Monday, September 07, 2009

Boiling the frog...



For some "education" about Wicca, start at 6:20.

The above video is from a 1999 Scooby Doo movie called Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost, a film designed to bring what our catechism calls "the Satanic arts" into the mainstream. Thanks to Harry Potter, Twilight, and a host of TV shows and books aimed at young people, the occult has largely been made acceptable in Christian homes, good and evil are being blurred, and young people are being enticed and teased into things they ought not be dabbling with.

Just the other day in the toy department at Target, I ran across a board game based on Twilight, and right next to it was a Ouija board.

And demonstrating that the Serpent is indeed the craftiest of the creatures, anyone who criticizes such incursions of the occult into the Christian life is ridiculed for it.

I mean, what kind of an "extremist fundie" must one be to be against an innocent cartoon like Scooby Doo?

9 comments:

Dan @ Necessary Roughness said...

Yeah, I was uncomfortable showing this cartoon to the kids from the scare factor alone, plus all the occultic stuff.

Scooby Doo turned to crap when they decided that there WERE such things as ghosts.

Fr. Jon M. Ellingworth said...

The original SD was great! Always an sinful human pulling off the pranks / crimes under the guise of the supernatural -- "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!" I thought the new ones were just cheap crap, but I didn't know they were laced with subversive crapola. My kids have one in the van dvd player right now! Thanks for posting this -- simply amazing!

Monique said...

OH.MY.GOODNESS.

I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself.

Thanks for the "heads up"

Rev. Eric J Brown said...

Now, to be fair, I think we can neglect the seeds of this even back in the day. Ouija boards have been a common sight in toy stores (and somehow in my grandmother's basement) for at least 50 years.

But yeah - as someone who chose to go to Kings Island and see Scooby when I was 4 rather than going to Disney -- this saddens me.

Or, I suppose I could go on a Christian Socialist rant (to fit in with today's society) and point out how it was a lack of economic equality that drove people away from proper medical science into the hands of a witch - therefore without a government option we are just promoting witchcraft (the previous paragraph was satire)

Rev. Larry Beane said...

Dear Eric:

To be *really* fair, while ouija boards have been around for a long time, it is only recently that they are being made in pink to appeal to teenage girls.

Your grandmother wasn't bombarded by cartoons championing Wicca, by TV shows about young girls casting spells, by vampire and witchcraft literature that blurred the line between good and evil.

Nor were churches in her day (some of which bore the name Lutheran), led by priestesses - some even praying to the goddess instead of God, nor was there an open and shameless endorsement of homosexuality and abortion and other rebellions against the created order of sex and the value of life. Evil is being normalized today in ways that would have been unthinkable 50 years ago.

There were also a lot fewer exorcisms being done when your grandmother was a girl.

I believe Satan is more aggressive today than even a generation ago. Our Lord warned us that things would be getting worse, to the point that before His return, there will be but a remnant left. I believe this paganization of western culture is part of this general downward spiral - and it is something that we, as pastors, must be aware of.

For we Christians are also in the kettle with the frog.

Rev. Eric J Brown said...

Actually, the occult has always been more aggressively marketed to teen-age girls - from Sabrina the teenaged witch, to I Dream of Jeanie -- one of the standards is the "magical girl" motif, where a girl gains access to "power" which brings her up and out of the life of a normal girl. And this isn't a new thing - this has been going on in society for a long, long time.

While my grandmother might not have gotten that - it's been part and parcel of TV culture since the 60s, at least. In the days of my youth we had the Smurfs and He-man/She-ra and things like that. Or in terms of literature and film, Dracula became a romantic figure as early as the 60s.

I'm not saying that Satan isn't active, nor am I diminishing the activity, or even its increase, but it isn't as though he's only recently turned up the heat. It's been going on for the entirety of our lifetimes.

Which is why when the original people behind something like Scooby Doo are out of the picture, the folks who come in and take over are willing to swallow this tripe hook, line, and sinker.

Rev. Larry Beane said...

Dear Eric:

Of course it has been going on since the Garden of Eden. But, as you point out, there has been a recent spike in Satanic activity and in the devil's audacity in recent years, and especially since the ascendancy of feminism.

We're seeing things today in the church and secular culture that would have been unthinkable even five years ago. We can certainly see where things are headed, and need to (as we were exhorted in yesterday's TDP reading) to "put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand the against the schemes of the devil."

I believe the intensity of the warfare is on the increase, and we pastors really need to be aware of this and take advantage of every opportunity to defend our parishioners from the "lion seeking someone to devour."

Pastors, use the exorcism at baptism as found in the Pastoral Care Companion (PCC) on page 16 (and don't make a bunch of limp-wristed excuses that only serve the desires of Satan). And shame on whoever was responsible for the exorcism's removal from our hymnal and its relegation to the PCC! Who benefited from that?

Encourage the practice of annual house blessings. Encourage parishioners to display crucifixes in their homes (and bless those crucifixes). Encourage parishioners to bless their food before eating, and to bless themselves with the sign of the holy cross and the invocation of the Trinity day and night. Warn your parishioners against seemingly innocent occult practices. And pay attention to the symbolism in the books and movies people are watching - especially the young and impressionable.

Far too often, we forget that we are at war.

Past Elder said...

Anybody watched Disney lately? It's full of occult stuff portrayed as normal and mainstream.

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