Reconciliation pt. 1: The deities (Jesus Christ, Creator, virgin, beliefs, follower)

[Fluffy]

This will be the first in, hopefully, a series of threads designed to help explain various Christian Wiccan beliefs that focus on an apparent conflict between the two religions. Please remember this forum is not designed for debate but information and questions about a specific religion.

This particular thread will focus on the deities of Christianity and Wicca.

How can a monotheistic religion be combined with a polytheistic one?
There is nothing actually inherent in preventing such a combination but obviously the result cannot be both at the same time. There are a number of different ways of taking this.

Many Wiccans are infact monotheistic believing in a single divine source in which we can know very little about. This divine source can be interpreted in a vast array of forms which make up the various Wiccan pantheons but all are actually the same thing, just looked at from a different angle. As a flow diagram this might be depicted as follows:

The Creator --> The god and goddess --> all the individual god and goddesses.

There is a very similar structure in Christianity known as the Trinity. Wiccans of this mold are believers in a duality or plurality. You can view the seperate interpretations of Jesus Christ in much the same way.

However, many Wiccans are polytheists and for them reconciliation is a little harder but still totally viable. For example, Jesus continually tries to make a distinction between himself and God indicating that there is a sufficient pool of differences between them to treat them as seperate entities. Given this, a Christian Wiccan might argue that viewing Christianity as monotheistic is not actually congruent with Jesus' teachings.

There are at least two points in the history of Christianity where a strong belief in a Christian pantheon has been held by a large section of believers. The first of these, during the very beginnings of Christianity as it tried to break away from the older pagan religions, is seen clearly in the earlier books of the OT where God refers to himself in the plural. It is also highly likely that the majority of early Christians believed in a pantheon of sorts since a sudden break between polytheism and monotheism would not have created a sufficent follower base for the new religion, the change being too radical to introduce all at once.

The second incidence of this can be seen throughout the Church's history in the majority of rural Christian areas. Before the advent of Protestantism, many lay people did not pray directly to God but to various saints, most commonly Paul and Mary. They were seen to exhibit certain qualities allowing them to aid with specific incidences in much the same way as Demeter could be called upon to aid in a harvest or Mars would be asked for help during wartime. In other words, they were viewing the Creator through a different angle each time.

A Christian Wiccan could argue that these interpretations are closer to what Christianity was meant to be and the monotheistic overtones were only introduced later and emphasised for various secular reasons such as control over religion etc.

That's all for now folks
Fluffy

[michel]

I look forward to the next episoe; I must admit, this is a bit of a stumbling block for me.

[Fluffy]

If you have any specific stumbling blocks michel, then feel free to ask . Specific Bible passages are very tricky because I am not familiar with the background of each but I can help a bit I hope. Plues someone else might want to suplement my vast knowledge of the subject .

[Halcyon]

Hey Fluff,

So, do you (as in Christian Wiccans) have a pantheon of deities made up of biblical characters, rather than more ancient gods? What i mean is, instead of worshipping say Isis, do you worship the Virgin Mary?

Does it work in the same way as "usual" Wicca, in that you see Jesus as an expression of the God and Mary as an expression of the Goddess but equally so as individuals in their own right?

Or, do you worship a combination of 'pagan' and Christian deities?

[Evenstar]

Next post, maybe we can have it in English lol.

I think I got the picture here, and I think I agree lol.

[Mike182]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

Hey Fluff,

So, do you (as in Christian Wiccans) have a pantheon of deities made up of biblical characters, rather than more ancient gods? What i mean is, instead of worshipping say Isis, do you worship the Virgin Mary?

Does it work in the same way as "usual" Wicca, in that you see Jesus as an expression of the God and Mary as an expression of the Goddess but equally so as individuals in their own right?

