Cross and Pentacle: Two religions at the crossroads

I was a Jesus Freak, a passionate theologian, and a Southern Baptist minister. I worked hard to convert pagans. The pagans won.

Discovering magic as a witch with an intimate knowledge of western christianity I explore the juxtaposition of these two faiths. Christianity and paganism alike are undergoing dramatic changes with parallel trends, conflicting challenges, and a growing concern for interfaith dialogue.

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My Pagan Theology

Yesterday was Walpurgisnacht, the night in which German witches are said to fly around on broomsticks and revel. Today is Beltane and my birthday. I was born in the early morning hours between Walpurgisnacht and Beltane, to a German mother and an Irish-German-American father  in the birth town of the Grim brothers. It makes me think that magic runs in my blood, and yet this is the first year in which I will dance the may pole.

It haven't even walked this pagan path for a full year and a day. I am still a new witchlet and yet I am practically watching my theology come together - like pieces rising from the ashes of a puzzle destroyed in the fire. When my previous Christian theology went up in flames I thought agnosticism was the best the world could offer me. The resurrection of belief has been more than an intellectual delight, it has been a breath of new life. To not only disbelieve the old things but to believe in new things. I believe again!

But what exactly do I believe? Teo Bishop put together a great list of pagan beliefs in his post Crowdsourcing Pagan Theology.

Inevitably my pagan theology will be informed by my training as a Christian theologian, either by contrast or comparison. I still - or once again - believe in transcendence. I am not an atheistic pagan. I believe in one transcendent spirit, supposing this makes me a monist. I waiver between believing that God is *in* everything and that God *is* everything, but I lean more towards panentheism. But don't ask which of the three kinds of panentheism I would subscribe to. Surprisingly to me I have come to like the multitude of deities, although I am certainly not a hard polytheist. Maybe I am a panentheistic aspectal polytheistic monistic theist with just a touch of non-dispensational post-millenial Christian eschatology.

But one thing I know for sure. I could become a pantheist tomorrow. I could become a pagan atheist. I could become a hard polytheist. I could change my theology completely and still be a pagan. No matter which fancy theological label I apply to myself in the future, I will not let go of my devotion for this love that is the fabric of our beautiful cosmos. And no matter how my theology shifts, it will never cause me to be excommunicated from our eclectic pagan community. I celebrate this knowledge on the day I was born into this world. Blessed Beltane!

 

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Born and raised an evangelical Christian in Germany, I joined the Jesus Freak movement as a teenager and became a passionate evangelist and worship leader. No one was surprised when I went to the US at age 19 and came back a tattooed and pierced fundamentalist Christian, betrothed to a "Chrispie" (a Christian hippie, that is). I was a virgin the day we married. Five years later I graduated bible college with highest honors and post traumatic stress disorder. I deepened both my theology and trauma on the road by traveling the country in a big yellow school bus. For three years I lived as a nomad, playing music and leading bible studies, from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. I learned that Christianity in America encompasses a wide range of beliefs and practices, from Amish groups casting demons out of school busses to Roman Catholic priests breaking into government buildings. I saw Jesus in the oddest places. And then everything changed and I ended up a polyamorous Witch in a Pagan community in California.

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