An Open Letter to (Western) Christians: The Blood You Wear was Always Gasoline

Matthew 3:11

It's no secret that I've been frustrated with my fellow Christians for a long, long time. However, I've been holding out, wondering if it's not just a matter of helping people see the truth of things—helping them come away from the lies that keep them so angry, venomous, and looking for reasons to elevate themselves over their fellow men. The way I've witnessed them be, it's as if the blood of Jesus doesn't wash away their weakness to leave them secure, sane, and safe, but instead paints over it—the way a landlord paints over every poorly fixed blemish on the walls of an old house, over outlets and switches and the many bumpy, incorrect things obviously hiding under that fresh coating.

But I realized recently that there is no way out of this. There's no way to defeat the shadow of God that convinces people it's only through fear, shame, hatred of themselves and others, and di

vision that they might earn divine love, and there's no way to save those who have lost their eyesight from standing too long in the dark, either. I realized this the other day, when I decided to go live for fun on Tiktok and, instead of the casual time I was expecting to have with my friends and followers, found myself inundated with Christians (of all denominations, from Baptist to Orthodox to non-denominational), who were more than happy to sling every possible insult, condemnation, and accusation my way for calling myself a Christian Witch—a title no one realizes is, in fact, a litmus test as much a it is a way of walking with Christ. It acts as flypaper for people like this. It shows their true colors and erodes the thin veneer of goodness they try (and fail) to wear.

It's not only me that experiences this, though. Even those like Archbishop Jonathan Blake of the Episcopalian church are continuously under fire for speaking the truth, for knowing the story of the Bible properly, and for making the same points that, ironically, Jesus Himself made. He said as much about his own times going live on the app: never has he seen the "level of hatred, vitriol, condemnation, and prejudice that festers beneath the surface of so many sweet-faced Christians preaching about Jesus." And so he calls on the Wiccans and Satanists (and many others, I'm sure) to actually save the Church as a body: to humble the people who claim to love Christ so much by showing them that those who most follow the message and ideals of Jesus are, in fact, not them—and that Jesus, were He still walking this earth, would not give them the time of day. Just as He spoke against the assured religious, the ones who made a show of their piety and pressed it on others, so He sees now, from above, how little Christians have learned here in the west.

In my lives, I've seen people call me demon possessed, and yet I could think of no more stereotypically "possessed" behavior than what I saw: people repeating themselves over and over, shouting in all caps, desperately raking their digital fingers over everyone and anyone that disagreed with them, clutching at them to make them believe the things everyone else knew better than to believe. People. who refused knowledge for ignorance, who demanded to be spoon fed answers so they could then spit them back out. I was, for the first time, genuinely appalled by their behavior (though I didn't quite show it then).

That extremely goofy post from Facebook.

And then I remembered that I'd something else, from a good friend of mine, Beck (@thestitchingwitch), about how a Catholic church in Franklin, PA had posted this on Facebook, shown in the photo here: essentially a call to interrupt and boycott a local "Witch Walk": a family event by which folks could come by for games and activities while supporting local businesses. Why?

Because witchcraft is evil. Witchcraft is devilry. I mean, they're offering a free tarot card reading! Think of all the souls this picture on card stock alone can condemn to hell! Those wicked Wiccans, luring good people away from Christ and into the hand of the devil!

However, for all this talk of Divine law, which I might roll my eyes out in the context this church spoke of it, I learned something later about the Pennsylvania Catholic churches that made me feel for the first time some rage so deep that I couldn't even call it rage anymore: it was thick, and sticky, and dark, like tar in my belly. Apparently, over 1,000 children were found to have been abused across six dioces, and in conversation about it, my dad, who looked into it after I shared this post with them, mentioned that the attorney general called the situation "diabolical."

Because these priests were coordinated. "Recommending" kids out to each other, as if they were toys to be played with and shared around.

And the articles I read did me no better. Reports of victims being beaten, whipped, before their abuse—reports of all levels of abuse that the church covered up by calling it "misconduct" or "boundary issues" in their official documents. But priests came forward and admitted to it when questioned by investigators. (And I found that there is, honestly, no denomination untouched by the corruption power brings to these priests and pastors, be they Lutheran, Mormon, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics, Baptists, you name it.) Of course, I already knew about all of this evil before; it's a large part of why I have already been actively disgusted with the Church as an institution and walking my own path (showing others along the way how to do so, too).

There's a reason Jesus spoke of specks and planks.

But I watched The Pope's Exorcist for the second time the other day, and despite the odd choice to make King Asmodeus the main villain (as he's not exactly the type to care about what people do), I found that, after listening to him, it seems to me that the hero of this story is, in fact, the demon--not the priests. Because the demon is there to catch the priests in his cowardice and lies; he's there to force them to face the ugly, sticky truth they've been running from as such upstanding men of God.

He--the Demon, the very concept of it--is there to be the Adversary: the celestial Prosecutor. And the people on trial for the worst crimes are, in fact, God's self-proclaimed people. It's not the sinners, the unbelievers, the heretics, or whatever else my fellow Christians call the people who simply opted out of the horrors that they watch the so-called righteous flock gleefully participate in. And you such good and righteous Christians, you should take note of that. After all, God's direct quote is written in Exodus 22:21-24:

Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt. Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.

