• In New Mexico, Peter Dybing lets us know that immediate danger to the Ardantane learning center from wildfires has passed.
• More reactions to the recently released “Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for Conduct” have emerged. Evangelical commentators at Christianity Today seem somewhat ambivalent. Rev. Daniel A. Madigan notes the document is “tantamount to an admission” of missionary abuses. Fellow Patheos blogger Fred Clark says the document should win an award for “seeking out the bare-minimum lowest common denominator of Christian morality.”
• In honor of the new season of “True Blood” the Hollywood Crush blog at MTV.com has brought on author and vampire subculture/lifestyle expert Michelle Belanger as their “Real Vampire Commentator.”
• The 1st Annual Conference on Earth-Based, Nature-Centered, Polytheistic & Indigenous Faiths is happening on September 24th in San Francisco. The theme this year is “Gender & Earth-Based Spiritualities” and the keynote speaker will be Vicki Noble (of Motherpeace Tarot fame). Other presenters include Joi Wolfwomyn, Lady Yeshe Rabbit, and Diana Paxson. If you’d like to be a part of this conference, submission deadline for presenters is 7/31/11.
• Native American activist Russell Means discusses American Indian religious freedom in theory and practice.
• Sorry Arthurian fans, Starz has cancelled “Camelot” after one season. It wasn’t the ratings so much as the “significant production challenges” involved in making the show and keeping the cast together. You can see all my past coverage of this show, here. So long “Camelot,” I’ll be seeing you on Netflix streaming real soon…
• Storyteller, writer, and former Wild Hunt guest-blogger Ruby Sara has released her first spoken word CD, “Phaskein.” Congrats! You can hear a sample and purchase the CD, here.
• PNC-Minnesota has an excellent interview up with the founder of Deeply Rooted, a Pagan church and intentional community located 20 miles northwest of Wausau, WI.
• Jurors in the James Arthur Ray sweat lodge deaths trial found him guilty of one aggravating factor, that he had caused severe emotional harm to the victims’ families, but there weren’t enough aggravating factors found to increase the possible sentence for his negligent homicide convictions. Meanwhile the defense has called yet again for a mistrial, claiming that a bit of audio played was never entered into evidence. This is being looked into.
• A devotee of Obatala in Nigeria said that government policy in regards to traditional religion, in favor of Christianity and Islam, amounts to “religious colonization.” Traditional practitioners aren’t fond of being called “pagans” much either.

That’s it for now! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.

“In the past five years we have been building a new bridge,” said Dr Geoff Tunnicliffe, chief executive officer and secretary general of the WEA. “The document is a major achievement,” he explained, in that it represents formal agreement on “the essence of Christian mission” while also demonstrating that diverse Christian bodies “are able to work together and to speak together.” In this sense, the release of the text “is a historic moment” in the quest for Christian unity.

In talking about the rationale for this initiative, Geoff Tunnicliffe, Secretary General of the WEA, in what could be fairly described as understatement, admitted that “in some places dynamic public witness to Jesus Christ has been accompanied by misunderstanding and tension.” Reuters religion reporter Robert Evans put it somewhat more bluntly.

“Christian missionaries have long been accused of offering money, food, or other goods to win converts in poor countries, either from other faiths or from rival churches. Tensions have also risen in recent decades as evangelical Protestants have stepped up efforts to convert Muslims, which is a capital offence in some Islamic countries. This also prompts retaliation against local Christians who do not seek converts.”

So what  does this new document solve? What is it meant to do, and what does this mean for the world’s non-Christians? First, while this document may be a historic moment of consensus and agreement, it is toothless in regards to enforcement. As I reported back in 2007, no church or missionary group will be forced to accede to this new code of conduct. The document takes pains to stress that these are “recommendations,” that will “encourage” churches to “reflect” on their “current practices.” It certainly “does not intend to be a theological statement on mission.” In short, these are more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules. That said, for those Christian missionaries who do plan to take this new historical document seriously, and base their conduct on it, what will it change? The core shift in thinking seems to be in fighting “arrogance, condescension and disparagement” among Christian missionaries toward non-Christian faiths and building a new ethos of mutual respect and cooperation between Christians and non-Christians.

