This Week in Witchcraft - S1:E18

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Welcome to This Week in Witchcraft. The elements have been conquered with intense heat, and witchcraft has become more cosmopolitan.

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Can you spot it out in the wild? I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are

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Michael Derham, David Kazin, and Andrew Hudson. David has kindly brought us some witchcraft from out in the wild.

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David, do you want to take it from here? Certainly. We've referenced this writer before. It's Rabbi Samantha Frank, who is a rabbinic fellow at Temple Micah in Washington, D .C.

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Wrote an article. It's actually published. It's still up on the MSNBC website, but it's an opinion article talking about the hypocrisy of Christian religious freedom rhetoric post -Roe.

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The tagline being, Why is right -wing Christianity the only religion afforded legal and political accommodation in America?

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And my Jewish grandmother would like a word, because her Jewish grandmother actually helped to march and supported abortion rights in her day, the 70s and the 80s.

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This rabbi, Rabbi Samantha Frank, quotes some Talmudic traditions, but then goes on to say,

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The foot soldiers of the modern American anti -abortion movement remain overwhelmingly Christian. According to Pew Research, 33 % of American evangelicals believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 82 % of Buddhists and 83 % of Jews.

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But what would an alternative religious reading of abortion rights look like? Why should Americans simply accept that the only religious freedom worthy of respect and consideration is of the right -wing

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Christian variety? Banning abortion is a violation of our religious liberty and ability to fulfill even our religious obligations.

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The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Rabbi Rutenberg told me in an email that the

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Talmud, the text that serves as the primary source of Jewish law, considers the fetus mere water for the first 40 days after conception and part of the pregnant person's body after that as potential life until birth, not as an actual life at conception.

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Enshrining one specific theology as law is a violation of the

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Establishment Clause. This rabbi referencing some Talmudic tradition actually has the fetus, which is hilarious because it's

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Latin for baby, the fetus is water for 40 days after conception and then is treated as part of the woman's body and then builds upon that religious tradition to say this is why we can abort children in the womb because it's not a life.

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That's my religious tradition. You have your religious tradition. You're really just being hypocritical.

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I'm trying to silence your view by pointing out hypocrisy.

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So let's look at the witchcraft with words that this person is guilty of.

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Well, there's a lot of misuse of terms here and it's also a very confusing kind of statement.

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Certainly, I think that there is an appeal here to change the ethics of the situation, to change the definition to the situation, trying to go to different sources for what are morality and truth and so on.

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But when she's talking about the violation of the Establishment Clause, it actually says that Congress shall not make any law against the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof.

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And what happened was not Congress passing a law upheld by the

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Supreme Court, which stated that babies in the womb are human beings and therefore, just to be clear, these human beings are also created equal by their maker and they too have full citizenship from conception.

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And thus to harm them is to harm a U .S. citizen. We already have plenty of laws called murder laws.

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We don't kill people. So the Supreme Court overturning one of their precedents before isn't some violation of the

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Establishment Clause. Also, the religious freedom that is in play in these

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United States is such that nobody is telling her that she can't practice her religion.

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And if part of her religion, if a big part of her religion is killing babies, then there are plenty of states like California and Virginia and New York and plenty of others that celebrate abortion.

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I mean, they stand up and applaud the ability to kill babies to the 40th week and beyond.

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They celebrate that. They rejoice in that. But they'll put you in jail if you do that to a dog. Right. So, I mean, there are plenty of places for her to practice her religion.

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She's not being impeded in that regard. But then trying to make the appeal, there's a pluralistic philosophy here saying that, you know, right wing evangelical fundamentalist or whatever, you know, you're not the only one who gets religious freedom.

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Well, it's funny that you think that we have that in spades. We would sure enjoy that in spades.

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We have it a lot more than other places. But still, there is a lot of ability and freedom, liberty for people just to believe whatever they want and practice that.

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I always feel like the people that, what was it called? It's the spaghetti monster people.

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The flying spaghetti monster. The flying spaghetti monster religion is a great example.

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They've won court cases. They have the right to wear their spaghetti strainers on their heads when they get their driver's license pictures now.

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I mean, this is how open, free and so on that our country is.

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So just because the Supreme Court overturns a precedent doesn't mean that Congress has passed a law.

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This is where one thing happens and you call it something else. This is a false equivocation.

