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Sabrina the Teenage Witch turns 30.
Man, I feel old.
The sitcom, starring and co-produced by actress Melissa Joan Hart, premiered in 1996. Millions of Americans watched, including me. Guilty. The show, based on an Archie Comics character introduced in 1962, stars Joan Hart as Sabrina Spellman, a 16-year-old witch who discovers she has magical powers.
The show's cast is going on a 30th-anniversary tour starting Halloween night. The tour will feature skits, clips, and behind-the-scenes stories. Salem the talking cat won’t be there in person.
When asked about why the show resonated with so many viewers, Hart replied, “I think that wish fulfillment, escapism, magic always does well. I think that in any time period people are looking to escape their current problems, or think about magical ways they could change their problems or change the world.”
Escapism. Yeah, that will help pay the mortgage.
Hart continues. “We didn’t play them like witches. We played them like normal people that had magic powers. We kept it very surface, very fun, very light.”
And therein lies the problem.
A television show treating something Scripture calls dangerous as charming and harmless. That’s Hollywood in the 21st century. Calling evil good and good evil. There's nothing spiritually harmless about actual witchcraft, no matter how many laugh tracks accompany it.
Just in time for Halloween, Wallpaper magazine publishes a photographic exploration of women practicing witchcraft in Romania. Photographer Harley Weir and fashion designer Dilara Findikoglu suggest that perhaps witches are misunderstood.
“For centuries,” says Weir, “the witch has been used as a symbol of evil. But maybe she was never scary because she was evil, maybe she was scary because she was free.”
“The witch became a name for the woman who could not, or would not, be controlled.”
Findikoglu added, “For centuries, patriarchal thinking has placed logic, reason and control above intuition, emotion and instinct.”
Spoken like true feminists.
Witchcraft, historically associated with darkness and deception, has been repackaged as feminine empowerment, spiritual wisdom, and liberation from oppressive religious traditions.
Apparently, the witch isn't a servant of darkness anymore. She's a victim of the patriarchy.
How convenient.
According to Carol Fontaine, a so-called biblical scholar, witches were “so clearly understood to be positive figures in their society. No king could be without their counsel, no army could recover from a defeat without their ritual activity, no baby could be born without their presence.”
Those mean, oppressive, Bible-thumping Christians turned witches into villains. They just wanted to keep a good sista down. Sounds like revisionist feminist history to me.
Oxford scholar Diane Purkiss challenges this feminist, fairy-tale mythology in her 1996 book The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations.
She writes, “There is no evidence that the majority of those accused were healers and midwives.”
Purkiss argues that the familiar story of peaceful, independent female healers systematically destroyed by religious authorities is largely a modern invention. She describes the narrative as a religious myth associated with radical feminism.
That doesn't mean women weren't persecuted. Some were. Nor does it mean that every person accused of witchcraft actually practiced it. Sure, some were innocent. But the popular feminist account oversimplifies history to suit a political narrative.
We don’t need to consult Purkiss’ book. Let’s look at the book.
Consider King Saul, who consulted the medium of Endor in 1 Samuel 28. His desperate attempt to obtain supernatural knowledge through forbidden means was not an inspiring act of personal liberation. It was a tragic episode in his rebellion against God.
Deuteronomy 18:10–12 condemns witchcraft, sorcery, divination, spellcasting, and communication with the dead, describing these practices as "an abomination to the Lord" (NKJV). Paul identifies sorcery among the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19–21. Revelation 21:8 warns of the judgment awaiting unrepentant sorcerers. In Acts 19:18–19, converts in Ephesus renounce their magical practices and voluntarily destroy their occult books.
Exodus 22:18 also speaks about witches: “You shall not permit a sorceress to live.”
Which brings us to colonial America. Specifically, the witch trial era.
Let’s get something straight. Innocent people were killed during the Hartford Witch Trials and, later, the Salem Witch Trials. Mass hysteria took over. I’m not condoning that. But some actual witches and students of witchcraft were lynched during that time period.
Mary Johnson of Wethersfield, Connecticut, was the first recorded confession of witchcraft. She confessed, under pressure, to having “familiarity with the devil” and admitted to having sexual intercourse with “men and devils.” She also admitted to murdering a child. She was executed in 1648. Three years later, John and Joan Carrington were executed for allegedly practicing witchcraft.
Quick side rant here. Just because a confession was made “under pressure” doesn’t mean the confession is not true. That’s what an interrogation is. You are pressuring someone to tell something they don’t want to. Because Mary Johnson’s confessions were under pressure doesn’t mean they weren’t true.
Again, I am not defending that hysteria.
A biblical prohibition against witchcraft does not justify convicting innocent people. Christians should know better than to bear false witness, especially when a person's life is at stake.
But…
The Puritans understood the evil associated with witchcraft, while we watch reruns of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Charmed. Children dress up as witches on Halloween, wearing pointed hats and waving broomsticks. We pay forty bucks for tarot card readings by a woman with a collection of crystals.
Meanwhile, we call Christianity primitive and oppressive while treating witchcraft as enlightened spirituality.
Witchcraft presents a counterfeit spirituality. Where prayer submits the human will to divine providence, magic attempts to bend supernatural power toward human desires. Where faith calls us to trust God, witchcraft promises hidden knowledge. Where Christianity offers communion with the living God, necromancy seeks answers from the dead
Witches are not misunderstood midwives, herbalists, or feminist icons. They are rebels against the true and living God.
Written by Vincent Williams
He is a former Music Director at Windy City Underground radio, an on-air talent at Logik Radio and a board operator, sound engineer and videographer. Writing has always been an integral part of Vincent's life. He is a born-again Christian, a lifelong Chicagoland resident, a zodiac Cancer and a lover of anything mint-flavored.
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Witchcraft, historically associated with darkness and deception, has been repackaged as feminine empowerment, spiritual wisdom, and liberation from oppressive religious traditions.
Apparently, the witch isn't a servant of darkness anymore. She's a victim of the patriarchy.
How convenient.