I wanted to write say a little bit more about the fear of curses. Previously I argued that Spiritual Warfare is not about a kind of superstitious approach relying on symbols and actions to ward off evil.
What I mean by this is twofold. First, I don’t need to worry too much if there is aa witches coven operating down the street from me, meeting at night to mutter dark spells against the church and my family. This doesn’t mean I’m not concerned about the spiritual well-being of those involved. Rather, it’s that even if that is how they are spending their time -and I suspect, even though I grew up through the 1980s “doorways to danger” period that they are not. They are more likely to be concerned about the environment and alternative health remedies – but suppose they were, I don’t expect their curses to cause us harm or danger.
I remember quite a few years back, a rumour going round that a particular cult prayed for Christian marriages to break up. This of course leads to a few questions.
- How did people outside of the sect know this?
- Why would they be praying that?
- Why would their prayers and those specific prayers be heard and answered positively.
The group may or may not have engaged in such behaviour but in reality the danger to Christian marriages was going to come from within those marriages themselves and so this looked like a way of avoiding responsibility for sin and feelings of pastoral failure.
The second issue is that presuming that possession of a Bible, wearing religious jewellery such as crosses, repeating specific prayers etc or retreating to holy places owes more to medieval thinking than the Bible and those things will not guard us where we are vulnerable.
However, does this mean that there is no danger from curses. It is perhaps a good point now to remember that in many cultures, the fear of curses is real and serious and it likely that those cultures will have a significant presence in our communities and churches. When someone hears a curse, it can have a serious impact on them. People have been reported to fall sick and even die. However, I would argue that the issue is not to do with a magical force but rather that we can allow words, actions and images to take a hold and get control over us.
As well as being true when it comes to overt curses and spells of the voodoo kind, I believe that there are other ways that we can allow malign spiritual forces to have influence and even take control in our families. When we allow our children to hear and accept those dominant themes and listen to lies about God, the world around them and themselves, then we put them in danger.
So, we do have a responsibility to protect our families by looking at what they are consuming. What are they reading, watching and hearing? We guard and protect by helping them to replace the harmful lies and curses they hear with God’s truth and God’s blessings.
Faithroots 