Neopaganism has become one of the fastest-growing religious movements today. Christians are not immune from its influence. Witchcraft and occultism are knocking on the doors of American homes, gaining acceptance and prominence in media and advertising, and enticing people of all ages to dabble in deceptive and dangerous practices. Believers are asking, *Is witchcraft just a passing fad? Is it a revival of ancient pagan traditions? *Do witches worship Satan? What do they believe? *How should Christians respond to witchcraft? What do I say to my teenage daughter who wants to experiment with witchcraft? Brooks Alexander offers lucid and enlightening descriptions of witchcraft today and our culture's acceptance of it. He concludes by helping Christians formulate a reasonable response.
Book Description
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Useful Reference Work for Neo-pagans and Christians,
By
This review is from: Witchcraft Goes Mainstream: Uncovering Its Alarming Impact on You and Your Family (Paperback)
This book is the best conservative Christian assessment of modern witchcraft on the market to date. It easily replaces, as a general assessment, Craig Hawkins's earlier book "Witchcraft - Exploring the World of Wicca" (1996) which, despite its flaws, does discuss areas not focused on by Alexander and is better than some of the newer books on the topic such as Tim Baker's shallow and unscholarly "Dewitched". Unlike Hawkins who tried to tie the biblical condemnation of "witchcraft" to all modern "witchcraft" practices today and blurred the distinction between witchcraft in general and Wicca in particular and sometimes confused them with Neo-Paganism in general, Alexander is more cautious and balanced. He shows that there are four main categories of witchcraft that must be distinguished: biblical, anthropological, historical, and modern religious.
Regarding biblical witchcraft, he admits that, in some cases, the Hebrew and Greek terms usually translated as "witch/witchcraft" and/or "sorcerer/sorcery" don't tell us what specific occult practice is identified so it is difficult to give a single, specific meaning to the term "witchcraft" as it is used in Scripture. He says there are eight references to witchcraft in the Bible, seven of which are in the Old Testament. The exact root of the Hebrew word mekashef is uncertain but is believed to come from a word meaning to cut or cut up, possibly referring to drugs or plants as sliced and shredded for a "magical brew". He notes that the "witch of Endor" (1 Samuel 28:3-19) was probably a necromancer or spirit medium, and the statement from 1 Samuel, "rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft" (15:23, KJV), involves the word qesem which, he says, "refers to some (unknown) form of divination." In the New Testament, the Greek word pharmakeia is translated once (in Galatians 5:20) as "witchcraft" and four times (in the Book of Revelation) as "sorcery, sorceries or sorcerers". This word is at the root of the English word "pharmacy" which, again, seems to involve drugs, potions or poisons. For Alexander, the biblical bottom line is that the references are "hard to apply with precision today because the biblical translators were naming ancient occult practices with terms taken from the theological controversies of their own day - and they weren't always consistent in the way they did it." That kind of admission from a conservative Christian who is writing about witchcraft is uncommon! Although Alexander discusses anthropological and historical witchcraft, referring to scholars like Jeffrey Burton Russell, his focus is on the two "cultures" of modern witchcraft: traditional witchcraft as derived from Gerald Gardner's influence and authors such as Michelet, Leland, Murray, and Graves who contributed to what he calls the contra-Christian and pseudo-historic "Charter Myth" of an ancient, enduring Pagan tradition (which modern scholarship has debunked and some witches acknowledge) and the pop-culture witchcraft that came about from media influence via movies/shows such as The Craft, Practical Magic, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Charmed (for some reason, Alexander doesn't include Harry Potter as a major influence!?). Although pop-culture witchcraft is a hodge-podge of beliefs and practices, many of which are contrary to traditional witchcraft, it nonetheless motivates some people, especially youth, to seek out information and, possibly, enter into traditional witchcraft beliefs and practices. According to Alexander, these movies/shows created an explosion of cultural interest in witchcraft, and sympathy for it, that is still growing. Besides the Charter Myth, Alexander also exposes the myths that Neo-pagan witchcraft is nothing but a New Age delusion or a Satanic cult. There's a mild sense of despair that underlies the book which is fueled by Alexander's admission that Neo-paganism, and its witchcraft, is winning the cultural competition of worldviews. He refers to James Herrick, author of "The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition," who says that the "New Religious Synthesis" is displacing the "Revealed Word perspective as the source of values and attitudes for our cultural elite" and, according to Alexander, this also applies to the popular level as well in the "battle of the narratives". Although for Alexander as a Christian, and for many traditional witches, there can be no mixing of Neo-paganism or witchcraft with Christianity, there are attempts being made. See, for example, the book "Christian Wicca: The Trinitarian Tradition" by Nancy Chandler Pittman. Nonetheless, Alexander does promote understanding, tolerance and dialog between Christians and Neo-pagans, as do some Neo-pagans, without denying the biases on both sides. This book is a good contribution to that dialog.
