Why Call Oneself a "Witch" as a Christian? | A Christian Witch's Perspective
- Sara Raztresen
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
The word has more lodged into it than one might understand.
"But why call yourself a Witch if all you're doing is ___?"
This is a question I've heard time and time again. In that blank has gone many things: mysticism, prayer, liturgy, whatever. It's because I often like to describe Christian Witchcraft as, simply, mysticism with arts and crafts, or mysticism with a more empirical approach, and I suppose that confuses people—because they still don't understand what the word witchcraft actually means in a modern context.
Moreover, they also don't understand the archtype of the Witch, or why one would want to align themselves with such a supposedly dark, disturbing, demonic, evil, etc. title. However, I would argue that it is because of these things that the title of Christian Witch is especially powerful: because it demonstrates the same message Jesus once demonstrated to those keen enough to perceive it some two thousand years ago:
God's ways are not our ways, and God does not work by our expectations.
The (Poor, Starved, Humble) Messiah vs. the Warrior King
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
—Isaiah 55:8-9
When we look at the example of Jesus, what we see is not what anyone expected in those days of their Messiah. They expected a warrior king from the line of David, one who would trample down Israel's enemies (in this case, the Romans, who took over and occupied Judaea) and lift specifically Israel as a people and kingdom back to its former glory. It was an idea that concerned itself a lot with the typical ideas of power: military might, divine favor, a heroic lineage, nobility, all that.
And Jesus, by appearing as a poor, disheveled son of a carpenter from some backwater town like Nazareth, with nobody but twelve other poor boys wandering around after Him—Jesus, by willingly letting Himself be captured, tortured, humiliated, and killed by the oppressors people thought He came to vanquish—spit on all of that. Jesus, by identifying the Messiah with the poor, the sick, the jailed, the naked, the hurt, and the oppressed (Matthew 25:31-46), tosses aside the beautiful image people, in their own desires and needs, crafted of their Savior in their heads; by reminding people of the least of us, Jesus showed us that God is truly with all of us, and especially with those forgotten by the world.
People couldn't stomach this. They couldn't fathom it, and that's why they rejected Jesus as a Messiah: because He ruined their power fantasies and showed them that even the sinners, like tax collectors and prostitutes and gamblers, and even the lowly, like fishermen and orphans and (previously) demon possessed and (previously) unclean folk such as lepers or chronically hemorraghing women, could receive grace and love and mercy from the hand of God. For what, then, was all their piety, and all their noble and dignified dress, and all their study, if God could show such favor not only to sinners, but also spit such venom at those like the dedicated Pharisees, who were only trying their best to follow God's law and preserve tradition?
Moreover, Jesus does something fascinating when He dies: every year, we replay this story, and we remember how Jesus doesn't go to Heaven to be with the Father in death, but rather, goes down, directly into the deep, cold, distant darkness of Hades, to free the slumbering souls from the grip of death. He doesn't shy away from the dark or from death, not even His own; He doesn't go to gather armies and fight, but goes alone. He goes into the depths of hell itself, not to wage war, but to bring light, to wake people up; He goes into the heart of darkness and does not destroy it, but fills it with warmth and life. He defeats death not with aggression, but love—the love of sacrifice, of His laying His own life down for all of us, His friends.
In Jesus, everything that people want is denied, and everything people need is given—and more than that, every prejudice and search for personal glory is exposed, and every truth is laid bare. Those who reject Jesus because He doesn't come the way they want their Messiah to come show that they never really had any interest in God, but in their own idea of justice and what is right, which God Himself does not validate, but exposes. The people of God, therefore, are not those who are searching for the right costume of Divinity, but instead are the ones who can recognize God even in the most unlikely and strange of places.
Like the title of Witch.
The Reason I Call Myself a Witch
And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.
—2 Corinthians 11:14-15
So many times, people quote this to me, but I can't ever understand why. After all, while a lot of my witchy posts and aesthetics look nice and cute and clean, just as many of them also look "dark" and "spooky" and maybe even dangerous. My own guardian angel, Omemiah, is one whose name means "God Hidden in Darkness," and so I truly don't understand where anyone is getting off pulling this verse out all the time.
I don't ever make a secret of the things I do that spook people, such as:
talk to demons of the Ars Goetia
play around in the astral
cast spells and do rituals (including, sometimes, baneful ones, if God allows)
use tools like tarot cards
These are the "witchy" things that everyone is so scared of, and yet these are the things that have brought me closer to God, interestingly enough. These are the things that, by participating in them, have encouraged me to seek, learn, experience, and pray more. These are the things that, by approaching them, have helped me see behind the curtain and understand why Jesus tells us to love our enemies as much as our neighbor, or to spend time with the least of us and be kind to them. It has also made me understand this verse so viscerally:
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. —1 Corinthians 1:27-29
To extend this: God chose the Witch to shame the Priest, and the Sinner to shame the Saint. God is once again choosing to cast His lot down with those that He knows society will reject, so that He might prove, again, the true extent of His power, influence, and reach—and shame those who are trying to make an idol of Him, to constrain Him to just one image, idea, or presentation.
The word Witch is a political title, therefore. I could easily mask what I do to go undercover, and I could easily pretend to be doing everything perfectly by the book, so that I don't continue to get the never-ending flood of vitriol in my comments, and so that I could lure even more people in with promises of light and love and other such easily weaponized New Age nonsense. But that is not why I call myself a Witch—and that is also why I understand why anyone who doesn't want to bear this cross would avoid calling themselves a Witch. All I can tell you is this: whatever path you choose, if it brings you the fruits of the Spirit, is one you can rest easy in. And the fruits of the Spirit are laid plain to us from our dear brother Paul:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
—Galatians 5:22-23
So? Will you take up that torch? Will you, too, follow the mystic journey in this more adversarial, confrontational way? Because if so, I tell you: you're in good company. ♥
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 spiritual 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.
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