Modern Views
During the Age of Enlightenment, belief in the powers of witches and sorcerers to harm began to die out in the West. But the reasons for disbelief differed from those of early Christians. For the early Christians the reason was theological—that Christ had already defeated the powers of evil. For the post-Enlightenment Christians, the disbelief was based on a belief in rationalism and empiricism.
It was at this time, however, that Western Christianity began expanding to parts of Africa and Asia where premodern worldviews still held sway, and where belief in the power of witches and sorcerers to harm was, if anything, stronger than it had been in Northern Europe. Many African Independent Churches developed their own responses to witchcraft and sorcery.
The situation was further complicated by the rise of new religious movements that considered witchcraft to be a religion. This view does not claim that witches actually consciously enter into a pact with Satan because most practitioners of Wicca and other modern witchcraft do not even believe in Satan.
Read more about this topic: Christian Views On Magic
Famous quotes containing the words modern and/or views:
“The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature. This perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries. Goethe, in this very thing the most modern of the moderns, has shown us, as none ever did, the genius of the ancients.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The universe is wider than our views of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)