Sermons

Tales of the Occult

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Witches and Warlocks and Satanists, oh my!

The approaching day of Halloween is the perfect time for fundamentalist pastors to dig out one of their favorite topics: How Practitioners of the Occult are planning to take over America’s youth via television shows and storybooks. That fact that these dabblers in magic have allegedly been working tirelessly since the 60’s with very little to show for it does not bother fundamentalists in the least. The more you don’t see them the more you know they’re there.

It’s easy enough to gather fodder for these types of claims since any reference at all in a book or video game to magic, magical creatures, spells, black pots, goats, wizards, spirits, or even unicorns can be construed to be the subtle hand of the New Age Movement subtly instilling a love of Satan in people’s hearts. And here you thought you were just watching Sesame Street. You fool.

Do you practice Yoga? Read your horoscope? Believe predictions from the Weather Channel? You might as well be sacrificing a virgin and branding Satan’s mark on your forehead. But never fear, if you’re an evangelist who can claim to be a former believer in the occult it’s worth its weight in spell books.

Never mind that the total number of Wiccans, Pagans, and other such folks is less than 0.1% of the population. Never mind that folk tales about the fantastic and supernatural have been around for as long as time. The world’s of imagination and make-believe evidently have no part in the fundy’s worldview unless the writer’s name happens to be Lewis or perhaps Tolkien.

320 thoughts on “Tales of the Occult”

  1. You know, HOW MANY people have fled the Faith because of power hungry, validation-whores known as Fundamental Christian preachers? These guys “preach against” ANYTHING in the name of sanctification and pervert the Scriptures to fit the “Sinner-flavor-of-the-month” activity: holiday, music choice, food choice, haircut,color of socks, boxers?, briefs?, motorcycle?,car?…in reality, these are simply (for the most part) under educated, maladjusted boobs who couldn’t make it doing anything else. I mean REALLY, after listening to Jack Schaap a few times, would YOU hire him? Could you imagine him as a drive-thru guy at Burger King? Gesh! :mrgreen:

  2. This will only make sense if you are a faithful reader of SFL.

    At a BK drive-thru near you……

    Jack Schaap: Welcome to BK, can I take your order?
    Female Customer: Can I have a whopper and coke
    please
    JS: Uhm, is your husband with you? Women really shouldn’t be speaking in public.
    FC: Uh, I’m not married.
    JS: Oh, I see. $6.49 please drive around
    JS: $6.49….what are you wearing on your feet? Are those open toe shoes??????
    FC: Please can you just take my money and give me my food, I’m hungry.
    JS: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO…..

    2. LOL. I would think he would also coach her to a salad so she can inspire a man to do great things for God (since presumably she can’t do anything for God but inspire a man by being fit and doable (for lack of a better word)). JS fail. That feels like a good hashtag. #JSFAIL

      1. There really is so much JS material to work with. Too much to squeeze into my little vignette 😀

    3. WHAT A SCREAM!!!!!! Ha! I was thinking more along the line of his yelling into the mic to the point of distortion….but your scenario is AWESOME!

  3. oh my gosh, this brings back good memories 😆

    Narnia was ok, LotR and Harry Potter were of the deeeeeeevil!! Wizards!! And magic rings! I remember my mom searching for stuff on the internet: I guarantee she found the onion article. And then this article by a former “witch” who was exposing all of the so-called evils of LotR. This is LotR we’re talking about.

    I wish I could remember some of the exact things: though I remember that when I searched for Lord of the Rings occult I didn’t find anything 😛 And now both she and my dad love them and come watch them with us whenever they’re on.

    Growing up was so full of illogical and double standards for me. And then my mom wonders why I struggle with our current fundy church. I want to start over so bad.

    1. I work with who I call a fundy Pentacostal, and she was even hesitant on Narnia. We were talking one day about me liking the Harry Potter movies, and she said she doesn’t agree with it because it’s too “witchy” and “dark.” I told her that Narnia has witches and black magic in it, and she said that she didn’t even want to see those movies at first, but one of her granddaughters took her to one. I’m like, really?

  4. Certain paranoid religious radio personalities placed, in my mother’s head a reactionary mistrust of anything magically themed. Thought it was an introduction to the Occult, no matter the context or shallowness. Themes of generic magic was a no-brainer for cartoons, so that was a very common feature. Of course, adventure themed cartoons with mystic warriors like He-Man, were much more sinister and needed more indepth explanation by certain radio hosts. Cartoons featuring robots blasting each other were also banned on account of violence.

