This Week in Witchcraft - SE1:E1

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

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

Michael Durham, David Kassin, and Andrew Hudson. Welcome to a special episode,

This Week in Witchcraft. Can you spot it out in the wild? Before we go into answering this question, we're going to explain our intro.

The elements have been conquered with intense heat and witchcraft has become more cosmopolitan.

Christ in his glory and his holiness, being that intense heat, has gone out into the world and light has come to places that have been thoroughly shrouded in darkness.

No longer can witchcraft be viewed as something that is animistic where we have witch doctors, witches in cauldrons, and black cats to call witchcraft.

We now have a more crafty view, a word crafty view, a witchcrafty view of how magic is presented in this world and it's usually used through words and lies and deceit and deception.

And before we get started into our witchcraft this week, we're going to have Michael give his definition of witchcraft.

So, witchcraft is a demonic appropriation of alternate authority, trying to grab hold of authority other than God's authority to declare what is true, what is good, what is beautiful.

It has to be a demonic appropriation of alternate authority because if we're not relying on God's word and God's truth to make sense of the world that he has made, we're grabbing our standard from the father of lies.

This is why witchcraft is a demonic appropriation of alternate authority. Perhaps it's best just to say it this way, trying to change things in the world around you simply by using words, where people are casting spells today in our culture, looking at that which is evil and calling it good, looking at things that are good and calling it evil, or simply stating their preferred pronouns.

So we see it in the wild, as Dylan cleverly puts this, we see it around us.

We need to identify the witchcraft going on in the world around us, call it what it is so that we may repent and follow

Christ. And I think Andrew, you've got a good example for us this week. I sure do.

In fact, I have something about practical magic and by that we're talking about putting magic into practice.

Recently in Washington DC, I say recently, in approximately mid -January an artist had put up some paperboards with Soviet style propaganda images.

One of which, just to illustrate it, is a picture of the United States President Joe Biden with a hammer labeled

OSHA and surrounding it with comply. That's a dangerous bit of propaganda to dispel the lies.

However, about 11 minutes after they were put up on a building, a local resident came by and tore them down.

When she was asked, why are you taking down this art, is it not approved art?

She said it was a public health concern. For public health. So, she has taken the viewpoint or the word of public health, turned it into, well this is concerning, so therefore

I'm going to protect and do my part through the use of this practice of tearing down something that would oppose public health.

That's kind of like the basis of occultic ideas of bringing your will into reality through the use of whatever device possible.

That's a good example because by calling it a health concern, this affords her the moral currency imperative.

Imperative. She must, to save others, she must tear down these pieces of art.

So what is she up to? She's using a word health that really is overused in our day, but it's one of those words that has been enchanted with so many new nuances of meaning that it no longer means health like you would find in a dictionary a generation or two ago.

Now the word has been enchanted. We still have the word, but there's all sorts of new meanings that have been brought into bear.

She's not coming up with a new word, you know, tearing down other people's artistic expressions and protests.

This isn't totalitarianism, we're going to call it the common good, we're going to come up with a new term.

It's not the invention of a new term, it's using a term that's already there that everybody can get behind.

Oh, we all want to be healthy, we're all for health, how can you be against health? But then redefining it, enchanting it with something new, and that's definitely witchcraft out in the wild.

It has left the realm of the thought and entered into action. Yeah, so you said practical, acting it out as she's casting her spell, declaring this to be a health issue, tearing down, endangering her worldview.

She couldn't handle the disenchantment. A disenchanted artist drew these things. Right, but see what just happened, so what he put up, obviously using the

Soviet style propaganda posters, is saying, he's bringing that together with pictures of the

President of the United States. And Lord Fowchee. Yeah, and Lord Fowchee.

Mr. Science. And this is, now consider this, what he's doing is satire, but with a point, it's demonstrating, now he's not actually doing sorcery, he's not saying that Joe Biden and Fowchee are

Soviet agents, right? He's not saying that. He's not saying that these are card -carrying

Soviet agents, and so he's not doing some sort of sorcery, bringing two things together and mixing them together that don't actually belong together.

But what he's doing, it's satire. It's pointing to the fact that they're acting in ways that, it's kind of hard to see the difference between what they're doing and what was done in communist

Russia. And the American people have, I suppose rightly, been indoctrinated or shown the errors or how this artistic form was used to influence others for evil.

Right. But when she sees it, she doesn't see satire. She sees a competing spell.

Exactly. To her, it's a desecration. Right. So here is an anti -power move coming from a warlock.

I must respond and cast my spell and undo what was done. She can't see satire, right?

She's in a battle. That's part of the reason why humor is lost.

Why can't certain people of a certain persuasion, why can't they laugh? Where'd the humor go?

Because everything is reduced to these unimaginative categories, right?

God still has a sense of humor. Paul had a sense of humor talking to the pagans in Acts 17 about how religious they were.

This is a riot, the way that he started talking about. Sometimes Acts 17 is used as a model of like, this is the way to really engage in a way that doesn't rock many boats.

This is highbrow engagement for the Christians in our sophisticated...

Paul is having fun. I see the chur of religious people.

