Question for all pagans and christians

gord44

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If you are interested in the mixing or pagan and Christian ideas I suggest reading some books by mark Townsend. He's an Anglican priest and a pagan (druid). Listening to an interview by him is what first got me interested in druidry. I think he left the Anglican Church now and is ordained under a different denomination.
 
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elephunky

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I have read a few books by Christian witches. It's an interesting path. :)

If you are interested in the mixing or pagan and Christian ideas I suggest reading some books by mark Townsend. He's an Anglican priest and a pagan (druid). Listening to an interview by him is what first got me interested in druidry. I think he left the Anglican Church now and is ordained under a different denomination.

Might be an interesting read.

I am an atheist and there are elements to wicca that dont gel well with me so I dont think Christian Wicca is a path for me :p
 
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Zoness

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What do you think about christian wicca? What do you feel about it?

No strong opinion even though I am personally not a fan of such extreme syncreticism. I think Christianity's claims to being the only right way to live would conflict significantly with the more libertarian approach to life that Wicca takes.

But to each their own and happiness I wish them.
 
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Jane_the_Bane

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It's no more syncretic than pious Hindus adding a Jesus figurine and a Buddha statue to the other deities of their household altar; or former African slaves adding both Amerindian deities and Catholic saints to their pantheon of loas; or Siberian shamen integrating orthodox crosses into their healing ceremonies.

Heck, even Christianity started out as a syncretic mix of Jewish eschatology and pan-hellenic mystery religions, and Islam drew heavily upon Nestorian and monastic traditions.

As far as I am concerned, syncretism is not only not much of a problem, it's virtually unavoidable: exclusivist world views simply cannot see or acknowledge that, even while they themselves are directly shaped by their contact with (or even their rejection of) competing ideologies.


Admittedly, Christo-paganism *does* seem like a weird mix when looked at from the vantage point of Christian orthodoxy. But in the end, it's not that much weirder than a Jewish sect declaring that their semi-mythical founder was in fact God Incarnate, sacrificed and risen - something that'd be utterly anathema to Judaism and its conception of divinity.
 
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It's no more syncretic than pious Hindus adding a Jesus figurine and a Buddha statue to the other deities of their household altar; or former African slaves adding both Amerindian deities and Catholic saints to their pantheon of loas; or Siberian shamen integrating orthodox crosses into their healing ceremonies.

Heck, even Christianity started out as a syncretic mix of Jewish eschatology and pan-hellenic mystery religions, and Islam drew heavily upon Nestorian and monastic traditions.

As far as I am concerned, syncretism is not only not much of a problem, it's virtually unavoidable: exclusivist world views simply cannot see or acknowledge that, even while they themselves are directly shaped by their contact with (or even their rejection of) competing ideologies.


Admittedly, Christo-paganism *does* seem like a weird mix when looked at from the vantage point of Christian orthodoxy. But in the end, it's not that much weirder than a Jewish sect declaring that their semi-mythical founder was in fact God Incarnate, sacrificed and risen - something that'd be utterly anathema to Judaism and its conception of divinity.

While Orthodox/Catholics are definately a mix of Roman and Jewish thought the NT is more closer to Apocalyptic Jewish asceticism/Zorastrian thought from my reasearch into early pre christian Jewish groups that had similar sayings such as the Essenes.
 
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seashale76

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What do you think about christian wicca? What do you feel about it?

As certain topics are often repeated I don't feel inclined to reinvent the wheel when I can just cite older posts of mine. So…

Regarding Christian Wicca, I can see where someone who claims to be one would have issues. I don't really see how that would work out from a Christian perspective, as we're supposed to have unity of faith and that hinges on communion. I'm not being mean or noninclusive about it when I say this. In my mind, one either follows Christianity as traditioned, or one sets himself/herself up for being voluntarily excommunicated. It's a different mindset. We adhere/conform to the Christian faith and we don't expect for others to agree with us or accept that we have the same faith if we deviate.

As paganism encompasses a wider variety of beliefs, then I think it is more plausible from that perspective, but it still doesn't make logical sense. However, let's be honest here: There are plenty of people out there who claim to be Christians, yet engage in what could be termed pagan religious practices. I don't think most of those people would consider themselves pagan, in the least. The Church would consider them confused Christians that need to stop.
 
