{"id":701,"date":"2006-08-13T22:42:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-13T22:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=701"},"modified":"2006-08-13T22:42:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-13T22:42:00","slug":"christians-reaching-out-to-pagans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=701","title":{"rendered":"Christians reaching out to Pagans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sacred Tribes Journal<\/em> is an online magazine of “Christian missions to New Religious Movements.” Whether those movements asked for missionaries is, of course, a whole ‘nother question.<\/p>\n

The “Paganism issue” is online<\/a>, and the editorial introduction says that Pagans themselves should read part 2 first, while would-be missionaries should read part 1. All the articles can be downloaded in PDF format.<\/p>\n

That direction is apparently to keep us from being taken aback by material in part 1, such as this from Lisa Woolcott’s “Wiccans and Jesus: Making the Message Meaningful.”<\/p>\n

The great thing about sharing Jesus with someone on a Wiccan-based journey is where interest is shown in dialoguing about the spiritual practices and teachings of Christ. There are some popular writings by pagans and witches that indicate Jesus is a figure of both intrigue and respect, like the pagan authors Fiona Horne<\/a>, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy<\/a>, and Anatha Wolfkeepe<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Oddly (to me, at any rate) Woolcott seems to treat popular authors like Horne (I don’t know the others, but like Horne, they may be Australian) and insider-scholars like Dennis Carpenter of Circle<\/a> with equal weight. <\/p>\n

But, Ms. Woolcott, what’s the use? You want to convince me that Jesus is different from other Middle Eastern savior gods because only he “died for sin.” Maybe so–but to me that is a history-of-religions question, not something that affects my life.<\/p>\n

Another way to share the gospel is by exploring the symbolism in the \u201cGreat Rite\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

But since you completely dodge the erotic aspect of the rite, what I called “embodied nature religion” in Her Hidden Children<\/em><\/a>, you are so far away as to make dialog impossible. If I wanted dialog in the first place, that is. What is the point of even talking about religion with people who are convinced that you are what you are only so that you may be lead to their One True Way? There is plenty of cosmic mystery to go around, enough for all of us and more.<\/p>\n

Here’s a thought: they could go as missionaries to one of the religions newer than Christianity. You know, the one whose militant followers like to blow up stuff. After all, Christianity has the more powerful goddess<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tags: Paganism<\/a>,Wicca<\/a>, apologetics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sacred Tribes Journal is an online magazine of “Christian missions to New Religious Movements.” Whether those movements asked for missionaries is, of course, a whole ‘nother question. The “Paganism issue” is online, and the editorial introduction says that Pagans themselves should read part 2 first, while would-be missionaries should read part 1. All the articles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-bj","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3698,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3698","url_meta":{"origin":701,"position":0},"title":"Learning about Pagans for the Purpose of Converting Them","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Last month, I answered some questions from a reporter for a Christian news site. He had such response that now he is on the Pagan beat. So I give you \"A Peek at Modern Paganism, Part One\" and \"Part Two.\" Soon \u2014 wait for it \u2014 you meet that reliable\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12836,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12836","url_meta":{"origin":701,"position":1},"title":"CFP: Pagan Studies Conference at Masaryk University","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 11, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Paganism and its Others 13-14 June 2022 Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts, Brno, Czechia The Department for the Study of Religions at Masaryk University invites your participation in a conference on the overall theme of \u201cPaganism and its Others\u201d to be held in Brno, Czechia, 13-14 June, 2022, with in-person\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4494,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4494","url_meta":{"origin":701,"position":2},"title":"“The Wicker Tree” and “The Wicker Man”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Don't count on me for breaking pop-culture news. That Pagan classic film The Wicker Man was released in 1973, but I did not see it until the mid-1980s. I always say that I missed the 1980s in pop-culture terms. Part of that was due to graduate school and a general\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5670,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5670","url_meta":{"origin":701,"position":3},"title":"Is the Church of England Desperate or Just Confused about Paganism?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"With the obvious news peg of summer solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, the Telegraph reports on a rather odd initiative from the Church of England. The article begins, The church is training ministers to create \u201ca pagan church where Christianity [is] very much in the centre\u201d to attract spiritual believers. Ministers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13099,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13099","url_meta":{"origin":701,"position":4},"title":"UK Pagans “More Established”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 29, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The Guardian newspaper (UK) cherry-picks a few things from the 2021 England and Wales census, including a rise in the number of self-identified Pagans. 2) Pagans and wiccans are becoming more established More established [than self-identified shamans] are pagans [sic] , who number 74,000 people (up from 57,000 in 2011)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"census\"","block_context":{"text":"census","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=census"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/stonehenge-2018-1024x614.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/stonehenge-2018-1024x614.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/stonehenge-2018-1024x614.webp?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10197,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10197","url_meta":{"origin":701,"position":5},"title":"“Solitary Pagans,” a New Academic Study","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in the mid-1990s, Nancy Mostad, then the acquisitions editor at Llewellyn, told me that they estimated that 70 percent of purchasers of books on Paganism were solitaries.Hence the immense success -- by their standards -- of Scott Cunningham's Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. Meanwhile, sociologist of religion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}