The New Female Apostasy – Interview with Sam Rust

30% of Americans dabble in the occult. 30% of Gen-Z women are on the LGBT spectrum. Only 36 women now attend church for every 43 men—a total flip from 20 years ago. What is happening? Kevin talks with Sam Rust about the link between our cultural moment and the baalism of ancient Israel…how the suffragettes were motivated by Satanism…why modern women are so unhappy…and how Christian men can personally help draw women back to the faith.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Folks, welcome. This is Generations. My name is Kevin Swanson, and it turns out witchcraft is dominating in the media today, with at least 20 witchcraft themed shows emerging in the 2020s. Over 50 shows that incorporate occasional witchcraft themes. Now, the slow but steady acceptance of witchcraft has come over a period of about 50 years, certainly since the second wave of feminism got its start in the 60s and 70s. Witches are seen as villains and supernatural threats back in the 1970s. Not healthy, certainly, because the viewers were taught to fear the devil and witchcraft, but not to fear God. But move on to the 1980s, and we find witches presented as comedic figures. In the 1990s, we're encouraged to sympathize with the witch patogenists, as in The Craft, Charmed, and Sabrina. By the 2000s, witches have become the mainstream heroes, as in Buffy, Harry, and of course the wizards of Waverly Place. By the 2010s, women are encouraged to identify with these witches and find witches as symbols of empowerment, as in the Coven and the chilling adventures of Sabrina. And then finally we come to the 2020s, where witches are fully normalized archetypes. And as in the case of Wicked or Discovery of Witches, Mayfair Witches, Agatha All Along, The Owl House, Fate, the Wink Saga, The Worst Witch, The Bureau of Magical Things, Motherland, Fort Salem, and The Witcher. Now, of this, the most influential movie that's come out in the last uh five or six years came out in 2024. In terms of a worldview formation, uh, the most important uh uh the cultural definition and encouragement towards witchcraft occurred in Wicked Part One. It was a box office smash hit uh collecting $758 million in the worldwide market, certainly the most influential media offering upon the hearts and minds of the whole world in 2024. Well, Wicked Part 2 did about as much damage and served as the most influential movie of the 2025. The Wicked franchise clearly had an agenda, and that was to smear the lines between good and evil. Isaiah 5 warned on this. That's what it says: woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet, sweet for bitter. So both good and bad witchcraft are now placed in a good light, and perhaps the bad witch, really a better light than the good witch, at least in Wicked Part 2. Although all of it is still sitting in darkness, you need to know that the author, Gregory Maguire of Wicked, was one of the first persons in America to stage a faux homosexual marriage in the state of Massachusetts in 2004. It's interesting, the Christian film reviewing organization, Movie Guide, has pointed out the latest movie advocates fornication in a lesbian context. However, focus on the family plugged in was pretty gaga over Wicked. I read from the review this recently, from the moment Wicked first hit the stage in 2003. Audiences were enchantified by its emerald sparkle, and there were many reasons why. The show's tunes are nothing short of magical. It's Wizard of Oz backstory is fun and immersive, and the tale's encouragement to show others respect, compassion, and affection are emotionally moving. Okay. The guy says that he's admittedly a fan. Okay, so that's focus on the family plugged in. And uh, we read on. It's a great story, a great movie. There's zero bad language, story about self-sacrificial friendship, respect, standing up for each other to fight evil agendas, blah, blah, blah. This just encourages us to show everyone around us compassion and respect, no matter what they look like or how much they may be unlike us. All right. Now, the uh the assumption here in these fantasy tales is that uh witchcraft, or even like rape or murder or revenge killings, anarchical vigilantism or uh killing demons, all of it's okay as long as it happens in a parallel universe. The parallel universe excuses all sins. A witch or a wizard is a person dedicated to a sinful lifestyle. There's no good witches, just like there are no good rapists, even if you have invented a pretend universe in which there's supposed to be good rapists and bad rapists uh operating. If the author calls the person a witch, or if the author calls the thing a duck, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck if it does things ducks do, all reasonable persons would conclude the thing to be a duck. If the author calls the hero a rapist and the rapist does what rapists do, then we have to conclude that the hero has committed capital crimes and should be dealt with accordingly. It doesn't matter if the hero has saved somebody else's life and smacks down serial killers as a story plays out, he's still a rapist. To present rapists and witches in a good light is to obfuscate right and wrong by the use of language and metaphor. So what can we say? Wicked is a great film. Wicked is righteous, evil is good, darkness is light. Well that's what they're saying. Except for the fact that the original book was written by a homosexual author and featured drugs, rape, prostitution, crime, and sex parties between humans and animals. Except for the fact that there is an ambiguous philosophy about the nature of good and evil, and except for the fact that the movie presents an evil witch who is really a good witch, except for the fact that the male prince sings a song that incites homosexuality in the film and puts the sexual perversion in a positive light. Except that the second film maintains a lesbian sub-story, except for the fact that the Wizard of Oz itself was an apologetic for feminism and spiritism of the late 19th century. Actually, the original book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum, was inspired by his mother-in-law, Matilda Joclyn Gage. They lived in the same house together. She was a proto-feminist who rejected God, biblical authority, and embraced spiritism and naturalism. Gage was much in favor of the writings and perspectives of one Victoria Woodhall, which who was basically a prostitute, a feminist spiritist witch of the 19th century, a free love or free sex advocate, also, by the way, ran for president of the United States. Matilda Joclin Gage wrote of the good and bad witches. Here's a quote: Magic, whether brought about by the aid of spirits or simply through an understanding of secret natural laws, is of two kinds, white and black, according to its intent and consequences, are evil or good, and in this respect does not differ from the use made of the well-known laws of nature, which are ever of good, neither of good or evil character in the hands of good or evil persons. Glinda, the good witch, is presented in the story as having spiritual power and political power, which is in line with what the first wave of feminism was seeking. Power. Feminism is given to witchcraft because feminism is a competition for power and always has been since the serpent told the woman in the garden, you shall be as gods. She's still trying for that. All right. Well, Pew research has found that 30% of Americans now dabble in astrology, witchcraft, and other forms of the occult. That's up from 11% in the 1970s. So things have changed. I think the media has produced quite an influence towards this. Witchcraft communes and retreats are on the rise. Reported in The Guardian just last week. Uh, women are seeking more avenues for power in the rising age of what they call patriarchy. Okay, that's from The Guardian magazine uh referred to uh in a recent newscast. New Deuteronomy 18 also warns of this. So let me read this: There shall not be found among you anyone that makes his son or daughter to pass through the fire, or that uses divination, or is an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. All right, so here we have it. Feminism, empowerment, uh, witchcraft, LGBTQ, the Jezebel spirit. This has made a mark on women. By the way, 30% of Gen Z women claim to be on the LGBTQ spectrum. So something's going on with women right now. It's not good. Not good at all. These doctrines are forming exit ramps out of the faith straight to hell for women that follow them. Very, very dangerous. Extremely dangerous. By the way, women are also leaving the Christian church. This is one of the most unbelievable, uh unusual uh social indexes that we I have seen in my lifetime. Barna.com reported the largest gender gap in recorded history for church attendance. Only 36% of women attending church and 43% of men. The reversal dates back to 2018. So it's it it shifted in 2018, which has been just what? Eight years. The gender gap at the beginning of the century, what's that, 26 years ago, 50% women attending church, only 37% of men has just flipped in only the last eight years. Phenomenal. I don't think we've ever seen this anywhere in at any time in all of human history. Probably worth looking at. A sociological shift that we haven't seen in 2,000 years of history, probably worth talking about. By the way, married dads lead the charge in terms of church attendance. Forty-one percent of married dads attended church last week, only 30% of married moms in the last week, and only 24% of single moms. All right, well, today witchcraft, female empowerment, male leadership, feminism, and the female apostasy with Sam Rust in studio on generations today. Sam, this is extraordinary. I I don't think I've ever seen anything like this in terms of the popularity of witchcraft. Yes, we saw something of this in the first wave of feminism. There's a question, no question about it. Spiritism, witchcraft, always a part of it. Uh, but it just seems like it's on steroids today.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