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Jane_the_Bane

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While Orthodox/Catholics are definately a mix of Roman and Jewish thought the NT is more closer to Apocalyptic Jewish asceticism/Zorastrian thought from my reasearch into early pre christian Jewish groups that had similar sayings such as the Essenes.

I'm mostly talking about stuff like initiation/baptism/being born again; the very concept of "mystery"; a ritual meal where initiates partake of the very essence of the godhead; a dying-and-rising deity, etc.

Without the mystery religions, Christianity would not even REMOTELY resemble what we've got today.
The Zoroastrians influenced proto-Judaism long before Christianity appeared on the stage of world history, but yeah, the influence is there.

The Essenes are DEFINITELY the direct "ancestors" of Christianity on the Jewish side, though.
 
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Many Christians or former Christians get quite attached to the idea of Jesus. So when they move to a polytheistic view of the divine (which one must admit makes more sense sometimes over monotheism), they bring their 'God' with them. The traits of Jesus that appealed to them as 'orthodox' Christians follow them and if they are going to choose a God to work with, why not Jesus?
 
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Forest Wolf

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What do you think about christian wicca? What do you feel about it?

I know a number of Christian Wiccans. Or, Christian Witches, as they call themselves also. I see no problem with it. Solomon was a great worker of the art. And he was known and blessed by the god of the Hebrews. When the Christians God proclaims himself to be omnipresent as that omnigenetic source for all that is created, it speaks to animism. Prayers, as the great Rabbi proclaimed, asking him for anything and in his name shall culminate in the granting of that which is prayed for. It all speaks to sympathetic magic and the power of the holy spirit within the created to manifest by will of the creator.
Santeria is basically Christian Voodoo. It would be closer to Wicca than Christianity.

Santeria predates Christianity in the rites and rituals that were performed by the indigenous African and Indies isle peoples. When those native people were taken hostage and made slaves by Dutch and other nations traders and sold to Christian whites, they were commanded to obey the new white God. As such those native people hid their gods and goddesses in the saints of the new religion so as to survive their captivity. Santeria is not Christian voodoo. In fact to call it that blasphemes Christianity.
 
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ViaCrucis

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I don't think it ultimately makes any more sense than "Christian Muslim" or "Christian Hindu" or "Muslim Taoist".

Christianity, as a distinct religious tradition, makes certain particular and emphatic dogmatic positions, such as the existence of only one God, that God is the Creator God, the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that Jesus is the Christ/Messiah long awaited, and so forth.

I don't really see how such things can be meshed together with other religious traditions without severely compromising one or both. Especially when different religious traditions make starkly divergent and mutually exclusive faith claims.

Granted Paganism is a very wide net, and tends to be far less dogma-oriented than others. But there is still a sufficient amount of tradition available in the various Pagan traditions that exist that would seem to me to not mesh well with the particulars of the Christian religious tradition.

So the question is ultimately, at least in my mind, in the example of a hypothetical Christian Witch or Christo-Pagan, which of the religious/spiritual practice is Pagan and which is Christian? And how is one interweaving these? Is the result the production of a new synthesis that is perhaps neither of the former, or is it an eclectic mix such that it's neither really one or the other?

I'm certainly not going to bring out the torches and pitchforks because someone identifies as such. Though I'm under no compulsion, as a Christian and a member of that historic religious tradition, to embrace it as equally Christian. For the same reason that a Jewish person is under no compulsion to recognize so-called "Messianic Judaism" as any sort of Judaism at all--it's an alien phenomenon, standing outside of the received structures of faith and practice.

For me something recognizably Christian is already well defined in the historic creeds and confessions received and passed down through the centuries and believed upon by many different Christians from a variety of denominations, communions, and theological traditions.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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BaconWizard

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Except that many holy sites in monotheistic religions are old re-purposed pagan sites, many holy days are old pagan days (Easter, Xmas), some traditions and a great many cultural norms (calenders, days, architecture, medicine, accounting, maths) that the church accepts are the direct result of a previous pantheistic religion, and sometimes even folk-heros or saints ride upon the backs of previous figures, or their stories do.

Osiris, born of a virgin.
Mithras, born of a virgin
Dionysus, born of a virgin
Jesus....

The flood.. an OLD story, with existing tablets that predate The OT

I can't be bothered to list more: most people here are educated and either know it or can look and find-out.
 
