Wicca, and the broader category of Neopaganism that encompasses it, is a very recent addition to the North American religious landscape. In particular, these new religions, which often make the claim to be a revival of the "old religion" of pre-Christian paganism, are in all points of fact completely new narratives on history. Although often seen as a religion, Wicca is essentially a psychological technique that denies absolutes and the correspondence of truth. It allows one to wear one's beliefs loosely, and as such is perfectly tailored as a post-modern religious movement.
The goal of this page is to present resources on the topics of Wicca and Neopaganism that would be useful to evangelical Christians. Additionally, I intend to make observations on the state of Wicca and Neopaganism as it currently exists at the University of Texas at Dallas. Because UTD is very different from other traditional University environments, observations made here should not be applied in general to other college and University settings.
As this page could be considered quite controversial, particularly by Wiccans themselves, I need to take a moment to emphasize that I hold myself to a higher standard of source material than a typical fundamentalist Christian (I am evangelical, not fundamentalist) and insist on the use of materials that are respectable in an academic setting. This is a dynamic movement within very dynamic environment; as such this page should, at all times, be considered a work in progress. If, however, you have an issue with any material presented here, I am willing to discuss such concerns by email: michaelh@utdallas.edu
I love Wiccans. As human beings made in the image of God, they have intrinsic value that is unmatched in any part of creation. They are not merely "souls for the trophy case" as Christians are so often accused of seeing them as, but indeed as people that Jesus Christ came to earth and risked everything to die for. I do love Wiccans, but I love the Truth foremost, and it is my hope and prayer that Wiccans, too, will come see the beauty of the true Logos.
Blessed be, indeed!
"Wicca, sometimes known as the Goddess movement, Goddess spirituality, or the Craft, appears to be the fastest-growing religion in America. Thirty years ago only a handful of Wiccans existed. One scholar has estimated that there are now more than 200,000 adherents of Wicca and related "neopagan" faiths in the United States, the country where neopaganism, like many formal religions, is most flourishing." ...
"In all probability, not a single element of the Wiccan story is true. The evidence is overwhelming that Wicca is a distinctly new religion, a 1950s concoction influenced by such things as Masonic ritual and a late-nineteenth-century fascination with the esoteric and the occult, and that various assumptions informing the Wiccan view of history are deeply flawed. Furthermore, scholars generally agree that there is no indication, either archaeological or in the written record, that any ancient people ever worshipped a single, archetypal goddess -- a conclusion that strikes at the heart of Wiccan belief."
Understandably, Allen's article caused a significant uproar in portions of the Wiccan and Neopagan community, stirring quite a controversy. Their arguments were anticipated by Allen, as noted in this quote:
"Despite their ire, both Starhawk and Eisler, along with many of their adherents, seem to be moving toward a position that accommodates, without exactly accepting, the new Goddess scholarship, much as they have done with respect to the new research about their movement's beginnings. If the ancients did not literally worship a mother goddess, perhaps they worshipped her in a metaphoric way, by recognizing the special female capacity for bearing and nourishing new life -- a capacity to which we might attach the word "goddess" even if prehistoric peoples did not. "Most of us look at the archaeological artifacts and images as a source of art, or beauty, or something to speculate about, because the images fit with our theory that the earth is sacred, and that there is a cycle of birth and growth and regeneration," Starhawk told me. "I believe that there was an Old Religion that focused on the female, and that the culture was roughly egalitarian."
The most significant response is that of Starhawk, linked here:
Starhawk, "Religion From Nature, Not Archaeology:
Starhawk Responds to the Atlantic Monthly"
January 5, 2001
[
http://www.starhawk.org/pagan/religion-from-nature.html ]
Starhawk's response is instructive to Christians on several points; most importantly it lays out briefly those things that Wiccans themselves define to be the differentiating elements of their religion. Some points worth noting:
Many more observations may be drawn from the response, however at this time I will leave this as a further exercise for the reader. For a more scholarly and methodical discussion of these issues, see the Carroll and Shiflett book, "Christianity on Trial," listed below.
