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| It has been an extreme pleasure over the years to meet some Wiccan people, both on the Internet and in person. I don’t have one bad thing to say about them. Their religion isn’t my religion—but I am friendly to them and to their beliefs. They have suffered a lot of persecution over the years—but then again so have Christian minority sects, Jews, Baha’is, and many other religious groups. | | Some “Christians” have, at times, attacked Wiccans for being the “witches” that were condemned in some “Old Testament” sense. I’m not condoning any persecution of anyone for any belief, but from what I can gather those types of attacks are based upon an ignorant misunderstanding of what the Wiccans actually are, on top of the obvious and ignorant misapplication of the “Old Testament” by Gentile Christians today that we noted earlier. Wiccans follow, as best as they can re-create it, the pre-Christian nature religions. There are many other “Pagan” groups that have different views and teachings, of which I don’t have enough information at this time to talk about, and they all tend to get all mixed together by those of us on “the outside.” We’ll just mention Wicca briefly here because I have had some very nice contacts with these folks over the years, and have been able to interview a few of them on this subject. | | Some Americans and early Colonists over the years have selectively pulled quotes out of context from the Old Testament about “witches” to justify persecution against them, just as they’ve used a few out of context, misapplied sayings of Solomon to justify school paddling. Of course the Old Testament has also been cited to support slavery and genocide. When the Old Testament talks about stoning witches—you have to understand that you also had to stone to death anyone from nearly any other faith in the region, as well as anyone who worked from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, i.e. who “broke the Sabbath.” I think when we start stoning folks today for “Old Testament” reasons, we would have to literally kill every person in the United States before we could say we got everyone who “needed it.” These ancient Israeli laws, however they were carried out at the time, were never given to anyone but those specific ancient people at that specific time and place. They don’t apply to anyone else on earth in any other place or time. Jesus never taught them, Paul forbid trying to “pick a few verses out,” and they do not apply to Christians. Christians have never been taught to hit anyone, or to stone anyone to death, by anyone, at any time, for any reason. | | Beyond those obvious facts, however, the Old Testament “witch” was more like what we might consider occult practitioners who, like the witch of Endor, summoned the spirit of a dead prophet for King Saul. I get a sense they were more into conjuring spirits, or perhaps drugging others for gain, than following any actual religion. In fact the New Testament word that was translated as “witchcraft” had nothing to do with any religion. “Witchcraft” in the New Testament came from the Greek, “pharmakeia,” from which we take our drug store term today, “pharmacy.” Christians, if Christ had ever taught them to stone anyone, might be more inclined to stone to death the owners of bars or druggists today, or at least drug dealers, than the practitioners of this or any organized religion under those terms. But those distinctions hardly matter either. Essentially, at various times, Israel was basically commanded to slaughter every one of any different race or faith that inhabited “the Promised Land.” | | Ironically Solomon, who is cited as a “prophet” by Christians seeking to twist, pick, and choose some verses to support school paddling, actually erected temples to idols and foreign Gods throughout Israel. Far from being a prophet, Solomon led Israel into idolatry—if you believe the Bible that is. Far from following Mosaic Law, under Solomon especially, Israel practiced pagan religions of all types on a wide and officially approved scale. If we want to truly “follow Solomon,” then we might as well institute child sacrifice to Molech, and re-introduce many other idols that Solomon erected, while we beat our son’s backs with rods that make stripes. | | The only “sin” of Wicca, from an Old Testament point of view, is that, in it’s original form at least, it pre-dates Judaism and was not given to the Jews. Wicca is not, however, “anti-Christ” or “anti-Jewish” in any way. It simply, in a separate time and place, existed before those revelations were given. It shares that trait with Hinduism. There is no point in singling out Wicca for persecution, or as something to be looked down upon, any more than there is singling out Hinduism for persecution or disdain. We might as well stone Hindus to death if we decide to stone Wiccans, and why stop there? The Native Americans have had some “pagan” beliefs too… | | I think the point is pretty obvious to thinking folks today from any Faith—but for those who take a very literal, out of context, interpretation of selected Old Testament passages, it bears a comment that God does not want us out stoning people today for any reason, literally or figuratively. Christ made that abundantly clear when the crowd brought the woman “caught in the act of adultery” for stoning, and Jesus said, “he who is without sin may cast the first stone.” Jesus wrote something in the sand, and every one left one by one. |
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