‘You’re
a wizard, Harry’. Hagrid
Arriving at school I was
told by my fellow chaplain that a group of girls, who had been scaring
themselves silly, were desperate to speak to us. These teenage girls had been
playing with a Ouija board, and though they thought it would just be a laugh,
they were shocked to discover that it worked.
Why were these girls playing
with a Ouija board? Where had they got the idea that it would be harmless fun?
These adolescent girls told us that they had been watching TV programmes,
namely Charmed and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and had fallen for the narrative they
espoused.
Witchcraft can be fun.
Witchcraft is practiced by beautiful young women. Witchcraft can help you get
what you want in life. Add to the mix the extremely popular Harry Potter books
and films, and we find that Witchcraft has become mainstream. Though this was a
few years ago now, the enthusiasm for the occult has by no means abated.
The choice of many is, the
seemingly harmless, Wicca.
What is Wicca?
Wicca is a Pagan Witchcraft tradition. Today, the name Wicca is frequently applied to the entire system of beliefs and practices that make up the spectrum of contemporary Pagan Witchcraft. However, although Wicca and Witchcraft are often used interchangeably, it is important to note that there are also Pagan Witchcraft traditions that are not Wiccan.[1]
Wicca is a modern,
Earth-centered religion with roots in the ancient practices of our shamanic
ancestors. Its practitioners, who call themselves Wiccans, honor the
life-giving and life-sustaining powers of Nature through ritual worship and a
commitment to living in balance with the Earth. Wicca is technically classified
as a Pagan religion, though not all Wiccans would identify as Pagans—and plenty
who identify as Pagans are not Wiccans.[2]
Though having a commonality of broad belief, that
leads them to a worship of the creation rather than the Creator, Wicca offers
an array of interpretation and practice. Like trying to nail jelly to the wall,
Wicca is hard to pin down.
That is perhaps what makes it is so appealing,
especially to young people. A worldview that allows you to choose what you want
to believe; a system that allows you to determine what is right and wrong,
where you are free to decide your own truth, sounds delightful.
Knowing this, we cannot therefore assume that all
who would call themselves Wiccan, believe and/or practice the same things. This
said, there does appear to be something of a consensus when it comes to the
person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Who is Jesus?
‘I like your Christ, I
do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ’.
Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, this quote may sum up
the view of many Wiccans. They may have a kind of respect for Jesus, but they
are highly suspicious of a Christianity, that they claim has historically
persecuted them.
There is much that orthodox Christianity
attributes to Jesus that the Wiccan would reject. Here are three key issues.
1) Jesus is the only way to
God.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. (John 14:6)
If Wiccans
believe in Jesus at all, they will say that Jesus is not ‘the way’ but only one
of many ways. They may equate Jesus’ words that there are ‘many rooms in my
Father’s house’[3], with the idea
that there are many paths to the divine. Therefore Jesus, though respected,
should not be any more honoured than Buddha, Krishna or Mohammed.
Also, as Wiccans
reject the notion of absolute truth, they may concede that Jesus is a ‘truth’
but not He is not ‘the truth’. Wiccan truth is subjective and any notion of an
absolute truth would be abhorrent to them.
2) Jesus is the only Son of
God.
This was why the
Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was
he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making
himself equal with God. (John 5:18)
Wiccans believe that Jesus was, like each one of
us, only a son of humanity. He may have been an enlightened being or a great
sage, but they deny that Jesus himself claimed to be God. This idea, they say,
is the teaching of institutional religion, not of Jesus. This said, some
Wiccans have no problem seeing Jesus as deity, an avatar of the Divine. If that
is how someone connects with the Divine, that is fine, but to Wiccans Jesus is
not the only Son of God.
So if someone loves and honours Jesus, and follows Him in His own footsteps, while loving and honouring the Earth as Goddess and life as sacred, then that can only make them a better Wiccan, in my opinion. Some may disagree, but only those who see Wicca as a religion — a set of dogmatic rules rather than a training ground for spiritual mastery.[4]
3) Jesus came to pay the
price for our sin.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,
that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been
healed. (1 Peter 2:24)
Though
the Bible speaks of each human being lost and bound in sin, Wiccans do not
consider the Bible to have any authority in their lives. They have no holy book
or written doctrine, so feel no compulsion to follow a so-called divine law.
Traditionally,
Wiccans try to follow two laws:
i)
Harm none, do
what thou wilt.
ii)
What thou
wilt do, will come back three times.
The
Wiccan therefore believes, that if they are harming no one, they are free to do
whatever they please. This is their version of the ‘golden rule’. Should they
break this rule, then that which they have done to another, will return three
times upon them. This is their version of what goes around comes around.
As
most Wiccans would believe that there is no punishment due after death, any retribution
happening in this life will happen as the Goddess of the Wiccan deems
appropriate.
Wicca and Salvation
Therefore,
Wiccans need no salvation, and the only 'sacrifice' that is seen in modern
Wicca, is the ritual re-enactment (play) of the God's annual self-sacrifice for
the 'fertility' or well-being, of Humanity.[5]
Wiccans generally believe that there is nothing
that they need saving from. They have no concept of sin and do not believe that
a God will punish them for incorrect behaviour in an afterlife.
The need for salvation as taught by orthodox
Christianity, with the need to be forgiven of one’s sin against a Holy God, is
completely foreign to Wicca.
Though some Wiccans believe there is only this
life, and others believe in some form of reincarnation, they all agree that
what is important is being good in this life. In doing good works reward will
come in this life or the next.
Conclusion
As we can see, in Wicca,
Jesus is at best an enlightened being. He can be respected or ignored, and He
is not the way the truth and the life.
His death on the cross for
the sin of the world, and subsequent resurrection are of little consequence in
the Wiccan worldview. Sadly, from a Biblical standpoint, this leaves them
without a Saviour and without hope.
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