Salem: The Accuser is Accused

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Well, are you ready for a mid afternoon trip back to Salem. It may not have the same feel, the same vibe as a late night trip to Salem, but it is just as important. So I hope you are ready, and we'll take that trip back to Salem right after I tell everyone good afternoon everyone. It is Thursday, March the thirteenth, twenty twenty five. It is currently twelve fifty seven pm Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. But we're not going to stay here in the studio. We're not going to stay here in Abilene, Texas. We're not even going to stay in Texas. We're going to go back to Salem, Massachusetts. We're going to go back to the Salem Witch Trials, and we're going to try our best to understand a very complicated story in the history of the Salem Witch Trials. This one, this one just has a lot of twist and turns. And the more I study it, the more I'm like, well, well, what about what about this? And hopefully you're going to find this interesting and maybe learn a lot of lessons from it.

1:32 So remember the Salem Witch Trials sixteen ninety two to sixteen ninety three people are accused of being witches and they are executed. Twenty people ultimately die. It's a horrible story in American history, but it is one that is fascinating to me. But it is one that I think screams at all of us who claim to be Christians. It screams at the church. And I think there are lessons we need to pay attention to now. Whenever we start talking about the Salem witch Trials, we have to remember the first two girls who were afflicted and the first two girls who make their accusations, that is Betty Paris and Abigail Williams. Betty Paris and Abigail Williams. And when you start digging into their story, you kind of see, well maybe you kind of feel maybe a little bad for them. Maybe because they were doing this egg ritual they see they think they see a coffin. They're scared to death. Maybe they think they were gonna get in trouble.

2:33 What their motivation, it's a little bit more murky. What is going on. They're very young, you know. At the same time, you think some adults could step in and maybe try to fix the situation, but well, they really spark the hysteria. So that's Betty Paris and Abigail Williams. Then after they're being afflicted and making their accusations and Putnam juniors steps in. She starts and she becomes the most prolific accuser. She accuses over sixty people, and you feel like for her, you know, she makes She's the only one who offers a confession and an apology. Right, so you feel kind of really bad about Anne Putman because you think, I feel like her father because again the people she accused just happens to be on her father's enemies list. So that one she feels very I think from when you read her story and listen to her story, she feels I feel like she was manipulated.

3:37 I feel like she was manipulated by her father. She confesses, and then the end of her life is sad. She lives basically in silence, she lives alone, and she dies at what thirty seven? I mean, the whole thing is tragic. Then we have Elizabeth Hubbard, so we have Betty Paris, Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam Junior, and then Elizabeth Hubbard. And Elizabeth Hubbard, well, she's the theatrical accuser. She's the dramatic accuser. She she kind of sees what's going on, and she demands the spotlight. She steps to the forefront, like, everyone pay attention to me. She is dramatic. She captures the the attention of everyone. She the jewor the jewors. You know, they're in and you know, fascinated by her story. The judges are fascinated by their story. She really kind of stands out and and yeah, it's she's more complicated in the sense that I don't feel like she's being manipulated.

4:39 You kind of feel like she's doing the manipulating. And but she she she takes the power, right. I mean, it's kind of crazy that Elizabeth Hubbard, this girl really becomes I mean, is she the one kind of driving it at that point? I mean, the judges are like, listen to Elizabeth, watch Elizabeth. The jurors are like, oh oh wow. Everyone's fascinated by her. In some ways, she kind of almost becomes is she the one controlling everything? It's really interesting trying to figure her out. So we've talked about Betty, We've talked about Abigail, We've talked about in We've talked about Elizabeth. Today we now tell the story of the accuser who becomes the accused. This story is fascinating, and I hope you find it as fascinating as I do, and hopefully we can learn something together.

5:37 Are you ready? Now we're going to step back into this story. I'm trying to tell these stories as a narrative. Sometimes I kind of step out of the narrative to do maybe make some points, But I'm really trying to stick to a narrative here because I think it helps capture everything in a more interesting way than if I was to simply kind of do this in an academic lecture. So let's take a trip this afternoon back to Salem. Now, the Salem witch trials, they were fueled by fear, they were fueled by superstition, and they definitely were fueled by the power of accusation. But what happens when an accuser suddenly becomes the accused? What happens when someone who once pointed the finger tries to tell the truth only to be turned on by the very hysteria they themselves help create.

