How can a Christian be a magician?

How can a Christian be a magician? Doesn’t the Bible teach against magic?

These are questions that every Christian magician gets asked. A lot of people are quick to judge and discredit my faith just because I do magic. I understand where people are coming from, so I want to write this to share what I believe.

How can a Christian be a magician?

Let’s start with a little background. I was raised by two people who have an amazing love for Jesus. They instilled the same love into me and my siblings. My parents were very involved in church, they led youth groups, led the worship band, and at one point my dad was an associate pastor at our church. My parents also have a love, verging on obsession, with Christian concerts. My childhood was filled with various concerts, anything from Toby Mac to MercyMe. I remember watching those concerts, especially the spectacle that is a Toby Mac show, and being in awe of the joy being shared from the stage. No matter who was on stage, no matter if they had a huge show completed with back up dancers or it was just them and a guitar. As long as they sang about Jesus you could feel the energy of the room, the joy, the spirit. I always wanted to give other people that feeling, I wanted to be able to share about Jesus from a stage.

When I started doing magic, I was twelve. I had seen a guy in town do a rope trick. I remembered that I owned that trick from a kit of practical jokes, but had never learned it. So I went home, learned how to do it and I was hooked. When I first started learning I just did it as a hobby. A fun thing to do over the summer. Eventually it became more than that. After about a year of learning a bunch of card tricks I found out that there was something called gospel magic. I had never heard of it before. It hadn’t crossed my mind as something that went together. I had finally found my talent, the thing I could use to get on stage and tell people about Jesus and bring people the joy I had felt so many times before.

Doesn’t the Bible teach against magic?

This is the biggest question or comment for any gospel magician. There are numerous videos on Youtube warning against Christian magicians, not just magicians who claim to have actual powers, but against magicians who teach about Jesus through their act. It is a debate that will never be over, but here are my views on the subject. The bible does speak about magic arts in many different books and versus, the book of Revelation talks about it a lot (Revelation 21:8, 18:23, 9:21, 22:15). However, most of the time when the bible mentions magic it is referring to witchcraft, sorcery, and/or the conjuring of spirits. I do none of the above. I never claim to use magical powers, I don’t have a magic word, I don’t claim to have help from spirits, and I don’t cast spells. The above listed are warned against in the bible. If anyone asks me about my abilities I am honest and tell them that I don’t have any supernatural powers, I simply use sleight of hand to make something look impossible. I am doing the exact same thing that any other Christian entertainer does, I am sharing my testimony through my art.

These questions will never go away. There will always be a group of people who think what I’m doing is wrong. That’s okay, they don’t have to come to my shows or support me. They stand firm in what they believe and so do I. Some people reading this might not agree with me and that’s okay. The point of this isn’t to change anyone’s mind. The point of this post is just to share my beliefs on the subject.