Toil & Trouble
A Brief Account of the Occult at the End of Western Civilization
Newsweek magazine reports that the number of self-identified witches in the United States now exceeds 1.5 million, up from a mere 8,000 in 1990. At that high and growing number, the magazine continues, the devotees of witchcraft far exceed the shriveling membership of the “mainline” Presbyterian Church USA and just about equal the count of Episcopalians.
I am unsure what to make of such comparisons between the witches and the “mainline” Protestants. A cynic of the “Old Believer” sort might see here merely a distinction without a difference, or a welcome clarification of identities.
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Allan C. Carlson is the John Howard Distinguished Senior Fellow at the International Organization for the Family. His most recent book is Family Cycles: Strength, Decline & Renewal in American Domestic Life, 1630-2000 (Transaction, 2016). He and his wife have four grown children and nine grandchildren. A "cradle Lutheran," he worships in a congregation of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. He is a senior editor for Touchstone.
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more on history from the online archives
31.1—January/February 2018
on Ragnarök, an Extreme Weather Event & the Paths to Conversion by Timothy J. Burbery
15.6—July/August 2002
Things Hidden Since the Beginning of the World
The Shape of Divine Providence & Human History by James Hitchcock
28.3—May/June 2015
Whittaker Chambers's Lonely War Against Godless Collectivism by Hunter Baker
more from the online archives
32.2—March/April 2019
Reality Shows, Even in a Popular TV Series by C. E. Smith
29.1—Jan/Feb 2016
on Marriage, Moral Corruption & the Christian Duty of Witness by Regis Nicoll
17.4—May 2004
The Unhappy & Abusive Marriage of Liberalism & Modernism by James Hitchcock
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