6:42 Today we're going to explore the story of Mary Warren w A r r N. Mary Warren, a woman who stood at the crossroads of fear and truth, only to find herself trapped by I both. Now, as with all of these girls are making these accusations, you can determine for yourself how you view them. If you view them sympathetic, if you view them the victim, if you view them the victimizer, you can draw your own conclusions. And history always debates. Whenever we look back in history and study anyway, there's always debates about these individuals. Rarely it's never I mean, I think rarely it's black and white. I mean because as human beings, I think this is the major lesson we learn from all of this is that if you'll look in the mirror and you look at that person looking back at you, you know your motives are all messed up. Right. You have good motives, you have bad motives, You have selfish motives. Maybe sometimes you have selfless motives.

7:49 Sometimes you think you're acting selfless sleep but you're actually acting selfishly. We always like to think that our motives are right, our motives are pure. We always think everyone should just see the good in our motives, right, Well, when someone gets upset at us, well, I was only trying to do this. I was only trying to do this. And we always frame it as ore that I'm only trying to do the right thing, And sometimes maybe we're not. Our motives are all messed up, which fits a thiological understanding of human beings because we are inherently sinful. So if we are inherently sinful, our motives arise from within us.

8:29 Then our motives are inherently flawed and corrupted, and that is something we have to acknowledge. You can be reading your Bible, you can be praying, you can be going to church, you can be calling to check on someone, and all of that looks great and wonderful. Who knows what your actual motives are? And that's something that's hard for us to sometimes figure out. So when it comes to Mary Warren, well, she stands at the crossroads here and she finds herself trapped between truth hysteria. But what are her motives? And all of these women, what were their motives? When it comes to Mary Warren, we may ask this question, or ask these questions. Was she a victim?

9:19 Was she a liar? Was she upon in a much larger game. So today we're gonna try to uncover the strange and unsuddenly unsettling story of Mary Warren, the accuser who became the accused, the accuser who became the accused. Now, let me just state this right here, let me stay here. I know I'll keep kind of leaving the narrative, but there's some points here we have to make when we look at Mary Warren's story, We're gonna we're gonna go through one narrative and then I don't know if we'll get to it in this episode. We may have to do a second episode, and then we'll do kind of a nu other narrative trying to give us the full picture because Mary Warren is one of those Let's say you're in Salem and you go to one of the museums, or you go to on a tour and they start talking about Mary war I said, Mary Williams, Mary Warren.

10:15 Whenever you hear stories about Mary Warren, sometimes I feel like they don't give us the full story. I think it's true of all the women. Right if you go, if you're in Salem and you go to any of the museums, any of the tours, sometimes when they start talking about some of the girls, they kind of give you a very one dimensional idea about them. Whenever you hear preachers talk about the Salem witch trials, they only get they always give you a very one dimensional view. I'm to look at the messages on sermon audio, you know, trying to defend Cotton Mather. I mean, what kind of that that they They all completely misrepresent the story. So these these girls, there's there's layers to them. There there's there's it's it's always much more complicated. And I think Mary Warren maybe the most complicated one in some ways, or at least of all the ones we've studied so far.

11:07 So we'll go through a narrative, then we'll do another narrative to try to add a fuller picture about everything you can know about Warren. But whenever we study her, whenever you think about her again, the questions are going to be was she a victim? Was she a liar? Or was she upon in a much larger game? Because Mary Warren's story is strange, it is unsettling, and it is the story of the accuser who became the accused. Now, Mary Warren was born around sixteen seventy four in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Now, please know, with many of these girls, it's always like we maybe it was this year, maybe it was this year. Sometimes when they were born is a little hard to detect, but we have, you know, certain ideas. So it was around sixteen seventy four in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. By sixteen ninety two, she was living in Salem Village as a servant in the household of John and Elizabeth Proctor. I cannot stress to you the importance of that name, John Proctor. He's gonna play a major role in this, right and two in a lot of ways. Right, John Proctor's story. We'll do an entire We're gonna do an entire narrative about John Proctor because his story is fascinating in all of this. In fact, he kind of he's one of the well, I don't know. Well, I'm not gonna give too much away. There's a lot

