to you

00:17:48.120 from an article. This is the reason why I'm talking about this from the Atlantic titled,

00:17:53.820 why is witchcraft on the rise? So we are going to kind of analyze that article and talk about what

00:18:00.460 it says about witchcraft, what it says about our society, what it says about godlessness,

00:18:04.260 and then what the Bible has to say about all this stuff. Because I think a lot of us,

00:18:08.740 we're just kind of wading through culture and letting culture happen to us. We're letting society

00:18:13.340 evangelize to us. We're letting society share its gospel with us. And before we know it, we find

00:18:19.140 ourselves accepting these things without even realizing it. Like we don't, you know, say the

00:18:25.640 prayer that society wants us to say and, and walk down the aisle that society wants us to walk down

00:18:30.820 and accept society as our Lord and savior. We don't do that in a, in obvious way or in a deliberate way

00:18:39.340 or even all at once. But over time, it's like the frog in the boiling water. We start to believe the

00:18:45.500 things that society is telling us. That certainly is what has happened with the whole self-love culture,

00:18:50.260 with the whole trendy narcissism culture is what I call it. That Christians have started to believe

00:18:57.220 the gospel of self that is being propagated by the world. And we have started sounding like the world

00:19:02.760 rather than the world sounding like us. So when you see churches talk about, oh, you are enough.

00:19:09.400 You just need to love yourself before you can love other people. If that sounds, if that sounds

00:19:15.540 suspiciously like every secular non-Christian artist and non-Christian, you know, outlet resource that you

00:19:25.460 know, that you read, that you follow, that's because the church unfortunately has been evangelized to

00:19:31.480 by the world for so long that we have started sounding like the world. And so as Christians,

00:19:36.160 it is our obligation. It's our responsibility. It is our privilege. It's our right to push back against

00:19:42.240 that with truth and truth that is so much better than all of that self-love crap. Sorry, if you didn't

00:19:48.660 want your kids to hear that word, but that's exactly what it is. It's trash. So I want to talk about

00:19:55.360 how witchcraft being on the rise is actually connected to the gospel of self, this world of

00:20:02.060 trendy narcissism that is so popular, that is so pervasive in our world today. And you might be

00:20:07.620 thinking, no, no, no, Allie, at least self-love is pure. It is the culture of self-love is about

00:20:14.460 motivation. It's about taking charge of your life. At least it works. Witchcraft is, is dark. It's of

00:20:20.020 Satan. It's not the same at all. Well, remember what we've talked about on this podcast is that there's

00:20:24.600 no such thing as neutral ground. There's no such thing as neutral ground. So Ephesians 2 says that

00:20:30.060 Satan is the prince of the power of the air. He has real power here on earth. And even though we as

00:20:35.720 Christians know that he who is in us is greater than, than he who is in the world, Satan does have

00:20:41.660 real power. And so there's no such thing. Satan would like us to believe that there's neutral ground

00:20:46.720 that, okay, some of the things that aren't biblical, um, that the world says they're not necessarily

00:20:52.480 wrong. They're not necessarily sinful. They're not necessarily bad. They're just neutral. We can

00:20:57.480 just take them. I think self-love falls into that. It might not be biblical. The Bible might not tell

00:21:02.980 us to love ourselves, but no, it's not satanic. It's not from hell. It's not demonic. It's not

00:21:08.360 bad. It's just neutral. Well, again, like the frog in the pot of boiling water, we just start to accept

00:21:14.080 all the neutral stuff until we are full blown into the world. And we sound exactly like every non-Christian

00:21:19.980 friend that you've got talking about how much we love ourselves and how we can save ourselves and

00:21:24.460 all of that absolute madness. And here you get witchcraft. Okay. So if you don't think that

00:21:30.660 witchcraft has become trendy, if you think I'm exaggerating, I'll give you some examples. So

00:21:34.720 it's been, uh, it's become really cool to call yourself a witch. So creating altars, burning sage

00:21:39.540 astrology. Yes. That is part of this casting spells. They've all become something that young girls

