He writes:
I have recently come into difficulties with Christians who seem to be obsessed – psychologically – with the notion of curses. My understanding is that God permits curses, as he permits other evils. But for these to work there needs to be a supernatural non-corporeal intelligence empowering it. Ie, either the Almighty, one of his angels, or a demon. But I would regard these as a) possible b) absurdly unlikely and c) granted only so that we may see God’s grace. I know you must have so much going on, but if in the future your mind turns to this bizarre topic, I hope you can tell me what you think.
I don’t know much about the whole phenomenon of curses and am reluctant to hold forth on matters to which I have given neither attention nor thought. I’ve been cursed at many times (exclusively by Christians) and have had people wish harm and death and damnation on me, but so far things seem to be fine as long as I entrust myself to Jesus (who says that I should rejoice at such curses). So that’s my main advice to anybody afraid of them. I take the demonic seriously and I suppose it may be possible that somebody might call spirits from the vasty deep. But whether they will come when they are called (particularly to do the bidding of mortals whom they hate) is another question. My own suspicion is, should somebody succeed in invoking an evil spirit, that spirit is primarily attracted to the one uttering the curse because such people are stupid enough to open themselves to the power of spiritual predators by cursing others. So things like hexes invoke spirits in non-Christian circles strike me as a danger primarily to the one uttering the hex.
Of course, Christians are not immune from speaking evil against and with evil on those they hate. And I think the danger is even more grave in their case, not because they can somehow muscle God into acting as their Hit Man against their intended victims but because they can convince themselves that baptizing their malignant hatred for their neighbor makes it good. I think sins can and should be solemnly damned in the Name and authority of Jesus Christ when it is appropriate. But never ever ever should a human being be wished into Hell, not because it will hurt the person being cursed, but because it will hurt the one uttering the curse. So I would never want to attempt any experiment along such lines. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.
As to fretting about being cursed by somebody, I think worrying about curses is itself the main damage for people prone to such fears, since the principal command of our Lord is to keep our eyes on the ball by seeking first his Kingdom and his righteousness, confident that everything else (including deliverance from evil) will be added as well. Fear of evil is a distraction from that focus.
There is one and only one exception to this “Don’t worry about curses” rule that I can think of. The psalms contain, at times, bitter and acrid curses such as Psalm 109. It is easy for moderns to gloat over the “hypocrisy” of the “supposedly religious” psalmist who appears to know nothing of loving his enemy. But of course, he would not, since he wrote centuries before Jesus enjoined that incredibly difficult command on us and Christians began a long and illustrious career of trying and failing to obey it (or just not trying at all many times).
What the psalm and many other curses in Scripture supply us with is not an instruction to feel free to pour out our rage and wishes for death and suffering on those we hate and the horse they rode in on, but a portrait–a very uncomfortable portrait–of what we may evoke in the hearts and minds of our victims if we are not careful. It may well be that some health insurance CEO, upon arriving at the Pearly Gates for judgement, will hear words not dissimilar from Psalm 109 played back to him in the voices of the thousands of widows, orphans, suffering, sick and dying he screwed over for the sake of Mammon. Such curses may well carry a lot of weight with Him who is the Avenger of the widow and the orphan.
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One Response
I have some experience with curses myself.
In the first Dark Souls, curses are a status effect that can build up until it culminates in death by petrification. It can be inflicted by some regular enemies like basilisks, but it can also be inflicted by some boss encounters as well, chief among them, Seath the Scaleless. Unlike other aliments, curses can linger after death, resulting in your maximum health being reduced by half. That’s why its good idea to always keep a few purging stones on hand, just in case.
On the other hand, in Remnant 2, curses are classified as a blight effect that can reduce your maximum health by up to 50%. They can removed by using a purified salve, drinking from one of the founts found within a Fey dungeon, or by touching a world stone. Curses can also be prevented altogether by wearing the Hex Ward ring.
And that sums up about how seriously I take curses; which, depending on the context, could be either very seriously or not at all.
Funnily enough, I do have a neighbor who is into that kind of voodoo/witchcraft stuff and has told me as much. I have seen other people come to him for what I believe to be some kind of consulting in that area, so by all accounts it seems like he really believes he can channel the supernatural to some extent and has gotten other people to believe it as well.
As for myself, I tend to file curses under the same category as horoscopes: unfounded assertions with varying degrees of specificity, which may or may not come to pass. If they do, hey it worked! If they don’t, then it wasn’t meant to be.
Not that dissimilar from the way prayer is portrayed, according to some apologetics. Then again, as you alluded to a bit in your piece, for many people, curses and prayers are really one and the same, functionally indistinguishable from each other.