False witness?

The historical relationship between Craft and Church has not been a very good one. Wiccans have many justifiable reasons for being upset with and wary of Christians. There are two primary reasons. One is the way witches have been persecuted by the Church in Europe and North America. The other is that most Christian books about contemporary witchcraft badly misrepresent and distort it.

What most Christians fail to realize is that Wicca has something serious to say and indeed offers some significant theological challenges to the Church. Instead of dismissing Wicca as being devilish or humbug, Christians ought to take a first hand look at what Wiccans advocate. At a very basic level, Wicca is a mirror in which we can 'see ourselves reflected for all the things we have neglected'. Wicca has a role to play that parallels what some ancient theological movements did for the Church in other eras. Movements like Arianism and Gnosticism, which are known in Church history as 'heresies', compelled the Church to take a serious look at what it really meant by its core teachings and to live by them consistently. Wicca is a goad to the Church to not merely assent to the person of Jesus, but to daily act on his teachings in every dimension of life and thought. Wiccans have perspectives on issues that resonate with today's seekers, and they flourish so well in the absence of any vital, articulated stance by Christians.

Whenever Christians write books or articles about witchcraft and the occult, one of the key litmus tests for its evidentiary value is what primary sources are cited. One of the most elementary principles of scholarship is that one always goes to the original sources before commencing any interpretation. Check the author's bibliography for books by Wiccans. Check the quotations for accuracy and context. It is to be regretted that basic standards of truth telling have frequently been lacking in Christian literature on the subject of Wicca.

If Wiccans are seen at the outset as 'the enemy', then the only question remaining is how seriously are they regarded? Has a straw man or a gross caricature been drawn? How careful has the writer been to correctly portray the views of those he or she disagrees with? If Wiccans are regarded like clay pigeons in a carnival side show shooting gallery, and then it is quite likely that a hatchet job will be the end product.

Part of the Christian hostility to contemporary Wiccans has been fostered by the naïve acceptance of books such as Mike Warnke's  The Satan Seller,  Lauren Stratford's  Satan's Underground,  and Rebecca Brown's  He Came To Set The Captives Free.  In the 1970s Warnke built up a miniature ministry 'empire' based on his testimony of conversion to Christ out of southern Californian Satanism. He became a celebrity in evangelical circles for his often hilarious albums of comic skits and anecdotes, and his testimony was accepted at face value. Warnke spoke authoritatively about satanic cults, satanic conspiracies and witches. His reputation extended beyond evangelicalism into the role of media expert on the subject. His book became a textbook for many other pop writers. Two evangelical Christian journalists, however, finally exposed Warnke's story, as a fabrication in the 1990s. By then great damage had been done in evangelical circles by firmly imprinting in the minds of many a very scary and pejorative portrait of witchcraft. Both Lauren Stratford's book and Rebecca Brown's story have likewise had serious doubts raised about their authenticity and accuracy.

The other contributing factor is, as mentioned above, the persecution of witches in Church history. The negative image of the witch as an old hag, dressed in black, casting spells by the power of Satan, is a hand-me-down distortion. The appalling fact is that such a misrepresentation did not simply produce written polemics, but resulted in torture and trials where capital punishment was meted out all in the name of Christ the prince of Peace.

Wiccans surely need to hear Christians honestly tackling these matters and repenting of what evil has been perpetrated in the name of Jesus. These days non-Christians in general, and Wiccans in particular, will scarcely take seriously any Christian who tries to avoid or down play the hideous things done to people by the Church. We actually succeed in earning the right to be heard when we take the blowtorch to ourselves and honestly grapple with these matters.

A personal anecdote is perhaps worth noting here just on this point. I recall participating in an Internet chat-room sponsored by a Christian. The chat room was ostensibly open to all comers and on one occasion an Irish practitioner of Wicca dropped by. This person had no sooner identified herself as a practitioner when the regular Christian participants started shooting off quick one-liners about the devil, demons, hell and the like. There was no attempt by these Christians to become acquainted with her and treat her with respect. There was not the slightest effort made to discover what it is that she actually believed. Instead she was treated belligerently to the chat room equivalent of a space-invaders game where she was the target of invective and abuse. I was sickened and apologized to her, whilst vainly trying to inject some sanity into the chat room at the same time.

I cannot help but feel that Christians are at times the very worst advertisement for the teachings of Jesus. Indeed I feel that many Christians have the propensity for violating one of the Ten Commandments. No, not the one about adultery, even though many Christians seem skittish about the very word sex. The commandment often violated is the one about not bearing false witness against one's neighbour.