I'm a Wiccan. What do you think?

The thing that keeps me going back to Christianity is two fold. One, the firm conviction that Jesus really did rise from the dead. I think the historical evidence for this is fairly difficult to refute, from eyewitness testimonies to physical evidence like the shroud of turin, to the fact that there was no evidence to the contrary, that is, no corpse of Christ which could be presented to say "no he didn't", even though there were a lot of people denying it even at that time. And the testimonies are written in a very historical form, shortly after the events. They do not have the mythic elements you would expect if someone were making this up.

The other reason is because of the teaching authority. I do not believe that people could guess at spiritual truths with any hope of accuracy. I think the only way we could be right is if God revealed Himself to us, and ensured that we could not go wrong. The reason there are so many religions in the world is precisely because there are so many people attempting to guess at truth. But in order for God to reveal the truth, there would first have to be a god who cares about us enough to do so. Interestingly, only the monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) even claim to have been revealed. Everyone else- Hindus, Native Spritualists, Wicca, etc- are just guessing.

That said, it would be pretty ignorant to declare Christianity true and all others false without demonstrating that it is. But if I could convincingly demonstrate that Christianity were true and nothing else was, I would be a remarkably gifted man. I don't think I can do that to most peoples satisfaction, even my own. But I have convinced myself that it is the most likely thing to be true, and have thus chosen to believe it.

So starting from the basis of Christianity being true, there are many things about Wicca that I think are not only wrong, but dangerous. For one, Wicca does not appear to have any real moral base, asside from "an it harm none, do what ye will". This sounds great, but it begs the question when it comes to issues like abortion, just war, divorce, pornography, self indulgence, accumulation of wealth, infidelity etc. It does not define the sanctity of life or love or sex, or our social obligations to one another. I think there is a higher morality. There is objective good and objective evil, not just 'positive and negative'.

Secondly, Christianity affirms that there is one God, and we should worship no others. The majority of Wiccans worship at least 2 gods, niether of which can easily be said to be the one God that Christians worship. The problem is that if Christianity is real, and there is only one God that we must worship, but Wiccans worship 'gods' who are not figments of their imagination, then who are the gods? In the Old Testament, idols were either just madeup, or they were demons. This belief was still held in the New Testament and early church. In fact, the Greek god Pan, with goat legs and horns, became the image for Satan. I notice that though most Wiccans would not like to say that they worship Satan, as they do not really believe in an evil being like Satan, they do worship a horned God, someimes called Pan. As for Goddess worship, this was considered a very dangerous cult in the Old Testament. So what if Christianity is true, but so is Wicca? The implication is that Wiccans are worshiping demons, and not the true God.

The last thing is the use of magick. Fortune telling, contacting the dead, etc, were expressly forbidden in the Old Testament. There is actually a witch in the OT, called the witch of Endor, who contacts the dead. In the New Testament there is a magician, known to history as Simon Magus, who could also be said to be a witch, as it does not appear that he was merely an illusionist. Simon, when he saw the power that the apostles had in the name of the Holy Spirit, attempted to purchase the power. He did not understand that you cannot purchase the Holy Spirit, and as a result to this day the purchase of holy or blessed objects is known as the sin of simony.

Anyway, Christianity does not say that magic does not exist, but that it is forbidden. There is power, but God has not granted us the authority to use it. A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Kenya with Renewal Ministries on a mission. The leader of our group, Peter Thompson, had previosuly been on a mission where he prayed for a woman who had gone to a witch doctor who had done magic on her. The woman had remarkable demonic manifestations. You can see his testimony here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWkvjniU6jM.

There are countless other stories where demons get involved because people get involved in occult practices. (I think it is interesting that in the Salem Witch trials, which I by no means condone, the girls who started it all had been involved in fortune telling, and suddenly began manifesting demonic activity, which triggered the whole thing).

The question I think you need to ask is this. Did Jesus really rise from the dead? If so, what does that imply about his teaching? If he is God, and God has forbidden the worship of other gods and the use of magic, then do we dare to do what he has forbidden?

Harry Potter, good or bad?

Question; One more quick thing, harry potter, good or bad? I've heard that it should be shunned by the Church because it has magic and that's evil, but to me it seems like trying to live in a bubble of protection from the world is impractical. The more aware of what's around us, the better equiped we can be to fight it, right? And I don't even think it's that bad, as long as we realize that magic isn't real at all and that nothing can contradict God's power. what do you think? and for when I try to bring this argument to school, how do Protestants view this "dilemma"?

AnswerJesus prayed for us that we should be 'in the world, but not of the world'- so in a sense you're right that we shouldn't create a bubble around ourselves. I think one of the things that most discredits Christianity and our message is our unwillingness to intelligently dialogue with people of opposing views- and that the consequence of this is that we are considered irational, and shoved out of the marketplace of ideas.

The Church doesn't take a stand, per se, on things like Harry Potter, but there is a healthy debate in the Church. The most intelligent argument I have heard against it is that witches are actually real (and they are) and their power is not from God, but is of a supernatural nature, so it is thus from Satan. If someone wrote a kids book about drug dealers, but they were good drug dealers... of course, everyone would object. But if there are characters that are using power that essentially comes from Satan, but using it for good, we are all OK with it. This blurs the distinction between good and evil, and lends itself to relativistice thinking.

However, Catholic writers such as Tolkien also employed Wizards for good, and treated magic as though it were fantasticv and not real, which is what happens in the Potter series.

I think as Christians the more we object to this kind of stuff, the more ridiculous we look, and the more we effectively promote the stuff by stirring up controversy. I myself am listening to the series on CD as I drive back and forth from Wetaskiwin. (I also deliberately read both the Dan Brown books). I would not choose it as reading for my kids, as there is a lot of bettre stuff out there, but I don't think I would ban it either.

I think my opinion is pretty much in keeping with the Church- there is no definitive answer, and frankly it's not a big enough deal to care. By the time my kids are old enough to read, Harry Potter will just be a vague cultural memory. Something worse will have come along!