That was my point. The church didn’t drive the witch trials. The church elders were the primary defenders of the accused witches.
It was a superstitious population using their superstitions as a convenient excuse to target neighbors for personal vendettas.
Increase Mather wrote at the time that the devil had arisen in Salem Town, not in the form of witches but in the form of those who bore false witness.
Quite sadly possible. Any “witchly” behavior was virtually drowned out in volume by wicked congregational behavior. There is no way such a group of hypocrites could deal sanely with any sorcery.
Sounds like superstition mixed with nanny state.
Today people (Democrats mostly)use normal actions or reactions to incidents or issues to cry racism or some made up phobia to force people to act and live the way they deem fit.