A Petition for Wiccan Chaplains

Merry Meet!

Here is a little something I wanted to let you know about. It is a petition for the US Military to provide for Wiccan Chaplains. Many Wiccan trads hold that at a ceratin level you are the priest/ess of your own trad, but to have a Wiccan Chaplain would ensure that the Wiccans in our armed services would be able to have some expectation of the ability to celebrate the Sabbats and have time to raise energy and pray with fellow Wiccans. Follow the links or paste them on your browser and sign the appeal.

FWD: Petition to get Wiccan Chaplains into the U.S. Armed Forces

Posted by: "~)0(~ Mishka" mishka.wytch@gmail.com hekate6164

Mon May 26, 2008 9:39 pm (PDT)

Petition to get Wiccan Chaplains into the U.S. Armed Forces

There are over 5000 Wiccans serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. However,
there are currently NO Wiccan Chaplains. This is a petition to get
Wiccan chaplains accepted. Other religions with small numbers are
allowed chaplains.

Among the nearly 2,900 clergy on active duty are 41 Mormon chaplains for
17,513 Mormons in uniform, 22 rabbis for 4,038 Jews, 11 imams for 3,386
Muslims, six teachers for 636 Christian Scientists, and one Buddhist
chaplain for 4,546 Buddhists.

In 2007, when a pentecostal chaplain turned Wiccan he applied to change
his religious affiliation to Wicca, and the Army railroaded him out of
Iraq and out of the Army. This is unacceptable.

Sign this petition and tell the the Army Chief of Chaplains office and
other government officials that Wiccans deserve chaplains and should be
afforded the same rights as other religions.

http://pagancauldron.com/modules/xpetitions/index.php?id=1

~Mishka

http://www.myspace.com/YaYaMishka
http://www.myspace.com/MishkaWytch
http://www.covenspace.com/MishkaWytch

Thanks to Chris and Mishkawytch for their information.

Blessed Be
Aslinn

A Christian Speaks of Wicca and Witchcraft

This article appears on numerous witchcraft and Wicca sites and I love it so much, I wish to add it to my blog. Thanks www.wicca.com for having the article available. It is also on my links.

A Christian Speaks of Wicca and Witchcraft
by James Clement Taylor

I am a Christian and not a Wiccan. A Christian is one who has been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and who has made a personal, free-will decision to commit himself and all his or her life to our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Both of these things are true of me. I am a member of St. Mary's Eastern Orthodox Church, Calhan, Colorado. In this paper, I am not speaking as agent for any church, but I am, entirely on my own responsibility, speaking the truth in love, as we Christians are supposed to do.

A Situation of Strife and Shame:

There are many Christians today who believe that anyone who is not a Christian is doomed to an eternity of suffering in hell. Any decent person, believing this, would be compelled to try to save as many people from this fate as possible. But is this belief correct? Jesus Christ, having noted the faith and righteousness of a Roman centurion, a Pagan, proclaimed:

"Assuredly I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 8:10-12)

If we accept these words as true, and surely we should, then it is clear that heaven will contain many who are not Christians, and hell will contain many who are! Clearly, throughout the Gospels, Jesus Christ sets forth the criteria for entrance into the kingdom of heaven, and those criteria include love, kindness, forgiveness, and a refusal to judge others:

"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:14-15)

"For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you." (Matthew 7:2)

"But go and learn what this means: `I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'" (Matthew 9:13)

"Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." (Luke 6:36-38)

Is it not clear? Anyone who fails in these things, will calling himself a Christian save him? Anyone who obeys God in these things, will being unbaptized condemn him? Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to Me, `Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." (Matthew 7:21)

Yet it is not by good works that we earn our way into heaven, because there is no way we can earn the free gift of God's mercy and grace, which alone can save us. But it is clear that it is not by faith, in the sense of sharing the Christian faith, that we are saved, either. The faith which saves us is not faith in the goodness of our works, nor faith that we have the right theology and/or belong to the right church. Rather, it is faith in God, and in His mercy:

"So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy." (Romans 9:16)

But the Wiccans, you will say, do not have faith in God. Yet by their own theology, they certainly do. Those who call them Satan-worshippers are entirely wrong. They do not worship Satan, or even believe that Satan exists. Instead, they worship a Goddess and a God whom they understand as manifestations of a higher and unknown Deity.

Now if you are a Christian, this will sound familiar to you, and it should. In the Bible we find the following:

"Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, `Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, The One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you" (Acts 17:22-23)

The Wiccans worship the Unknown God, as manifested to them in the form of a Goddess and a God. Therefore, our Bible tells us they worship the same God we do; and if they do not know this, we should know it!

For those of us who are unable to simply stand on God's Word, and must prove to themselves the truth of what it proclaims the holy Apostle John has given us the method for doing this. You have only to attend any public Wiccan ceremony, and test the spirits which are there, to see "whether they are of God" (1 John 4:1). You will find that, while the power manifested there may be less than what you have experienced as a Christian, that power is clearly the power of God.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, these people of Wicca have been terribly slandered by us. They have lost jobs, and homes, and places of business because we have assured others that they worship Satan, which they do not. We have persecuted them, and God will hold us accountable for this, you may be sure, for He has said, "Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me." (Matthew 25:40)

Let us, from this point onward, repent of our misdeeds and declare that henceforth we shall obey Christ our God, and not judge others or condemn them, so that He will not have to judge and condemn us for our sins.

