letter from New Zealand
At our church in Christchurch, New Zealand, it has become our regular practice to go door-knocking with invitations around the neighbourhood of the church.
We are often met with polite smiles, but a “thanks, but no thanks” response. At other times, people are keen to chat and open up a bit about their experience of “church” or religion. The most open and friendly people are often those from other cultures. Last Easter, one lady from India invited my friend and me in to talk; she was so pleased to have someone come to her door.
However, just before Christmas, two of us had an unusual and more disturbing experience. The woman who opened her front door was extremely angry and in a loud and very aggressive voice, shouted at us go away. Her eyes were wild, and she had tattoos with occult symbols all over her. We were quite shocked, but it motivated us to pray for our neighbourhood.
Not long after this incident, someone from our church sent me an email containing an article from one of the mainline New Zealand newspapers. This article was a celebration of the rise of witchcraft in New Zealand. The attention-grabbing title being: “The rise of the Crone”.
The article contained an interview with a self-professed “Crone” [an “old woman regarded as having magic powers or wisdom”] who offers training and education in pagan Wiccan practices. Though the photographs showed what most people would call a senior lady in a stereotypical Halloween witch outfit, the content was unsettling. She spoke of casting spells during different seasons and using magic to determine which house to buy.
Sadly, most readers of the newspaper probably laughed at the thought of witchcraft. But if we take the Bible seriously it should alarm us to hear that witchcraft is on the rise. The article ended with the haunting words: “It’s not as scary as you think it is. We just go about living our daily lives like everyone else – we just add a little bit of magic to it.”
The sad truth is that it is scarier than these witches realise. In the Old Testament, witchcraft is treated as a dangerous spiritual reality and not just some harmless tricks. With cultural church-going becoming something of the past here in New Zealand, there is undoubtedly a spiritual vacuum. And in its place we are seeing the rise of Maori spirituality, witchcraft and the occult. As the church, we need to be bold in holding out the alternative of the gospel of our Lord Jesus to these spiritually hungry people.