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ViaCrucis

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Except that many holy sites in monotheistic religions are old re-purposed pagan sites, many holy days are old pagan days (Easter, Xmas), some traditions and a great many cultural norms (calenders, days, architecture, medicine, accounting, maths) that the church accepts are the direct result of a previous pantheistic religion, and sometimes even folk-heros or saints ride upon the backs of previous figures, or their stories do.

Osiris, born of a virgin.
Mithras, born of a virgin
Dionysus, born of a virgin
Jesus....

The flood.. an OLD story, with existing tablets that predate The OT

I can't be bothered to list more: most people here are educated and either know it or can look and find-out.

Considering that Mithras emerged fully formed from solid rock, saying he was "born of a virgin" seems like an odd way of describing that.

Misconceptions aside (e.g. the pagan Easter connection) you do make a fair point about certain influences.

We should expect that any religion is going to absorb a certain amount of flavor and language from the surrounding culture, simply as a matter of osmosis. I should expect that the Christianity of the Greek east is going to look "Greek", the Christianity of the Roman west "Roman", the Christianity of the Helleno-Egyptian south "Coptic" and so forth. And that we do.

Or, say, the Christianity in Britain is "British" and the Christianity in America is "American". Christianity in America absorbed a great deal of the cultural values of America's nascent democracy in comparison to that which was found in monarchical Europe. We find today Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa looks African, Christianity in Latin America looks Latin American, Christianity in India looks Indian.

And so, sure. For example in the case of Christmas we'll find that in Northern Europe the reverence for St. Nicholas of Myra (whose feast day is December 6th) becomes blended with the imagery of Father Winter, a folkloric figure whose origins probably have some sort of pre-Christian origin, but by the 19th century was basically just a cultural icon of winter. That blending, and the meshing of St. Nicholas with Christmas in the 19th century helped give us Santa Claus. A cultural product of Anglo-American melting pot cultures (the custom of hanging stockings is derived from the Dutch tradition of leaving one's shoes out on the eve of St. Nicholas Day for the merry saint to leave a small gift).

None of that of course makes Christmas particularly pagan in origin. Other claims such as the Saturnalia connection is equally dubious since Christian Christmas doesn't even coincide with Roman Saturnalia. But it does coincide with a third century Roman invention: Dies Natalis Sol Invictus, the birth day of the Unconquered Sun. The Cult of Sol Invictus arose in the third century, and a feast day dedicated to the amalgam solar deity did coincide with the Christian feast of Christ's Nativity, or at least with some celebrations of it, as uniformity of Christmas on the Christian calendar took time (and uniformity never fully took hold, as can be seen still with the Armenian Calendar which continues to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity in early January). The idea of celebrating the Nativity of Jesus is a question that was already circulating in Christian circles by the turn of the 3rd century, we can see for example Origen regarding it as a pointless affair as "Only Pagans celebrate birthdays", though others felt it was important to calculate Christ's birth, and we shouldn't find it an odd idea that Christians may begin to celebrate it on a calendar day.

So while I agree in principle with your point, the stickler in me needs to nitpick.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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Gxg (G²)

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What do you think about christian wicca? What do you feel about it?
Much of that would go right back into how one defines both Wicca and Christianity. With Wicca, if speaking in the sense of where nature is revered, in that sense a believer of Christ will have common ground and in some way can be construed as being in agreement with Wicca in the same way that one can be in agreement as a Christian with many aspects of Aminism. I've shared before how there are many religions where there was connection with Christianity -as it concerns the focus on nature being present/having to respect its power. For myself, when seeing the Animistic spirituality aspect, I couldn't help but be reminded on Christianity and the ways others for it have addressed.....for many are not aware of the ways that Christ addresses Folk Religions..

There is such a thing as Christian Animism something many have noted over the years more and more.... as seen in Defining an Animistic Worldview : The Missiology Homepage and Animism: The Default Religion of the World - Missions Mandate and Animism: - International Journal of Frontier Missions


That said, where things get off track is when one goes for the other definition of Wicca where there's denial of objective morality (as moral relativism rather than moral absolutes are exalted in Wicca), avoidance of what Christ Jesus Himself said and involvement of dark arts. Wicca is traditionally a polytheistic (or at least duotheistic) fertility religion that acknowledges and honors many deities - and this was strictly forbidden by Christ and the Church and by God according to the OT when it came to Him being the only one worthy of Worship. There are many other things besides that...
 
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