    The Wizard of Oz, no problem, there was no New Age Conspiracy back in 1939, and universally regarded as great cinema.

    Any documentary featuring Stonehenge – not allowed. Even if it was objective, they will probably feature some Druid’s opinion on the mysterious stones.

    1. I’ve read “He Came To Set The Captives Free” – that’s her, right? The REAL horror sank in when I realized some people _actually believe_ that stuff. 😯

  6. This is one of those characteristics of fundamentalism that really pisses me off. Sometime after my childhood (that included going door-to-door in mt Halloween costume), some fundy discovered that the holiday was satanic. So now, instead of sending their children out in their costumes, we all go to the church parking lot, where the kids can just reach in and grab as much candy as they like. Good for the dental industry I guess.

  7. I do remember my parents getting upset at me for having my friends over and watching “the sword in the stone”. A friend brought the movie with him. My parents turned off the TV.

    In Holland they don’t have Halloween (Although probably more prevalent now than then). But they do have another holiday called carnival. I was never allowed to dress up then either.

    And yes carnival is definitely not innocent for adults even though it sprung out of religious reasons… basically mardi gras with costumes. Which means a lot of drinking…I mean a lot of drinking. They do throw candy out during the parades so that’s fun for the kids. But the people throwing the candy are usually drunk so you never know where they would throw the candy at :mrgreen: .

  8. I know it’s a bit late, but I just thought of something that was deemed to be “demonic” in my household back in the day.

    My family took a brief ride on the Gothard bus back in the 90’s. We weren’t really “Gothard” people, as we came to find out, but some of the teachings stuck.

    It was around 1992 or 1993 when I was introduced to the wonderful world of Calvin and Hobbes. My brother-in-law had quite a few collection books, and I read them voraciously while visiting him and my sister one summer. I must have been 7 or 8, but they were the funniest things ever written, in my mind.

    Well, after I came home, Dad started going to some Gothard seminars. After a couple of months, Dad declared that we would no longer read Calvin and Hobbes because it was “demonic.” Apparently, one of the speakers had said something about imaginary friends being an influence of Satan or something, and Calvin and Hobbes was Public Enemy Number 1 in encouraging such demonic activity.

    Naturally, this didn’t stop the Sunday paper from coming to our house, comic section and all. I was typically an obedient child, but the question of why this “demonic” comic strip was so bad was enough to keep me secretly reading it. One day, I accidentally used one of the most recent C&H punchlines in a conversation, and I was busted. My older brother, who somehow knew the punchline despite the prohibition, ratted me out to the folks. I was punished, and from then on my brother got the comics before I did and proceeded to blot out the Calvin and Hobbes strip with a sharpie before I could read it.

    I’ve only recently stumbled across the old collection books in the bookstore, again. Kinda glad I did. The jokes are funnier now. 🙂

    (P.S. Dad also had a similar argument against Barney. While I disagree with his logic, I am glad for my own sanity’s sake that we were a Barney-free home.)

    1. When fundies turn EVERYTHING into a sin, it truly robs life of joy. Enjoy those Calvin and Hobbes comics; they truly are even funnier when you read them as an adult! 🙂

  11. Just drove by a 7th Day Adventist church today that had on its church sign: “Have you ever wondered what God thinks of Halloween?”

  12. My response to any fundy claim that something was pagan is, “Well, are you actually USING it in a pagan practice?” If not, then it’s not pagan.

    I always loved how Narnia was okay, but Potter was not.

  13. It is SO true, and sickening, that only the “right” kind of fantasy is okay. It’s okay to show Narnia on a big screen in an auditorium…but watch Harry Potter or Twilight (or any other recently popular fantasy/sci-fi movie) in a theatre (or at home) and you have a sin issue on your hands. Oh, and why is Star Wars okay? It never ceases to amaze me how people make excuses and exceptions for what they want and condemn the rest of Christianity for making use of their liberty.

    1. No kidding! It drives me crazy that fundies look down on me because I like Casting Crowns or Third Day, but they are humungous Star Wars fans. Christian liberty is Christian liberty. If they’re not free to listen to CCM, at least let me enjoy it. I am free. (I do have to admit, though, that my parents were consistent — they didn’t let me read “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” and they avoided fairy tales as much as possible. If a fairy tale had a witch in it – like “Hansel and Gretel” – we couldn’t read it.)

    1. If the fundies really paid attention, they’d realize what a formidable opponent Gene Roddenberry actually was. Star Trek is the ultimate sneaky secular seduction, and should be beamed to all religion-dominated countries.

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