“Christians are called to reject all forms of violence, even psychological or social, including the abuse of power in their witness. They also reject violence, unjust discrimination or repression by any religious or secular authority, including the violation or destruction of places of worship, sacred symbols or texts. [...]  Any comment or critical approach should be made in a spirit of mutual respect, making sure not to bear false witness concerning other religions. [...]  Christians should avoid misrepresenting the beliefs and practices of people of different religions.“

In addition, the document endorses providing “sufficient time for adequate reflection and preparation” in regards to conversions.  Frowning on quickie conversions and urging Christians to “refrain from offering all forms of allurements.” All of which is encouraging on its face, though the document also has a political purpose, to help missionaries lobby against anti-conversion laws in places like India.

“WEA Secretary General Geoff Tunnicliffe said the code, entitled “Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World,” would be “a great resource” for Christians lobbying against anti-conversion laws passed in countries such as India.”

How a document that is merely a recommendation, not enforced policy or doctrine, will actually sway supporters of anti-conversion laws remains an open question. Is it simply a propaganda tool, or will there be actual “moral and peer pressure” as hinted by the coalition previously? With the revelations of coercive conversion tactics in Haiti, and serious accusations that missionaries have stirred up anti-Vodou violence, not to mention an emerging theory within evangelical circles that Christian missions may have helped trigger the witch-hunts in Africa, it may take far more than encouragements of better behavior to allay the fears of those scarred by this sort of abusive behavior.

With Catholic plans in the works to “re-evangelize” Europe and the United States, one has to wonder if this document will be respected when it comes to interactions with adherents of Pagan, indigenous, and syncretic faiths. If “Christians should avoid misrepresenting the beliefs and practices of people of different religions,” will anti-Pagan tracts and books be changed or will that escape the scope of this new initiative? While I applaud some of the sentiments encased in this document, I fear it raises too many questions to set the minds of those targeted by missions at rest.

“As a teenager, with only a limited amount of say in what I’d have for dinner, for example, the idea of unmitigated supernatural power, coupled with such a self-governed morality, was very appealing [...] Finally, inevitably, about three years into my study of witchcraft – like any teenager who has ever played with a Ouija board – I became convinced I had communicated with a “spirit”?whom I had failed to banish. The accompanying sense of dread lasted for weeks. A Catholic schoolfriend wrote out the Hail Mary for me – I’d never heard it before – and suggested I say it when I felt spiritually threatened. I stopped practising witchcraft soon afterwards.”

Unlike old-school conversion narratives, where the Satanic heart of all non-Christian faiths are eventually revealed, often with lurid tales of sacrifices or massive spiritual battles, the new form of narrative portrays Wicca and other Pagan religions as largely benevolent yet flawed and lacking depth. They crumble like dust in the face of “true” Catholicism or Christianity. This newer narrative is found in recent works like “Generation Ex-Christian”, “UnChristian”, “Generation Hex”, “Wicca’s Charm”, and many, many, more. It is the new mask of understanding and concern that Western Christians have adopted once they realized that demonization was merely isolating them, and that modern Paganism was expanding and entering the mainstream despite their best efforts. Naturally, the tactics of demonization and conversion under various forms of duress persist outside the harsh glare of mainstream Western media attention.

Like all conversion stories of this type, as “nice” as they are to non-Christian faiths they ultimately are forced to construct a straw-man in order to fully discredit their previous choices. For Dodd, that means conveying outright falsehoods, though one can hardly tell if it is through bad source material or triumphalist malice.

“An innate respect for history, if not tradition, led to an uncomfortable awareness that the religion as I knew it had existed for little over 20 years [...] the occult witchcraft I was studying was at core misogynistic. Crowley wrote some unpleasant things about women; in the works of Anton LaVey, the self-appointed Satanist and a friend of Crowley’s, I encountered rants about women’s intellectual inferiority.”

Even the most conservative anti-direct-lineage partisan would admit that the origins of Wicca stretched back to at least the late 1930s. As Ronald Hutton, Owen Davies, and other scholars have noted, modern Paganism’s beginnings aren’t  some cut-and-dried “Gardner made it up” or “Gardner stole it from Crowley” anecdote. That instead there were unique events, folk survivals, and cultural shifts that made the emergence (or reemergence) of modern Paganism possible. But such a complex narrative wouldn’t work well when trying to convince your readers of Catholicism’s superiority. As for Anton LaVey (interesting that she felt the need to insert a Satanist into her narrative), he was never “friends” with Aleister Crowley, who died in 1947 before LaVey ever read his works.

