Magic and the Church

Since early times, Biblical times, really, people have associated the church with magic. That is, the message is, "Pray to God, and you can perform magic." Even in the Bible there are many references to magic. It is reported that Jesus healed many people, which is magic. The old testament has Elijah calling down fire from heaven.

Today, too, people talk about the church and magic. That is, pray, and if you have a mythical substance called faith, you will be healed.

Too often this faith is seen as unquestioned acceptance of something someone else, such as a priest, says.

I would like to exorcise magic from the church. The reason is because it draws people away from a much more important message of the church, which is love, acceptance, peace. Teaching each of us how to get along with each other. Perhaps the magic exist, perhaps it doesn't. In any event, who am I to command God?

The teachings do exist, however, and are often ignored for the sake of the magic.

Therefore, people lie, cheat and steal in the name of God because they think people have to believe in the magic of a six day creation, totally ignoring the stated prohibitions against each of these things. That is, the magic is more important to them than the teachings of Jesus.

I have heard many people say, "Give to God, and he will give you back even more," with the stated meaning that if I give money to God, then I will receive back even more than I have given. This is a form of magic.

I like the teaching from the book Same as it Never Was by Claire Scovell LaZebnik. In this novel, a woman is asked to be a guardian to a three year old girl, her half sister. The lawyer didn't say, "Do this and your life will be great," but rather said, "I don't know if it will give you anything, but you should do it." The former is building an expectation for magic, the later is not.

In fact, she got very much from her acceptance of the guardianship, but her acceptance was not based on an expectation of anything. There was no expectation of magic, although the magic of everyday life occurred.

Consider the teachings. "Love your neighbor as yourself." This is good advice - don't waste your time and energy looking for revenge, but rather, have mercy on your enemy. Protect yourself, yes, but don't become vindictive.

I could spend hundreds of pages on similar teachings that are in the scriptures, and some of my other posts do. But, believing in the gospel because of the magic that it might allow you to do is unwise, and a very blatant form of selfishness.