"Reverence for the goddess is becoming more prevalent in our day. The goddess is embraced by witchcraft, feminism, the occult, and the liberal church. The New Age that is about to dawn upon us will be, according to the occult world, a feminine age. Likewise, those who hold this view believe that this current, masculine age has been an age of destruction and broken relationships among humanity. The New Age with its feminine energies will bring balance to the destructive aspects of the Piscean Age."
A derivative version of this article was printed in the SCP Journal and can be found on SCP's website:
Russ Wise, Tal Brooke, "Goddess Worship"
SCP Newsletter, Winter 1998/99, Volume 23:2.
[
http://www.scp-inc.org/publications/newsletters/N2302/ ]
This article describes clearly the difference between esoteric and exoteric revelation:
"Pagan religion and biblical orthodoxy ultimately represent the only two possible major religious configurations, namely, the esoteric and the exoteric, the god within or the God without. To be sure, there are multitudinous variations. The many religious expressions confusedly mix elements of both in different doses and mind-numbering computations. However these two represent the pure, mutually exclusive forms. They express the two world views that have given rise to the classic theological distinction known as the "Antithesis"." ...
"Just as you cannot mix oil and water, so you cannot mix paganism and Christianity, esotericism and exotericism. The God of the Bible cannot be both the God of the Bible and, at the same time, a card-carrying member of the pagan pantheon."
Wiccan expressions are essentially esoteric, not exoteric. As a result, they place their emphasis on subjective religious experience, and not on historically verifiable facts. Christianity is exoteric, emphasizing facts that correspond with historical reality.
This article details the rise of pop-culture paganism. For Wiccans and Neopagans, the pop-culture has the benefit of giving their voices a much broader listening audience. However, this has been at the cost of an inaccurate portrayal as glamorized by Hollywood. Like it or not, the pop-culture has latched on in their own way, with no signs of letting loose the reigns any time soon.
This article is highly recommended as an overview to the problems of Christian dialogue with Neopagan movements. There is much to commend this article that I do not state here, however I will include one particular quote:
"The Christian church is seen as the victor that has squashed pagan religion by force and misguided missionary zeal. The 'burning times' are a painful reminder to many pagans of the evils of the church. We need to acknowledge that pain. A woman at the Melbourne 'Body, Mind Spirit Expo', on learning that I was a Christian, proceeded to tell me about the nine million witches killed by the church. She spoke not with anger but with pain. When I asked her for forgiveness her face showed that I had done the right thing."
This observation shows the appropriate road to take when confronted with "the burning times". It is rare that even valid, documented, historical arguments on these periods of history will be accepted, especially observations on the admittedly dark chapter of the Salem witch trials. Some Wiccans will still believe strongly Christians are bent toward killing witches. They need freedom from their bitterness, and the Christian is perfectly positioned to give them the opportunity to free them from their prison, and open doors of opportunity where previously were only steep walls.
[As an aside, I find bitter irony in the fact that Salem receives so much attention, and yet there is little concern expressed for other documented atrocities in American history that have little Christian association, such as the regular lynching of blacks in the American South all the way up to the 1960s. Salem is indeed a dark chapter in history, made all the darker by the simple fact that it is unlikely that any of those murdered were actually guilty as they were accused. There were no martyred witches at Salem, only murdered people.]
Gallagher's thesis is that the recent disinterest in studying ancient paganism has resulted in a wholesale misunderstanding by Neopagans as to the original emphasis on wisdom by the ancient pagans.
"We must ... bring back our pagan grandfathers, and restore them to their rightful place in man's story; which is to say, restore to them their rightful role in the history of salvation." ...
"To be brief, the paleo-pagan and the neo-pagan are facing in opposite directions. At his best, and admittedly neither Christian nor pagan is very often at his best, the paleo-pagan was a seeker for the truth of the human condition, a lover of wisdom. That is why he invented the discipline of philosophy. On the other hand, the neo-pagan, with the truth of the human condition presented by revelation more clearly than the poor paleo-pagan could have dreamed, rejects this truth and wishes it buried." ...
