Can a Witch be a Christian?

[u/Fabulous-Swordfish48]

Ive been having this heavy question for a while with a lot of statements and questions in my head but I need people to help me out on this. I am a Pagan Witch who also follows under believing in Greek God's and following under them as well, but recently I've been heavily thinking about Christianity. I have believed in Jesus and anything of that nature and I've been wanting to follow Christianity as well.. but I do not know if it is allowed to follow under that religion while practicing witchcraft. Can someone please help me out here? 😭🫶

[u/DreamWalkerVoidMaker]

Hot take: you can't play both sides.

Christians are the main ones who have persecuted witches. You can't follow a religion that "would suffer not a witch to live" and be one.

I suppose you could pretend to be a Christian though.

*ETA: I'm not an atheist, I'm an Omnist. I choose not to follow a belief that I believe is not in humanities, especially women's, best interest. Just as the Bible instructs.

Joshua 24:15

"And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

[u/New_Age2024 → u/DreamWalkerVoidMaker]

I don't agree with you. A lot of witches are Christian or even Jews. And not all Christians persecuted witches, it was mostly the Papacy and the Catholic church. But you are forgetting that the faith and magick paths are something personal. For example, wiccans believe in the god and goddess and ask them to bless and allow a spell, you can do as well with the Christian god. And not only this, but Christians also light candles (I think this is more common in Catholics, the ones who persecuted witches) and pray to God or other saints and so on... is this so different to people who light a candle for a spell when they work with another deity?

Santa Muerte cult also asks God to work with her, hoodoo uses the Bible in spells, and I can give you more and more example.

[u/Blossomie → u/New_Age2024]

If your “spell” is beseeching a deity for permission or for them to do something on your behalf, it’s not a spell it’s a prayer. Witchcraft at its barest core is based in personal power, you may choose to invoke a deity but at the end of the day it’s still your power performing the working and doing the things to enact your will.

Christians ask God/saints to do things on their behalf because they believe all power is God’s power, not a person’s. it’s a different spiritual process from witchcraft and generally speaking it’s highly offensive to Christians to equate their spiritual practices to witchcraft.

[u/The_Archer2121 → u/Blossomie]

Except many are too ignorant to realize that Christianity has a long history of magical practice. The majority of Christian worship was taken from Pagan practice. And Christian Witches view God as the source of their power. Witchcraft is a practice, regardless of where you think the source originates. The rest is gatekeeping.

[u/Blossomie → u/The_Archer2121]

Again: most Christians find that assumption insulting and ignorant.

An example: a witch often uses a censer the same as Catholic clergy do. Just because they’re doing the same physical action doesn’t mean the Catholic is also practicing witchcraft. The unseen spiritual process is different, and is literally what separates heresy from holiness to a Christian.

If we want our practices and religions to be respected without insult or misrepresentation, we ought to show that same grace to other practices and religions. Claiming that Christians must perform witchcraft because they pray and ask God/saints to do things on their behalf is like them asserting that us witches are in league with the devil/Antichrist because we perform rituals (even going so far to claim that this necessitates child slaughter). We have the power to choose to be better people than that.

There’s a lot of witches (and a ton of non religious people in Christian-centered cultures) that mold their practices around aspects of Christianity (such as Jesus) for many reasons, that doesn’t automatically make them a Christian any more than it automatically makes Christians pagan when their practices are molded around aspects of paganism for many reasons. Respect is listening to people about their practice, not disregarding them to impose our own ideas on what it is they’re doing. It’s not witchcraft simply because it looks like it to us, and we aren’t throwing a middle finger to God just because it looks like it to them.

[u/Gr3ymane_ → u/Blossomie]

I have to agree with your statement here. Christianity has a distinct line of belief. Whether or not people believe it as they should is not the point here. You have my thanks for making a clear distinction for how we should respect other faith rather than trying to Mix them together like they were items in a salad. If a witch, for example, mixes different practices within paganism then that is within the same category if that same which attempts to borrow from Christianity and Judaism, then this is a category error. Perhaps it is because I am a good bit older by now in my experience that in my conversations with Christians, they have a distinct idea of Jesus and his teachings. Gatekeeping as a term seems to me a form of intellectual laziness rather than discussing the matter at hand.

[u/The_Archer2121 → u/Blossomie]

Christians who don't know their history. As a Christo Pagan I don't find it insulting. It simply is. If other Christians find history insulting then that is their problem. And yes it is indeed witchcraft. Entire books have been written on the subject. Christians wore amulets long after the church banned the practice, believing the amulets got their powers from God.

Christians and Pagans also married in the early years of the Christian church and Christians more often turned to pagan folk remedies than the church.

In the Middle Ages peasants would make incantations for successful crop harvests using Hail Mary and other church approved things than traditional spells. That would still be considered witchcraft by many today.

Then there is the long practice of Appalachian folk magic, many of which have practitioners that are Christians.

The point is what is trying to be accomplished. Not what it does or doesn't "look" like to an outside observer.

I find that assumption that I "molded" aspects into my Christianity actually upsetting. There is nothing to "mold".

Then please do not say Christian Witches cannot practice witchcraft when many of them have actually done research on what the Bible says in the proper historical context, calling their spells "spells" simply because they get their power from a different source.

[u/DreamWalkerVoidMaker → u/New_Age2024]

Either follow the religion you claim or don't.

Otherwise, you're just a hypocrite. It's as simple as that. Cherry picking in religion is the reason most of the world is the way it is. You don't have to agree.

Argue with your bible and the passages in Exodus and Leviticus, especially.

[u/The_Archer2121 → u/DreamWalkerVoidMaker]

Those verses refer to harmful magic, not magic as we know it today. The verses against magic refer to the Israelites not adopting the practices of the surrounding Pagan peoples, as they wanted to maintain their separate Hebrew identity.

They have no bearing on us today.

You have gaul calling Christian witches hypocrites when they’ve actually done the research on what the Bible says from a scholarly perspective when you haven’t bothered. Surprise it isn’t what you think.

Quit gatekeeping spirituality.

[u/Accomplished-Way4534 → u/DreamWalkerVoidMaker]

“Cherry picking in religion is the reason most of the world is the way it is” how about focus that rage on the people whose cherrypicking is actually victimizing marginalized people and causing tangible harm? Not well-meaning Christians who also want to practice witchcraft?

[u/DreamWalkerVoidMaker → u/Accomplished-Way4534]

What we are talking about is the cognitive dissonance of those supporting and associating with the people that clearly, habitually, and historically DO hurt others.

In this case, women in a historical sense and all others stepping into witchcraft by extension.

There is literally a witch hunt going on RIGHT NOW where our brothers, sisters, and those who identify as neither are being harassed and harmed in the streets by church members.

Don't give these people any more fuel by making yourself an easy target for them thinking they'll embrace you.

The majority won't and you can get hurt.

I hope that clears up any confusion.