Wicca and Christianity
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Wicca respects all religions, knowing that they are all
only a glimpse of the Truth, and as such equally correct. However, Christianity
does not generally tolerate Wicca. This can often be a serious problem in
relationships—a problem exacerbated when the Christian partner insists on
quoting the Bible as justification for maligning our faith. This too is true of
any relationship we may have, whether family, friends or in the workplace.
One approach is to explain in historically verifiable terms how Christianity got
so uppity and righteous that the murder and torture of innocent women and men
became as normal as the Sunday church picnic. To understand what went so
terribly wrong it’s necessary to go back to the time of Jesus the Christ in the
holy city of Jerusalem circa 30 A.D. Of course nobody knew it was 30 A.D. at the
time since A.D. stands for Ano Domine, "After Christ." I mention this just to
demonstrate how much influence Christianity has had and is continuing to have on
the world. But I digress, back to the dawn of the Christian Age. Back then, the
Romans ruled Judea and the temple bureaucracy ruled everyone else. It was a
typical case of absolute power corrupting absolutely.
The temple was the center of the Jewish world. And no one was permitted in the
temple if they were sick or otherwise unclean--especially if you were an unclean
(had your period) woman or a man who touched you. The high priests, meanwhile,
had an elevated walkway built from their palatial homes to the temple so they
wouldn’t have to soil the bottoms of their sandals on the same dirt as everyone
else.
That was the Jerusalem when Jesus arrived. The sick and unclean flocked to him.
They had little choice, health care being practically nonexistent. Jesus healed
them. Women flocked to him because he upheld their humanity. But Jesus the
Christ was not the only one on the scene performing miracles. It was the Age of
Miracles. One notable magus, Apollonius of Tyre, simply disappeared when he was
accused of sorcery.
Christ too was accused. Not by the Romans but by the Elite of his own people,
the Scribes and the Pharisees of the temple. Thou shalt not threaten the status
quo.
The Jews too started out challenging the status quo. Abraham left Sumer to found
Judaism because the city had grown corrupt. Moses led his people out of Egypt
because Pharaoh treated the Israelites like dirt. He used magyc. His staff could
tap water from a stone and turn into a big snake.
The Egyptians once had powerful magyc, themselves but came off a shabby second
to Moses and his brother Aaron--though the Egyptian magicians were able to match
Aaron spell for spell up to the frogs--which they could imitate but not check.
That’s the problem with corruption; it severely limits ones ability to invoke
the Powers. Then Aaron brought death on the first born of the Egyptians. That
had to cost him.
Truth be told, witches have occasionally brought down harm on others. Both the
Spanish Armada and the Luftwaffe were hexed by British covens to protect their
homeland from invasion. In both cases, the home team, against all odds,
devastated an overwhelmingly superior force. I think the hexing was sanctioned
because the overall effect was a victory for good over evil.
So, on to Jesus. Did he actually perform those miracles? Morton Smith in his
amazing book, "Jesus the Magician" makes a strong case that the spells
Christ worked were standard issue for the day, even pointing out which ones he
used in the Greek Magical Papyri. It’s a fascinating and informative read and
one that changed my mind from considering Jesus either a fraud or the head of a
dangerous religion to a fellow practitioner of Magyc--and one of the best. Now
I'm a big fan --not of what's become of his church but of the man.
And after Christ’s death, the Apostles too seemed to have learned a thing or two
about magyc, as they invoked the Powers on Pentecost and later had many cures to
each of their credit. Even today people all over the world are performing
miraculous cures. Faith healers, they’re called, and the formal Church has
little to do with them. However, you don’t see many priests performing miracles.
But back to the time of Jesus.
After his death Christ's followers grew in numbers despite all attempts by the
government of Judea and Rome to squelch them. By squelch, I mean fed them to the
loins for entertainment or nail them to posts. But there was no denying that the
early Christians both men and women had the Power.