Dodd wants it both ways, she wants to be seen as the “real deal” when she talks about her time as a Witch, but her own biography is that of a seeker, a dabbler, who simply rebelled for a time against her childhood faith (later in the article she talks of a post-Pagan period where she was a “vegan Buddhist”). She tries to sound authoritative about Wicca, but has obviously not read deeply, or kept up to date on recent scholarship before penning her Catholic pamphlet. Her emphasis on spiritual danger is also typical of modern anti-Pagan narratives, one that I addressed several years ago when reviewing Catherine Edwards Sanders’ book “Wicca’s Charm”.

“Finally I feel I must address the “dangers” of the spirit world that Sanders brings up again and again in her book. She takes great pains to point out that every Wiccan she has talked to speaks of the dangers of working with the world of spirit if you are untrained or unprepared. She hammers home how our circle-castings and quarter-calls are done to “protect” us from a dangerous world beyond this plane. She doesn’t mention that many of these beliefs are part of the Christian heritage she feels we would cast away if we were “true” Pagans. Many of the ritualistic “protections” we have incorporated were written by Christian men with a Christian sense of fear of the world of spirit. The problems the inexperienced adept encounters when working with magick is the same problem that fervent Christian converts have when they ask a loving God to grant them the destruction of enemies or great material wealth. They experience an ego death when they realize these wishes will never be granted. You can call this the “three-fold law” or “God’s grace,” but the results are quite similar. Either the convert or the adept will grow up, or they will remain delusional and jump to the next spiritual path they feel will grant them their wishes.”

Dodd is wearing the mask of concern, but the fact that she felt the need to write this pamphlet shows her own spiritual immaturity. She notes that she continues to “struggle” with her faith, and seemingly clings to the idea that her faith is more “ecological, feminist, pacifist” than Wicca, for to believe otherwise might irreparably crack her insistence on Catholicism’s superiority. The “best” faiths, if we insist on talking in imaginary hierarchies of belief and tradition, feel no need to write pamphlets calling other faiths into question. Their excellence would shine through without the need of half-truths and omissions that cast opponents in a less favorable light. Having just spent a long weekend surrounded with some of the best individuals and groups my family of faiths have to offer, I can tell you that her failure to find depth or breadth was a personal one.

In the end, her work does us a favor I no longer wish to beg from the dominant monotheisms, the kindness of not calling us Satanic. As I said in my commentary on “Generation Hex”, refraining from calling us Satanic baby-killers is no longer enough. Realizing that the extremist slanders are false is a small first step, not the journey’s end. No doubt some, and perhaps Dodd herself, will consider this work a great leap forward, but I would rather all the masks fell away and we can truly estimate each other on the merits and deficits we truly possess.

• Suhag Shukla from the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) discusses the problem of “aggressive and predatory proselytization” by various Christian organizations, calling it “a form of violence.”
• Paul Devlin draws his Dumezil, and discusses the mythic resonances of the Coen brothers adaptation of “True Grit” for Slate.com
• Also at Slate.com, Simon Schama discusses the need to preserve Egypt’s cultural heritage during the revolution.
• More commentary on the (previously mentioned) Catholic anti-Pagan tract “Wicca and Witchcraft: Understanding the Dangers”: AoLNews, Death+Taxes, Daily Mail (whoops, sorry, don’t link to them anymore) and my favorite from Dead, Mad, or a Poet.
• English professor and “ordained interfaith minister” with a Buddhist background is apparently an expert on Vodou and Santeria, enough of an expert to claim a bag of animal parts buried in a cemetery is a “sign of aggression” and a “bastardized form of Voodoo, Santeria and Black Magic,” an assertion that isn’t convincing the cemetery director. President of the National African Religion Congress in Philadelphia says it might be Palo, but not Santeria or Vodou.
• The Russian Orthodox Church is allowing clergy to enter politics in “certain cases.” What kind of cases? “In cases where the Church encounters hostility from other faiths and factions.” This was not elaborated on.
• Catholic exorcist booster, and anti-Pagan paranoiac, Father Thomas Euteneuer is embroiled in a scandal over having sexual relations (or as he put it, a “moral failing”) with a female client he was allegedly performing an exorcism on. His official statement can be found, here. Devotees are circling the wagons. Commentary from The Daily Beast.
• A Hatian Vodou priest in New Zealand defends his faith.
• Last week a militant animal rights activist in Florida decided that Santeria was going to be his next target, using a series of (sans-context) photos of abused or dead animals to bolster his case, claiming that Santeros torture dogs and that practitioners revel in drawing out the torture of animals. This week Oba Ernesto Pichardo (who won the famous SCOTUS case) issued a statement denying Santeria tortures animals, and that actions like this could spur a “hate crime” against his congregation. As this story continues to develop, I’ll most likely devote a separate post to it.
• Is Astrology keeping us down?
• Amazing photo essay of Vodou in Haiti.
• Excerpt from the excellent history of acid and psychedelic folk “Seasons They Change.” It’s on my nightstand as we speak.