It's very interesting. We live in interesting times, Kevin. Um, I wanted to approach this from a couple of different angles. First, we live in a society that's almost rapidly becoming post-rational. Uh, if you think of like the 1950s, 1960s, we thought that we could quantify everything, that science was the path forward. And we saw, you know, during COVID, like the religion of science, that became kind of a meme that went around. But there was this sense that mankind had conquered the cosmos, that we knew all there was to know, everything was explainable, all phenomena were based um in scientific processes or didn't exist. And that just denies a fundamental reality of creation in the created order. There are things, there are phenomena, there are miracles, um, there is strange things that happen that we can't explain as humans. And maybe someday science will grow in its ability to explain some of those things, but ultimately God has created a world that has a lot more mystery in it than a scientist would want you to believe. And so people feel this, they feel this in their bones, um, and they run across circumstances that they can't explain. And so then they that that provokes a curiosity in people, and and it provokes a curiosity in unshepherded women, um, in a way that, as the statistics that you were reading off show, that they're particularly susceptible. But this is not the first time in human history that the susceptibility has been hijacked. You go back to the ancient cults, uh the Baal worshippers that the the Israelites were dealing with, ancient Egypt. Most of those ancient pagan cults had a very strange outlook on sexuality and the relationship of male and female. And they thought that at the beginning of creation that there were there was one classification of being, and then they were divided into male and female, which is obviously completely counter the biblical narrative that man was created and then from man, woman. Um, and what that leads to is uh a bunch of different ideologies that share a common thread, namely that those two halves are incomplete um in themselves, and that the forces within the cosmos are trying to put them back together and create some new whole, uh new human expression of the whole. And that was underlying so many different fertility cults and different rites throughout the ancient Near East, um, which led to a rise in temple prostitution and all these different things. And witchcraft was really prevalent in these circles. Um, and what do we see today? We see biblical sexuality being attacked in much the same way. It's the same arguments, it's the same ideology, just maybe with a little bit of a different vernacular put on top of it.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

