So which is it? Are witches real, and should we burn them - or are they either fictional or lying practitioners of a false religion? If the later, shouldn't we give them the same 'respect' we give, say, Buddhists?
Of all the false religions in the world, very few are straightforward about what they really do. At least with Satanists you know where you are."
Hi again Jen. I have very little respect for CS Lewis.
What DID C.S. Lewis REALLY believe?
Was C.S. Lewis a strong Bible believer? By no means. Christianity Today noted that he was "a man whose theology had decidedly unevangelical elements" (Ibid.).
Lewis was turning to the Catholic Church before his death. He believed in prayers for the dead and purgatory and confessed his sins regularly to a priest.
He received the Catholic sacrament of last rites on July 16, 1963 (C.S. Lewis: A Biography, pp. 198, 301).
Lewis also rejected the doctrine of bodily resurrection (Biblical Discernment Ministries Letter, Sept.-Oct. 1996)
and believed there is salvation in pagan religions.
Lewis denied the total depravity of man and the substitutionary atonement of Christ.
He believed in theistic evolution
and rejected the Bible as the infallible Word of God.
He denied the biblical doctrine of an eternal fiery hell, claiming, instead, that hell is a state of mind: "And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind--is, in the end, Hell" (Lewis, The Great Divorce, p. 65).
D. Martin Lloyd-Jones warned that C.S. Lewis had a defective view of salvation and was an opponent of the substitutionary and penal view of the atonement (Christianity Today, Dec. 20, 1963).
In a letter to the editor of Christianity Today, Feb. 28, 1964, Dr. W. Wesley Shrader, First Baptist Church, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, warned that "C.S. Lewis... would never embrace the (literal-infallible) view of the Bible" and "would accept no theory of the 'total depravity of man.'"
So I wouldn't be impressed with anything he said regarding witchcraft. My final authority is the Word of God.
Also, C.S. Lewis has no right to call for the death of anyone. The Bible is very clear that we are to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Along with other NT verses regarding the occult, it proves two things.
1. Yes, there are witches. 2. We are not to kill them, but we are not to fellowship with them.
If Scripture says that witchcraft and sorceries are real, then they are.
And the Grace of God is extended to all people. Regardless of what Clive Staples Lewis believed, witches do not deserve death at the hands of anyone because they are witches. (I don't think that is what you are suggesting :-)
God however has decreed that all sin brings forth death, to all men. So let's let God be in charge of that. Not CS Lewis.
Witchcraft isn't an either or proposition. Just like in any religion, it has it's poseur's and fakirs. But there are people practicing WWPism that really believe in what they do.
As I have said before, if there is any power in their spells or other works of darkness, it is a demonic power, just as God says.
Satanist are different from witches btw. Most witches do not believe in Satan at all.
I had asked you before if you could find any Scripture that would in anyway suggest that God would have his people involved in such things. Were you able to find any?
Yeah, and there are people practicing Scientology who really believe in Xenu the Galactic Overlord, but that doesn't make it true.