Witches Are Finding Jesus While Liberal Churches Are Reinventing Him

Something strange is happening in America's spiritual landscape.

Witchcraft, tarot, paganism and occult spirituality have moved out of the shadows and into the mainstream. Social media is filled with tarot readings. Online marketplaces sell spells and curses. Hollywood increasingly presents witches as sympathetic, empowered spiritual seekers, while younger Americans experiment with practices their grandparents would have immediately recognized as occult.

But at the same time, something remarkable is happening in the opposite direction.

Some people immersed in tarot, New Age spirituality and occult practices are discovering Jesus Christ—and concluding that following Him means leaving those things behind.

Meanwhile, inside some of America's most progressive churches, the movement appears to be going the other way. Instead of allowing Christianity to challenge the culture, biblical language is being reconsidered, historic sexual ethics discarded and even traditional understandings of God and Jesus reimagined.

The irony is difficult to miss.

Some people outside the church are discovering that Jesus requires them to change.

Some people inside the church seem determined to change Jesus.

Alexandra Ashcroft built an enormous audience as "Alex Reads Tarot."

Nearly one million people followed her online, where tarot wasn't merely a private curiosity. It was her platform, identity and business.

Then something changed.

In June, Ashcroft wiped away her tarot content and announced that she had become a Christian.

"Jesus Christ has saved my life, and I can no longer ignore that reality," she told her followers.

She explained that the transformation hadn't happened overnight. For nearly a year she had been questioning, praying and wrestling with what she believed. Eventually, Christianity became incompatible with the spiritual practices that had made her famous.

So she walked away.

Her old account had accumulated tens of millions of likes. Yet she abandoned the very content that had built her following.

Then consider Kat Von D.

The famous tattoo artist had long cultivated a dark, macabre aesthetic and possessed books dealing with witchcraft, the occult and tarot. In 2022 she publicly announced that she was getting rid of them.

"I got a lot of things wrong in my past," she wrote.

Von D later described some of the alternative spiritual practices she had pursued as empty attempts to fix something deeper. Eventually she began attending church, embraced Christianity and publicly underwent Christian baptism.

These stories contain an extraordinary irony.

People immersed in occult and alternative spirituality can reach a moment when they recognize that following Jesus means surrendering things that are incompatible with Him.

But what happens when churches stop asking anyone to surrender anything?

Consider what is happening within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Developments inside America's largest mainline Presbyterian body illustrate something much bigger happening throughout progressive Christianity.

Rev. Jim Rigby has pastored St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, for decades.

Recent undercover footage showed Rigby explaining that the congregation typically gives new members The Inclusive Bible, a translation deliberately constructed to reduce gendered language. Rigby praised it for being "good on the gender stuff." Reporting on the translation notes that it alters traditional formulations involving titles such as "Son of God."

Rigby's theology goes considerably further.

The Texas Tribune reported this year that he avoids traditional Christian prayers and creeds in services because he doesn't want non-Christians to feel excluded. It reported that he sees Jesus as closer to a "loving atheist than an indifferent theologian."

Think about the contrast.

A tarot reader encounters Christianity and concludes that she must abandon tarot.

Meanwhile, inside a Christian church, elements of traditional Christianity become the things that must be abandoned.

And Rigby isn't simply an isolated minister operating completely outside his denomination's trajectory.

PC(USA)'s own website enthusiastically profiled Rev. Bethany Peerbolte and her online "Progressive Christian message." Peerbolte became widely noticed after appearing with a transgender stole. She explained that she began creating content after finding online Christianity too focused on the afterlife rather than social justice.

The denomination now officially celebrates "all gender identities and sexual orientations," and its constitution was amended to specifically include sexual orientation and gender identity among categories protected in church participation.

This summer, its General Assembly went further, approving a mechanism allowing congregations to identify themselves as ready to call LGBTQIA+ pastors. During the debate, one trans nonbinary Presbyterian pastor argued against the proposal—not because LGBTQ theology had gone too far, but because queer pastors should be able to enter congregations that haven't yet had those conversations and "help people grow."

The transformation isn't occurring outside the institution.

It is occurring through it.

This brings us to the deeper issue.

Paul warned Timothy about people "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof."

Jesus reserved some of His strongest rebukes not for obvious pagans but for religious authorities convinced of their own righteousness. They knew religious language. They attended religious gatherings. They believed themselves to be serving God.

That should give modern Christians pause.

The occult practitioner at least understands that tarot, spells and divination aren't historic Christian practices. If she encounters Christ and becomes convinced He is Lord, the decision before her becomes remarkably clear:

Leave the old life behind.

That is essentially what Ashcroft did.

It is what Kat Von D says happened as she began reevaluating the spiritual influences she had welcomed into her life.

But imagine the progressive—or "woke"—Christian who has never been told that anything needs to be left behind.

His pastor affirms him.

His denomination affirms him.

Difficult biblical passages can be reinterpreted or rewritten.

Historic Christian moral boundaries become relics of an unenlightened past.

Eventually Christianity ceases to challenge the culture because the culture has become the standard by which Christianity itself is judged.

And when Christianity must constantly be reconstructed to agree with the surrounding culture, an unavoidable question eventually arises:

Are we still following Jesus—or creating a Jesus who follows us?

Christians shouldn't shrug at America's fascination with witchcraft. Scripture could hardly be clearer about divination, sorcery and attempts to obtain spiritual power apart from God.

But perhaps Christians should spend considerably less time marveling that witches exist and considerably more time asking what has happened inside the Church.

Because one of the strangest religious stories of our moment isn't simply that tarot readers can accumulate enormous followings.

It's the direction people are traveling.

Alexandra Ashcroft walked away from the tarot content that helped make her famous because she became convinced that Jesus Christ was real.

Kat Von D threw away occult and witchcraft books, rejected New Age spirituality, began attending church and eventually entered the waters of baptism.

They didn't demand that Christianity accommodate what they already believed.

They concluded that they needed to change.

Yet in some progressive churches, the movement appears reversed.

Instead of asking whether the culture conforms to Scripture, Scripture is increasingly interpreted through the culture.

Instead of asking whether our desires conform to Christianity, Christianity is reconstructed around our desires.

Instead of allowing Jesus to challenge us, we create a Jesus who conveniently agrees with us.

And perhaps that is the great spiritual irony of our age.

While some people once fascinated with the occult are discovering Jesus and leaving their old beliefs behind, some churches bearing His name are working feverishly to make Him indistinguishable from the culture outside their doors.

One movement says: "I was wrong. Christ must change me."

The other increasingly says: "Christianity was wrong. We must change it."

Both cannot be the Gospel.

And the strangest possibility of all is that while Christians have been watching the rise of witchcraft outside the Church, the far more consequential spiritual battle may have been unfolding inside it.