What do you make of people who claim that their Christian beliefs justify their exposing of magic , because magic is inherently a deception , a "lie" , so to speak ?

(they seem to see their exposures as relating to "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them." St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesian, 5:11 )

There are a number of so-called "Gospel Magicians' on YouTube who expose magic all in the name of teaching people how to use magic as object lessons to present the gospel. My argument with this is that they are ripping-off other people's creative work by exposing. If they create their own magic effects and want to expose it , that is to my mind regrettable , but within their right to do so ... but I think it is not ethical to expose the work of other magicians and try to wrap it up as a Christian virtue.

This fellow, known as "FernandoP1 - Art Zone Productions" , is even worse . He's not even trying to use magic as an object lesson to present the gospel at all, but is simply exposing , although he tries to call it "sharing" and "educating". He is merciless in exposing and tries to hide behind his supposed Christian faith as a justification for his exposures. https://www.youtube.com/c/fernandop1/videos .

Here is how he presents himself:

Click here to view attached image.

I have known of "gospel magicians" who would expose the trick after a performance in order to show that they were not engaging in real "magic", and therefore not being deceptive. I was even told once that I should do that. But, the reality is that no one really goes to a magic show thinking the performer has real magic powers. It is a performance, not unlike writing a fictional book, or performing a play. It is not real. Everyone knows that. Is it necessary for an actor to remind the audience that, "I am not really the person I am playing on stage"? No, the audience comes to the performance with that knowledge. Or should a writer pause periodically and remind the reader that this is a work of fiction? Magicians perform routines aimed at amazing the audience with the impossibility of the routine. The audience comes with the expectation of being deceived, and if they are not deceived they will be disappointed. So, in reality there is no lie, only a fictional performance just as many other performances are also fictional. That is the nature of entertainment, from movies to comedy it is filled with fiction. Magic is an agreed upon work of fiction. There may be some misguided people who actually think someone has magical abilities. But that is someone who is believing other lies they have been told, usually by religious leaders condemning magicians as playing with demonic magical arts, something very few magicians actually claim. So it is not the magician who is deceiving, it is the religious leader who so carelessly falsely accuses.

A magic performance is in essence an agreed upon state of expectation between the magician and the audience whereby the audience experiences a certain fictional experience that amazes and entertains. The only deception would be if someone paid good money to be deceived by a great performance and was not. Or, if someone came to be amazed and after being amazed the magician exposed how it was down and as a result diminished the amazement, which is always what happens as a result of exposure. As such, exposure would be a form of deceit, as the promised expectation was intentionally undermined by the magicians misguided need to expose. Throw in the unethical nature of exposing something you don't have the right to expose, which is theft..."thou shalt not steal". You are not exposing something demonic and evil, only exposing someone else's performance routine - very unethical, immoral and a clear violation of the ten commandments. If it was truly demonic it could be justified, but the exposure always proves that it is not demonic, and therefore proves the exposure unnecessary. It was only an act for entertainment as claimed by the magician. There is a much better argument that those "gospel magicians" who expose tricks are the ones doing wrong, not the ones choosing to be faithful to the audience expectations. Now if a magician does claim to have real powers, that becomes a different issue, but I don't see Christian magicians doing this. I am also 100% certain that Eph 5:11 is not referencing what we are doing as magicians. People who think it is are typically on a witch hunt seeking out evil wherever they can find it whether it is there or not. And typically people are not exposing magic online because of some righteous intent, it is to gain views.

Exposure only proves the point that none of magic has anything to do with evil, but is all about entertaining, slight of hand, misdirection etc... It is in fact, as previously stated, an agreed upon fictional performance. If it was truly about dark arts, demonic power, or true deception then it could be exposed as such. Instead it is always exposed as a skilled performance. It is no different from an actor learning to shed tears, when they feel no sadness, in order to enhance the performance. Those tears are an agreed upon deception necessary to entertain, no different from an apparent magical disappearance of a rabbit. Were we all really deceived when Luke Skywalker got his hand cut off. Did we expect to see Mark Hamill walking around with only one hand, because he made the ultimate sacrifice of a limb in the making of a movie. Or were we amazed at the deception of "movie magic" as we celebrated being entertained?

I once had a man ask after a general audience show, "Aren't you ashamed to force people to consider a reality other than the one God provided?"
I was not sure how to respond. He continued to his desired gathering crowd, "You use science and gimmicks to trick me to see things I would never see naturally,
isn't that a sin?" To this I responded, "You wear glasses every day, correct?" He pulled them off and glared at me with a squint. "I don't understand!"
Folks laughed and drew away. But he followed me to my car, ranting, "But you lied to us - that is wrong." Said I, "Actually, I told you I would entertain you all by creating an illusion of impossible thing happening." I did exactly that. Your complaints prove that I told the truth. I accomplished what I claimed. Thank you for that."

Later on I found out he was lawyer. My turn to be astounded.

Some people just have to argue - makes them feel bigger.

My first reaction to people like this is, "Why is this person even at a magic show?". But I guess the answer is obvious, some people just like to complain and attack others. They didn't come to be entertained but to find fault. Such a shame, they could have actually enjoyed the evening. Such people should probably just be avoided as much as possible. They are not interested in an honest discussion, and are certainly not willing to consider the possibility that they are wrong.

We Christians are often our own worst enemies. We (collectively) will argue over insignificant things and exclude others on the basis of.....whatever. Ever wonder why there's so many denominations??
Find a church with people you like, love God, love Jesus, spread the Good News, do some card tricks, and shut up already!
(edit) not necessarily telling magicians to shut up, just toxic Christians

Any gospel show I do I simply tell them in the beginning of the show that "you all will be seeing things that are simply illusions". I go on to explain what an illusion is and that's it! Also, I do agree with dmcknight's post above.