Christianity and Runes

Runes and Christianity

The relationship between runes and Christianity has been marked by love and betrayal.  Early in the Christian history of the British Isles and Scandinavia, biblical texts were written out in runes.  This enabled rune-using people to have access to the Sacred Scriptures.  Thus the love of God was manifested in making His Word known to people through the use of runes.  Since the Gospel of Jesus Christ can only be known by God’s special revelation as recorded in Holy Scripture, sharing the Good News of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone by God’s grace alone was the ultimate loving use of runes.

However, the continued use of runes for the demonic practices of divination and magic marked a betrayal.  The practitioners of runic divination and magic lured the people of God to trust in false gods.  Christians in cultures where runes were still in use by pagans were tempted and sometimes succumbed to these forbidden practices.  Divination is the superstitious attempt to learn the future by some ritual or practice.  Magic is the attempt to influence or change reality by superstitious rituals or practices.  Both divination and magic result from a failure to trust in God’s benevolent care and providence.  Rather than trusting God, we sinful people want to be in control.  So we want to know the future, which in truth only God can know.  We want to exert supernatural control and influence in the world, so that we can take care of ourselves, rather than trusting God to care for us. 

Sadly, the sinful use of runes is still with us.  For many people, the only uses of runes that they know of are these wrong uses.  People deluded by their own pride or the demonic realm, ‘cast runes’ to tell the future, or to influence the natural world through supernatural means.  We abhor all wrong uses of runes, and we condemn as demonic all attempts to use runes for divination or magic.  People who indulge in these sinful practices are either misled or deluded about their abilities.  Superstitions about runes would be laughable, were they not so sinful, and if they did not open a door to the demonic realm.  We plead with all readers to avoid and abstain from divination and magic regardless of the means used (runes, astrology, etc.)  (Please note that magic as used here does not refer to ‘sleight of hand’ and other tricks that everyone acknowledges are just that – tricks.)