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 author of numerous books, including Family Questions: Reflections on the American Social Crisis and The American Way: Family and Community in the Shaping of the American Identity. He attends St. Paul Lutheran Church in Rockford, Illinois. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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more on history from the online archives
31.1—January/February 2018
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14.6—July/August 2001
The Transformed Relics of the Fall
on the Fulfillment of History in Christ by Patrick Henry Reardon
15.6—July/August 2002
Things Hidden Since the Beginning of the World
The Shape of Divine Providence & Human History by James Hitchcock
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23.6—November/December 2010
Darwin, Design & Thomas Aquinas
The Mythical Conflict Between Thomism & Intelligent Design by Logan Paul Gage
22.3—April 2009
Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by J. Daryl Charles
32.6—November/December 2019
The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis by Alan Jacobs by Jesse Russell
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