00:21:45.520 have gravitated toward as a form of rebellion, as a form of self-empowerment. It is very intertwined

00:21:51.880 with feminism. The history of witchcraft, you can read that anywhere is very intertwined, uh, with

00:21:57.400 female rebellion. Cosmo published an article a couple of years ago titled Influencer Witches of

00:22:03.660 Instagram. These are women on Instagram who have hundreds of thousands of followers teaching people

00:22:08.000 to be witches, um, commercializing witchcraft. And so offering their services for some sort of

00:22:13.460 payment. Young women who, uh, young women on Instagram, they, they claim that they can help

00:22:18.980 you cast spells, manifest your intentions. Now that's something that you've probably heard from

00:22:24.220 people who don't claim to be witches, uh, read your future, help you understand your zodiac signs,

00:22:29.620 your birth charts, how to cleanse your space. It sounds like witchcraft is identical to all the

00:22:35.220 new age stuff that your friend from spin class is into. That's because it is. Uh, so here are three

00:22:41.060 recent articles published by Teen Vogue, love spells and the basics of love magic. How to do magic and

00:22:47.320 other questions you might have about being a witch, uh, a witch's guide to the new year, practical magic

00:22:53.640 2020. Here's one in Cosmo, how to date a witch. Now, uh, interestingly, all of these articles that I

00:23:00.520 just listed, and I just kind of went through looking for recent, uh, witch and witchcraft articles.

00:23:07.140 All of these articles are written by the same person. Uh, her name is Lisa Stardust. I'm going

00:23:12.020 to go out on a limb and say it's probably not her real name, but that is what she goes by.

00:23:16.840 Here's what she says in her Cosmo article. My parents were new age junkies and our bookshelves

00:23:23.220 were filled with bright and glossy iridescent tomes about astrology, meditation, crystals,

00:23:29.320 and ways to use spices to boost magical vibes with titles like the complete book of magic and

00:23:34.340 witchcraft, uh, crystals and healing in, uh, astral projection. I don't even know what that is, but

00:23:41.300 before this sentence, she says, I guess I was born witchy. And the reason why she believes that she

00:23:46.480 was born witchy and born into a witchy family is for the reasons that she lists. So from a witch,

00:23:52.260 she is saying that there is a connection, uh, uh, between witchcraft and new age, meditation,

00:23:58.680 astrology, crystals, uh, the using of spices to boost magical vibes. Okay. And so this is not just

00:24:06.920 me saying that there's a connection between all the new age, uh, self-empowered, self-centered,

00:24:12.660 self-focused stuff that we see in witchcraft. This is coming from a self-proclaimed witch herself. So

00:24:18.060 I just wanted to, I just want you to hear the words of a witch making that connection. The episode

00:24:24.980 that I did with Doreen Virtue a couple of weeks ago about the dangers of the new age, it's extremely

00:24:29.600 pertinent, uh, to the conversation that we're having today. And if you have not listened to that,

00:24:34.360 I highly recommend that you do. It's actually the most listened to episode. It's only been out a

00:24:39.660 couple of weeks, the most listened to episode of relatable dangers of the new age with Doreen Virtue.

00:24:44.700 The reason why it's the most listened to is because it is so relevant to everything that's going on in

00:24:49.980 the lives of young women, everything that's going on in social media and pop culture. I highly

00:24:54.360 recommend you go listen to that, whether you're a young woman yourself, or whether you've got a

00:24:59.080 daughter, a sister, or a friend that you think that it would be relevant to. I really recommend it.

00:25:03.680 Um, I came across the article, like I said, uh, in the Atlantic, which really made me start thinking

00:25:08.740 about all of this. Why is witchcraft on the rise? And I found it fascinating. So we're going to go

00:25:13.600 through that now and why it matters to us and what the Bible has to tell us about all of it. So

00:25:19.100 uh, this article is by Bianca Bosker. So she's talking to this witch influencer and someone who

00:25:25.920 makes hundreds of thousands of dollars, apparently selling her witchy, uh, services. This is what the

00:25:31.380 article says. Uh, Diaz sells anointing oils and intention infused body products in her online store

00:25:38.000 instructs more than 8,900 witches enrolled in her online school leads witchy workshops that promise

00:25:44.060 to leave attendees feeling magical AF. Uh, in 2018 Diaz, the author of the bestselling book,

00:25:50.160 witchery embrace the witch within earned more than half a million dollars from her magic work.

