MAGIC IS NO PART OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

The wisdom of the fathers

MAGIC IS NO PART OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

...The temptation to attribute supernatural powers, or at least moral or spiritual qualities, to inanimate objects is one almost impossible to resist. Sin has done strange things to us.

True Christian experience is direct knowledge of God. It is intimate fellowship between two personalities, God and the individual worshiper. The grounds of fellowship are mental, moral and spiritual, and these are precisely what material objects do not and cannot possess. The union of the human soul with God in Christ establishes a personal relationship which cannot be in any way affected by material substances.

...Christianity is basically a religion of meanings, and meaning belongs to intelligent beings only. The Church by pronouncing certain objects sacred and attributing power to them has turned from pure freedom of the gospel to a kind of educated magic, not as base perhaps as a hex or a chain letter, but far from New Testament truth nevertheless, and gravely injurious to the souls of men.

...Our Heavenly Father gave us a beautiful, diversified creation, all is to be received thankfully and nothing is to be despised. But always we must keep in mind that it is living personality that gives meaning to the world. Material objects neither hate or love; they are neither good or evil. We need not fear them and we should not attribute to them qualities they do not possess.

Our responsibility is to God and our fellowship is with Him. With magic or superstition in any form the Christian should simply have nothing to do.

(from "Of God and Men" by A. W. Tozer)