The realization is that Neopaganism is a psychological technique.
"Seen in this light, neo-paganism is not a religion at all. It does not bind its adherents by obligation to or love for a higher power. It is simply another technique, a means of producing pleasant, carefully controlled emotions, of soothing deeply felt and deeply feared needs; it is a sort of anesthetic applied on a metaphysical level." ...
"[I]n the 20th century Western Christians have made the mistake of largely abandoning their pagan heritage. Earlier Christian history provides an impressive spectacle of the enthusiastic, sometimes reckless, enjoyment of pagan treasures."
Gallagher goes further to describe Christian studies in ancient paganism, including Ovid, Virgil, and Horace, among others.
An important observation to draw from this discussion is that as a technique, Neopaganism suffers from the same basic criticisms that Jacques Ellul so brilliantly illuminated in "The Technological Society". To summarize some key ideas, technological thinking entails understanding the problem and devising a technique to arrive at a solution. The "solution," however, becomes a problem until itself, as the end result of technology is a Huxleyan Brave New World. When technique is applied to religion, the pragmatic system is the one that results in positive psychological states. Truth then falls by the wayside.
Craig S. Hawkins, "The Modern World of Witchcraft: Part Two"
Christian Research Journal, Summer 1990, page 22.
[
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0069a.html ]
"Concern for the environment has joined with mysticism to spark a return to ancient forms of nature worship. Paganism is on the rise, and the "Earth Goddess" is beckoning. Indeed, pagan beliefs are subtly entering peoples' lives through media, schools, and even the church. In this issue of the Newsletter, Berit Kjos -- author of Under the Spell of Mother Earth -- gives us her insights on this important issue."
Linda Harvey's article discusses the pop-culture aspects of Witchcraft and it's increasing popularity.
Dr. Geisler's expert analysis of Neopaganism includes discussion of Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon. This article is slightly dated, written in 1991, however the topics discussed are still relevant.
Other copies online:
[ http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0143a.html ]
[
http://www.johnankerberg.com/Articles/_PDFArchives/theological-dictionary/TD3W0902.pdf
] PDF: Part 1
[
http://www.johnankerberg.com/Articles/_PDFArchives/theological-dictionary/TD1W1002.pdf
] PDF: Part 2
This article was written specifically to work through the objection many occultists (including Wiccans) have about the reliability of the Bible.
"Space limitations do not permit me to present a definitive study on our topic; I cannot do this topic justice in the space I have in this paper. Thus, it is beyond my scope to go into great detail here. Due to the overwhelming amount of pertinent data, the following is simply a highlight, a mere outline of the available information. However, I want to demonstrate why one should trust the Bible and therefore the biblical teaching on a given concern (e.g., on the occult), and know that it was not tampered with by the early Church."...
In conclusion, Hawkins writes:
"There is no objective evidence that the biblical text has been tampered with by the Jews or the early Church. There is no manuscript evidence, no archaeological evidence, no eyewitness--or otherwise--testimony, no support from the writings of the early Church, nor any evidence from the study of textual criticism to substantiate witches' or other occultist's or critics subjectively based claims of a tampered Bible."
This article deals specifically with the Christian response to Witchcraft in South Africa and other African republics.
"Between 1994 and 1996 several hundred people were killed in the Northern Province of South Africa after being accused of witchcraft. The Christian response to witchcraft and witchcraft accusations has varied at different periods and in different places. Sometimes the church has discouraged witch hunts, while at other times it has enthusiastically participated in them. In South Africa some of the Zionist Churches seem to have an approach to the matter that others could learn from."
This article also includes a discussion of the differences between First-World Neopaganism and the paganism of non-industrialized regions of the world.
In completion of the course "Folk Religion: Belief and Practice" Fuller Seminary.
