An Egregious Sin Of The Warrens

Introduced to the forefront of cinema thanks to the long-running Conjuring franchise, paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, based loosely on the real-life couple of the same name, have become quite entrenched in the horror genre.  With the release of the fourth main entry of The Conjuring, Last Rites, I have reflected on something I, despite brushing up against highly legalistic circles, have rarely if ever heard many people talk about.  Completely aside from the moral dimensions of creating or consuming art depicting demonic forces, the Warrens themselves commit a very severe sin in the series as if their intentions make it righteous.  They go far beyond exorcising demonic spirits that have already manifested themselves; the couple actively attempts to interact with spirits in seances and to contact the human dead (such as Bill in The Conjuring 2), actions expressly and fiercely condemned throughout the Torah.  Adjacent to witchcraft, which itself is a capital sin (Exodus 22:18), contacting the dead and by extension consulting someone to contact the dead on one's behalf is always a capital sin:

Leviticus 19:31—"'"Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them.  I am the Lord your God."'"

Leviticus 20:6, 27—"'"I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people . . . A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death.  You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads."'"

Deuteronomy 18:9-13—"When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.  Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.  Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you.  You must be blameless before the Lord your God."

Alongside the likes of human sacrifice (Leviticus 18:21, 20:1-5, Deuteronomy 12:31), which itself receives mention alongside communicating with the dead as a sin of the Canaanites in Deuteronomy 18, cursing or otherwise dishonoring their fathers and mothers (Leviticus 20:9), and so on, contacting the dead—or sincerely attempting to do so—is a sin said to incur divine judgment on the pagan Canaanites inhabiting the Promised Land.  For these and other depravities, these Gentile societies are rejected from the land by God (Leviticus 18:24-30, 20:22-23, Deuteronomy 9:4-6, 12:29-31).  I emphasize the Gentile ancestry/nationality not because morality is otherwise culturally relative according to the Bible, with consulting the dead being among some allegedly miniscule number of behaviors sinful for both Israelites and Gentiles, but because morality is clearly treated as universal over and over, as logic would require if there is good and evil.  Whether one is a Jew or not makes no difference for almost anything in Biblical ethics but a limited covenant distinction such as that of Deuteronomy 14:21.

Adding to the ironic misrepresentation of Christianity within the cinematic franchise in question is the state of the dead, whom Ed and Lorraine reach out to in purposeful acts of communication.  Ghosts are routinely referenced or shown in The Conjuring films.  As expected as an immediate afterlife might be in storytelling inspired by Judeo-Christianity, there is presently no afterlife according to the Bible.  No one is in heaven (John 3:13) or yet in hell, which is not be a place of permanent torment anyway (Revelation 20:11-15).  Soul sleep is consistently put forth throughout the Bible as the state of the dead at this time: until the eschatological resurrection (Daniel 12:2), there is no afterlife except for the likes of those connected with the temporary, forbidden rousing of the dead in 1 Samuel 28.  Particularly in the Old Testament, the unconsciousness of the dead is a very overt, repeated idea, as expressed in verses like Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, and 10.

Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10—"For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; . . . Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; . . . Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom."

Perhaps the dead being presently unconscious, incapable of perceiving even self-evident truths (logical axioms and one's own mental existence), is among the reasons why contacting or trying to communicate with the dead is such an egregious sin.  For such a spirit to truly be roused, they would have to be phenomenologically revived ahead of the resurrection, at which point people will live again as mind-body composites, yet to stir a ghost would infringe upon God's intentions for the timing of the resurrection.  Even if the unconsciousness of those in Sheol, the grave, had nothing to do with the particulars of why acting as a medium or necromancer is wicked on the Biblical worldview, it is still clearly condemned as a great and intrinsic evil.

Acting as a medium or necromancer with the goal of opposing enemies of God would be as if someone decided to murder on behalf of God, when it is God's nature that renders murder evil and God's commands that reveal the obligation to abstain from it.  No situation legitimizes the likes of murder (Genesis 9:6, Exodus 20:13, 12-14, 20-21, and so on), just like other sins such as eating blood (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:10-14, etc.) or kidnapping (Exodus 21:16, Deuteronomy 24:7).  In contrast, the permissibility of something like divorce is objectively situational (Exodus 21:10-11, Deuteronomy 21:10-14, 24:1-4, 1 Corinthians 7:15; see also verses like Exodus 21:26-27 and 1 Corinthians 5:9-11).  Consulting the dead is in this sense like murder or kidnapping rather than divorce.  It is vile without any Biblically clarified or logically necessary exceptions.  Murder, kidnapping, and necromancy merit the same punishment, in fact.  This course of action would not become valid even if the doer simply intends to gather information for an exorcism.

Enjoying artistic works that feature sorcery or necromancy, even if they portray such things as morally positive or as if genuine Judeo-Christianity permits them under the "right" circumstances, is certainly not sinful for the viewer/reader/player, given that they do not enjoy the work specifically because it promotes something wicked.  A vast difference exists between believing or practicing something erroneous and exploring or appreciating the artistic merits of a work that includes such material.  Yet one might hear a great deal of complaints by some evangelicals about alleged users of benevolent magic in certain literary franchises acting contrary to Biblical ethics, but I have never personally encountered anyone outside of my inner circle who objected to the actions of the Warrens, either the actual couple or their fictionalized counterparts of the Conjuring films, from within the context of the very worldview that supposedly compels them to fight demons.

In addition to the sins themselves being declared so inflexibly egregious by the Bible that they deserve execution—and condemned in a manner that firmly acknowledges the illogicality of sexism, racism, and relativism since the text condemns men, women, Jews, and Gentiles who practice mediumship/necromancy—the Warrens err in their hypocrisy.  Beyond such sins simply having their immoral status no matter who carries them out, the Lorraine and Ed Warren of cinema and the real-life couple ostensibly hold to the religious philosophy of the Bible, which forbids some of the very behaviors they engage in as detestable deeds warranting death.  Hypocrisy of this sort is flagrant, especially when the hypocrites have had decades upon decades to reflect rationally upon the nature of their worldview and profession.