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Something happened, but you're calling it something else. You're saying that you're getting a different name and a different effect than what actually happened.

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And so misnaming of things, you know, calling out for me and then trying to say, you know,

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I have an ethical compulsion to uphold abortion because of my religion.

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Well, just because something is within a religion doesn't make it moral. Just because something is a part of a religious tradition doesn't mean that it needs to be protected.

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Her claim to an objective standard is here is, well, if it's a part of a religion, it should be protected.

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So the Aztecs human sacrifice should be protected then under that logic, right? Yeah. The Aztecs were a lot better at killing people for sacrifices than obviously this

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Jewish tradition is. Just because it's part of religion doesn't mean it should be protected and promoted because there is an objective standard.

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I mean, if there was a religious group that felt like it was important to kill

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Jews, she wouldn't be advocating for their protection because she knows there's an objective truth and she's suppressing it.

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I mean, you're saying then that there are some religious practices that are just wrong.

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Yeah. And how do we know that? Because God says so. So we have a standard by which we're judging those.

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So her claim that you can have some practices and not others, that's unfair.

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And we would actually have to agree with her and say, yeah, that's true. You can have some religious practices and not others.

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It is unfair. It's unfair to evil, right? Like you don't get to say that what you do, which is evil, is actually good.

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That's not allowed. So she's not pointing out hypocrisy. She's actually pointing out a truth.

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Yeah. And she's appealing to the God of pluralism to get it done, right? Like this is an argument from the God of pluralism.

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Yes. And whether she believes in pluralism or not, that's who she's trying to appeal to in order to get her religious practice back.

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Right. The God of pluralism is obviously no God at all and exists in a fictional realm called neutrality.

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There is no neutrality. She's basically assuming neutrality here in which various religions are to be allowed to practice freely.

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But she's assuming that neutrality, but that neutrality doesn't exist. And in this way, when you're messing with the ethics of a situation and sourcing your understanding of things from a different angle, this would be most akin to the

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Old Testament witchcrafts of necromancy, where you're drawing up authority from a different source that doesn't exist.

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And then when you are saying that X happened, but actually you're saying

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Y is what happened. I mean, this is obviously also lying, demonic witchcraft as well.

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She claims to be appealing to the God of Judaism.

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What she's actually doing is she's appealing to a completely different authority.

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Her own majority opinion is what everybody thinks. I am claiming some

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Talmudic tradition, but really what she's trying to do is to assert her own autonomy, her own self rule that she gets to decide what is right or wrong.

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And you don't get to call me out on it because I'm just calling it religious freedom. And if you don't allow me to do that, then you're just a hypocrite.

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So I don't think she believes any of this. I don't think she believes this entire flow of our, she has to know how ridiculous it is.

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Her whole point was to try to catch her opponents in hypocrisy.

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To try to shut them down. She's trying to shut down your voice. She doesn't actually believe this. So my question would be, is that different than the

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God of Judaism? And that might get us in trouble, but is it different? Is that is what you just explained actually different than the

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God of Judaism? Yeah, it depends on what strain of Judaism we're talking about. She's part of a very liberal strain, then she's going to be advocating for all kinds of basic liberal postmodern values such as they are.

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But notice what's going on in that she's trying to say, because a religion exists in which abortion is perfectly fine and indeed should be pursued in many cases, she's saying precisely because there's a religion that exists that advocates in this way and functions in this way.

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Thus, it should not be impeded upon by anyone else. Right?

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So that that's the, that's that, um, that, that pluralism. Okay. That's not really

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Judaism. Not really. That's pluralism. And so does she actually believe in her

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Judaism? Is she actually a very careful, um, uh, adherent to the

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Talmud? Who knows? In fact, who cares? The fact that it simply exists gives reason then for her to say, you shouldn't have any impediment upon abortion whatsoever, simply because this religion exists in which it's fine and dandy.

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Right. So I think where I was kind of going with that is we make the distinction between one ism and two ism quite a bit.

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Isn't not just the same religion and with different names or categories, because we are adherence to two ism.

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Whereas we would say the only alternative outside of biblical Christian belief is one ism.

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And she's just using a different form of one ism to win her arguments. Right? Like, so it's still the same

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God of Judaism, but it's just got different categories to it or different names.

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So you're saying that her conception of God is the God of Judaism? No, no, no, no.

