JOHN DEMPSTER: Which of our attitudes will be seen with incredulity?

"Evil is among you. It walks beside you in the field. It eats at your table. It sleeps in your bed. Evil can enter even the house of God."

The speaker was a temporary minister in Dornoch in the 1720s, a character in Philip Paris’s forthcoming novel The Last Witch of Scotland.

The preacher’s campaign against witchcraft led to the death of Janet Horne in 1727, the last person in Scotland to be executed as a witch.

Philip discussed the subject in a talk at Inverness Library. He described the European-wide prevalence of witch hunts in the 300 years beginning in the 15th century. In Scotland, 4000 people (84 per cent of them women) were accused of witchcraft, and of those, 2500 were convicted and executed. The Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 was finally repealed in 1736.

Back then, Philip explained, folk believed that everything that happened had a cause, and not a scientific one: a storm, a sick child, a cow not yielding – all could be seen as evidence of witchcraft. Contemporary church ministers genuinely believed that those executed had been consorting with the devil, even though the sentences were mostly based on confessions extracted under torture.

We now regard this misogynistic persecution of people – often vulnerable people – as a stain on our national and church history. In the past year, both the Church of Scotland and the Scottish Government have issued apologies for the witchcraft trials. But Philip’s dramatic recreation of the past prompts some reflection.

We recognise that we are still regrettably prone to looking for scapegoats we can blame when things go wrong.

We reflect on our attitude to followers of Wicca and others who are happy to be known as witches today: rather than making assumptions, can we dialogue with them in love, getting to know and understand their beliefs and how they differ from ours?

We’re quick to criticise our ancestors, but as Christians we too tend to think we are ‘right’ in our views. Over the years, Christian attitudes to social issues have sometimes changed. Which of today’s Christian attitudes will our descendants look back on with incredulity?

We acknowledge the injustice of the witch trials, but we also affirm that there are indeed dark spiritual forces seeking to cast a spell over our lives.

All of which explains why Christians believe we need a faith focused on Jesus, the living light who drives away darkness, brings freedom, and inspires the ‘love, loyalty and sacrifice’ which feature in Philip’s book alongside the tragedy.

We need, constantly, to be reminded of the truth that ‘Christ is among you. Christ walks beside you in the field. Christ eats at your table…’

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