Sorry for the Delay....Episode 45 will NOT be released at the normally scheduled time (the Last Day of the month. Instead, it will be ready after the week-end. From this point forward, an Episode will be published the 1st and the15th of the month. Thanks for our loyalty.
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On Today's Episode, we...
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On today's episode, we
John, a friend of mine at work, upon learning I was a Christian, asked me if I prayed and engaged in spiritual warfare. I answered honestly that I did pray but when it came to the spiritual warfare, I was a bit more vague in my answer. It’s not that I wouldn’t want to see Satan and all his forces defeated – rather, in my struggle against sin and temptation (as poor as it may be,) I am not likely to describe such enterprises in those terms and any intercessory prayer that I offered for my family and friends would not be, to my shame, as an intense as “spiritual warfare.” John went on to describe the existences of witches, hidden in plain sight, in our community and offered to send me a YouTube video on the subject. I happily agreed and as I walked to the car -we had both just punched out of work- two videos hit my phone. The first thing I noticed was that both videos were an hour and a half long each and I thought, “Well, it’s a good thing I have a long commute so it will only take me a week to complete both videos.”
A man’s voice came over my car’s radio speaker (thank
God for Bluetooth) and introduced himself as Jack Chick. Wait a minute! I can’t
believe it. Hearing his name brought back many happy memories of my teenage
years when I wandered into a small Pentecostal church in my hometown and,
besides learning the bible very well over the next couple of years, I also was
introduced to the famous Chick tracts which delighted me with their simple
stories and well-drawn cartoons. It was a comic strip meant to evangelize. And
here he was speaking to me in my car!
Now it is true that my way of thinking has drastically
changed from my early Pentecostal years and much of what Jack Chick taught in
his tracts, while at the time was very palatable to me, is now somewhat less
aggregable. Although I am a convinced Christian who believes in the
Incarnation, the bodily resurrection of Christ and His imminent return
(Maranatha!), I would not by any means describe myself as a
fundamentalist. Notwithstanding this
change in my world view, I still wanted to hear what he had to say.
The video turned out to be an interview conducted by
Jack Chick where he talked with Dr. Rebecca Brown, M.D. who has spent a lot of
time with people who were high up in the chain of command in witchcraft…or so
they said. The first thing I noticed
about the interview was that Satan worship and witchcraft were conflated to be
the same thing. The truth is witchcraft
is more of a nature worship that does not involve the overt worship of Satan. Many
Christians have combined the two for some reason. I think it is understandable.
While practitioners of Wicca do not claim to be servants of Satan, Christians
have long believed that any pagan practice that worships either false gods or
idols or the worship of nature (which is essentially what witchcraft is) is
really a service to demons. For more on
this subject – and if you’d like to spend an interesting two hours – I recommend
listening to the November 26, 2020 episode of The Lord of the Spirits
podcast (episode title; A Land of Giants) where two Christian Orthodox priests
discuss the famed Nephilim of the book of Genesis and point out that demons who
had rebelled against God took the worship due to God by masquerading as idols. Here
is the web address:
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/lordofspirits/land_of_giant
But to hear this interview conducted by Jack Chick,
you would conclude that witches knowingly serve Satan. That just isn’t
true. Witches cast spells and call upon
Nature as a god to do their business but to say they worship the devil is a
stretch – not that I am encouraging anyone to become a witch. While there may
be many who practice witchcraft, comparatively speaking, there are few who
actually worship Satan.
So why does Dr. Brown make claims in the interview
that she has been battling Satan and Witches Covens? Is she lying? I think so.
Evangelical Christians have long been fascinated with
the darker side of spiritual warfare. And the Unscrupulous will capitalize on
that obsession to gain notoriety (and perhaps money) in the Christian
community. Remember Mike Warnke? He was
a Christian comedian who claimed to be a former Satan Worshiper who converted
to Christianity. He told exciting and incredible stories of his life as High
Priest in Satanism. I actually saw him in concert back in the mid-80’s. I just
remember he spent most of the time castigating the audience for not bringing
their friends to the event. The place was only half full and I guess that meant
less money for him. I do remember the
tickets were expensive.
Mike Warnke was exposed as a fraud by the Cornerstone
magazine in 1985 and I have reason to believe that Dr. Brown is a fraud as
well. She makes a lot of outlandish
claims that she does not support with evidence. She claims a certain town was
almost completely made up of witches, even the churches and yet the town is not
named. She claims that each Christian
church has a witch in it that infiltrated the church so as to do damage. (There
is also the claim that Masons and “Catholics” are planted there as spies,
placed there by the Vatican.) She claims that Satan himself, not one of his
underlings, had conversations with Elaine (now a convert to Christ) and that
Satan gave direct orders to her to do his bidding. I can see Satan involved with directing the
actions of heads of state but not so much with a mid-west girl. Dr. Brown claims that the coven made death
threats in writing. But why wasn’t this turned over to the police? I think
witches would cover their tracks more since Dr. Brown made the claim that they
made sure not to draw too much attention to themselves. After all, when it came
to the deaths they caused in the hospital they made sure not to cause a link by
repeating a pattern. And yet they would
stupidly leave a written trail to their threats? I think not.
Please understand, as a Christian, I do believe in the
activity of demons and when the Scriptures say the Devil knows his time short,
so he is doing battle against humanity, I believe it wholeheartedly. I think
the work of Satan is obvious today: the
secularization of our country, the decline of marriage as a God-ordained
institution, and the general anxiety and despair of many people, including people
committing suicide over their gender identity- all point to the work of the evil
one.
So why don’t I believe Dr. Brown? Besides all the
reasons previously given, the whole interview relies on sensationalism and who
doesn’t like an exciting story? Moreover,
this isn’t the first time that Jack Chick was duped. He made a lot of anti-Catholic tracts back in
the day. Now I certainly understand people who may have a problem with Roman Catholic
Theology (I certainly do) but Jack Chick made outrageous claims regarding the
activities of the Vatican and the Catholic Church, all based on the testimony of someone claimed to be a former priest. Forgive me, but I
read this years ago so I cannot remember the guys name nor do I remember the
specifics of the claims but I do remember an article where Jack Chick was shown
that this person who claimed to be a priest was in fact not and Jack Chick
responded, “Well, I prayed about it so I believe what the ex-priest told me.”
Dr. Brown also played to Jack Chick’s vanity. She claimed that Satan was especially enraged
by Jack Chick’s ministry because it was so effective so that is why Satan attacked
him so much. Jack Chick blames Satan for his materials being dropped by Christian bookstores whereas the real reason is because of the
outlandish claims he made against Catholics.
I think Christians should be involved in spiritual warfare
and I know that, as a Christian, I do not pray as I should. But fantastic stories that rely on
sensationalism do little to advance the Gospel and, besides turning people away
from God because of the outlandish claims, it is a waste of spiritual energy to
focus so much on an almost non-existent problem (Satan worship is not at an all
time high.) Christians would do better to “work out their own salvation, with
fear and trembling” (Philipians 2:12) and live in daily repentance, knowing our
shortcomings and sins can be forgiven in Christ.
All this being said, I think Jack Chick’s tract “This
was your life,” was one of the best tracts ever written.
Sorry for the Delay....Episode 45 will NOT be released at the normally scheduled time (the Last Day of the month. Instead, it will be read...