00:25:55.940 So what does that tell us? That tells us that witchcraft is lucrative. Uh, but for, but over the

00:26:01.640 past few years, witchcraft is what the article says long viewed with suspicion and even hostility.

00:26:07.200 It's so funny. The attitude of this article, like all the people that are angry at witchcraft are in

00:26:11.640 the wrong has transmuted into a mainstream phenomenon. So what we see here is that is,

00:26:18.100 it is pervasive. A witchcraft is not just lucrative, but it's also pervasive. 2014 Pew Research Center,

00:26:25.220 uh, report suggested that the United States adult population of pagans and wiccans was about,

00:26:30.940 uh, 730,000 on par with the number of Unitarians. I wonder if there's any crossover there. Uh,

00:26:38.000 these days Diaz told me everyone calls themselves a witch, which is so true. There are so many young

00:26:44.940 women who think it's cool to call themselves a witch. So not only is it lucrative, not only is it

00:26:50.020 pervasive, uh, it's also popular and that's a little bit different than pervasive. So it's trendy.

00:26:56.020 And that's all of the cool people nowadays are calling themselves a witch. She said, being a witch,

00:27:01.780 this Diaz person said, being a witch is listen to this, an embodiment of her truth in all its power.

00:27:09.560 That's how the self-proclaimed witch describes what being a witch is. So that's the second witch

00:27:15.280 that we have heard reiterate a phrase from this world of self-help and self-love and self-focus,

00:27:21.800 uh, that is, we wouldn't automatically identify as being witchcraft, but this is what she says.

00:27:27.820 Being a witch is an embodiment of her truth in all its power. How many well-meaning, uh, fitness

00:27:36.080 gurus, lifestyle bloggers, motivational authors, even Christian teachers, do you hear saying things

00:27:43.900 that reflect directly what this witch is saying being a witch is? Uh, she said among other magic

00:27:51.840 practitioners, a witch might embody a religious affiliation, a political act, a wellness regimen,

00:27:57.540 hot new Luke or some combination of the above, uh, the Instagram's reigning witch influencer.

00:28:05.840 This article says Brie Luna has more than 450,000 followers has collaborated with coach

00:28:10.800 with refinery 29 and smash box for which she recently introduced a line of cosmetics inspired

00:28:17.140 by the transformative quality of crystals. Now, something that Doreen Virtue and I said,

00:28:22.900 and we pointed out the same thing as essential oils, crystals, oils, God made both. There is nothing

00:28:28.900 inherently wrong with crystals. There's nothing inherently wrong with oils. Oils might have

00:28:34.740 some kind of calming effect on your life and you know, that's all good. You might like the smell of

00:28:39.880 it, whatever. That's fine. God made these things. They're not impure, uh, in and of themselves,

00:28:44.840 but using them for some kind of healing power. Of course, we know that is paganism. That is idolatry.

00:28:51.080 That's some sort of pantheism thinking that God is in everything and in everyone. That of course is

00:28:58.160 not a biblical perspective. You can go to Sephora, by the way, there is a witch, uh, like startup kit

00:29:04.780 where you can buy, I don't even know what it is. Sage crystals, uh, oils, different kinds of things to

00:29:13.720 manifest your intention. So this stuff is very commercialized. It is lucrative. It is pervasive.

00:29:19.760 It is popular. It is commercialized. All of those things kind of, uh, tie together. So just in case

00:29:25.980 you doubted that this is mainstream doubt, no more. It is. If you are a mother and you, your daughter is

00:29:33.440 on social media, she's in the age where she could be influenced by this stuff. Just make sure that

00:29:38.520 you're paying attention and just be aware of the fact that the stores that you go to, that the accounts

00:29:44.080 that you follow, that the celebrities that you like, or that she likes, uh, they are going to try

00:29:49.740 to one in one way or another, whether it's through the elevation of the self or outright witchcraft,

00:29:55.920 they are going to try to influence her, uh, influence her in this way. The, the, uh, article

00:30:02.240 also talks about the wick of faith. And I think it's interesting that it refers to it as a faith.

