Christian wiccian

[Mosseywossey]

Sorry in advance I am typing in my phone.
I have always been drawn to wiccian/pagan and Druid belief and rituals, however I am quite a strong believer in God and Christian.
I am thinking about mixing the two together.
Prayers are like spells when we come down to basics, they are also another form of worship to God, aren't they? I would be worshiping God and as God is in all things, eg natural, it does support some of the Wiccan belief system.
So in essence I would be merging aspect of both faiths. I know some people think they are polar oppersites but I actual think they have big similaries, (which I won't go into as I don't want to turn this into a full brown religious debate, but feel free to pm if you want to discuss it)
Am I just being silly? Or this is possible? And are their people out their who identify as Christian pagan, wiccian or Druid ? Or interested in it. Please be kind

Thanks for pointing it out User as it wasn't what i intended to write - editing error. Pagan goddesses aren't generally known for shying away from their sexuality - Ishtar was certainly not a virgin! I'm not sure on this, but don't some branches of Christianity believe Mary to be a virgin throughout her life, so Joseph's children were not her children?

Just quickly in response to the last post - a lot of the violent depictions of war goddesses are representative of their role as destroyer - the force that allows the new to flourish, and not necessarily negative.

Sorry for the errors and typos - i have a fibro flare-up and am struggling to be very articulate, but was interested in the discussion.

user
Hunting weapons? That'd be why all the remains of severed heads have been found on Pagan archeological sites. Many Pagans were also brutal warriors, this much is well known.

Btw I am not Roman Catholic so cannot comment regarding who can become Pope. As I said earlier, though, a religion which has strong documented traditions and is not 'reconstructed', as Neo-Paganism is, has to do more work discerning what is spiritually vital to the faith rather than merely cultural. If you reconstruct a religion, with little concrete reference to what has gone before, there is much more freedom to make belief and practices fit in with the current Zeitgeist.

Christians have always been kind to all, haven't they.

I would steer well clear of Wicca and look into traditional witchcraft where you don't even worship anything necessarily and which goes back centuries

user I never claimed they have. My posts were mainly in reference to your's regarding the Christian church repressing women's sexuality. I was pointing out that there are different ways of understanding this. Within Christianity there is an ascetic element, where both men and women abstain from physical relationships as a way of transcending their biological urges. This is an expression of the belief that reproducing, continuing one's own genetic line, is not the most important thing in life. More importance is laid upon communicating spiritual ideas and preserving these in people's minds and memories.

I follow a pagan path and have done so for 30 years or so. I had a strict Christian upbringing.

You have chosen an unusual route but if it works for you that's perfectly fine.

You will of course have questions when the 2 belief systems clash (A singular God v's many Gods and Godesses) but that's for you to think about when the time comes. Take 1 step at a time and don't rush. You don't need a specific plan or route to follow.

Pagans forge their own path in life (Christians find this difficult to accept because of the concept that God has a plan for everyone that is predetermined) If it makes you happy to read a bible and believe in your God thats ok, if you want to walk through the woodlands in the rain and thank a Godesses for the things around you, thats ok too and as long as you don't harm others that's ok.

There are no written rules because everyone's journey is different.

Good luck on your journey.

"I would steer well clear of Wicca and look into traditional witchcraft where you don't even worship anything necessarily and which goes back centuries"

How would you suggest someone did this?

I would suggest starting with good old Google - there's rubbish out there but some good stuff too -

But how do you know which is which?

Felina that actually sounds interesting. I have never really looked into it , do you practice it ?

Well, it's a personal matter .... But if you're intelligent (which you are) you can see the wheat from the chaff! I will post a couple of links if you're interested ? Do not wish to derail here ...

@Mossy
Yes

Like you Mossey, I'm quite intrigued by the merging of Christian and Wiccan ideas. I am a church member, but find Pagan/Wiccan reading material fascinating. Don't think I'll ever do much about it, though I've tried a few spells (which actually worked, much to my surprise) and I like the thought of marking with rituals the passing of all seasons, whether those of nature or the seasons of your life. Celtic Christianity is worth a look and there was a good suggestion from weegiemum about investigating online the Northumbria Community. David Adam's books are interesting, one of my favourites is "Tides and Seasons". I know a lot of liberal minded Christians and I strongly suspect that a lot of them are much more interested in magic and paganism than they would openly admit.