And then the whole thing about the unknown God, and then he turns it on its head. This is humorous. And it's even humorous when they can't figure out that when he talks about resurrection, he's not talking about another

God. They think resurrection is the name of another God. This is how dense these people are.

It's a funny story, and of course it has a point, but they don't have any humor in it.

They're like, what's this seed picker doing? Talking about this, that, and the other, and they don't get what's going on.

This also brings up another interesting bit of witchcraft that goes on within many of these enchantresses' circles.

What is art? To her, that is not art, right? It's desecration.

But most of what's been produced since about 1900 to now, we could chalk up as desecration and not art, and not of any sort of artistic use or any sort of artistic expression using gifts.

And even if most of the people that we've seen from 1900 to now used their gifts or they had gifts, what was their thing?

Their thing was to exalt themselves by not actually using those gifts properly.

This is sophisticated humor, what this guy did. This is sophisticated humor, and all she can think of is these posters are going to kill people because they won't follow the rules and do their rituals and keep themselves holy.

They'll become unclean if they believe these posters, right? So it's attacking the holiness code that she can't live without and believes that others cannot live without.

And so the only thing she can do is just tear it down. This is a lowbrow response to highbrow humor.

And I can't help but think about what happened also in the Book of Acts when the status quo was challenged and the best response that the people who come up with in Ephesus is to scream for two hours, great is

Diana the goddess of Ephesus. That's all they can do is just scream the same thing over and over and over and over again.

It's like, how many times do you have to yell it? But that's their response to the invasion of the truth is to yell the mantra over and over again.

But business is booming. Yeah, business is booming.

I say business is booming in the sense that, you know, in the same way that their idol manufacturing process was going to be torn down business right here with health being now the chief end.

If we, if we reject such things as being materialistic, you know, well, I can't get people to buy into it now.

Well, and remember that this, this whole thing is being driven by the fear of death and the Bible says the fear of death is slavery.

And some people find a lot of security in slavery and they do not want to be set free.

That requires responsibility. Taking ownership. And I think the

Communist Party was against individuals taking responsibility too. So we'll do the thinking for you.

You just shut up and get back in the red line. That's a good thing.

Sorry. Shot at Bernie. Well, since I think we've exhausted the witchcraft here, we can go on to some good media and we're going to go to some recommendations of things we've been consuming or we have consumed before and we found very helpful or very edifying in our lives and we'll start with Michael.

If he's got something he's either recently enjoyed or in the past and see if it can, it can help you and edify you as well.

So right now I'm rereading a book I read a long time ago and it's part of a discipleship group and the book is called

According to Plan by Graham Goldsworthy and it is a,

I think probably college level or senior in high school level read through of a biblical theology.

How does the whole story of the Bible fit together? And how are we to read the Bible in a way that we're supposed to, in the way that it's intended to be read instead of reading it like critics or reading it like archaeologists or reading it like scientists, reading it as believers in Christ.

And Graham Goldsworthy is a, he's, he's very elderly now. I don't know if he's passed away yet or not.

He's, he used to teach at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia as Anglican and has written several books on biblical theology and seeing

Christ as the lens through which you are to read all of scripture and to see all of life.

And so he's been very helpful to me in that regard. This is just one of his books, but I would say it's a great introduction to everything else he's, he's written.

So according to plan, Graham Goldsworthy, super Dave. So I finished a book recently and I think

I mentioned it on a previous episodes, some progressive covenantalism and it had taken some of the classic dispensationalism to task.

So over the last couple of weeks I have been rereading, rightly dividing the word of God by C .I.

Schofield. If you do not have a copy, you can get a free one. There are not too many people that defend classic dispensationalism anymore.

It's tends to be more of the more progressive or reformed or in lowercase r dispensationalism.

So that's the kind that you're going to encounter now. But I have been, I hate to use this, this, this word, but you know, know your enemy.

But I have really enjoyed getting into his mind and, and to why did he, you know, where did he start off from?

And it's actually given me an understanding of some of my family members and some of the people that I have when

I hear some of the things that they say, like, wait a second, that's not biblical.

That's Schofield. I have been able to, uh, like my private devotions in the morning,

I've been reading first Thessalonians. That is the quintessential dispensational. Here's the rapture.

It's right there. It is right there. And, and that's when there's a first lesson is for, it's like, you know, first lesson for even the, the, then the main point of all of Thessalonians, it's about encouragement and, and Paul wanting to give them, he was, he was afraid that their faith was going to be in jeopardy because he was suffering the very things he told them he was going to be suffering and says, but you guys love me so much.

And I love you. And I just want to make sure you're encouraged and, you know, don't worry. Those who have died, they're going to rise first.

And then we who are alive, it is coming. We will be with the Lord and he's encouraging them. But this is the, this is the quintessential verse that says, this is why there's a difference between the, the, the church in Israel.

What? And, and, and so I've been able to, where are they getting these terms and just chapter one, uh, where he talks about Jew, Gentile, and the church of God.

And he, he wonderfully goes through the church and says how there's no distinction between the

Jew and the Gentile in the church. And in Christ, he has this nice command of that. I'm like, good.

