very good, very neutral piece on yesterday\u2019s Wild Hunt<\/a>. The issue of charging for religious services and the larger topic of the role of money in religion can be just as volatile in Pagan circles as it is in more mainstream religions.<\/p>\nOn one side is the idea that whatever we have learned (be it history, structure, lore or magic) was taught to us free of charge, therefore we have an obligation to teach others free of charge. A corollary idea is that our knowledge and power comes from the gods through grace (which is not an exclusively Christian concept) and so we have no right to sell them. <\/p>\n
There is merit in those ideas, but there are some heavy implications behind them. None of us live in a tribal society where basic needs are met communally. If no one can receive money for religious work, then everyone must earn his living in the mundane world. And if everyone has to work a \u201cday job\u201d (in addition to home and family responsibilities) then everyone is severely limited in how much teaching, healing, divining and such she can do. This limits the depth of the individual\u2019s practice \u2013 you can\u2019t go as deep in an hour a day as you can in eight hours. It also limits the breadth of his instruction \u2013 someone with a regular job may be able to handle two or three students while a full-time teacher can handle 25 or more. <\/p>\n
Some people are just fine with these limitations. They don\u2019t like what they\u2019ve seen and experienced in larger institutions and they prefer a more egalitarian religious community. If the inability to charge for services means their tradition has no religious professionals and therefore will grow very slowly if at all, so be it.<\/p>\n
We know money can be a corrupting influence. We\u2019re all too familiar with the televangelist who asks for money for \u201cthe Lord\u2019s work\u201d and spends it on a private jet or the New Age huckster who charges thousands for readings and treatments of questionable efficacy. Sometimes we let the few bad examples outweigh the many good examples of ministers who work long and hard for little pay and elders who serve their communities for none, as well as the good examples of those who are well paid and produce excellent results.<\/p>\n
Beyond that, there is the idea that someone who teaches or practices \u201cfor the love of the art\u201d is purer than someone who charges for it. But there is a subtle bit of classism in that concept. If you have a nice professional job, you probably don\u2019t need to be paid for a Tarot reading or a training class. And if you can retire at 52 with a civil servant\u2019s pension (like Gerald Gardner, the founder of Wicca) maybe you can be a full time religious leader who doesn\u2019t have to dirty his hands with money. I\u2019m not criticizing Gardner \u2013 if I could pull off that arrangement, I\u2019d do it in a minute. But it is wrong to automatically assume that those who can afford to provide religious services for free are somehow better than those who need to be paid for their time.<\/p>\n
If it is wrong to exclude potential students because they can\u2019t afford to pay for instruction, it is also wrong to exclude potential teachers because they can\u2019t afford to teach for free. An ethical religious movement should accommodate both.<\/p>\n
From what I\u2019ve read about the Feri schism, it appears that money is a secondary issue \u2013 the core issue is whether it should be a small, secluded, egalitarian community or whether it should spread its teachings to as many people as possible and live with the structural changes that requires. There are valid arguments on both sides and based on what I\u2019ve been able to glean from all the reports and commentary, a split is clearly the right course of action. <\/p>\n
In domestic disputes, arguments about money are usually not about money \u2013 they\u2019re about power, respect and other deeper issues that are harder to recognize and much harder to address. The same is true in religion. In either arena, if you\u2019re arguing about money, look deeper for the core issue.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the points of division in the recent split in the Feri tradition of witchcraft concerns charging money for teaching, as Jason Pitzl-Waters describes in this very good, very neutral piece on yesterday\u2019s Wild Hunt. The issue of charging for religious services and the larger topic of the role of money in religion can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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