00:30:06.920 This is something that does require, uh, an amount of faith and an amount of belief in absolute

00:30:13.380 lunacy. The belief in witchcraft is so widespread and so enduring that one historian speculates it's

00:30:18.780 innate to being human. That's what this article says. And I would say that's true. I would say

00:30:24.620 our fallen nature, um, seeks to distort what God has made a desire for him. So he, God made us to

00:30:36.000 need something higher than ourself, to need a power that's higher than ourself, to be in not enough

00:30:42.400 inherently to, uh, desire help, to desire salvation, to desire some kind of power, to desire some kind of

00:30:51.820 refuge. And we can only find that reliably in him. We can only find that ultimately in him. But when we

00:30:59.120 reject God, because, uh, we hate God, that's what enemies of God do. Everyone who is not in Christ

00:31:05.060 is an enemy of God. And whether they say it or not, they hate God because they are in enmity with

00:31:10.640 God, which is what the Bible says, uh, then they are going to, uh, look towards another power in

00:31:16.620 order to help them. That is what we are created to do. So this article is correct. This historian is

00:31:21.480 correct. It is innate. Witchcraft is innate. It's just a distortion of a God-given desire for something

00:31:27.900 higher than ourselves. Um, this is also important for us to note that this includes, so the latest

00:31:34.580 witch renaissance coincides with a growing fascination with astrology, with crystals,

00:31:39.500 with tarot cards, uh, which like magic practitioners consider ways to tap into unseen, unconventional,

00:31:46.060 unconventional sources of power, which of course, that is exactly what it's about. What we just said

00:31:51.040 to tap into unseen sources of power. Uh, astrology guys is not something that Christians should ever

00:31:59.640 be a part of. Like you don't need to know your zodiac sign. I'm sure we all do know our zodiac

00:32:04.120 signs. I remember when I was little, I didn't know, you know, that any of this stuff was bad. And I was

00:32:08.540 like, Oh, I'm an Aquarius. That's so exciting. But I remember my mom telling me at some point that

00:32:13.620 that's not something that we, uh, that we care about. That's not something that we read about. That's not

00:32:18.520 something that we're fascinated by. Christianity and astrology does not go hand in hand. They cannot

00:32:25.480 coincide. They're completely perpendicular to one another. If we see this in an article about

00:32:31.900 witchcraft over and over again, that astrology, your birth chart, all of that stuff, your zodiac sign,

00:32:38.800 which I guess is within all of that. If we see that perpetually as being claimed by witches,

00:32:45.100 it should at least make us take a step back and say, Hmm, maybe this isn't something that I should

00:32:50.760 be a part of. Anytime you go to anything other than God, uh, for power, for self-understanding,

00:32:59.340 for healing. Um, now that's not to say that God can't give us medicine or God hasn't allowed, uh,

00:33:06.620 medicine to be invented. Of course, uh, these things can be gifts of common grace, but when we go to

00:33:12.740 something outside of biblical Christianity, when we go to something outside of God and the things that

00:33:18.800 are, he has given us for their intended purpose, we end up with idolatry. That's exactly what

00:33:24.500 astrology is. You're looking for some kind of power. You're looking for some kind of direction. You're

00:33:28.940 looking for some kind of wisdom, some kind of insight, some kind of self-understanding that is

00:33:33.640 meant to be found in God. Uh, all of the things that we truly seek ultimately underneath them all

00:33:41.040 is a desire for God, a desire for true salvation, for true wisdom, for true direction, for true

00:33:47.360 purpose, for true meaning to truly be filled. We are going to false idols like astrology, uh, to find

00:33:54.320 those things. And you'll notice that people who are obsessed with astrology, they're very unsatisfied.