Ahhh, my mum's side of the family is really into stone circles etc, being nearly completely Irish with very little Scandinavian blood (only 2% in me) which means we avoided the Vikings and their descendants (Normans etc). We're Celts basically. They are pretty hostile toward the Church and Christianity - not sure that they are compatible really from an institutional point of view. In terms of mysticism, yes but other elements of druidism were pretty brutal to be honest. Dad's side are Irish too but Catholic - lot more relaxed.

That would be really helpful Felina!!!! Thank you.
RamsayBoltonPoodleParlour- (love the name) I'm glad i am not the only one. I have tried to reach out to many liberal Christian and when i brought up the work Paganism i got ignored and mocked a little bit for it, but where I'm from the liberal Christians that we have aren't as liberal as you think . I will defiantly look into the Celtic Christianity. I have looked at the Northumbria Community and read some of their resources which were really interesting. :) At the minute I'm trying to find a community closer as it would be nice to find some other light-minded people to explore with.
At the minute i am just making up things as i go alone mixing my own brand of worship, i honestly don't think it matter they way you worship as it all leads to the same path.

I'm not suggesting any of the information in these links is definitive, just different people's ideas - but they should give an overview. They are all different but it might be interesting to think about where they overlap in their takes on TW.

www.paganlore.com/witchcraft_vs_wicca.aspx

www.traditionalwitch.net/_/esoterica/thoughts/traditional-witchcraft

www.blue-moon-manor.com/articles/christian.html#axzz4Ie0U10qt

www.spiritedenterprise.com/witchvswiccan.htm

sarahannelawless.com/2015/03/17/introduction-to-traditional-witchcraft/

For wannabe Christian witches, I’d like to offer Hildegard of Bingen as a role model. I’ve written about her before on MN and I’m not sure why I didn’t think of mentioning her earlier in this thread.

She was a twelfth century Catholic mystic, abbess, writer, composer and general over-achiever.

But more than that, it seems to me that she was also a witch in all but name. Yet somehow she managed to get away with her unconventional ideas and practices, the odd spot of bother with the religious authorities of the day notwithstanding.

She has recently been canonised.

In her book Physica, Hildegard writes of using plants, animals, gemstones, rituals and incantations to heal.

Here’s her cure for jaundice:

First stun a bat. Then wear bat close to the body until it expires.

While I can’t see that one working – and I’m sure that bats everywhere would be supportive of my scepticism – modern science is showing that some of Hildegard’s notions are actually not so batty.

It’s also interesting to note that her visionary experiences of the Divine contain not just masculine imagery, but feminine too.

She is so bright and glorious that you cannot look at her face or her garments for the splendor with which she shines. For she is terrible with the terror of the avenging lightning, and gentle with the goodness of the bright sun; and both her terror and her gentleness are incomprehensible to humans. … But she is with everyone and in everyone, and so beautiful is her mystery that no person can know the sweetness with which she sustains people, and how she spares them in inscrutable mercy.

Looking at the way Hildegard integrated her Christian faith with a sense of the divine in Nature and the use of female archetypes throughout her writings, I think it is possible to develop a consistent viewpoint that draws inspiration from both Christian and pagan ideas.

I love Hildegard, Outwith. I got to know her through her music, and was quite astounded when i discovered her writings. She would definitely be on my fantasy dinner party list!

There does seem to be a few online communities of christian witches, that might be worth exploring - here's a couple i came across:

www.christianwitches.com/services.html
theravenwing.wordpress.com/about/
adelinastclair.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/level-1-a-course-in-christian-witchcraft/

I still tend to think that Christianity and Wicca are particularly incompatible, as i said before. But, since the practice of witchcraft does not require or prohibit belief in any deity there is no reason you couldn't blend it with your beliefs. The question is rather how much it would bother you if the church did not accept your practice (as it well may not), and whether you are happy to forge your own path - if you are then it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

I don't think Hildegard was a witch, was she? Wasn't she just a doctor?