Or, do you worship a combination of 'pagan' and Christian deities?

erm, im not entirely sure how to answer this question, or where to start!

first off, my beliefs may very well be different to those of other christian wiccans, but i have no problem worshiping the deities of old! the way i have understood it is like this: there are two sources in the universe, one of light and one of dark! the pagan gods of old are from the source of light, this source being the highest God - recognised and worshiped by christians, jews, muslims etc

the source of darkness is the source of all things evil and corrupt - but that is for another thread

as for me personally, i have a connection to the goddess hecate (Hekate or Hekat) but am yet to make any further conections with any of the other deities just yet.

hope that has answerd your question, but like i first stated, this is only what i believe, not what everyone who identifies as a chrisitna wiccan believes

blessed be
mike

[Fluffy]

Next post, maybe we can have it in English lol.

I think I got the picture here, and I think I agree lol.

Lol sorry about that, my spelling was rather awful I know... I've edited to hopefully remove all the errors .

So, do you (as in Christian Wiccans) have a pantheon of deities made up of biblical characters, rather than more ancient gods? What i mean is, instead of worshipping say Isis, do you worship the Virgin Mary?

Personally, I come from the group of Wiccans who simply view the god and goddess as just that and not in terms of a variety of different gods and goddesses. However, I always found it difficult to empathise with the god and so generally view him as Jesus, pretty much interchangeably except when talking to a person outside of my faith who might be confused by the terminology.

However, I'd say (and this is very speculative since hard figures are impossible to come by) that the most common view amongst Christian Wiccans is that of a large pagan pantheon along with Jesus, Mary and few of the more prominent saints. I have certainly never heard of a Christian Wiccan who has done away with the pagan pantheon altogether but this may happen if the trend in Christian converts to Christian Wicca increases.

A few Christian Wiccans also include Satan as part of their pantheon since it is common amongst Wiccans to believe that the god and goddess are the source of everything, not just good.

Mike also gives a very good view on the matter.

[Elphineas]

Don't forget about Sophia...

The personification of Wisdom is sometimes identified with the Holy Spirit. One of the most important differences between Matthew in the modern Bible and the old Hebrew (yes... Hebrew - not Greek)version used by some early Christians is the verse where Jesus calls the Holy Spirit his "Mother in Heaven". Also, throughout the entire Old Testament, the Holy Spirit had a feminine gender.

If you can handle reading the whole thing, this page throws light on the subject:

http://www.nccg.org/379Art-Yahshua_Godhead.html


A few more pages:

http://northernway.org/sophia.html
http://www.spiritbride.com/page1-spbr.html


And one that best explains the feminine side of God:

http://www.aquarius-atlanta.com/may04/hidden.shtml

[Mike182]

Originally Posted by Fluffy

Personally, I come from the group of Wiccans who simply view the god and goddess as just that and not in terms of a variety of different gods and goddesses. However, I always found it difficult to empathise with the god and so generally view him as Jesus, pretty much interchangeably except when talking to a person outside of my faith who might be confused by the terminology.

However, I'd say (and this is very speculative since hard figures are impossible to come by) that the most common view amongst Christian Wiccans is that of a large pagan pantheon along with Jesus, Mary and few of the more prominent saints. I have certainly never heard of a Christian Wiccan who has done away with the pagan pantheon altogether but this may happen if the trend in Christian converts to Christian Wicca increases.

A few Christian Wiccans also include Satan as part of their pantheon since it is common amongst Wiccans to believe that the god and goddess are the source of everything, not just good.

Mike also gives a very good view on the matter.

this may be off topic, but i will lead it back to the topic if people could bear with me

fluffy, you said that you see the god and goddess as just that, and not as a collection of 'other' deities

now, am i right in assuming that you personally do not cast magic in the form of spells?

where im going with this is:
certain gods or goddesses need to be invoked for certain rituals/spells - if you do not perform such rituals/spells then the details here will be of little concern to you, but if you do, how does a belief in there not being a variety of deities reconcile with spell work/ritual work?

maybe a seperate thread for this?

blessed be
mike

[Fluffy]

I never really thought about it like that Mike but you are right in your assumption that I do not practice any sort of ritual work although the fact that I do not interpret the god and goddess in a variety of forms is seperate from this.