And it's said about God in Deuteronomy 10:17:

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.

Here is where I tell you now: the blood of Jesus that you claim, that you drown yourself in hoping to find salvation somewhere in the bubbles your prayers let up to the surface? It isn't blood. It's gasoline. And as St. John the Baptist says in Matthew 3:11:

I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

What you don't realize, Christians, as you threaten hellfire on others for not coming to your churches and listening to the venom that pours out of the tainted mouths of your pastors and priests, is that no one escapes the flame. No one skips their turn in the Lake of Fire. Your confession of faith in Christ is not your salvation: your confession of faith in Christ is the acceptance of your judgement and, by your actions, your condemnation.

I thought to bring this tar, this burning sickness, out of myself and to you directly like an exhibit; I thought I might call down the fire like Elijah did, like the Apostles wanted to do in Luke 9:54, and remind you of the God you claim to serve. But when I spoke to God, and asked Him for such a privilege, He assured me that there was no need to waste my energy.

For you all have already earned your curse (Matthew 25:31-46).

So instead, in the name of God, I leave you with a little prediction, if you will. A little warning, in hopes that maybe you'll figure it out (though the chances of that seem... slim). And for all others who read this, and who know an unrighteous member of the so-called righteous, feel free to take this piece and deliver it to them however you'd like. Now, I say, before God and in full confidence, by the power and glory of His ineffable name:

You righteous unrighteous, you are spiritually starving. The fruits of the Spirit--love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control¹--are missing from your individual gardens. They're missing because the gardens themselves have been so long neglected, your eyes turned from them, your hands lifted from its soil to point at the gardens of your neighbor.

Where you lift a shaking, withered finger in the direction of the one curious clover in your neighbor's garden, the neglected lot behind you bears only brambles where fruit trees should've been, only yew where blackberry should've grown, and all tender, fruit-bearing plants have been choked out by the nightshade, the poke, the winterberry. All your food has been replaced with poison, and yet you eat of them: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and venomous acts*; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions.² You stay silent when the men who head your churches chew at your sons and daughters; you preach forgiveness for the scars they create that will never fully heal while redirecting the pain you can't bury on those who are trying to warn you that you serve vipers, vipers.

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The longer you stand with your back to your gardens, the more your pointed finger, your outstretched arm, will wither, until it becomes nothing more than straw, yourself yanked up by your rotted root to be made pure in the fire.³ The longer you open your mouth against those you've pushed from God with your decay, the more flies will perch in it and lay eggs of filth. The more venom pours out of you, the more it is a sign of the rot inside you.

And you lukewarm Christians, who are more concerned with telling the injured, the sick, and the neglected needy that "not all Christians" are this way, know that the longer you turn your back on the true source of evil among you, the tighter the stitches on your eyes become, until you won't even have the chance to gnash your teeth and weep before th gates of Heaven. You won't be able to find those gates. Your teeth will fall from your head with no fruits to sustain you; your prayers will be ashes in your mouth, your tears tinged with blood from the needle you speared through your own eyelids. For so long as there is evil, there will be men to speak against it, from St. John to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and so long as there is evil, there will be a table of men to condemn them, three to bind them, and one to grant their execution--all while the ghosts of faith hover nearby, little more than fearful wisps, saying how they agree with the good men, they agree--but not enough to face the evil themselves. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

He also says that "by judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are," and that "nothing that we despise in other men is inherently absent from ourselves." It's true that I am no more holy or clean or good as anyone else; why should anyone call me good?⁴ Yet I see what I see, and so as I speak it against you now in warning, I look for it in myself, too; I put my hands to my own garden, bleeding as I rip up the bramble and looking for water to wipe the juice of poisonous berries from my fingertips.

Now, however, there is no more to be said to you Christians, lukewarm or righteously unrighteous. Jesus said it once, and you who claim to love Him shouldn't need it told to you again. I won't tell you anything more than I have. Instead, I'll give you a challenge.

Light the match and let it be swallowed by God's flame, then touch that match to the blood you claim covers you.

Then come tell me where you think the "hellfire" you always dwell on really is in this world.

¹ Galatians 5:22-23

² Galatians 5:19-20

³ Isaiah 5:24

⁴ Mark 10:18

*pharmakeia: referring to anti-social magic like cursing with no justification, poison, or fraud. Offering bitter prayers that one follow the creature you claim is God and lose all sense of morality, sense, and justice, is in fact, an unjust curse.

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Sara Raztresen is a Slovene-American writer, screenwriter, and Christian witch. Her fantasy works draw heavily on the wisdom she gathers from her own personal and spiritual experience, and her s

piritual practice borrows much of the whimsy and wonder that modern society has relegated to fairy-and-folktale. Her goal is to help people regain their spiritual footing and discover

God through a new (yet old) lens of mysticism.

Follow Sara on Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube, and explore her fiction writing here.