Witch Hunts Still Happen

Kenya mob reportedly burns 11 ‘witches’
Police say locals accused women and men of ‘bewitching’ their children

updated 3:37 p.m. ET, Wed., May. 21, 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya - A group of up to 300 young men have burned to death 11 people suspected of being witches and wizards in western Kenya — in some cases slitting their victims' throats or clubbing them to death before burning their bodies, officials said.

The gang moved from home to home through two villages, identifying their victims by using a list with names of suspected witches and wizards and the kind of spells they were believed to have cast on the community, said Ben Makori, a local councilor.

"The villagers are complaining that the (suspected) wizards and witches are making the bright children in the community dumb.... These (suspected) witches are not doing good things to us," Makori told The Associated Press on the phone.

Deputy police spokesman Charles Owino said the gang hunted down the eight women and three men in the western Kenya villages of Kekoro and Matembe. Most of the victims were between 70 and 90 years old, Owino said.

Senior administrator Njoroge Ndirangu said the gang hunted down their victims Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
Victims slashed or clubbed in some cases the gang pulled the victims out of their homes, slit their throats or clubbed them to death, said a police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The victims were then thrown back into their homes, which the gang had already set on fire, the officer said. He said 36 houses were burned.

Another police officer, Mwaura Njoroge, said the body of a victim burned to death in her house was, "reduced to something so small, you cannot tell which is the leg and which is the arm."
"How can they (the young men) prove that a person is a wizard? It is likely that the people who committed these killings had personal vendettas against their victims," Njoroge said.

"These people identified who is to be killed by accusing their victims of bewitching their sons and daughters," said Ndirangu, the commissioner in charge of Kisii Central district, where one of the villages is located.

Ndirangu said that residents are superstitious and have often targeted suspected witches and wizards, but this week's attack was the most shocking in recent years.

The police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said investigators had little hope of making progress because the villagers have refused to identify the people who carried out attacks.

Amazing things Happen even in the midst of Prejudice

Merry Meet!

Gaelyn and I are attending a witch conference this week and this was something that happened to us last night. It just goes to show that even negative things can turn into positive energy.

Boy what a night!!!! Let me tell you what happened, you won't believe this!!! Gaelyn and I went to dinner and went to our circle meeting and then went to the bale fire circle. While we were there, the local campus Christian folks were there. You know, I had never experienced prejudice before...a little harassment when I used to shave my head, but other than that, nothing I couldn't ignore. We weren't even wearing ceremonial clothes, just jeans and a white blouse for me and a white poet's shirt for Gaelyn. I had flower crowns for us to wear for the circle but they were in this canvas bag I was carrying.

This good looking kid with a white Campus Crusade for Christ came up and asked what the bon fire was for and I said it was a May fire and we were having a unity circle. He looks at me and says you know, hell burns hotter than that fire. I looked at him and asked him what he was talking about. He said that I was going to hell for being a witch and that it was a shame he couldn't carry out the commands of the Bible and suffer not a witch to live. There were little kids and babies going to the fire and they started shouting that we were all going to hell and that we were damned and the kids started crying. So I spotted this police officer and I told him that we were being harassed and we needed the people to move back because they were scaring the children who were coming to the fire celebration. So this cop calls in a few fellow officers and start to move the people back and they started throwing stuff at us!!!!! One lady had a rock hit her on the eye!!!! It really marred the night for us. We still had our bale fire and the High Priest who was leading it asked us to send our anger to the fire and to pray that their hatred and anger would be burned up with the fire, but it was awful!!!! After the fire, a couple of witches even got mad at us Christian witches. But the neatest thing happened.

The High Priest came over to the group and he told us that this was not the way to show unity in the face of challenge and that anyone who worked Craft were entitled to be witches regardless of their religion and any witch who thought otherwise were not true followers of the Rede and then he said something that I have fervently believed ever since I became a witch. He said someday the government would want all of our lives because we believed something that would someday be considered heresy. He said that included anyone who believed in anything, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Wicca and the Craft. He then looked at us Christian Witches and said "You are my Brothers and Sisters in the wise way, and you are brothers and sisters of the Christ. That makes us all family and I fight for my family" and walked away....It was the most incredible thing.

So, we sort of stood there and looked at each other and the Wiccan and Pagan Witches apologized and embraced us and it turned into the most wonderful meeting of the minds. We got together and sat in this coffee shop until they ran us out early this morning and we found a diner and had breakfast together and we agreed this was the most amazing thing we had ever experienced in our Craft lives.....It was wild. And the magikal energy was so intense...it blew my mind.....

There are hidden blessings everywhere if we wait and be patient for truth to win out.

Brightest Blessings Be
Aslinn and Gaelyn