Warriors started joining up because they thought it would bring them victory in
battle and over death. Then one dark day in 330 AD the Roman Emperor Constantine
(who demanded to be called Master and God) decided that not only would he
convert to Christianity but that everyone in the Roman Empire would also. At
first the had Christians tolerated the Goddess and Horned God worshipers that
had come before them in the name of Christ’s love. Then, when Christianity grew
to power they became abusive. In fact, the word Pagan or Heathen means something
like hillbilly or redneck, one that lived up in the hills and hadn’t gotten the
word on the latest in religions: Christianity. Then they started defaming our
Gods, first the Goddess who was simply forbidden because the church suddenly had
no use for women in general. If you haven’t already, read "The DaVinci Code"
by Dan Brown. It’s fiction, based largely on the Gnostic Gospels, specifically
the part where it says "Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ favorite and he often kissed
her on the ________. The piece of the document is missing and could have been
anywhere from her forehead to her . . . . Just the same, however you take it,
the Church disempowered women completely from this point on. The only women that
were permitted to show their faces were professed virgins, nuns, and the mother
of Christ who suddenly became a virgin both before and after giving birth.
James, Jesus’ older brother, got swept under the rug and Mary Magdalene was
vilified as a whore. Meanwhile, artists were commissioned to decorate the walls
and ceiling of Constantine’s new basilica in Constantinople, formerly Byzantium,
now Istanbul, with pictures of beautiful young boys with wings: angels. An
interesting side note on angels is that when Pope Alexander was presented with
two young boys from the Angle people of what was to become England (they gave it
the name) he exclaimed in delight, that "These are not Angles but angels!"
Meanwhile everyone who didn’t tow the Christian line was being disempowered--
disemboweled as often as not. Constantine had his own wife boiled in oil.
Christians call him Constantine the Great.
The faith that Jesus Christ founded on love and compassion for all people
suddenly bore no resemblance whatsoever to his teachings. Not only where Pagans
put to death for their beliefs, they were condemned to hell in the deal.
The Horned God of the Hunt, even though he was male, was soon vilified as the
Devil himself and was cast into the fires of Hell.
And that’s why the devil has horns.
Now, nowhere in Judaism do we have a devil. The word
in Hebrew means "deal breaker" (the same as the Olde English word "warlock") and
nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus say that his father is going to take it
out on us after we die. The closest thing we have is Matthew’s favorite phrase "weeping
and gnashing of teeth" attributed to Jesus discourse on The Mount of Olives
where he foretells the end of the world and the destruction of the wicked, those
who are left behind. He also warns "and many false prophets shall arise, and
shall deceive many."
And there’s also the fig tree that Jesus cursed for not bearing fruit that shall
be cast into the fire. But the concept of ‘do what we say or thou shalt burn in
hell’ was a much later embellishment. Matthew himself never met Jesus, since
he
wrote about five decades after Christ's death.
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Basically, what Christ taught was to "Love thy neighbor as thyself." And
the Old Testament commands us to "Do unto others as you would have them do
unto you." The greatest con in all of history is the turning of Jesus’
message of love into an excuse for a centuries of mass murder and genocide that
firmly reinstated of the law of the jungle, survival of the barbaric, the
antithesis of humanity and justice--but now with a clever new twist: we aren't
slaughtering you because you have something we want but because Christ told us
to do it. Sorry. It's in the bible . . . uh, somewhere in the back.
The rest is history. The Romans, with the new and expedient Christianity on
their side, conquered the civilized world raping and pillaging Pagans village by
village in the name of god until we were pushed to the top of the world where
there was nothing left that the Romans wanted. Everything else was the Holy
Roman Empire which as Western Civilization would come to one day to vanquish the
peoples of the earth. As I said, great take on all of this is Jared Diamond’s
wonderful book, "Guns, Germs and Steel." where he puts to rest the idea
that Europeans somehow deserve dominance because of inherent racial superiority.
No, it wasn’t because god was on the side of western civilization that we
prosper but geography.
Today, the vast majority of Christians in the United States believe that the
Bible teaches, "God helps those who help themselves." Last time I
checked, Benjamin Franklin, who actually said that, was not listed as an
Evangelist. This is the doctrine of My Me Mine that ranks us second to last in
Christian charity (last place goes to our old friends the Romans).
Americans have made golden calves of themselves in an age when Christ’s poor
starve daily by the thousands as Americans grow ever fatter.
We as Wiccans believe in the Unity and Sanctity of all life, not just our own.
There will always be those who seek to dominate others by force and call it the
will of god. In the end they must fail, as they have always done, when they turn
their back on humanity. It is they who will be cast into the fires of their own
greed.
This rather harsh view of Christianity and the corruption it now harbors will
serve to validate our faith in the eyes of our Christian partners. The truth has
to power to set us free.
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Copyright © 2005 by "Reni"
Originally posted: 2005-OCT-20
Latest update: 2005-OCT-23
Author: "Reni"
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