“However, most of us do lead an unchristian life because most Wiccans are not Christian, but then again neither was Jesus. We follow the moral axioms that were set forth by Jesus in the most fundamental way. Most Wiccans that I know follow the way of Jesus better than some Christians I know. the interpreters of the Bible and other holy documents, have confused and made complex the idea of achieving peace and joy in the world. Wiccans try to lead a life of tolerance and understanding but our ways and customs are not what a Modern Christian might call ‘Christian.’“
(p. 120,Of Witches, Janet Thompson)
What. In. The. Actual. Ass?
It’s 1993 and welcome to the Satanic Panic, where authors took one of two routes to try to calm people down:
1. We’re unrelated to Judeochristian mythos, and therefore don’t believe in “Satan” or the devil.
2. We’re actually, like, waaay more Christian than you are when you think about it? Like, we’re all about tolerance and love, while you know how those Chiiiistians aren’t? Jesus would really be a Wiccan, I just FEEL that would be true. Like, if you look at it hard enough, aren’t Christians the REAL Satanists?
Guess which path shitty writers chose.
For all their faults, I can respect the Church of Satan for doubling down during the Panic.
@traegorn calls it shitty writing. I call it the truth.
It’s shitty writing because Wiccans and Witches don’t need to justify their moral structure in the frame and context of the Judeochristian faiths.
It litetally delegitimizes Wicca while trying to defend it.
It’s shitty writing.
There is absolutely no reason to discredit a religion as a means to uplift another. Most people who pick up a book on Wicca are already jaded by the Christian culture, at least in America. So there’s no need to make comments like that- the author is already going to be interpreted as being on the reader’s side.
So saying that Wiccans make better Christians than Christians is kind of like going to an open-mic night after watching a Comedy Central stand-up special and just going on a rant about how awful married life is.
Lazy. It’s lazy.
Are there Christians who don’t follow the teachings of Jesus even if that should be like… the one thing they’re doing? Yes. Absolutely. But an informational book about Wicca is not the place for that. You got something to say about it, write another book. Now is not the time.
Wicca does not explicitly follow the teachings of Jesus. It follows the general rule of ‘don’t be a jerk.’ That should be about as far as the comparison goes.
And comments like the one the author is making here really twig me because it makes it sound like Wicca and other occult practices don’t have their own shit to fucking examine.
So instead of taking pot-shots at a religion, it would be significantly more effective to draw comparisons between the two and outline the differences. Because comparative religious studies are an important dynamic to discuss in a 101 book.
Love yall for saying what I didnt have the energy to say. It literally exhausted me to read that.
Feeling superior and that you are better at the religion not being in it than actual practitioners of a religion because you meet some random criteria* of that religion is just beyond laughable. Especially when that religion is closed (wrt the mysteries, baptism universally, but also all the other ones included especially in all forms of catholicism [notice all forms of, not just roman]).
Though thats par for the course in the occult communities, “i do it better than them ACTUAL practitioners even though I am not a practitioner!”
These reindeer games gotta stop. We are too old to be doing this.
*(charity work and respecting others btw, for those in the back that dont know the context, the author really fucked up on that with their examples of it but ok then. If you want to join the author is degrading homeless people as being a better Christian way you go right ahead with that one.)
… Judeochristian ain’t a fucking thing except to the Christians who wanted to force the two together.
For those of us who have never belonged to either, it’s a useful term to describe monotheistic faiths that derive moral authority from a god and the ten commandments. I mean, there are shared religious texts – it’s not weird to group them.
But you’re right in one respect – it was the wrong term to use. I probably should have said Abrahamic Faiths,
It was wrong to exclude Islam.
And Judaism and Islam treat Satan differently from how Christianity does. It’s not a useful term.
May I ask a question for my own knowledge?
I tried googling, but I was getting a lot of non answers or lumping Satanism with Judaism and Islam.
My question is how did Judaism and Islam deal with the Satanic Panic of the 1970s through the 1990? Given what you just said there, did it even bleep on the radar?
… Not really even sure. Depends on the person doing the preaching, but tmu Judaism has a VERY wide variety of views on Satan, but not as an opponent of G-d. The scriptures actually treat Satan as one of G-d’s aides (Job) and a prosecutor (Zechariah). Christian understandings of Satan come more from their scriptures treating him as anti-Jesus and anti-G-d. Islam’s equivalent of Satan, Iblis, isn’t considered an adversary (Islam is strictly monotheist).
