by Mike James

A recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that 54 percent of teens ages 14 to 18 said "living a religious life" is very important to them, compared to 95 percent who thought free time and 93 percent who thought career success was more important. These numbers point out the fact our younger generations are not prioritizing religion as being important.

More dramatically, a 2018 Pew Research poll found 65 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 believed in at least one of four beliefs that Pew called "New Age." These beliefs included the power of psychics, astrology, and spiritual energy being in physical things.

But even among those young people who find religion important, it's not the religion older generations may think of. Some of our young people still find traditional religion important, but others in this group are involved in religion related to varied forms of consciousness and the gods and goddesses of paganism. Many young Americans seeking spiritual matters are looking for truth in nature and themselves.

A big difference between today's teens exploring witchcraft and previous generations of teens is their parents. The parents of today's teens have a weakened relationship to the traditional Christianity of the past.

"Their grandparents were at Woodstock!" said Helen Berger, a longtime researcher of witchcraft at Brandeis University. "It's not that they're rejecting religion outright, they're rejecting [the main, established] religions, with too many generalized rules and too unindividualized."

Book sales on witchcraft in the past year are up 43 percent over the year before according to NPD BookScan, which tracks publishing. The growth is outpacing the total nonfiction market.

Just like our modern Western culture is recasting and normalizing homosexual and transexual behavior, the same is happening with witchcraft. Today there are supermodel covens, suburban boys casting spells, and young witch influencers like Frankie Castanea, who has over a million Tik-Tok followers.

What does the Bible have to say about witchcraft? There are several scriptures that deal with this issue. In 1 Chronicles 10:13, we read the following: "Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord; he did not keep the word of the Lord and even consulted a medium for guidance." One of the big issues with witchcraft is there is a spiritual power behind it. Mediums, spiritualists, witches, and warlocks are tapping into a power other than the power of God. To dabble in these areas is a form of idolatry because we are focusing on something other than God.

The reason God's Word speaks so negatively about witches is because He did not want His people to get involved with the false gods, which are real. Satan and his demons are the gods of witchcraft and Satanism. I believe the pagan gods and goddesses were devised by the god of this world (Satan) to take away from the worship of the true God. Or at least Satan and his minions were influential in this process. Through satanic influence and the wrong choices of humans, witchcraft is proliferating in Western culture.

We should not be messing around with this type of activity. Leviticus 19:31 makes this clear: "Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God."

Again, what is so deceptive today is the normalization of this type of activity. It is thought of as funny or innocuous by popular culture and an "in" thing to dabble in. Folks that is what deception is all about—making things appear in a way other than what they truly are.

In Galatians 5:19-21, witchcraft is listed with activities like murder, drunkenness, adultery, fornication, hatred, envying, idolatry, and others. The scripture tells us that those who practice these things will not enter the kingdom of God.

We need to quit following the cultural norms of the day and stick to the norms of the Bible. The problem today is we don't know our Bibles and we are being influenced by the internet and what's on our phones. Don't fall for it. Stand up for the Word of God.

If someone you know is curious about witchcraft, inform them on what the Bible has to say about it.

Sources: "Inside the Practices of a Teenage Witch," by Michelle Boorstein, The Washington Post, October 31, 2021.