00:34:00.060 Like they're constantly looking at new astrology posts. Like they're constantly looking at new insights.

00:34:05.920 They're constantly trying to find a way to fit this, uh, zodiac reading that really doesn't align

00:34:12.020 with their personality at all. Like really doesn't align with their life at all. They're trying to

00:34:16.080 constantly find a way to make it fit in to their life so they can keep putting their faith in it.

00:34:22.000 Because again, we are made to put our faith in something and it feels more tangible to them.

00:34:28.100 It feels more like they're able to control it. And astrology is all about you. It's all about why

00:34:33.720 you're special. It's all about your life. This is another reason why witchcraft is so popular because

00:34:38.680 it's about you, empowering you, freeing you. Uh, and the Bible, Christianity is not about that.

00:34:45.840 It is about denying yourself, taking up your cross and following Christ. As Philippians 2 says,

00:34:51.660 uh, it is looking at others as more important than we look at ourselves, honoring others more than we

00:34:57.820 honor ourselves, helping others at our own expense. And that is the opposite of what something like

00:35:05.760 witchcraft is for. Witchcraft is all about what can, how can you reign the powers of darkness

00:35:10.920 in to help you to manifest the successes that you want? And if you are thinking, wow, that kind of

00:35:19.600 sounds a lot like the prosperity gospel. That's because it is. Um, there was a really interesting

00:35:25.720 article in, in outlet called the American interest. And, uh, it talked about AOC and AOC releasing her

00:35:34.240 birth chart. So let me read this more importantly, however, AOC's gambit taps into the way. So she

00:35:39.620 tweeted out her birth chart. That's the context, uh, taps into the way in which progressive millennials

00:35:44.080 have appropriated the rhetoric, imagery, and rituals of what was once called the new age from

00:35:49.380 astrology to witchcraft. So again, we see astrology associated with witchcraft as both a political

00:35:55.040 and spiritual statement of identity for an increasing number of left-leaning millennials,

00:35:59.940 more and more of whom do not belong to any organized religion. Occult spirituality isn't

00:36:04.400 just a form of personal practice, self-care with more sage, uh, rather it's a metaphysical canvas

00:36:11.620 for the American culture wars in the post Trump era, pitting the self-identified Davids of seemingly

00:36:17.780 secular progressivism against the Goliath of nationalist evangelical Christianity.

00:36:23.200 So this really creates an intersection of all of the things that we talk about. Now, this is not to

00:36:30.140 say that everyone on the left, everyone who's a Democrat, everyone who is anti-Trump, uh, is engaged

00:36:35.560 in witchcraft. I'm not saying that, but this is why it matters for Christians to care about politics.

00:36:41.580 This is why it matters for Christians to have a holistic worldview, why it matters for us to care

00:36:47.040 about what's going on in culture and why we should allow the Bible to inform all of these things,

00:36:52.520 because they are connected. They're always connected. Our worldview, how we view God, how we view the

00:36:59.460 self, it affects everything we believe, including politics. So let me, let me, uh, read that again.

00:37:06.200 So for an increasing number of left-leaning millennials, many of whom do not belong to any

00:37:11.980 organized religion, occult spirituality, occult spirituality, isn't just a form of personal

00:37:17.560 practice, self-care with more sage. It is a metaphysical canvas for the American culture wars

00:37:21.880 in the post-Trump era, pitting the Davids of secular progressivism against the Goliath of nationalist

00:37:29.020 evangelical Christianity. As an aesthetic, as a spiritual practice, this article says,

00:37:34.940 and as a communal ideology, contemporary millennial witch culture defines itself as the cosmic

00:37:40.520 counterbalance to Trumpian evangelicalism. Isn't that interesting? Progressive occultism,

00:37:46.600 the language of witches and demons, of spells and sage, of cleansing and bad energy, of stars and signs,

00:37:52.540 has become the de facto religion of millennial progressives. The metaphysical symbol set threaded

00:37:57.480 through the worldly ethos of modern social justice activism. I mean, this is just everything we

00:38:03.480 talked about in this podcast. Its rise parallels the rise of religious nuns. That's N-O-N-E-S, which we've

00:38:09.720 also discussed on this podcast. And with them, a model of spiritual and religious practice that's

00:38:14.480 at once intuitional and atomized. Marie Claire's, this is how real-life resistance witches say they're

00:38:24.040 taking down the patriarchy. And broadly, how the socialist feminists of which use magic to fight

00:38:29.740 capitalism proves exactly what this article in American Interest is talking about. This stuff

00:38:38.280 is connected to politics. It's connected to the godlessness that we see rising among millennials.