That’s it for now! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.

“James Arthur Ray walked out of a Camp Verde jail at 11:10 a.m. [2/26], according to Yavapai County Jail Sgt. Dee Huntley. Ray gained his freedom after Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Warren Darrow lowered Ray’s bond Thursday from $5 million to $525,000. Ray has pleaded not guilty to three counts of manslaughter stemming from a sweat lodge ceremony he led near Sedona in October.”

Ray’s bond was lowered after his lawyers argued that he’s broke, and couldn’t afford to pay $5 million dollars. While he’s free until his trial, Ray had to surrender his passport, and is barred from performing any ceremonies that could potentially harm someone. For a pretty thorough round-up of recent Ray-related news, check out Indianz.com.

Summum Heads Back to Court: Almost exactly a year ago, the Supreme Court ruled against the New Age/UFO religion Summum, who wanted the right to place a monument of their Seven Principles in the same park as a Ten Commandments display in Pleasant Grove, UT. But while Summum lost (on a free speech challenge), Supreme Court justices and analysts both opined that the case could very well be re-heard on Establishment Clause grounds, and that’s exactly what Summum is now doing.

“Geoffrey Surtees, a lawyer for Pleasant Grove, argued that the Ten Commandments display in the city’s Pioneer Park conveys a secular historical message, which the U.S. Supreme Court has said is permissible. But Summun’s attorney, Brian Barnard, contended that the monument advances religion and that Pleasant Grove must give other religious messages equal consideration. ”They are a mandate from God, the Judeo-Christian God,” Barnard said of the Ten Commandments.”

A SCOTUS win for Summum here could spark considerable changes concerning religiously-oriented monuments on public lands. If Pleasant Grove wants to avoid another loss, they should take the advice of Justice David Souter and either erect more monuments to give the current one a more secular context, or remove all monuments and make the case moot. If they don’t? Well, get ready to commission all those Pagan monuments you’d like to see.

Conversions for Food? While the recent evangelical Christian attack on Vodou practitioners in Haiti was shocking enough, in its wake Pastor Frank Amedia of Touch Heaven Ministries implied that food aid was ultimately  tied to an expected conversion.

“We would give food to the needy in the short term but if they refused to give up Voodoo, I’m not sure we would continue to support them in the long term because we wouldn’t want to perpetuate that practice. We equate it with witchcraft, which is contrary to the Gospel.”

Contrary to the stance of some extremists, this sort of food-for-converts method is usually frowned on in mainstream evangelical culture. The controversy has prompted evangelical news outlet Christianity Today to do a follow-up, and see if Amedia was quoted out of context. The answer is “sorta-kinda”.

She then expanded her question to ask “Would I continue to help them knowing they were still practicing Voodoo?” I responded that I would show them our love by helping them and that I would hope to become their friend, and then as their friend, that our compassion and love might be the difference to lead them to Christ. She then asked “How long would we continue to supply them?” To that I answered that “I am not sure we could continue to support them in the long term because we would not want to perpetuate that process. We equate [voodoo] with witchcraft, which is contrary to the Gospel.”