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I'm just saying that outside of using the categories of one ism and two ism, there's eventually going to be serving the same

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God. Yeah. It was a good observation by C .S. Lewis that in the final assessment, everything comes down to Christianity or Hinduism.

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He was acknowledging it's either, you know, two ism or one ism. Yeah. And she's using the name of Judaism and want to talk about the

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Jewish God. Well, the God revealed in the scriptures certainly is creator, not creation.

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And it stands out from his creation and provides the standards to it. And that's not the

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God she believes in. No, not at all. So there's a lot of people reaching, trying to find some kind of standard to understand what happened with Roe v.

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Wade. Now, it's interesting, is it not, that in this outrage, what are people appealing to now?

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Not what they used to appeal to. They used to appeal to science. Isn't that remarkable?

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They used to try to point to science to prove that abortion is fine and dandy.

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No, now they're making religious appeals. Yeah, the mask is off. And really, science was an expedient

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God for them. Yes, yeah. And I think in the same vein that her use of Talmudic tradition is the same expedient vehicle as well.

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And if that doesn't work, they're going to go do something else. I mean, the latest one, the more secular argument would be most of these kids that, you know, especially for low income families, look at the life that they would have.

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They're going to end up this. It's just really hard life. And many of them will end up on the street.

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So abortion would have just been better. Yeah. That's the latest argument that abortion is actually better in many cases for these poor kids.

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And so there's sacrifices for the common good. They're just trying to be compassionate. Yeah. I don't want that compassion.

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Compassionate killing. Right. Yeah. The mercy of the wicked is cruel. How very communist of you.

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She literally cites the Talmud in which the statement is made that the fetuses water up to a certain point.

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Can you believe that? Like that's that's your argument. That's your pro abortion argument.

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Like how much of the battle has been waged wherein the

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Christians have been quoting from the Bible saying, this is a human, this is a human life.

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This is someone who's made in the image of God. And they're like, you know, get your Bible out of my face.

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We don't need your we don't need your, you know, your your mystical text full of superstitions and so on and so forth.

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You know, we we're running with science. And then all of a sudden, you know, we've got these 4D ultrasounds and all the medical technology in the world are like, yep, that's a human being through and through.

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And now they're resorting to religious texts to try to fight for abortion. Now, that's a very interesting move.

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That's a very interesting difference than it used to be. It's a desperate move. So you had mentioned and you categorized this brand of witchcraft as necromancy, appealing to an authority that is improper or that just doesn't exist, right?

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Trying to find an alternative authority, a sourcing, sourcing something, you know, so we're going to source our ethical argument now from a whole different angle, right?

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We're not appealing to some, you know, commonly held objective truth with everybody. We're saying that because we have this thing in the

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Talmud, then we should make it available for everybody. So the proper response then from the

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Christian to this, we're going to call it out. We've identified it. We said it's necromancy.

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We said that you're appealing to an authority to which you should not appeal. So then the proper response from a

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Christian should be to appeal to proper authority. How would you do that? Yeah, I would definitely point to the passage in Exodus chapter 21 verses 22 to 23 and point out that if a child is, an unborn child is harmed or killed in a fight, that the penalty is life for life.

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And that's a great old Testament passage handed down from Moses, which I think that any

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Jew or Christian would appreciate the implications of. Maybe she's a Jew who doesn't respect what

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Moses has said. Well, he was a man, so. Well, it's possible. I think also is simply the matter that God reminds us in Romans chapter one that his wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest to them, may be in his eternal power and God had so that they were without excuse.

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But what happens is they suppress the truth and unrighteousness and they know the truth.

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They know it's wrong. I think that it's been observed by Jeff Durbin and many others that when a woman goes and commits abortion, it is a traumatic experience.

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More often than not on the street, they admit that they're killing their babies. They need counseling.

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They need all sorts of help. It's very difficult for them to go through it. It's very difficult for them to recover after it.

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And if it's simply the removing of an appendix, why all this drama? And it's not because people are picketing, not because it's a political issue, but because it's a moral issue.

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And they're trying to suppress that truth and unrighteousness. And it's a terrible, terrible thing.

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Well, I think that wraps it up for our discussion today on this week on Witchcraft. What recommendations do we have for content?

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Michael, we'll start with you. Well, I've been enjoying a podcast that was put together and you can hear it right now.

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It's called Christ in All Scriptures by Edmund Clown. He was put up by Westminster Theological Seminary.