00:38:44.320 It's connected to the SJW movement that we see that is so prevalent in millennials. It is this

00:38:51.180 glorification of self. It has to do with the entitlement that a lot of young millennials see.

00:38:56.260 It has to do with the trust in the government rather than God that we see among millennials.

00:39:01.280 This is, whether you want to call it witchcraft or not, it's just the effect of godlessness,

00:39:05.760 that we are always looking to put our faith in something. And people feel that they can put

00:39:11.200 their faith in magic and that it's going to help them manifest the successes in their lives.

00:39:17.240 This is also something that we see with Jennifer Aniston. She talked to the New York Times about a

00:39:21.980 goddess circle that she's been doing for 30 years, that it's some kind of spiritual routine that you'll

00:39:27.440 probably see across your Instagram with a lot of celebrity influencers that you know. You sit in a

00:39:33.220 goddess circle and you're supposed to manifest some sort of magic. You've got sage burning.

00:39:38.120 You've got all these kinds of rituals that are supposed to manifest the success in your life. And

00:39:42.940 of course, Jen Aniston might say that this has been very effective for her. She obviously has a lot of

00:39:48.240 success, a lot of money, but it doesn't matter whether or not this stuff is effective, which by the way,

00:39:54.040 it might actually work because Satan is real and demons are real and the power of darkness is real.

00:39:59.280 And so people might get the things that they are manifesting. People might get the things that they

00:40:04.440 have set intentions for. They might get the things that they did a candle service for or red tarot cards

00:40:10.560 for. I mean, Satan is very real and he very much works and he might give people the things that they

00:40:16.380 cast spells for or whatever or use witchcraft for in order to get them to keep following him. But guess

00:40:22.740 what? All this stuff leads to hell. It leads to hell forever. And so, yes, it might attract some

00:40:29.800 people. It might give you some success for a little bit. It might be effective for a little bit. But the

00:40:35.360 place where it leads is not a place where any of us want to go. And so this is not neutral ground.

00:40:42.160 This is not something that Christians ignore. This is not something that we say is just harmless.

00:40:46.400 We say this is a path that leads to eternity in hell and a place where no one wants to go. A place

00:40:53.900 where we don't want any of our friends to go. The people that we love to go. It doesn't matter if

00:40:59.540 people are happy with it now. People say, well, it's happy. It makes me happy or it works or I've

00:41:04.620 been successful or I've manifested these things. It doesn't matter whether it's done these things.

00:41:08.780 The fact of the matter is, is that it can't save you. And in fact, damns you. It's not that this

00:41:14.580 in particular damns you. It's that your lack of faith in Christ, which has led to these things,

00:41:20.060 condemns all of us. This is what the Bible has to say about witchcraft. Deuteronomy 18,

00:41:25.420 9 through 12 says, when you enter the land, the Lord, your God is giving you, do not learn to

00:41:29.740 imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son

00:41:35.840 or daughter in the fire. So against child sacrifice, that's good. By the way, let me just say in Uganda,

00:41:41.680 where witchcraft unfortunately is very pervasive, they have had a terrible epidemic of child

00:41:49.360 sacrifice. There's been a very stark uptick, a very sharp uptick in child sacrifice in Uganda over

00:41:57.880 the past 10 to 20 years because of these witch doctors that come through in villages and say,

00:42:02.580 you know, we'll pay you X amount if you sacrifice your child to us. And so they literally take these

00:42:07.360 children, they kill them, rip their hearts out. Well, maybe I shouldn't get so graphic. Sorry if

00:42:12.560 you need to turn this off if you've got kids in the car, but it's probably too late for that. Cut

00:42:16.400 their limbs off, cut their genitalia off, and they offer it to whatever gods they think they're

00:42:22.300 worshiping as a form of witchcraft because they think it's going to give them good luck or power.

