Our Culture

I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. If the ACLU or an Atheist group sue to remove a ten-commandments statue from a court-house on the basis of separation of Church and State then the “looney”, “Christ-hating” liberals are trying to deny the “Christian” origin of law in America. But when a city council tells a museum that it can’t display a historical statue of Hebe due to, get this, its possible endorsement of Wicca, then we really have lost sight of reason.

“Critics of the drive to bring Hebe back to Roseburg view the statue as an anti-Christian icon. They associate the statue with paganism and Wicca, a religion with a belief in supernatural power.”

This is Hebe, mind you, Hebe the cupbearer to Zeus, who to my knowledge was never worshipped in any regular or consistent manner by *any* group of Pagans in any era. The true irony is that the recent spate of “anti-pagan” reprisals from Christian groups are attacking works of art and design by fellow Christians. The use of classical themes in art was (and is) common and are often used as visual metaphors for a town square (the original statue of Hebe that stood in this town was to promote the drinking of water over alcohol). In short they never saw or intended these images to be religious, and frankly neither does the modern Pagan movement look to these images as some sort of endorsement or encouragement.

I’m not sure whether to laugh at the massive ignorance of these “pagan” fighters or cry at the way classical art is being attacked due to its supposed religious message.

Tags: Neopaganism