This book discusses in scholarly detail the myths surrounding Christianity in contemporary culture that often go unchallenged in the public sphere. Because they are so commonplace, they are often cited as proof that Neopagan religions are superior to Christianity. Some of the myths that are refuted chapter by chapter include:
I encourage Wiccans and Neopagans to read this book and consider whether their arguments against Christianity are valid, or simply a restatement of popular myths in the current culture. I stated earlier on this page that my goal is to treat this subject as fairly as possible by not presenting caricatures of Wicca or Neopaganism. Likewise, caricatures of Christianity and similar straw men should be avoided if true dialogue is to take place.
This book gives a scholarly historical perspective on Christianity and paganism prior to Constantine, with a number of sharp insights. The only particular downfall to the book is that it does a poor job of distinguishing between Christian and pagan when it does discuss syncretism near the end of the fourth century.
Although this book is specifically targeted at a slightly different problem than other books listed here, it is recommended for Christians, albeit hesitantly and with caveats.
Despite its faults, it is recommended reading for Christians. Wiccans and Neopagans will undoubtedly take offense to it. The topics addressed are relevant:
It is not by accident that Paul discusses "the lie" in Romans 1:25 and follows with a description of homosexuality.
The primary strength of this book is in understanding how syncretism creeps into the church, and thus is a useful light with which to read Fox's "Pagans and Christians."
Peter Jones' website discusses these and many related issues in detail, with articles and resources, can be found here:
Spirit-Wars.com: Spirituality in the Third Millennium
[ http://www.spirit-wars.com/ ]
The same caveats given to the book also apply to this website.
Apologia Report (Volume 5: Number 2) - August 27, 2001
[
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologia/mainpages/WhatsNews/WN010827.html ]
Gus DiZerega - Interview
[
http://www.twpt.com/dizerega.htm ]
Gus DiZerega - Webpage
[
http://www.dizerega.com/ ]
See "Witchcraft, Wicca," Extended Entry:
[
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/w02.html ]
This UK website features a number of articles on Wicca, Neopaganism, and related topics.
Leadership U.'s Special Focus on the draw of Neopaganism and Wicca.
A response to "Christian" Wicca.
These observations will be added as time permits.
One of the difficulties that is commonly discussed is the difficulty that women have relating to a deity that is described consistently as male, outside of a few metaphorical passages. It is said that relating to the Goddess is spiritually easier for women.
The problem is that God have revealed Himself in male deity, specifically in the person of Jesus Christ. To reject Jesus Christ on the basis of his masculinity, that he cannot relate to women, is anachronistic. Woman have a direct relationship to the Father through Jesus Christ, no different than men do. Indeed, as Paul notes in Galatians, all are the same at the foot of the cross. A similar argument could be made that Jesus Christ is Jewish, and therefore cannot relate to the specific problems of gentiles; however this argument is rightly seen as invalid.
God created woman in His image, and created her in a unique way, differently than He created any other creature. He formed her in loving and tender ways. Both women and men can relate to God not merely as a male deity, but as a True and Loving Father. While it is unfortunate that our understanding of fatherhood is colored by dads who are abusive, God the Father is a Father who truly loves us. Earthly fathers are sinful, and abuse of both boys and girls, albeit in different ways, affects both men and women in their understanding of how to relate to God. But in the Father we can have the Father we never had - the Father who loves us and protects us.
Likewise, though abusive men tend toward physical violence, women are also capable of abuse, though typically on a different level. This is through verbal and psychological abuse. A person who has suffered through these problems, it could be argued, would have the same trouble relating to a female deity as others have to a male one.
It is interesting to note that a religion that does not accept the concept of sin still needs a basic ethic. This ethic, known as the Wiccan Rede, is stated simply as "An’ it harm none, do what ye will." Very few Wiccans, or for that matter members of society who hold to similar notions, are aware that this minimalistic ethic is an extension of John Stuart Mill's writings in "On Liberty."
