Once again, Hollywood has a way of taking something evil and making it look harmless. Put the right actors in the right setting, add some humor, romance, a little mystery, and a good soundtrack, and suddenly something that should make us uncomfortable becomes something we are supposed to enjoy.
That is what caught my attention when I heard about Practical Magic 2. The title itself tells you where the movie is going. It is built around magic, witches and the supernatural, taking something the Bible condemns as dangerous and turning it into entertainment. You can sit in a theater, laugh at the characters, enjoy the story, listen to the music, and walk out thinking, “It was only a movie.”
And that is where the problem begins. Not everything that entertains us is harmless.
Someone recently asked me a good question: Does the Holy Bible speak negatively about witchcraft?
Certainly, it does. And as you start to go through the Bible, you find that the Scriptures say considerably more about this subject than just referring to the word witchcraft. The King James Holy Bible uses the word itself in several passages, including 1 Samuel 15:23, 2 Chronicles 33:6, and Galatians 5:20. Nevertheless, Scripture also speaks about divination, enchantments, familiar spirits, wizards, sorcery, observing times and seeking information from the dead. Although the language differs, the warning remains consistent.
God did not want His people becoming involved with spiritual power, supernatural knowledge or guidance from sources outside of Him. Deuteronomy 18:10–12 makes this clear. God told Israel that there was to be no one among them who practiced divination, used enchantments, practiced witchcraft, consulted familiar spirits, dealt with wizards or sought information from the dead. Then God gives us His reason: “For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD.”
Notice what God did not say. He did not say these things were acceptable as long as you did not take them seriously. He did not say they were fine if you did them only for entertainment. He did not make an exception for the person who thought witches were amusing, magic was entertaining, or sorcery was simply part of a good trick. He told His people to stay away from it.
Yet that is precisely where popular entertainment has been successful. It has taken things that the Bible warns are dangerous and repackaged them until they no longer seem harmful. The witch isn't frightening anymore. She's likable. She's attractive. She's quirky. Maybe she's in love. The magic isn't presented as something dark and threatening; it's what makes the story exciting. Somewhere along the way, the audience stops seeing witchcraft as witchcraft.
Most people who watch a movie like Practical Magic 2 won't walk out of the theater and start practicing witchcraft. But that is not the only issue we should consider. We should also consider whether we are intentionally making entertainment out of something God has clearly told us to reject.
The problem can become harder to recognize when something God tells us to reject is presented as lighthearted, playful and normal. Entertainment has a way of lowering our defenses because we are not sitting there thinking, “I am being taught a spiritual lesson.” We are thinking, “I'm just watching a movie.”
But what we repeatedly watch, laugh at and admire can affect what we become comfortable with. We often convince ourselves that something is harmless because we aren't personally participating in it. We say, “I don't practice witchcraft. I don't cast spells. I don't read tarot cards. I don't consult mediums. So what's the problem?”
The Bible clearly condemns these practices, but Christians should also consider what we willingly embrace as entertainment. There is a difference between knowing that a movie contains witchcraft and deliberately choosing to spend two hours watching it for entertainment.
The spiritual world is real, even though we cannot see it with our physical eyes. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” The Bible does not present Satan, devils and spiritual wickedness as metaphors. They are real enemies, and God tells us to take them seriously.
When someone deliberately becomes involved in witchcraft, divination, sorcery or other occult practices, they are stepping into something God has told them to leave alone. When someone we trust warns us about a dangerous situation, we don't normally say, “Let me try it first so I can decide whether the warning was justified.” We listen because we trust the person giving us the warning. We don't need to experiment with forbidden things to understand why God gave us the warning. God knew what His people were dealing with, and He knew what they needed to avoid.
This is where the charming version of witchcraft becomes especially deceptive. If a movie showed occult practices in a way that was obviously frightening and destructive, many Christians would recognize the problem immediately. But make the witch charming and make her magic solve everyone's problems, and the warning can disappear beneath the entertainment.
Eventually, we can become more familiar with the entertainment industry’s version of witchcraft than we are with what the Bible actually says about it.