You know, it's interesting also the history of Japan. Um, some of the very, very first uh historical records that the Chinese collected from uh the Japanese culture. I'm thinking, you know, the Chinese that made it across and began to visit with the Japanese civilization in the BC years, they discovered that sorceresses were were actually witches and sorceresses were in charge and and were running the nation, or at least portions of the nation early on. And so this idea of of women witches gaining power and and then creating something of a empowered matriarchal society is uh it's not not necessarily unusual uh in the history of the world. But I think what's unusual for us is it's happening among Christian countries.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yeah, I don't think we've ever seen a Christian nation, just approximately the majority of people are Christian, then slide into witchcraft and sorcery. I mean, you think about America pre-Columbus, uh, the worst kinds of demonic activity, straight up demonic activity and actual witchcraft and sorcery and human sacrifice and all that. That was expunged from our land from Columbus forward. But I, you know, I think there are some ties. This is uh into the abortion industry um that lead back to this same door, that there's actual, there are actual powers at play. Now we have the the Holy Spirit within us, we have the the power of love and a sound mind. We can go out and wage war and win. We know that Christ has already conquered, so this isn't a call to despair at all. No, but rather we've got to recognize the times. We've got to understand that latent in these things is real dangerous ideology.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

It's interesting. There was a public demonstration of witchcraft in our county, in our little town of Elizabeth, uh, several times. It's occurred several times where um, I guess seances or something of that sort was happening. It was a fairly public demonstration of it. Uh, a couple of us came together, we prayed, and uh, and and those those uh those meeting places were were abandoned and uh and gone within, I'm gonna say, like a month or two. I mean, literally, we just prayed and they were gone. So so I do think Christians taking a strong stance uh can make a very, very big difference. It's also I was gonna say, it's interesting that the whole witchcraft seance thing that influenced the first wave of feminism in the 1820s, 1830s, 1840s, I think Victoria Woodhull and the others. In fact, it it went on for a while, uh, but it appeared, I think, first 1820s, 1830s, came largely over through the secret societies uh via the French Revolution.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Yeah, and so many like Alistair Crowley was highly influential in early feminist feminist circles. Right. There's there's definitely some links there. Alistair Crowley is one of the originators of Satanism, at least in its current incarnation. So so uh but there's there's language that we should pay attention to. Whenever you hear something like, oh Mother Earth or the divine feminine, that that one should send off all kinds of warning bells. Um, wisdom is feminine. Now it's interesting that Proverbs, we see an analogy to Lady Folly and Lady Wisdom. So that um, but so many times in our current context, um, the feminine is exalted. You have political candidates talking about God being non-binary. Um, and so much of that roots back to this feminist, deeply anti-God ideology.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

And I think you know, the the devil's temptation to eve in the garden of really place in you shall be as gods. Um, that's important. That that idea of empowerment, that idea of of being autonomous in terms of being her own authority and her and the temptation to dominate her husband, you know, as we read in Genesis 3. These are fundamental temptations that that work in the craw of women. I'm not, I'm not, again, we're not just picking on women here, but you know, but in this case, evidently this idea of empowerment is very, very strong. It's and strong to the feminist ideology. In fact, I've got a couple of quotes here. I'm gonna run them by you, Sam. Um, I want to talk about empowerment. Uh, the arch feminist uh philosopher of the 60s was Betty Fredan. And Betty Ferdan wrote this: a woman has got to be able to say and not feel guilty, who am I and what do I want out of life? She mustn't feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of her own outside of her husband and children. And so we find these sorts of things. And as I see it, then empowerment is first and foremost an autonomy. That is an autonomy, a form of existentialism where she will define herself. She will describe herself, she will set her own ethics, her own values, and uh, and and describe her own sexuality, gender, and everything else as well. So this sort of radical autonomy is very, very strong in in feminism that she should make her own decisions, live her own life apart from God. And then, of course, Betty Fridan wants to throw in this too. She makes her own decisions and lives her own life apart from her husband. So this autonomy is very, very important to her, uh, to the feminist ideology.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