12:39 I could start telling you about John Proctor, but we won't write now. Now, unlike some of the other accusers who were young, Mary was twenty years old. Now that's very important. The other girls. You know, you've got eight years, eight year old, nine year old, twelve, fourteen, seventeen. I'm trying to name some of the ages. But May is twenty. She's much older, so we may be a little bit more skeptical about her motives. Right, we may be a little bit more skeptical because she's definitely old enough to understand kind of what's going on to some level. All right, So she's twenty years old, making her one of the older afflicted women. And the trials. She was not a child seeking attention. She was a young woman caught between duty, fear, and the expectations of her Puritan society. So some kind of put her between three kind of we may say, competing a things. The sense of duty, she's a servant girl.

13:43 Now remember that she is a servant girl. Fear, mass hysteria is running all through Salem Village Salem. Everyone's scared to death. They think the devil is everywhere, they think there's witches everywhere, they think they're under attack. And then she has the expectations of the Pitan society, and the Puritan society put high expectations on everyone. But in the early months of sixteen ninety two, her life would take a dramatic turn. First she would become an accuser, then she would try to tell the truth, and finally she would become a victim of the very hysteria she helped create.

14:33 What a crazy story she goes from. She goes from the accuser to the accused, right back to an accuser. It is crazy. But this all takes place in the early months of sixteen ninety two. In fact, March of sixteen ninety two, right three hundred and thirty three years ago, to be trying to be as exact as possible, early March, I can't say for sure it was March the thirteenth, but March the first really begins the trials because the first three women are interrogated or examined, and March the first. So she's right here at this early stage of everything. Okay, But early March sixteen ninety two, the witchcraft panic in Salem was already spreading. The first three women, Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tishuba had been accused and arrested. The town was gripped by fear, and Mary Warren became one of the many young women who claimed to be afflicted by witches. That March of sixteen ninety two was a lot was happening. The panic was really you're kind of at that initial stage of panic, and you can just imagine the gossip and the rumors and the fear and the paranoia beginning to kind of spread through Salem village and Salem. Her fits, because remember she's afflicted. Don't think

16:05 of her just as an accuser and someone who's accused. She was afflicted as well. Her fits were described as violent, uncontrollable. She screamed, she convulsed, she pointed fingers, that those she claimed were tormenting her. Now, remember she's twenty, So if you're younger, I think if you're older, the demonstration of the affliction may be more violent and maybe more dramatic. Because you're older, you're stronger, you're more powerful. I think that it makes at least some sense. Now, her accusations help send people to trial. We cannot forget that she testified against multiple individuals, and she became an important part of the group of afflicted girls. For a time, Mary was protected by her status as a victim. She had power, she had influence, and she was being and she was being listened to. But then something changed. So we're in March, right, She's being listened to. She's a victim, she has power, she can make accusation. And then we move into April of sixteen ninety two. April sixteen ninety two. I don't have a specific date here, but we're in April sixteen

17:37 ninety two. Something unexpected happened. Mary Warren changes her entire story. She begins to question whether the other girls afflicted are telling the truth. She even tells the court that the girls are faking their symptoms and that she no longer believes she was being afflicted by witches. She stops miraculously having any of these fits, she stops making accusations, and then she said something that no one expected. She claimed that the entire thing was a lie. She says that the accusations are all completely false, and she tries to stop the madness. All of a sudden, she does a complete turnaround. The girls are faking it, these accusations are false.

18:44 She just miraculously is healed, right, miraculously, she's no longer having any affliction. I mean, this whole thing calls into question the validity and the legitimacy of the entire Salem Witch Trials, because I mean, she just magically go from having the exact same symptoms till it's over. It's good. Hey, all of these girls are lying, They're all faking it. So what's going to happen? How are the people going to respond to Mary? I mean, doesn't is Mary the one who stops the Salem witch Trials? Is she the one that opens everyone's eyes? And a town and a village ruled by fear? Speaking the truth was dangerous? In fact, speaking the truth was very dangerous, and Mary Warren was about to learn that the hard way. Almost immediately after Mary Warren recanted her accusations, the other of Lifted girls turn on her. They claimed that she was lying, that she was bewitched, and that she had signed the Devil's Book.

