What About Notorious Blemishes in Christian History? Pt 6 Witch Trials 2

This second episode on the Witch Trials of the early modern period takes a closer look at the difficult question of their possible causes. Ten possible causes are considered, with all failing as a single adequate explanation, but maybe some combinations of them providing some reasonable clarification about what was actually going on.

We then consider the most important question for the purposes of this series: “was Biblical teaching a cause of the witch trials?” In fact, it wasn’t Christians acting too Christian that caused the witch trials, but not acting Christian enough!

Finally, we consider the Enlightenment narrative that implies the witch trials were eliminated by skepticism over all supernatural claims. Not only do we discover that it was the Inquisition’s views on witches that brought about the end of the witch trials a hundred years before Enlightenment thinkers even got on board, but also that the Enlightenment strategy of disbelieving all supernatural claims in order to eliminate superstitions is a case of overkill – throwing the baby out with the bathwater.