So there’s still a cut-off point for charity if you aren’t sporting a Bible, just not an immediate cut-off. The implication that Christian charity is finite for non-Christians has sparked criticism from CT readers, but we’ll have to wait and see if a more organized rebuke of the expectation that your food will buy converts emerges from the evangelical Christian community.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

Anglicans were commanded to “go forth and evangelise” yesterday in a dramatic assertion of missionary fervour that could jeopardise carefully built-up relations with Muslims, Jews and other faiths. The established Church of England put decades of liberal-inspired political correctness behind it in a move that led one bishop to condemn in anger the “evangelistic rants” … The Church’s General Synod, meeting in London, overwhelmingly backed a motion to force its bishops to report on their “understanding of the uniqueness of Christ in Britain’s multifaith society” and offer guidance in sharing “the gospel of salvation” with people of other faiths and none.

If you think this move is going to cause some internal tensions, you’d be right. While some vicars see every person they meet as “a potential convert”, others are worried that a renewed stridency will only further hinder efforts at evangelistic outreach.

However, the Bishop of Hulme, Stephen Lowe, who leads the Church’s mission in urban life, told The Times that he was “saddened” by the debate. Condemning the “evangelistic rants” of some members, he said: “There are one or two contributions that worried me because they did not seem to have any understanding of the nature of relationship that precedes good evangelism.” He added: “There’s an element of people who have not got experience of living and spreading the gospel in a multicultural, multifaith context telling those who do have that experience how to do it. That makes me very uneasy.”

Will this re-evangelization effort bear fruit? Or will it simply further alienate those already dissatisfied with the church? Whichever the case, I can’t imagine this will do wonders for relations between the CoE and an increasingly multi-religious Britain. While some vicars complain that British Anglicans need “to recover our nerve” and get back to proclaiming the “truth”, they may find that doctrinal correctness could come at the price of an ever-shrinking audience of believers. As for British Pagans, they now know who to avoid at parties and other social functions.

I have come to see the serious failings of the Wiccan faith. A major problem with the faith is that there is no unity among the followers of the faith which makes it very challenging to define exactly what Wiccans do and do not believe in. Wiccans have a very open “do what you will” or “live and let live” perspective in life which very easily can cause harm to oneself and others without one actually knowing it until it is much too late. Additionally, there is no unified moral code of ethics. This puts up huge red flags for society-at-large because no one can really be quite sure of what any group’s intentions are. Society would have no way of knowing, for example, if you are a Wiccan that practices the Great Rite or polyamory, to name only two examples. Also, they would have no way of knowing just what “Do what ye will and harm none” means, and quite frankly, neither does each individual Wiccan. We are left to make moral and ethical decisions for ourselves rather than realizing that by human nature we are going to do anything that feels good to us, not what is best for us, and also not necessarily what is best for society as a whole. This makes for a very dangerous and faulty moral code of ethics. In addition, Wicca teaches primarily about how we can change the world and have all that we want. Spells, magick, etc. all prove to cause us to think selfishly instead of putting others before ourselves and more importantly instead of putting God before anyone else, including ourselves. It is very understandable that one would be close to nature and the earth, as well as, feel a need to call “God” the “God and Goddess;” however, the actual rote and complicated spells involved in Wicca can prove to be a huge distraction in one’s spiritual growth. We do not need all of the “ritual things” in order to have a relationship with God – all we need is a sincere and thankful heart.

While I respect the decision of any Pagan to leave for a faith or philosophy that better suits them, Hovey’s little rant to her followers seems to point to someone who wanted Wicca to be something other than it was, and didn’t really understand (or want to understand) the theology, morality, and practice of modern Paganism as it is. Perhaps her desire to shoehorn Wiccan practice into a congregationalist model, complete with sermons on Sunday and clerical collars, bespoke a long-standing desire to fully embrace Christianity. Now that she’s moved on, her new church is aiming to heal the wounds of “inequity from past religions”.

…helping people heal from their experiences of inequity from past religions and religious institutions, using Jesus Christ and his teachings in the Bible as the foundation of how to have a meaningful relationship with God, as well as, holistic health of mind, body, and soul.

Again, I wish Ms. Hovey well in her conversion and ministry, too bad her healing journey towards Christ had to begin by misrepresenting and bad-mouthing her former faith. She’ll no doubt be far happier in her new role, though I doubt it will get her the attention she sought while running a Wiccan church.