20:12 We're right back to the Devil's Book again. You can't. You can't if you have, if you if you care anything about the Salem Witch Trials, this Devil's Book is the It is so instrumental in all of this. All right, just remember the Devil's Book. Will do an entire We'll do an entire episode on the Devil's Book. We may have to do multiple episodes on The Devil's Book. It is very important to understand because the whole concept is that that these girls get approached by a figure basically Satan, and he has a book and they sign their name in the book. And so what what what you could do is you could be making an accusation saying, I saw her name in the book, I saw his name in the book. And if you saw their name in the book, well then guess what that proved anyone name who's in that book that they basically have renounced Christianity, they have renounced their faith. They're basically blasphemed to Jesus Christ.

21:08 They've given themselves over to Satan. They are a witch. And you don't need any other proof. Now, this book doesn't actually exist, right, It's you know, Satan comes to you and shows you the book. You can't produce the book. You don't have a photo of the book. You just tell someone you saw the book, and you can and if you're smart, you can kind of play this out right. You're like, oh, I saw the book. I think there was a couple of names. I don't remember all the names. Well, let me give you one right now, and I'll try to remember the others. Well, that can keep you alive, right, because they need you to live, so that you can give the rest of the names and the book, because the book gives you the you know who this gang of witches is, this coven of witches that may be trying to take over, this army of witches. If someone knows all the names and the book, they can identify and you can wipe out Satan's army. So you can really play into that. So now, because Mary says, hey, all these girls are lying, then the girls are like, oh no, no, no, she's lying. How do we know we lying? We saw her name in Satan's book. And then everybody's like, okay, Mary, no, no, Mary, you're not telling the truth. They're telling the truth because they saw your name in Satan's book. So what it's crazy. So again, spectral evidence and all of this kind of nonsensical evidence that cannot be tested in any way, shape or form.

22:38 That really is what the courts start listening to. So she goes from being an afflicted victim to being a suspected witch. She was accused of witchcraft, She was arrested, and she was thrown into jail. One minute, she's a victim, the next minute she's an accuser, the next minute she's an accused witch who's thrown into jail. Mary Warren had tried to break free from the hysteria, but the moment she did, she was swallowed by it, and under intense pressure, imprisonment, and fear, she did something shocking. She recanted of her recantation.

23:32 She recants of her Hey, I know I said that I would that you know that this is all lie and no no, I recant to that. No, no, no, I'm a victim and they're actually witches. So she goes from I'm a victim, I'm accusing. No no, no, no, no, no no no, all of this is a lie. I'm not accusing anyone, to back to no no no, I'm a victim and I'm accusing. Just trying to follow this story is crazy. She goes back to her original story. She claims that she really was afflicted again and she rejoined the accusers and continued to testify against others. So she goes back to the original story. She's like, no, no, I'm being afflicted again, and then she's like, no, I'm going to rejoin. Okay, these girls who are accusing me. Actually, I'm on their side. Now Mary Warren's story is one of fear, survival, and manipulation. Did she truly believe in witchcraft?

24:33 Did she realize too late what was happening? Or was she simply trying to save herself from the same fate that she had helped bring upon others. Now, Unlike many of the accused, Mary Warren was not executed. By sixteen ninety three, after the trials ended, she was released from jail and seemingly disappears from historical record. Some history believe she may have returned to Salem or moved elsewhere in Massachusetts, but her later life we don't know. She just disappears, just gone. She leaves behind no known letters, she leaves behind no public apologies, and she leaves behind no defense of her actions. She simply vanished from history. She is remembered only as the girl who accused, recanted, and then accused again. Now Mary Warren's stories one of fear and survival.