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Some old recordings of a professor by the name of Edmund Clowney. And I always knew that I was influenced by Clowney because of the people who

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I was reading, who cited him all the time. And I would read a few things by him and so on.

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But I finally, for whatever reason, just realized, hey, I want to go listen to him directly.

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So Christ in All the Scriptures, maybe 12 or 16 lectures.

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And it's like drinking from a fire hydrant. Now, the audio is not all that great, but as he's been teaching,

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I've been listening and I'm thinking, yeah, well, there's nothing new under the sun. I'm studying,

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I'm preaching and I'm saying stuff. And now I'm listening to Edmund Clowney. He's like, yeah. So he was saying it, you know, and of course it was said before him and so on.

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It's so clarifying, the things that he says. I've rejoiced and worshipped just listening to these lectures.

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I have finished a 10 -part series. It's available on YouTube.

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It's from Founders Ministries. So if you guys have never been to founders .org, I highly recommend it.

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Founders is referencing the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1860s.

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And Founders Movement has produced a bunch of books and they have conferences.

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And this was from a conference a few years ago and it's 10 -part series on Baptist covenant theology.

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The speakers that they had, they didn't always identify them, but I could tell by some of their voices, you know, who some of them were.

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One in particular was Dr. Fred Malone, who has written a number of books, especially on baptism, baptism of disciples alone.

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I enjoyed that. It's for free. It's on YouTube. You go to Founders, their channel, you may be able to find it on the

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Founders website, but it's from a conference a couple of years ago. And it gives a nice overview if you're interested in a covenant theology itself and the

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Baptist kind of spin on it. And from these guys' perspective, a proper understanding of covenant theology and the new covenant itself will lead you to believers baptism.

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So any of my Presbyterian friends listening, you know, there's the, that's, that's a shot at you and, and, and I love you so much, but there you go.

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Maybe they could just sprinkle it in with her other media solid. Well done. Well done, sir.

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But there you go. I recently was, well, I found out about this

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Bible and asked for it for father's day. It is the, uh, any T Bible, new

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English translation, and I'm not promoting a specific translation. The reason why

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I asked for this Bible is that basically 50 % of the content on each page is the translator's notes.

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They go into the Hebrew, the Greek, which manuscripts they have chosen and why, whether it's majority reading or set to agent or Masoretic or from the

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Aramaic, it is a very helpful study Bible. At one time in my life,

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I was using a Bible that had commentary in it, and I felt a conviction that,

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Hey, I shouldn't be using commentary to help interpret the Bible, but rather let the tech speak for itself.

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And so this is part of my journey of coming to engage with the text in a way that there are other people who are also engaging and I can see why they chose the translation in which they've chosen.

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And I know we've discussed previously on this podcast about how translation efforts are also interpretation efforts and in many respects, and this is helpful for uncovering why they have interpreted are using these words to convey what the original text is in our

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English language. Amen. Well, my recommendation, as you know, or as you can tell from some of my other recommendations,

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I've been on a Shakespearean kick. So my recommendation is Shakespeare, the Puritan, who was

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Martin Marplet, and this is by Douglas Wilson. It's an hour read or a 30 minute listen if you're listening to it at two

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X. So I was thoroughly convinced of the Stratfordian view or the actual name,

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William Shakespeare, and the man who bore that name as being the author, because I understood those two have held another view when

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I was in high school and in college to have very poor reasons as to why it might've been someone else. Wilson lays out a argument that has going to, it is going to send me down a rabbit hole because this is a different author entirely.

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And it's a man who was the 17th Earl of Oxford. His name was Edward De Vere.

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He had the right education, traveling experiences, background, life stories in order to write all the things that Shakespeare did in his plays.

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And he also had connections to this anonymous writer, Martin Marplet, who actively resisted the

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Church of England through a group of letters that was sent out under this anonymous name.

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He knew them and their connections to his person in that way. And also the language that was used and the voice that was used for Martin Marplet is very close to William Shakespeare.

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So it's going to challenge me a lot as I go through this, this study, but Shakespeare, the

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Puritan, who was Martin Marplet by Douglas Wilson. And that wraps it up for today.

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We're always very thankful for our listeners tuning in every week and for supporting us by rating, reviewing, and sharing the show.

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And we hope you can join us again for another week of uncovering and reviewing witchcraft in the modern world.