00:42:26.700 And that's obviously not working out very well for them, but working out very well for these

00:42:30.840 evil witch doctors who are making money off of all of this. So this is the God of the universe

00:42:38.660 telling his people thousands of years ago, we're not supposed to do that stuff that's still going

00:42:43.760 on right now. So no one should sacrifice their son or daughter in the fire. There should be no one

00:42:49.560 who practices divination or sorcery, no one who interprets omens, no one who engages in witchcraft

00:42:55.420 or casts spells or who is a medium or a spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these

00:43:00.800 things is detestable to the Lord. So even though Christians don't follow all of the cleansing laws

00:43:06.360 that God has in the Old Testament, we still follow his moral laws. We can still look at the principles

00:43:11.460 that he put forth for his people in the Old Testament and say, that's the same God. That's

00:43:17.440 the same desire that he has. It's the same principle today as it's ever been. God doesn't want us to have

00:43:22.480 anything to do with witchcraft. Exodus 22, 18, you shall not permit a sorceress to live. So it was

00:43:28.460 a death penalty for people who practice witchcraft. Leviticus 20, 27, a man or a woman who is a medium

00:43:34.940 or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones. Their blood shall be

00:43:42.680 upon them. First Chronicles 10, 13. So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the Lord in

00:43:48.160 that. He did not keep the command of the Lord and also consulted a medium seeking guidance.

00:43:54.940 So Colossians 5, 16, 24 says this. So this is the New Testament now talking about all the things that

00:44:01.420 God has, that God has been saying since the beginning, that we should have no part in the

00:44:07.100 unfruitful works of darkness. The New Testament reiterates this Colossians 5, 16 through 24.

00:44:12.320 But I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh for the desires

00:44:18.940 of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh for these are

00:44:23.820 opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the

00:44:28.520 spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh, here we go. Now the works of the flesh

00:44:33.960 are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of

00:44:42.660 anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I

00:44:50.700 warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the

00:44:58.120 spirit, and this is the verse that most of us know, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,

00:45:03.220 kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.

00:45:09.180 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. So typically

00:45:14.840 we just extricate verses 22 through 23, say these are the fruit of the spirit, and we don't pay any

00:45:20.980 attention to the stuff around it. Equally as important, maybe not equally as important, but very

00:45:26.140 comparably important, as important to the fruit of the spirit are the fruit of the flesh. The fruit

00:45:33.200 of darkness, which is idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, all of these

00:45:38.880 things. And witchcraft, being sorcery, is included in all of that. And so if you are of the flesh,

00:45:46.500 Paul is saying, the Holy Spirit through Paul, you are going to have an affinity for the works

00:45:50.440 of darkness. You are going to have an affinity for things like sorcery, an affinity for things

00:45:54.760 like witchcraft. So if you are a Christian who is taking part in any of this stuff, you need

00:46:02.080 to ask God to give you the power to repent, and you need to have nothing to do with it.

00:46:07.840 Nothing to do with astrology, nothing to do with mediums, nothing to do with tarot cards,

00:46:13.180 nothing to do with ascribing power to crystals, ascribing power to oils that are not inherently

00:46:22.000 there that God did not intend. And any other thing, any of us may be doing, and I'm evaluating

00:46:28.580 my own life, anything that we are doing that is giving power to things or giving power to

00:46:33.700 the self in a way that God did not intend. The through line through the new age, through

00:46:39.740 the self-empowerment, self-love stuff that we are hearing by people who did not purport

00:46:44.400 to be witches, the through line between witchcraft, new age, self-help, self-love, self-care.

00:46:50.820 That's not to say that getting your nails done is bad. People always ask me about that.