25:43 She played every role in the Salem witch trials. She played the victim, she played the accuser, and she played the accused who then became the accuser again. Oh, and she was imprisoned. She is a reminder that hysteria has a way of consuming everyone in its path, even those who try to escape it, even those who try to tell the truth. Now, I know I'm going to take off some people with this, but you kind of see it in the Maga movement, the whole Trump movement. Hey, everyone loves you until the minute you decide to criticize Trump or criticize something about the Maga movement. Then that very movement that you support it will turn on you, and then you'll be accused of being a traitor, a liberal, woke, a satanist, a pedophile. That will accuse you of anything.

26:36 It's the same insanity. Oh, I know I'm going to make some people unhappy about that, but I've got too many examples of that. So her story forces us to ask how many people in history have been trapped in a lie that couldn't escape, how many have been forced to choose between honesty and survival? And most importantly, could something like this happen again? Now we could stop right there, and that's how a lot of people would tell the story of Mary Warren. Some will view her as the accuser who was accused. Maybe we could frame the narrative slightly different. So I'm gonna tell the story again, but from a little slightly different angle, right, because there's layers to this. Maybe we should call her the accuser who couldn't decide, Maybe we should rewrite the story. So let's tell the story of Mary Warren just slightly from a slightly different perspective to kind of add to this so that you really can get maybe a sense of the complexity here. Salem witch trials were fueled by accusations, hysteria, and fear, but for one woman, perhaps more than any other,

28:09 the trials weren't just about fear. They were about survival. Now I'm going to frame it a little differently there. Now. Now I said in the previous narrative, maybe a lot of what she was doing with survival, but I kind of asked it as a question. I think when you really look into her story, I think it's all about survival. Now, remember she's a servant girl. Let's not forget that, all right, keep that in mind here. So let's tell the story again. And the previous narrative I told the story of Mary Warren, the young servant who became both an accuser and accused, But the story is way more complicated than that, so we need to take a deeper look at her motivations.

28:56 Was she being used trying to save herself or was she just caught in a cycle. She couldn't figure a way to escape. She couldn't find her way out of it. So let's try to uncover the shifting allegiances, desperate reversals, and life or death decisions of Mary Warren, the accuser who couldn't decide. Let's frame it that way. See, Mary Warren wasn't like the other accusers. She wasn't the youngest, she wasn't the loudest, she wasn't the most theatrical. But what made her different, what made her story so stand out in history, is how many times she changed sides.

29:49 I'm a victim, I'm an accuser, I'm the accused. Oh, I'm an accuser again. At first, she it was just like the others. She claimed to be afflicted, tormented by unseen hands. She screamed, she convults, she pointed fingers at so called witches. But then she did something that no one else did. She changed her story. She recanted, She admitted the girls were lying, and in doing so, she nearly destroyed the entire trials. I mean, in some ways, you would think, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. If the girls are lying, let's stop everything, let's figure this out. But instead of stopping the hysteria, it nearly gets her killed. To understand why Mary Warren acted the way she did, maybe we have to go a little deeper, deeper into her accusations, deeper into her reversals, and deeper into the pressure she faced from every single side.

30:51 You see. One of the most unusual things about Mary Warren is that she accused Are you ready for this, her own employer, employer. I guess we could call she's a servant the people she accuses the family, She's a servant of her employer. She accuses them. Now, in the first story with Betty and Abigail, they accuse the servant. Now we have the servant accusing, well, the one she serves, her employer. At the time of the Trials, Mary was a servant in the household of John and Elizabeth Proctor and Purity Society and Puritan Society. Not Purity Society and Puritan Society, servants had very little power. They were at the bottom of the social hierarchy. But once the accusation started, everything begins to change. Right. Now she has a voice, Now she's being listened to, Now she has power. So did she possibly resent her employers? I mean, you accuse the very very people you're working for. I mean that's bold right there, right, that's pretty bold. So does she

32:21 have something against them? Thinking okay, hey, I can change everything? Right? Remember she is twenty. Does she feel some unspoken pressure to go along with the other girls? And then she just miscalculates, Oh, the other girls are accusing I've got to accuse someone. Well, again, initially in your thinking, you have to accuse someone who's close by, that you think, I mean, just logically you think. I mean, I don't know how well these girls understand spectral evidence. But at first it makes sense that they all seem to accuse someone very close by. The first girls accused Tishuba, who's a servant in their house. Now she's going to accuse Mary Warren's going to accuse well, her employee employers, who are right there in her house, in the very house she works. It that seems to make sense. Or did she actually believe that witches were attacking her? Well? The only problem with trying to believe that she actually believe witches were attacking her. She got over being victimized really quick.