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Basically factual, tho incomplete & has disturbing biases,
By foreverknitefan "moemcal" (Dardanelle, Arkansas USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Witchcraft Goes Mainstream: Uncovering Its Alarming Impact on You and Your Family (Paperback)
The book is intended for Christian parents whose child may be interested in Wicca/Neopaganism, so I expected some bias towards the evangelical Christian perpective. I expected the usual Christian book attacking Wicca with misinformation, distortions and omissions of fact. I was pleasantly suprised when the author was mainly fair about the subject. I have read too many books with the same old lie of "Wicca is satanism" from this area of Christianity, so I had some reservations when reading this book.
Alexander does a basically good job of defining Wicca versus the other definitions of "witchcraft" and details some of how Wicca actually grew to what it is now. However I hesitate recommending this book to any parent who is concerned about their teenager who is into Neopaganism because Alexander does not really cover the actual beliefs in Wicca well and that at times his tone towards Neopaganism is that it is harmful to society and is anti-Christian, neither of which IMO is true. But then I am a Neopagan for over 20 yeas, so take that in mind as possibly my bias. I am the first to say that some Wiccan books geared towards teens are crud, also that the "wicca" seen on Buffy and Charmed is fiction, not my religion. I also state that while I disagree with some aspects of Christianity I surely am NOT anti-Christian or hate Christianity. Alexander claims that people of my religion are anti-Christian,and some are, but some of his faith are anti-non-christian, even anti-Catholic. One of Alexander's claims ia that our civilization is in decay partly because people are rejecting Christainity and turning to Pagan faiths, and mentions how Rome was in decline. Ironic in that in Rome one of the "bad" new religions was Christianity. Also he makes the statement that Neopaganism is an "ailment" of our culture. which to me is disrespectful of not only the neopagan religions but his own as well. Alexander also neglects to mention a number of pertinent people and trends in Wicca and downplays the Christian reaction to the Fort Hood case as if the Christian extremism was not the way Christians actually think. There is also no mention of some Wiccan teens comitting suicide because of the religious intolerance. Seems to me if I was actually writing a book for concerned parents of a Neopagan teen, I would include such important things like that. I hope that any concerned parent who reads this will understand that their teenager is not being anti-christian when they look into the Neopagan religions. I have concerns that some parent will read the book and think their child is sick or worse, and their decisions may cause more harm than good. I am,however, happily suprised that there are few distortions and that the book is mainly factual, though limited in scope. Umbiased,no. but for the targeted area it is a vast improvement in what I usually find. It has flaws, like I said, and there are better unbiased sources online like the religious tolerance site. For those concerned parents , all I can say is understand what your child's beliefs actually are and why he/she is looking. Don't force your way on them or condemn them as evil when they are not doing anything harmful. They may return to your faith if you treat them kindly. Wicca is not a disease, just another religion.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A FAMED EVANGELICAL "NEW RELIGIONS" RESEARCHER LOOKS AT NEOPAGANISM,
By
This review is from: Witchcraft Goes Mainstream: Uncovering Its Alarming Impact on You and Your Family (Paperback)
Brooks Alexander is one of the founders of the Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP), "an evangelical ministry and think tank that studies new religions and spiritual movements." He retired from active participation in SCP in 1998.
Here are some quotations from the book: "On the West Coast, Witches did manage in 1975 to create the 'Covenant of the Goddess' (CoG)---an alliance of Witchcraft groups that has not only survived but gone on to become one of the prominent voices of Neopaganism in the United States. But CoG survived only because it AVOIDED definitions. After struggling with the issue, CoG decided that defining a Witch is an impossibility and declared that Witchcraft's unstructured individualism is in fact a virtue." (Pg. 36) "(Robert) Graves's version of history and anthropology (in The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, Amended and Enlarged Edition) is not taken seriously by historians or anthropologists. His theories are a fanciful rearrangement of his own eccentric erudition, and they express his own spiritual yearnings more than they describe any historical realities." (Pg. 197) "For many teens... the substance of Christian civilization is not being passed on, because the Christian story is not being coherently transmitted in their culture... The message that does come through loud and clear in teen culture, interestingly, is the message of popular Witchcraft. For the Spirit of the Age, it seems the channels are clear." (Pg. 250)
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