The vast majority, if not all, of those trying to jump on the concept of Satanic ritual abuse (Satanic Panic) as a true and real thing are Christians.
I otherwise have a NUMBER of objections to Judeochristian being used in the first place by non-Christian gentiles, most of them connecting to “Judaism and Christianity only have scriptures in common and even that is a tenuous connection.”
Interesting! I was wondering then, at that point if it wasn’t even a thing for Judaism or Islam to be really that worried about Satanism, let alone Satanic Ritual abuse. So then the conversation should be directed in a strictly Christian route, rather than including more than that.
Also, I am not here to argue the merits of whether or not Islam, Judaism, or Christianity should be lumped together in a particular term. I know that there are some forms of Christianity that view themselves to be specifically more like Judaism than others – not just that they have scriptures which I could include examples of here but it’s a moot point because I’m not going to argue it. But I know that much of Christianity (including those examples listed above), for example, does not like to be associated with Islam (even pre-9/11) and does not agree that Islam is (my wording) “a continuation” of Christianity.
So the argument that they should not be lumped together, to me, seems valid and correct.
I would understand that a focus purely on Satan and a worship of Satan would instead be considered idolatry in all of the Abrahamic religions, but, with regards to SRA, that was first and foremost Christians doing the panicking.
Given how CLOSELY Satanic Panic mirrors antisemitic blood libel accusations (“they’re sacrificing children! They drink their blood!”) I cannot seriously imagine the Jewish community at large taking part in the same rhetoric that was often used to kill them.
Just like much of the witch hunts and burning times were actually ways to hunt and kill crypto-Jews.
I have no idea what Islam thinks about satanic ritual but Judaism is chiefly concerned with no idol worship, and probably avoiding any and all panic or hysteria about Satan mostly because that used to end up in dead Jewish people.
Actually I’d argue this is DIRECTLY linked – Satanic Panic was a new wave of old hysteria that usually was blatantly antisemitic.
“As Christian theology generally focuses on a dichotomy of heaven and hell, positioning an outsider on the side of demonic supernatural forces has always been a favored tactic.
And so we’ve seen the likes of blood libel in the 12th century and beyond, when Christians accused Jews of using blood from kidnapped Christian children in their rituals. The 1475 Simon of Trent blood libel even saw an entire Jewish community tortured and 15 men executed over the death of a 2-year-old in Trento, Italy. Anti-Semitic violence and moral panic spread across Europe in its wake.”
history.howstuffworks.com/historical-events/satanic-panic1.htm
I’m not the only one who guessed this is the historical precedent and I’m sure I’d find even more sources linking the two if I searched further.
Also there’s the fact that the guy who built the TST temple in Salem is Jewish himself, so double the hysteria there! timesofisrael.com/in-haunted-salem-a-jewish-church-founder-preaches-the-art-of-satanic-social-change/amp/
My mother is a psychiatrist and a Christian who did a lot of community work that was interfaith, because Judaism is big on helping the community and my mom wouldn’t darken the door of a Christian church that wasn’t also. (There were not enough Muslims in her part of West Virginia during the Satanic Panic for them to have a mosque in the area, though some did work with the charity organization my mom was a part of.) So I asked her, and she told me that the big difference between the Jewish and Christian response (in semi-urban Appalachia, an area not known for measured responses) was pretty clear.
There were Jewish children who got talked into thinking they’d been victims of Satanic ritual abuse, just like there were Christian kids. Jewish kids were talked into it by Christian adults they knew, usually teachers and daycare workers, and here, the similarity stops. Christians during the Panic believed their kids and often provided suggestions that furthered the depth, details and perceived reality of the abuse. They took their kids to anyone who claimed to be able to do hypnosis, with or without a degree, and informed people in their churches about the tragedy that had befallen their family, thus keeping the hysteria growing.
Jewish people got actual psychiatrists like my mom, who specialized in working with children, to talk to their children. And eventually the kids would admit they were saying those things because adults really wanted them to, but in the meantime Jewish people didn’t freak out their congregations or make baseless speculation about Satanic cults. They were more reserved and private about the whole thing, which in turn helped their kids snap out of the delusion or admit it was a lie, because their children had no incentive to keep going and didn’t feel pressured to believe an outlandish thing.
TL;DR from what I know of the Jewish reaction to the Panic it was ‘get thee to therapy so we can figure out what’s going on’ instead of ‘I believe you and will not for a second consider that this might not be legit’.
Steel Phoenix Studios 