33:30 As soon as she says, hey, this is all a lie, her symptoms go immediately away. Yeah, that seems that's too coincidental, Right, there's something else driving this, doesn't, don't you think? Whatever the reason she accused, she accused John and Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft. And when she did, her life takes a dangerous turn because she makes a mistake here. Like, first she's accusing her employer, that's already going to put her in some danger. But she happened to accuse John Proctor. That's the last person you would want to accuse. Why. Well, because John Proctor, unlike everyone else in Salem, he didn't believe the girls. He thought this whole thing was garbage.

34:15 He think though, hey, John Proctor was the one like you people. I mean, I'm paraphrasing here. You people are all idiots. There's no witches. This is all a game. You people are falling for it. That's the wrong person to accuse. See, he saw the trials that they were a fraud, and when Mary accused him and his wife, he did something else no one else dared to do. He's going to fight back. He's like, oh, you want to come after me? No, no, no, no, no, you're all liars, So proctor he publicly in a sense, I don't know exactly where he does this, but he publicly basically calls all the girls liars, all of them. All of the girls are lying. He ridiculed, there's so called affliction.

35:01 He made fun of their afflictions. He's like, oh, you're falling on the ground, you're going ah, Oh, I can follow on the ground and go ah. He basically mocks them all. He thinks this whole thing is just insane, and according to some now this is speculation. Maybe when the doors were closed, he goes to Mary and he's like, what are you doing. I don't think you're gonna be making these accusations anymore. This is all a lie, This is all a game. You're gonna tell everyone this is a lie and this is a game. Or I don't know, you're not gonna have a job anymore. Now we can't say for sure how the conversation went, but kind of guess what happens. She changes her story. She confessed that everything was a lie, and suddenly everything about the trials are in trouble. Now, now everyone's going to be like, well, he's been telling everyone the whole thing's a lie. Now his own servant is going to tell everyone it's a lie.

36:10 Now you can see why she could be pressured. So you kind of feel bad for Mary in this particular case. Right why she makes the original afflictions of the or why she has the original affliction and makes the original accusation. I don't know why she accused her employer, I mean, come on, what are you thinking? And so that's where you can start going. Man, did she just not like them? And then but accusing John was the wrong person to accuse because he does not like any of this. So Mary Warren stands before the court and she did what no one else had done. Some would say she now tells the truth. She said that she and the other girls had been pretending that there were no actually afflicted and that the accused are all innocent. Now, if the judges believe her, it ends the Salem witch trials right then, right there, But instead didn't end the Salem witch trials.

37:18 She's immediately accused of being a witch herself. The all of the girls turn against her, and now she's on trial for her life. And what do people do when they're backed into a corner, they try to escape. So faced with the threat of execution, Mary Warren changed her story again. She said that she had been bewitched into recanting, that the devil had forced her to lie, and just like that, she was welcomed back into the group of the accusers. They're like, oh, welcome back, Mary, we've missed you. Come on back. Hey, Now you've got a voice. Now you've got power now, you know. And it's almost like the other girls are like, well, we'll take over, we'll do most of the accusing. You just be quiet now, you don't need to say anything else. She had accused, she had recanted. Now why she accused again? Because if she doesn't do that, she's probably going to die. So what was really going on with Mary Warren? Why did she shift sides so many times? Well, I'm just going to do some speculating here. Was she seeking revenge As a servant, she had little power until she became an accuser.

38:38 Did she accuse John and Elizabeth Proctor because she resented them? Was she just trying to stay safe and Salem. If you didn't accuse, you were accused. She might have joined the hysteria simply because it was the only way to avoid suspicion. Now you can think about this well, add another possible scenario. Who's the first woman? Remember she does in March March the first Remember Tishiba the servant was accused. Is this where she's like, wait a minute. If they're gonna go after the servant, remember all the women they go after the beginning, or all women who have no power, they're all suspect, a beggar, like all of them. And so maybe she's like, wait, I'm twenty, I'm a servant, I'm gonna be accused. Maybe she's like, I'm gonna get accused.

