Post-Christian Paganism on the Rise

In 2020, 30% of people in the United States identified as “nones”—people with no formal religious affiliation.1 At the same time, people are still spiritually hungry. Sales of tarot cards doubled between 2016 and 2021, and some influencers have gained popularity on social media by doing virtual tarot readings.2 Wicca is also growing quickly and has a strong online presence.3

Many times, the same people who would criticize the Bible as being a myth and reject its teachings about God are happy to buy healing crystals and get their horoscope read. Ouija boards are also extremely popular. What does this tell us, and how can Christians respond?

The First False Religion

As in most cases, to understand this issue, we have to go back to Genesis. In Eden, Adam and Eve, our first parents, lived in perfect relationship with God. There was no sin, no death, and only one very simple rule to follow—don’t eat the fruit from the forbidden tree.

Satan tempted Eve by implying that God’s command to not eat the fruit was denying her something good that would give her wisdom. God was being stingy, perhaps even cruel! If God really loved her, he wouldn’t forbid the fruit. She and her husband trusted Satan instead of God, and they got new knowledge—just not the knowledge Satan promised them.

Similarly, people today are attracted by the occult because it offers the promise of new knowledge, and it’s even better that the practitioner’s Christian family members will be shocked and dismayed by their new religion.

True and False Religions

While false religions have diverse beliefs, philosophies, and practices, in reality, none of them can save anyone.

True and false religions have always coexisted. In reality, there are only two types of religion—true faith in the Creator God revealed in Scripture and then everything else. While false religions have diverse beliefs, philosophies, and practices, in reality, none of them can save anyone.

Because God created us in his image to live in relationship with him, when someone rejects him, there is a spiritual hole that is left which people try to fill with all sorts of false gods and spiritual practices. The Old Testament attests to the practices of serving both false gods (like Molech and Asherah) and idols in the image of false gods, the sun, moon, and stars.

Lest we feel too superior, many people have a materialistic religion of worshipping wealth and consumption (Matthew 6:24; Luke 12:16–21), even if they don’t realize it. It isn’t better if your false religion happens to have Steve Jobs as its holy figure!

Materialistic religions leave a spiritual hole, however. People who desire more overt spirituality without “organized religion” may turn to animistic religions like Buddhism or Sikhism. These religions also appeal to the modern interest in environmentalism. These religions see natural forces as personal to some extent.4 There are also pagan religions loosely based upon pre-Christian European religions like Norse and Greek mythology, which are also pantheistic.

But some people want more overt contact with spiritual powers, and various types of witchcraft and divination appeal to them. In the “best-case” scenario, these people play make-believe in a belief system that is hostile to true belief in God. In the worst-case scenario, many who have been delivered from these practices testify to the demonic influence one can encounter. There is a good reason God tells us to have nothing to do with these practices!

Witchcraft Versus the Gospel

From the earliest days of Christianity, evangelists have needed to confront pagan beliefs in whatever form they took in the culture. The earliest recorded story about the conflict between Christianity and the occult is the record in Acts of Peter versus Simon the magician. The apostles were doing miracles to glorify God and authenticate their gospel claims, but Simon was doing counterfeit magic for his own fame. Simon apparently believed the gospel and was starstruck by the miracles.

However, Simon thought he could purchase the power to do miracles with money, for which Peter strongly rebuked him. His error came from a wicked intent to use that power to continue promoting his own name.

In Ephesus, some people who had practiced witchcraft believed in Christ, confessed their sinful practices, and burned magical texts worth 50,000 denarii. This overt display of faith was a threat to the silversmiths, who made a large portion of their living from selling silver idols of Artemis.

Paul names sorcery as one of the types of sins that keeps people from inheriting the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:20), and sorcery is also one of the things that causes one to be shut outside the new Jerusalem in outer darkness (Revelation 22:15).

At best, witchcraft is a make-believe game that distracts us from the truth. At worst, it puts people in contact with demonic powers, which the Bible warns us to stay away from for very good reasons.

How to Respond

Because both Old Testament Israel and the New Testament church encountered various types of witchcraft, we can take lessons from how they responded to help us reach people who are practicing various types of paganism today.

First, there is absolutely no room to allow for any type of pagan syncretism in the church. Any type of nature worship, divination, communication with spirits, whether angels or spirits of the dead, is totally condemned, and anyone who engages in these practices is “outside” the church. If you are above a certain age, this might seem obvious to you. But if your youth cohort is large enough, you might be surprised to hear how many in your youth groups might have tarot cards or follow psychics on social media! There is a need for clear, sober teaching about the occult being forbidden without sensationalizing, which can make it seem more attractive.

Through Christ, believers have true union with God, which is what we were designed for and why we have spiritual longings in the first place.

Second, much like the author of Hebrews argued against a return to Judaism by emphasizing how much better we have it as believers in Christ, we need to emphasize that paganism offers, at best, an illusory and deceptive engagement with spirits that the Bible says lie and hate us. Through Christ, believers have true union with God, which is what we were designed for and why we have spiritual longings in the first place.

The modern-day witch or pagan’s greatest need is the gospel. Belief in Christ for them will entail specific repentance from and rejection of their pagan activities, including destroying artifacts used in their spiritual practices. In our digital age, it may also include deleting social media that glorifies witchcraft and unfollowing influencers that focus on it!

As alluded to above, we should avoid sensationalizing the pagan or occult. It claims to be mysterious and exciting, which is part of its draw. To the contrary, it is just another one of Satan’s traps to deceive anyone who might be vulnerable. We shouldn’t focus on the fact that a witch is a witch; we should focus on the fact that the witch is a lost image-bearer who desperately needs to hear the gospel and to repent and trust in Christ for salvation.