This ethic, increasingly pervasive in culture and popular with Libertarians in particular (the intellectual children of Mill) has well documented flaws. Essentially utilitarian as opposed to deontological, it thus has strong appeal from those who do not wish to be "burdened" with "restrictions." An unfortunate result is that it is an ethic does not call us to higher personal or communal goods or goals, and leaves each individual to assess for himself whether his action will harm others, leading to serious problems defining what "harm" truly is. It also levels all human relationships to that of human contracts mutually entered into by participating parties, leaving little in the way of thought of community good and charity for the poor and disabled.
This is a serious deficiency that is easily overlooked in regions of the world where the sense of community has already been permanently mangled by the sense of detachment from ones' birthplace, the rise of automobility, and the mixed economic blessing of long stretches of affluent times. If a time came when people holding to this ethic needed the help of others, such as a large-scale depression or natural disaster, this ethic of selfishness must be set aside for an ethic of selflessness. The radical change of ethics will, however, be of little comfort to one in need when those around them claim to have no ethical responsibility for their condition.
Although it is unlikely to be a convincing argument to a Wiccan, it should demonstrate the superiority of deontological ethics and could be an opening for further discussion. It is unlikely that Wicca will natively lead a great movement for societal change in the way Christianity has repeatedly done in world history for the reasons discussed above. In fairness, such a movement could arise, as it did in Hinduism by the efforts of Gandhi, however this would be an ethical import from Christianity, not originating directly from Wiccan ideals. Although Wiccans tend to emphasize the evils of Christianity, a Christian can in love present the true goods that the church has brought about.
An excellent resource for understanding the flaws of the Minimalist Ethic:
Daniel Callahan, "Minimalist Ethics"
Hastings Center Report, October 1981, pp.19-25.
This is a poem commonly referenced by pluralists (those who believe all religions are equally valid) as argument that none can have the "truth". Those who quote it approvingly rarely are aware of the nature of belief or have an understanding of the correspondence of truth (though, in fairness, there are those who do). As such it is sufficient to follow the parable by describing a young child, who speaks with the blind men, and innocently asserts throughout their debating, "but it's still an elephant!". The truth (that the animal was an elephant) did not change simply because the men had their own (wrong) beliefs. We come to Christ having the heart of a child, that is willing to see the truth for what it is, and not what men have said it is.
[As a side note, the essential context of the story in the gospel alluded to a moment ago was referring to the false teachings of the Jewish leadership and the Pharisees, verses the literal revelation of Jesus Christ Himself. When God reveals Himself to us, we should believe Him and not our deceitful hearts.]
An important observation here is that there is a limit to the ability of humans to understand and perceive God. However, mankind knows about God through Special Revelation of Himself, i.e. through Jesus Christ Himself. If God did not reveal Himself to us, our knowledge of Him would be significantly more limited. But, He has, and the charge that we cannot know God (acognosticism) fails.
For a short time, a number of students, many of whom I was personally acquainted with, formed the Student Pagan Association. Although it continued for a number of semesters, eventually the group waned and is now defunct.
However, it would be incorrect to assume that the decline of the Student Pagan Association indicates a decline in the presence of pagan spirituality at UTD. Pagans are known for being solitary practitioners, and with the influx of new students at the University, the pagan presence remains quite strong. Undoubtedly, there will be continue to be attempts to organize pagan religion on the UT-Dallas campus.
Perhaps the most active Dallas-area Pagan organization.
"You are therefore urged to read with good will and attention, and to be indulgent in cases where, in spite of our diligent labor in translating, we may appear to have rendered some phrases imperfectly."
Quoted from Ecclesiasticus, a book of the Old Testament Apocrypha
"I'll always be younger than this society. What do you expect
me to do, keep silent all my life?"
Oleg Kostoglotov, from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward
michaelh.com© Copyright 1997-2004, Michael Hamblin, All Rights Reserved. [ michaelh@ductape.net ] Last Modified: Monday, 26-Jan-2004 19:45:42 CST |