Christians on Pagan Forums

My blog post Pagan Hatred, about the resurgence of hatred that Pagan’s have for Christians and Christianity was featured, somehow, on two Pagan websites. These were Pagan Reports** and Wiccan** Web.  I got a few replies on both these sites, but most interesting to me was the very first comment I read at Wiccan Web.  It began with a question and a statement that I see fairly often…
** Both sites are now dead, thus the removal of the links.  It was several years ago after all.

“Oh Please. What are xians doing on Witchcraft discussion boards anyway? THIS IS AN HONEST QUESTION. I really want to know because I certainly do not hang out in bible forums or on xian FB pages.”

I am an admin at a Pagan forum and we have had several Christians join the forum.  They are there for a variety of reasons. Some are there to study, just as many of us Pagans will study other religions and spiritualities, so do some Christians.  Others are there to expand there spiritual knowledge and beliefs, whilst retaining their religion.  The majority of the time though, the Christians who come to this forum, are actually there to gain understanding about Paganism and Witchcraft, so that they need not make assumptions about those that they meet.  Not once in the year that I have been at this forum have I seen a Christian attack Pagans and our beliefs.  I have seen many Pagans say nasty stuff about Christianity in general, and I have seen many Pagans attack each other.  But not a single Christian has caused a problem.


So, that answers that question.  Christians come to our pages, forums, discussion boards and websites, because they are curious and want to learn.  Of course some will come for different reasons, malicious reasons, but then, some Pagans come to our sites for the very same reason.  Christians certainly do not have the monopoly on that.

But what about us? Why do we avoid the Christian sites and forums?  It’s actually very simple really.  We do not go to Christian sites and forums because we already know about Christianity, well most of us do anyway.  We have little to learn from these forums, whereas they have much to learn from our forums, because they know basically nothing about us or our religion.  Saying that they should stay away from our forums because we stay away from their forums is rather an ignorant statement for any of us to make.  Not only that, it is like saying that we don’t want them to understand our beliefs.  And yet, we constantly complain about the stereotypes and assumptions that are placed upon us!

How should others stop making these assumptions and applying these stereotypes to us if we think it is wrong for them to be on our forums?  If we don’t show them we don’t fit the stereotypes, then the stereotypes will continue to exist and be used against us.  It begs the question…

Do we really even want the stereotyping and attacks to cease? Or are we just trying to martyr ourselves so as to make them look bad?