In an article for the Christian Post, authors John Stonestreet and Glenn Sunshine wrote about the growing interest of witchcraft in America.

They made the surprising observation that there are probably more people in America who identify as witches than as Presbyterians.

This claim was based in part on a 2014 survey conducted by Pew Research which found that 0.4% of Americans identified as Wiccan or Pagan. That percentage represents upwards of 1.5 million people, compared with about 1.4 million Presbyterians.

That survey was conducted 12 years ago. Since then, the number of people practicing Wicca seems to be continuing to grow, while the Presbyterian Church has experienced decline. In my opinion, this decline is due largely to the denomination’s abandonment of the basic beliefs of the Christian faith.

Stonestreet and Sunshine add that popular culture may be contributing to this growth.

“Witchcraft seems to gain new legs every few years or so. Typically, this is spurred by pop culture,” they wrote.

They point to Practical Magic 2, which was released in movie theaters on Thursday, September 10. It became the top-grossing film that weekend and had grossed more than $80 million worldwide by September 24. Starring Sandra Bullock, the film centers around a family of witches who has been cursed and are trying to counter it.

Another example of the growing interest in witchcraft can be seen on Etsy, a popular online shopping site. Stonestreet and Sunshine state that it features more than 5,000 items related to casting curses

A brief search on Etsy uncovers thousands of curse-related products that can be purchased. These include hexes intended to curse an ex and one described as an ‘Extreme Demonic Curse Spell.’

So what is behind this growing interest in witchcraft and Wicca?

They cite a statement by G.K. Chesterton, the Christian apologist who died in 1936:

“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”

If people remove God from our culture, something else will rise up to fill the void.