I I think it's interesting. You've already mentioned the Garden of Eden, but so often we we fall prey, we as humanity, fall prey to that we will become like gods, right? We grasp for things that are outside the boundaries that God has given us.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

And so when we see these feminist pioneers talking about, well, we need to empower women, women need to be in power, well, what is that in the context of? What are you, what power do you not have? And so much of that fundamentally traces back to authority very clearly. Um, women should uh they should wear the pants in the household, or you know, whatever. It could be so many different tropes, but it fundamentally comes back to authority. And we see that in a an ideal society from a Christian perspective, if we're wanting to honor God and if we want the most productive, most vibrant, most joyful society, it's going to have ordered authority. There's going to be delegated authority to the church, to the state, to the family. And within each of those institutions, men are given um the keys of authority, essentially. The husband is the leader in his home. Men are to be leaders in the church. And by extension, I would argue that men should be the leaders of their societies from a political standpoint. We know that in the Old Testament talks about uh you will know a land is cursed when women rule over it. That these are just fundamental truths in scripture that might be a little bit uncomfortable for us to hear these days because of the moment in which we live, but that is the boundary line that God has given us. And we see that women are reaching outside of that and men are allowing it and even promoting it to happen.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

And men can do the same thing as well. Well, we say 100%. We are given authority. I mean, hey, within measure, right? I mean, remember the centurion approaching Jesus said, I'm a man under authority, and so I understand these things, and and Jesus commended him for his faith. We are men under authority as well, and we have no right to exceed the boundaries of authority that God has given to us, and no woman has a right to exceed the boundaries that God has given to her. Um, all authority is from God. I think in Romans 13, verse 1, there's no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. So God has laid these things out for us. I think it's, you know, the the idea of autonomy in the garden is that you know we're gonna shove off the jurisdictional authority of God and do whatever we want to do. And then you get into big troubles because now you you have competing gods, and this becomes the big issue. You get two gods in the same room, you're gonna have troubles, right? Because you know, one of them is gonna try to impose authority over the other, and and this is what you wind up with in a in a home that will not submit themselves to the authority of God.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

It it's so interesting because we rebel in the name of freedom, right? We we look and we like, oh, the fruit is good. That fruit is gonna be good. And God is capricious for not wanting, for you know, forbidding me from having that fruit. So I'm gonna reach across the boundary that God has clearly delineated, and I'm gonna grab that fruit and I'm gonna eat. And then what happens very quickly, not just talking about the Garden of Eden, but in feminism today, just look at the statistics. There's studies all over the place. The happiest women are those that live in the context of God-given authority. Married women with children in a faith community uh are three to four times more likely to be happy, self reported, than single women living outside of faith context. So God didn't just put these rules down and say you must follow them or else. He put them, he created the world to run in a certain direction. And when we rebel against that direction, We get bitterness, we get barrenness, literal barrenness, we get uh, we get anger. And all these things corrode the soul, they corrode the mind, and we end up with mental illness all over the place and dabbling with witchcraft, which can lead to demonic possession. You get all you open these Pandora's box to all these ills that we see at scale in society today, because more women than ever are single, not living in a proper context. Heck, men aren't living in a proper context. This is this is a systemic societal issue, which is clearly a work of the devil aimed at destroying the fabric of Western civilization, right? That's built on a family. And if you can turn the male and the female against each other and make them compete, uh, that's a recipe for the end of your culture.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Uh reminds me of the other Betty Fridan quote. She says it's better for a woman to compete impersonally in society as men do than to compete for dominance in her own home with her husband, compete with her neighbors for empty status and to smother her son that he cannot compete at all. Um that's Betty Fridan and again, denying the whole idea of the axe hit, axe handle, dominion taker, helper appropriate for her husband, coming together to get involved in the dominion task. So the complete obliteration of the unity of the household and the family economy that's assumed in feminism. You know, blow up the unity of the household, uh, blow up the family economy. It assumes a competition for power in the home rather than uh a woman who lovingly submits to her husband uh to create the happy home. I was thinking, have you ever seen a happy feminist? You know, ever. I don't yeah, happy feminist, that's an oxymoron. Um, but uh but here's the last point I want to land on. I'm not sure you have a comment on this, Sam, but I'm I'm I'm curious. Wow, I mean, the the shift in gender uh on church attendance, uh this this is a first time in history. This is incredible. It's a 3643 women to men ratio, and the churches today shifted from a 50 to 37. So what is that, a 14% shift on the gender ratio uh with women now leading the apostasy? And I've and I've seen this, you know, women are leading the evangelical apostasy, they are the authors of the major evangelical books of the last 15 years that have led the female apostasy away from the Orthodox Christian faith. I mean, we've seen it, we've known it. But why? But why is it is this feminism? And and how can we how do we address this? How do we call our women on this? Do you think that we have a role to do that?