And the danger is that we stop calling evil what God calls evil. We begin calling it harmless entertainment. I don't need to practice witchcraft to become comfortable with it. I only need to watch it long enough, laugh at it enough and see it presented attractively enough that I stop regarding it as something God warned me about.
A better question is, “Does this help me love what God loves and hate what God hates?”
If I already know that God has spoken against witchcraft, why would I need to find the closest possible form of it that I can justify watching? If I would never participate in a séance because I know it is wrong, why would I deliberately watch entertainment that makes séances look amusing and harmless? If I would tell my children not to play with occult practices, why would I turn around and treat those same practices as entertainment in my own home?
It’s not a matter of becoming obsessed with Satan. We needn’t imagine devils lurking behind every difficulty in our lives, and we shouldn’t go into a movie theater afraid that a fictional character will somehow possess us. But we do need to be willing to say, “God has already given me His Word, so I don't need to entertain myself with what He has warned me to avoid.”
Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is simply turn something off. We can walk away from a movie. We can decide not to buy the book. We can tell our friends, “No, I'm not going to play that.” We can throw something away that we bought before we understood what it represented. We can teach our children why we don't treat occult practices as games.
Our decisions aren’t based on fear of the devil, but on trusting the God who warned us about him. That is not legalism. That is wisely taking God's Word seriously.
The Bible says, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft” (1 Samuel 15:23). God is making a serious comparison here. Witchcraft is not merely an interest that happens to make some people uncomfortable. Scripture connects it with rebellion against God.
And that leads us back to the real issue: the Bible is not concerned about whether things appear harmless to us; God's concern is whether we are obeying Him.
Then the question isn't just "Do I practice witchcraft?" but rather "Why should I want to be entertained by something which God tells me to reject?"
I don't need to know how close I can get to something God told me to stay away from. I don't need to find a loophole because I am only watching it for entertainment. I don't need to prove that I can handle it. I simply need to believe God when He tells me to stay away from something He calls an abomination.
God has already given us His Word. Sometimes obedience is not complicated. Sometimes it simply means we see what God has said, we believe Him, and we walk away.
RETURN TO ALL BLOGS
That is what caught my attention when I heard about Practical Magic 2. The title itself tells you where the movie is going. It is built around magic, witches and the supernatural, taking something the Bible condemns as dangerous and turning it into entertainment. You can sit in a theater, laugh at the characters, enjoy the story, listen to the music, and walk out thinking, “It was only a movie.”
And that is where the problem begins. Not everything that entertains us is harmless.
Someone recently asked me a good question: Does the Holy Bible speak negatively about witchcraft?
Certainly, it does. And as you start to go through the Bible, you find that the Scriptures say considerably more about this subject than just referring to the word witchcraft. The King James Holy Bible uses the word itself in several passages, including 1 Samuel 15:23, 2 Chronicles 33:6, and Galatians 5:20. Nevertheless, Scripture also speaks about divination, enchantments, familiar spirits, wizards, sorcery, observing times and seeking information from the dead. Although the language differs, the warning remains consistent.
God did not want His people becoming involved with spiritual power, supernatural knowledge or guidance from sources outside of Him. Deuteronomy 18:10–12 makes this clear. God told Israel that there was to be no one among them who practiced divination, used enchantments, practiced witchcraft, consulted familiar spirits, dealt with wizards or sought information from the dead. Then God gives us His reason: “For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD.”
Notice what God did not say. He did not say these things were acceptable as long as you did not take them seriously. He did not say they were fine if you did them only for entertainment. He did not make an exception for the person who thought witches were amusing, magic was entertaining, or sorcery was simply part of a good trick. He told His people to stay away from it.
Yet that is precisely where popular entertainment has been successful. It has taken things that the Bible warns are dangerous and repackaged them until they no longer seem harmful. The witch isn't frightening anymore. She's likable. She's attractive. She's quirky. Maybe she's in love. The magic isn't presented as something dark and threatening; it's what makes the story exciting. Somewhere along the way, the audience stops seeing witchcraft as witchcraft.
