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Lessons from "The
Crucible"
"History is a good schoolteacher.
Here, in summary, are lessons which contemporary Christians can and should
learn from the witch trials:
- Properly distinguish state from
church, human courts from the last judgment, Law from Gospel.
- In correcting evils, never yield to
the situationist principle of the end justifying the means.
- Be most careful not to assimilate
the evil methods of your adversaries in combatting them. As a result of taking
the gold of the Egyptians, the Israelites had the wherewithal to make a golden
calf; medieval Christians, having conquered ancient Rome, uncritically absorbed
her law, thereby acquiring a positive view of judicial torture and
"extra-ordinary" procedures inimical to civil rights and scriptural
humanitarianism.
- Never underestimate your spiritual
opposition. Even after all appropriate qualifications have been made, the devil
achieved more through the witch trials than he could possibly have gained by
demonic activity apart from them."
The above excerpt is taken from
John W. Montgomery’s essay, "Witch Trial Theory
and Practice" in the Law Above the Law.
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