00:46:55.500 But the empowerment of the self, the focus on the self, the similarity between witchcraft and that

00:47:01.500 and the new age, the way that it all comes together, the through line is the self. Anything

00:47:07.540 that empowers the self, that tries to elevate the self to the place of God, whether it's through

00:47:12.680 sorcery and witchcraft and mediums and tarot cards and these intention setting candle ceremonies,

00:47:19.480 whatever they are, or any kind of motivational mantra that tells you to believe in yourself,

00:47:25.300 to save yourself, to discover yourself, to fulfill yourself, the through line is the self. And that

00:47:31.840 is Satan's lie. And it has been the lie since the very beginning. That is the same lie that he gave to

00:47:39.840 Eve in the Garden of Eden. Don't submit to God, submit to yourself and you will be like God. And he was

00:47:46.600 partially right. Satan is always partially right, by the way. Satan is always partially telling the

00:47:52.180 truth. Eve did become like God in knowing good and evil, but the consequence of her sin was suffering

00:47:57.180 and physical death. And in elevating the self, whether through traditional self-help or female

00:48:02.120 empowerment or out great witchcraft, you might find success. You might lose weight. You may get in a

00:48:06.680 relationship, but that way is the wide gate that leads to a place that none of us want to go.

00:48:11.660 So Satan saying the same lie that he always had since the very beginning shows that he is cunning,

00:48:21.260 but he's not creative. He is insistent, but he is not innovative. He has the same lie dressed up in a

00:48:27.960 million different ways, some seeming more neutral and some seeming darker than others, that we as

00:48:33.300 Christians are obligated through the wisdom of God to be able to point out and to resist with all of the

00:48:39.240 strength the Holy Spirit can give us. Read Ephesians 6 and see the armor of God that he gives us through

00:48:45.880 Christ to be able to fight these battles. Again, there is no neutral ground. The time has come and

00:48:51.760 gone for Christians to be able to accept mainstream messages as having any sort of redeeming value in

00:48:59.300 them. The time has come and gone for us to be able to not pay attention. The time is come and gone

00:49:05.220 for us to be apathetic. We have to care. We have to pay attention. We have to know our Bibles and we

00:49:11.380 have to be able to confront these cultural messages with the truth of God. So I don't think that we

00:49:18.020 should constantly be looking at the world of witchcraft and we should constantly be observing

00:49:23.460 the works of darkness that are happening in the rest of the world. I think frankly, all we need to do

00:49:28.740 is to know our Bibles, to pray hard, to be aware of these things, to be as innocent as doves, to be as

00:49:34.840 cunning as a serpent in that to be as knowledgeable or to be as knowing, to be as perceptive as what the

00:49:45.420 Bible says a serpent is like. So that's our responsibility as Christians, to know that this

00:49:51.740 stuff is going on, to not worry about it because like I said earlier, he who is in us is greater than

00:49:56.880 he who is in the world. And we know that Jesus is going to defeat Satan once and for all, that he is

00:50:02.040 going to rule in perfect peace forever, that we don't need to have anxiety about any of this stuff.

00:50:07.020 We don't need to have fear about any of this stuff because we have the power of Christ within us.

00:50:12.440 And because of that, we are enslaved to righteousness. We are empowered to do righteousness.

00:50:18.120 We are ambassadors of Christ. We are the aroma of Christ. We are givers of light. So we don't need to

00:50:24.000 worry about this stuff, but we do need to be aware that it's happening. We do need to fight

00:50:27.840 darkness with the light that Christ has given us. And we need to make sure that we are not being

00:50:34.400 apathetic and we are not being complacent and we are not the frog in the boiling water, accepting

00:50:40.040 the messages of self-empowerment, not realizing that it's just a witchcraft-like lie from the pits of

00:50:47.720 hell. So that was a really long podcast. I should have just done the witchcraft stuff,

00:50:51.660 but you just never know how long I'm going to go. Okay. That's all I have today. I'll be back here

00:50:55.940 on Wednesday. I'll see you guys then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 24, 2020

Ep 216 ｜ The Rise of Millennial Witches

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