Most people who watch a movie like Practical Magic 2 won't walk out of the theater and start practicing witchcraft. But that is not the only issue we should consider. We should also consider whether we are intentionally making entertainment out of something God has clearly told us to reject.
The problem can become harder to recognize when something God tells us to reject is presented as lighthearted, playful and normal. Entertainment has a way of lowering our defenses because we are not sitting there thinking, “I am being taught a spiritual lesson.” We are thinking, “I'm just watching a movie.”
But what we repeatedly watch, laugh at and admire can affect what we become comfortable with. We often convince ourselves that something is harmless because we aren't personally participating in it. We say, “I don't practice witchcraft. I don't cast spells. I don't read tarot cards. I don't consult mediums. So what's the problem?”
The Bible clearly condemns these practices, but Christians should also consider what we willingly embrace as entertainment. There is a difference between knowing that a movie contains witchcraft and deliberately choosing to spend two hours watching it for entertainment.
The spiritual world is real, even though we cannot see it with our physical eyes. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” The Bible does not present Satan, devils and spiritual wickedness as metaphors. They are real enemies, and God tells us to take them seriously.
When someone deliberately becomes involved in witchcraft, divination, sorcery or other occult practices, they are stepping into something God has told them to leave alone. When someone we trust warns us about a dangerous situation, we don't normally say, “Let me try it first so I can decide whether the warning was justified.” We listen because we trust the person giving us the warning. We don't need to experiment with forbidden things to understand why God gave us the warning. God knew what His people were dealing with, and He knew what they needed to avoid.
This is where the charming version of witchcraft becomes especially deceptive. If a movie showed occult practices in a way that was obviously frightening and destructive, many Christians would recognize the problem immediately. But make the witch charming and make her magic solve everyone's problems, and the warning can disappear beneath the entertainment.
Eventually, we can become more familiar with the entertainment industry’s version of witchcraft than we are with what the Bible actually says about it.
And the danger is that we stop calling evil what God calls evil. We begin calling it harmless entertainment. I don't need to practice witchcraft to become comfortable with it. I only need to watch it long enough, laugh at it enough and see it presented attractively enough that I stop regarding it as something God warned me about.
A better question is, “Does this help me love what God loves and hate what God hates?”
If I already know that God has spoken against witchcraft, why would I need to find the closest possible form of it that I can justify watching? If I would never participate in a séance because I know it is wrong, why would I deliberately watch entertainment that makes séances look amusing and harmless? If I would tell my children not to play with occult practices, why would I turn around and treat those same practices as entertainment in my own home?
It’s not a matter of becoming obsessed with Satan. We needn’t imagine devils lurking behind every difficulty in our lives, and we shouldn’t go into a movie theater afraid that a fictional character will somehow possess us. But we do need to be willing to say, “God has already given me His Word, so I don't need to entertain myself with what He has warned me to avoid.”
Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is simply turn something off. We can walk away from a movie. We can decide not to buy the book. We can tell our friends, “No, I'm not going to play that.” We can throw something away that we bought before we understood what it represented. We can teach our children why we don't treat occult practices as games.
Our decisions aren’t based on fear of the devil, but on trusting the God who warned us about him. That is not legalism. That is wisely taking God's Word seriously.
The Bible says, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft” (1 Samuel 15:23). God is making a serious comparison here. Witchcraft is not merely an interest that happens to make some people uncomfortable. Scripture connects it with rebellion against God.
And that leads us back to the real issue: the Bible is not concerned about whether things appear harmless to us; God's concern is whether we are obeying Him.
Then the question isn't just "Do I practice witchcraft?" but rather "Why should I want to be entertained by something which God tells me to reject?"
I don't need to know how close I can get to something God told me to stay away from. I don't need to find a loophole because I am only watching it for entertainment. I don't need to prove that I can handle it. I simply need to believe God when He tells me to stay away from something He calls an abomination.
God has already given us His Word. Sometimes obedience is not complicated. Sometimes it simply means we see what God has said, we believe Him, and we walk away.
RETURN TO ALL BLOGS
