Flipping around this old thread -
http://www.religiousforums.com/threads/how-do-pagans-feel-about-christians-and-why.455/ - this time with title more appropriately aimed at traditions/ideology rather than the people themselves.
The idea for this thread is interesting to me as I very often see pagan traditions/customs/influence mentioned in a derogatory fashion by Christians (or Christian-like folks who don't like the label) on here. Would like to hear some thoughts on how you feel about pagan traditions, maybe throwing in a hint at how much you have investigated them to begin or end with.
Please try to keep it within the rules when talking about what you dislike, detest, or think evil, false, etc. if applicable.
The original thread was posted in the Paganism DIR but moved to debates. I'm going to assume we are speaking of neo-paganism here.
Like on any matter Christians are going to vary in these things depending on the individual's theology and/or sect. My interpretation of Christianity (and somewhat eclectic path in general) doesn't require me to reject other religions or gods. I've enjoyed having neo-pagan friends and attending ceremonies and celebrations as a guest when invited. I have occasionally enjoyed reading books about neo-paganism and do have some things in common with them.
Some concerns and issues I do have with the movement are not really religious in nature, nor are they universal among neo-pagans. A particular online community of neo-pagans I participate in is particularly aware of these problems and call it out when they see it among fellow neo-pagans. I want to make sure everyone knows these characteristics are not universal among neo-pagans.
There have been problems in neo-paganism with cultural misappropriation, taking sacred aspects of the cultures of indigenous (often persecuted and colonialized) persons and claiming it for one's own in a different context. Often those elements of the culture or religion obtain a new meaning but are represented as if they're identical with the original culture's interpretations and practices. Not all religious and cultural borrowing is a bad thing, but there is an unethical way of doing it. It is particularly shameful that when some cultures have only a few sacred ceremonies left to them that are specific to their way of life and people that someone else will come along and claim it, often misrepresenting it and not giving the original culture credit to begin with. Cultural misappropriation occurs because of power imbalances among different cultures and peoples and that is really the crux of the problem: it is another form of colonialism.
There is also a problem with exaggerating how many people were actually burned as witches and it is often overlooked that most persons persecuted for this were probably Christians or at the least engaging in Christian folk practices. Those people would not have considered themselves witches. They were often killed for completely different reasons and witchcraft became a convenient excuse to do it. It is ironic when some Wiccans and neo-Wiccans attempt to claim some connection to the suffering of these persons in the past since most of them were Christians persecuted by other Christians.
There is among some a tendency to claim an identification with the suffering of indigenous persons or members of non-Abrahamic traditional polytheistic/animistic religious cultures that have often been colonialized and had their lands and customs ripped away from them. There is often no reason to claim a significant connection to the suffering of said groups, particularly when one is white, born in the first world, middle class, raised as a Christian and then later had the autonomy and right in our modern societal contexts to renounce one's religion of origin and identify as a neo-pagan. It is outright insulting in such circumstances to put one's self in the same category as cultures that had almost their entire religious heritage wiped out among other things. Of course neo-pagans like so many other persons are often no doubt subject to mischaracterizations of their religions and other forms of discrimination, but we need to keep this in context and not gloss over the real and significant differences between the various forms of oppression that different peoples have and do suffer.
This last part is more of a personal observation, but even among some of my neo-pagan friends I've seen a tendency to take knocks at Christianity at any opportunity, often representing it as a monolithic entity (as if all Christianity is of a fundamentalist evangelical flavor) or misrepresenting Christian theologies. There is absolutely no need to do such things, let alone make it personal, to rightfully criticize aspects of various forms of Christianity. While this is by no means true of all neo-pagans many of them were raised as Christians and often understandably have been left with negative impressions, but this does not justify the behavior. Western esoteric occult traditions have a significant influence on the modern neo-pagan movement, and it is important to keep in mind that much of those traditions have actually been influenced by Christian symbolism and thought. The Golden Dawn, an important influence on neo-paganism in general, is a good case in point, a tradition strongly shaped by an esoteric approach to Christian symbols, ritual, and thought. Ironically some neo-pagans who choose to adopt Christian elements into their path, particularly those identifying as Christo-pagans, are often very unpopular in neo-pagan circles. I wonder how many of these same critics are aware of the Judeo-Christian symbolism in the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, elements of Wicca, Thelema, et cetera.
Finally, there is often much misinformation promoted in neo-pagan literature concerning history. It irks me when Wicca is represented as an ancient rather than modern religion, for example, or consider my example above on witch burnings, a particularly embarrassing example.
There are problems among any group and movement of course, and again, none of these concerns of mine are particularly religious. These issues have been called out by academics and other neo-pagans, so my objections are not really a rejection of neo-pagan spiritualitities and religions themselves. I have quite a bit of overlap myself, but since my rather idiosyncratic religious practice is based in Christian myth, ritual, symbols, and theology with other influences incorporated into that particular context I use other words to describe my practices.