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Man, there's a lot there, Kevin. Um I think there's studies show in marketing and elsewhere that women, particularly unattached women, are much more susceptible to social contagion. And we live in an era when social contagion defines the trends of the hour, right? Because it's never been easier for a social trend to begin and be propagated throughout society at scale. Um, and so I think that that's one of the reasons, probably one of the leading reasons that we're seeing women leave the church or and their ratios be dropping, whereas men are not quite as susceptible. Now, men have other issues. Um, I'm encouraged that the just the raw number of men by percent is actually increasing. Yeah, that gives me hope for the future. That's directionally what I want to see that number going up. I want both numbers to be going up. Sure. Um, but the last part of your question, is there room or is there a way to critique, to lead well? Most certainly. Um, I think we have to delineate what are societal issues, what are cultural issues, and then what are issues that are we're actually addressing in our homes and in our communities? And I think the the first one is as a husband and a father, and hopefully somebody who's a member in a church, are you leading well within the God-given boundaries of your authority? A father's authority is not absolute, an elder's authority is not absolute. We all are answering not just to God, but often to layers of authority above us. So are we modeling what submitting authority looks like? And then are we expecting that from those that God has given into our care, which includes our wives, includes our daughters, but extends out from there? Um, there's this has been a topic of conversation in Christian circles for a couple of years now in a real substantive way. And I'm really glad because there are some sin patterns in our society that are uniquely feminine coded. Um and that's a problem. And we need to be able to talk about those issues as specific feminine issues without uh without the petticoat squad coming down our throats.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Yeah. And the Bible calls us to this, right? We're to exhort one another, we're to rebuke one another, we need to uh warn each other, we need to be concerned for each other, um, certainly within the family, but also within the local churches. So may we may we be faithful uh to that end and and not to be afraid of whatever the world is telling us, uh and whether we're violating the the standards the world presents. By the way, the world has been a total disaster, has nothing to commend to us, nothing. So we might as well just not listen to whatever the world is saying at this point.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Do the opposite. And if I could point to just one practical thing, one of the really the only measure that we're given to know if somebody is saved or not is their fruit. The Bible, God talks about fruit constantly. Yeah, and so I would encourage men do an honest evaluation of the fruit of those that God has given into your care. Do you have a joyful home? Do you have people that love you that are that are following you in whatever mission God has given you? Do an honest assessment of that. Do a fruit assessment of your own leadership. Start there. That yeah, and that will move mountains. If we can do that at an individual level in our homes, across our society, doing that inventory and then seeking to bring um our practice and then our fruit into conformance with what God teaches us. Uh, that's how we save society. That's how we forge a better tomorrow. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

And I want to encourage people to our discipleship for dads segment of generations. We do that, I think it's every Friday, have been for a year and a half, because I that gets to kind of the core matter is you want to fix the social problems. Okay, we start at home. We start in those relationships. How's your discipleship, dad, with your kids, with your family? How's your relationship with your wife, with your children, with your daughters? What's it look like? How are you communicating? And and those are the sorts of things, the nuts and bolts things that we work through in discipleship for dads. We don't have time to do all that today, but I'm glad you brought that up, Sam. Well, friends, also I'd recommend to you our book, Family Life. It's a broad-based, basic, foundational introduction to the biblical family. So uh start there. If if if you're just thinking, okay, where do we start in terms of the biblical family? I'd encourage you to our little book, Family Life, available at generations.org. Uh, this has been a great discussion, just the beginning of some stuff. And friends, if you have inputs on these things, please mail at generations.org. Mail at generations.org. I'm sure many people have questions and perhaps some controversial things you want to throw into the mix of it. Absolutely, please do it. Mail at generations.org. And uh thanks, Sam, for joining us uh today. It was great. Good conversation. Thank you, Kevin. Pleasure as always. And please, friends, join us again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation. This has been a production of the Generations Media Network. For more information, go to generations.org/slash media.