“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Ex. 22:18 KJV) sounds cruel, but it is part of the Old Testament’s key message of worshipping only God and avoiding the barbarity and immorality of pagan religion (which often involved human sacrifice and ritual prostitution).
People who dabbled in the demonic were, as Israel’s history shows, a thread to a faith centered on the true God.
In contrast, the New Testament shows Christianity spreading in the Roman Empire, where all sorts of religions and magical arts had to coexist. Nothing in the New Testament would condone killing a witch or sorceress.
But the devout Christians who settled Massachusetts in the 1600s were bent on preserving a pure religion, and they were willing to exile—and, in a few cases, execute—people who would not conform.
The execution of twenty people for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, is a blot on Christian history.