39:31 You know what, I'm not gonna wait for anyone to accuse me. I'm going to accuse them. Maybe she felt that they could possibly accuse her first, and so she's like, I'm gonna offer a preemptive strike. I'm going to accuse them before they can accuse me. Possibly, or was she just mad at them? Was she just trying to stay safe Again, if you didn't accuse, you were the accused. Maybe by joining the hysteria, she avoids suspicion. Was she pressured by the proctors. John Proctor was the only man in Salem who openly spoke against the trials. He mocked them.

40:14 Did he force Mary to recant? Possibly against her will? But once she did, she was immediately accused. Was it all just about survival? Once Mary was accused herself, she had no choice but to go back being an accuser. The trials already had shown that recanting meant death. Whatever the truth may be, the one thing is clear. Mary Warren isn't in control of her own fate. She was a pawn, used, pressured, manipulated by both sides. Now and again, maybe at first she had wrong motives. Maybe at first she was met and then she accuses the wrong person.

40:56 Maybe she makes the accusation to try to protect herself. I mean, it's just insanity going on. And again, these are all the good, godly Puritans. Again, whenever you study church history, gets what you find out about Christians. We are messed up and sinful. Mary Warren's story isn't just about one girl caught in chaos. It's about how the Salem witch trials operated. It's about how fear controlled everything. Accusers were rewarded, doubters were punished, and anyone who tried to stop the trials became a target themselves. Mary Warren tried to tell the truth, and when she did, she nearly died for it. The Salem witch trials weren't about justice, They weren't about protecting the town from witches. They were about power control and survival. And in the end, no one probably knew that better than Mary Warren. Now we won't tell the story now, but remember the person she accuses, John Proctor. Well, Mary survives, John doesn't, And next time we'll tell the story of what happened to John, because it's so closely connected to Mary. I kind of wanted

42:27 to go through all the accusers in order, but we're gonna have to kind of intervene here and in the next episode and tell the story of John because Mary accuses him. Ultimately he dies and it leaves his wife. Oh man, his wife gets all her story's all messed up. What happened after, I mean, John is bad enough, he dies, ah man, The whole thing is horrible. What happens to the Proctor's is horrible, It really is. Mary survives this. John doesn't. Now was Mary smart enough then to catch on how to survive? Where John thought truth was going to protect him, truth did not protect him. So now we have heard the story of Betty, Abigail, Ann, Elizabeth, and Mary. These are the names that they were the victims, they were the accusers, and one of them literally became the accused to go back being an accuser again to Salem witch trials. Are you starting to see why I'm so fascinated by them? The stories are just I can't

44:00 tell the stories well enough. I can't. I don't do the stories justice, probably because part of my problem is I keep you know, I try to get into the narrative, and then I step out of the narrative to offer explanation and commentary. Then I go back into the narrative, right I'm not I have the narrative written out, but then I leave it because I've got to offer these thoughts, because I get really man like for each one of these girls. I look at each one and it's like I wish I could talk to them. And what's so sad is they many of them just kind of disappear. They are kind of like, WHOA, We're out of here, and you kind of like like, did no one bother to go find them? Going? Come on, won't really happened?

44:42 Talk to us? Come on, tell us what really happened here? I mean, the world's gonna But it's one of those things that in sixteen ninety two and sixteen ninety three, I think probably most of them just thought, you know, nobody's gonna remember this. No one's going to be talking about this three hundred and thirty three years from now on a thing called a podcast. Okay, I doubt that they. You know, they didn't have any way of comprehending what was unfolding. There was a history of great significance. But it screams at us as Christians about not living in fear. What we need a sound mind, not getting caught up in hysteria and paranoia, and and what can happen when when when the culture starts going a certain way, if you stand against it, you're gonna get swallowed by it.

45:33 John Proctor he he didn't go along with it, and he dies as a result of not going along with it. And we'll tell his story next time. Thanks for listening, everyone, Have a great day. God bless