And he says, but this is not what we see in the old Testament where the Jews are prompted to obedience because of earthly blessing.

And that's what you get from obedience. So you get earthly blessing and that's why we shouldn't be Judaizing the church and building giant, you know, giant buildings because when he starts talking about the kingdom of God and Mark and the kingdom of God and Matthew, that's for the church, and then he goes through and talks about the kingdom of God and is applied to Israel and he's in these and he's in Luke and he's going back and forth and back and forth between a complete misunderstanding of what the kingdom of God is.

And he uses it interchangeably. He takes the same parallel passages and applies one, this one, one this way and one the other way.

And I'm trying to make heads or tails of this chapter one. And this is the start. This is the starting point for his entire theological system.

And I have enjoyed going through it, not to take it apart because again, most people don't, don't defend the classic dispensationalism.

So you're not going to win arguments. You're not going to go through this as, okay, now I'm armed and now I can go fight. It says, no, no, no, no, no. It allows you to see this is human tradition here.

And when you import that into a book like First Thessalonians, you're starting to see tradition and scripture, tradition and scripture.

And if you can at least identify the lens, I mean, we all have lenses and we all have some biases that we will, we will bring, okay, at least identify them.

But the lens that we should be using is Christ. So as I've gone through this, if you have not read it and you think you understand classic dispensationalism, but you've never read

Schofield, give it a try. I would say chapter one, if you can make heads or tails of it, so that he's being very consistent, come show me how, because he's not,

I can't see how he's being consistent now. That's a really good starting point. And then from there, now that we've established that the churches is one, one body and Israel is another body.

Now we can go and explain the rest of scripture. When you lost me at, you know, about halfway through chapter one, dude.

So that's what I've been enjoying as I've been going through that as a, as a, just because so many other books that I've read have, have referenced it.

One of my family members has said, you really need to read this book. So it'll help you understand the Bible. Like, okay,

I read it. Now what back to the sources? You said you can pick it up for free. Yeah.

You can find it online for, for free PDF. Yeah. Yeah. I actually have a,

I think I got a 99 cent copy that's actually downloaded onto my, my Kindle right now, but there you go.

Anyway, that's, that, that's what I've been reading. Hopefully nobody throws me out of our church. I don't think you have to worry about that.

I am also very curious how he can go from one point to the other and wait, wait a second.

You lost me anyway. So I have recently begun reading animal farm by, uh,

George Orwell. Sorry. I, I did, I was not exposed to George Orwell's work and when most people are in the

United States and, and that by that, I mean public education system, whether it be, you know, high school or, uh, it's, it's really below a collegiate level, but, but apparently it didn't show up in the curriculum that I, I, I had whenever I was going through school in Tennessee, my wife had, she's all, she's already read it, but apparently it was for an

AP course, uh, for, for high school. Um, anyway, I've been very appreciative of drawing upon something that's so well known culturally with animal farm, but at the same time, coming to know a little bit more about the author,

George Orwell and his apparently associations with a Trotskyist organization in Spain in the 1930s.

And that was something I did not know. And, and after, after learning that I began to see it in his writing already.

So it's, it's an interesting read. It's a timeless read. It's very easy for me to import myself into seeing,

Oh, this is happening now as well because authoritarianism, whether it be cloaked under the name socialist or, or crony capitalism or author authoritarian communism, it it's, it's all the same whenever it rears its head.

It's collectivism. It's very collective and it's very hypocritical. The revolution is not a reformation because it doesn't solve anything.

It's just the Oroboros eating its tail over and over again. Yeah. It doesn't solve anything metaphysical.

It, it only solves certain physical things for certain more equal than other pigs.

Manifestations of greed look different in different systems. We've already, we've already had the great reset.

It was called the flood and God said man's heart was the same before and after. We've already been there and done that.

Well, um, my plug for media or my recommendation for media this week is

My Man Jeeves by P .G. Woodhouse. I recently went through, and I know I've talked about Woodhouse before, but we were talking about satire and this man does it well and he does it thoroughly over hundreds of pages and all of his work.

Um, but My Man Jeeves is an entry point to the Bertie Wooster novels about him, a young aristocrat in England who's worth millions and gets himself into all kinds of trouble playing jokes on earls and lords and their, their sons, their daughters, and he has a particular aversion to one of his aunts and a great love for his other, but his true companion through life is

Jeeves, his Butler, um, who always ends up having some sort of solution to every problem that Bertie gets himself into.

I mean, he's, he's kind of lifted up as the savior in all cases and all these books, and it is wonderful to listen to.

And for right now, from what I can tell, the entire Jeeves collection on Audible is still free if anybody has

Audible. So just go out there and download it. If you eat, cause you can download it and you can just throw it away.

You don't have to, you don't have to worry about it, but it's included with a prime membership or a, uh, Audible membership.

So My Man Jeeves is the first one and go look up the chronology of the entire series and you can just whip through them one by one and you won't be disappointed, or at least

I hope you won't. And that wraps it up for today. We're always very thankful for our listeners tuning in every week and for supporting us by rating, reviewing, and sharing the show.

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