Her visions of the Divine as feminine are amazing.

Velvet

I have a CD of Hildegard’s music tucked away somewhere in the house. Good to know you are a Hildegard fan!

Yes, if you chose to merge elements of witchcraft and Christianity, you might find yourself shunned by orthodox Christian society and orthodox witch society – if the latter is a term that can be used at all.

But I tend to think that if you visit the shop selling readymade belief systems and try them on for size and nothing quite fits, it’s perfectly legitimate to pick up a few design ideas and then go home and knit your own unique belief system. And surely there must be a few people out there – not enough to start a new religion perhaps but a few - who won’t find your homemade spiritual jumper hideous to look at and who might even be interested in wearing something similar themselves.

I think Hildegard would be supportive of being true to your own understanding of the world and of not feeling it necessary to attach yourself to this or that set of conventional ideas.

We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a home. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light.

Bert

Admittedly the Catholic Church wouldn’t be happy about her being identified as a witch - and nor would Hildegard herself, given the influences she was subject to at the time.

But Hildegard did believe in magic, demons, the devil, and the power of ritual and incantations. She suggested countering magic in ways that were, well, very magical-sounding!

The imagery she used was part pagan and part Christian. She identified the higher power she connected to as the Christian God but her style and methods seem distinctly witchlike to me.

For example, for a bewitched person driven mad by phantasms, she suggested a ritual requiring a jacinth gemstone, a loaf of bread and particular invocations to free the person from enchantment.

And against poison and magic words, Hildegard had a complicated remedy involving a variety of plants picked in a certain way at a certain time and subjected to a number of procedures under a setting sun, a rising sun and in the dead of night, taking due cognisance of the time when the ‘evils of darkness’ flee.

She also claimed to be able to see into the future.

Does that not sound just a tad witchy?

But Hildegard did believe in magic, demons, the devil, and the power of ritual and incantations. She suggested countering magic in ways that were, well, very magical-sounding

Demons and the devil are mentioned in the Bible, so Hildegard talking about them is not anti-Christian. There are also accounts of supernatural miracles, which could seem 'magical' and if you look at the way Jesus healed this sometimes involved action apart from just speaking and laying on hands, such as when He put mud in the blind man's eyes and healed him - so the using substances in the healing process cannot be ruled out. The Christian church also makes use of ritual and worship styles which are designed to appeal to all the senses - as the phrase 'bells and smells' when describing the 'high church' would denote.

So I really think it is belief and faith which separates what is Christian and what is Pagan, what is Christian worship and witchcraft. There are similar elements to the structural practical elements of both. IMO it is a matter more of whether the rituals and what is spoken aloud or meditated upon is said as part of worship and devotion to God, seeking His direction, letting His power work through you or in order to capitalise on the power of ritual, words and mental focus itself, to your own ends.

Oh and with regards to seeing into the future there are prophecies in the Bible too, eg with the account of Joseph and his dreams. The differences is phrophecy comes but is not actively 'sought'. Seeking God comes first over 'supernatural gifts' in Christianity.

I'm not saying Hildegarde wasn't a
witch- but nothing anyone has said on here suggests she was. It was the 12th century- medicine and magic were more or less the same thing.

Maybe it depends on your definition of what a witch is.

I don’t think Hildegard had supernatural powers. I just think that many of her practices and interests correspond closely with those of people outside the Christian faith who have been called witches, sometimes by themselves.

The Church makes a distinction between good, pure ‘God-powered’ insider magic/miracles and outsider magic - invariably seen as involving harnessing dark forces to do harm. Whether you believe in magic or not, I think demonising the ways of those who don’t belong to your religious tribe is a form of 'othering’.

In drawing attention to Hildegard's witchlike traits, I'm only trying to highlight the existence of common elements in belief systems - and to try to get away from the simple 'Christian good'/'non-Christian bad' idea.