Christian Shoulder Chips

There are more problems in the Pagan Community than I can count on my fingers and toes tn times over. Some of them I can ignore, but others I have a hard time turning the other cheek to. One such issue is certain phrases I see passed around a lot- be it by Community members, or shoddy and outdated New Age texts that we cling to as reliable sources even today. The fact is that there’s a lot of that “Christian Shoulder Chip” going on in the Pagan community. After a history like ours, it isn’t surprising though, but that doesn’t stop it from being frustrating to be bombarded with it daily, and to have to correct people at every turn.

“The Christians stole Pagan Holidays!”, ”But Christians can’t be Witches, and Satan’s Christian!”, and “Pagans don’t even believe in Satan, how we can worship Him!?”, or better yet “Christianity is an oppressive, abusive religion!”.

These are several quote I see thrown around by Pagans every day- answers to which are plastered on even the most basic of pseudo-educational “Basic Paganism” websites… Pagans who- ironically- tend to use common rhetoric and tactics from the more militant people in the very systems they’re degrading.

I understand where it comes from, I really do. Pick up just about any New-Age book about “Paganism” in your local book store and you’re bombarded with nearly a hundred years of bad information, conflation of terminology which (to borrow from pop culture) “doesn’t mean what you think it means”, shoddy archaeology and history, misappropriated terminology and spiritual concepts, and a dash of heavy anti-monotheism and anti-Semitism. It’s hard not to get sucked into the melodrama when everywhere you turn the same, basic, inaccurate, and disgustingly incorrect information is throw at you- and after all, if everyone in your New Age section, and everyone on the internet in a basic Google search is saying it, then it must (obviously) be the common truth.

That really couldn’t be further from the truth a lot of the time, however, and I’d like to think that the glaring hypocrisy is self evident. Unfortunately it's not. I’d like to stop seeing them so much for a few reasons. Chief among those being that- to be quite blunt- they’re terribly incorrect and show a great amount of hypocrisy within our community in some cases; overall they’re problematic in a lot of different ways.

Firstly, let's start with the pervasive idea that all conversion to Christianity was done through violence, bloodshed, and death. It's not only the primary foundation for this ridiculous hatred of Abrahamic faiths, it's also glaringly incorrect.

Believe it or not, most European conversion to Christianity was peaceful. The whole assertion that “Christians stole [x] thing from the Pagans” is absolute Hogwash. Full stop. Gerald Gardner- the founding father of Wicca- stole and bastardized more Pre-Christian European practices than Christianity ever did, and his religion is less than a Century old.

Most early conversions were for Political purposes- especially with the various “Viking” Cultures. Now that’s not to say that there weren’t violent conversions- there were- but it is to say that a large portion of them actually weren’t violent (peaceful means makes people more happy to convert for any reason than violent means after all). And while the Church didn’t sanction the retainment of many Cultural traditions, it didn’t exactly stop a lot of these cultures from bringing their practices with them. In some cases, these practices were even officially adopted into and sanctioned by the Church, making them official practices and beliefs. In the cases that they weren’t, those practices over time often became unique to the Cultural religious identity within the Church in that country: Irish Catholicism, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, etc.

To make anti-monotheistic (specifically, anti-Christian) outlooks even more ridiculous is the fact that the often peaceful conversion of several European Cultures is uniquely responsible for the continued preservation of their Cultural Myths and Practices in a time period where most European Cultures were still using Oral methods of relaying History over Written methods. The only reason we have the amount of information we do on some of these Cultures’ practices prior to Christianization is because the Christians wrote them down. Now, granted, you have to sift through the heavy Christianization of these myths and texts, but they’re still there and they more than likely wouldn’t have been otherwise. And these things have bled into Modern Paganism in many forms- yet we still view Christianity as the all Evil of Religious Monoliths and hold anti-monotheistic views that are Christiancentric and often anti-Semitic.

I can’t talk about Judaism or Islam because I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of those faith systems. As such, I won’t even touch that other than to say that I believe that those two are still bound by the Old Testament laws. However, I might be wrong on that and overall I’ll just leave that to the actual Jews and Muslims and the other various denominations that may fall into or be closely related to those categories. I will, however, speak about Christianity- especially in a non-denominational sense.

I spent a lot of time combing through history and the Bible both in an attempt to reconcile my beliefs and need to practice Paganism and Witchcraft with the Mormon faith I was brought up within. Eventually I did find that I could not reconcile the practice of Witchcraft with Mormon teachings… Eventually I did leave the Mormon faith altogether (though not because I couldn’t reconcile Witchcraft with it, but predominantly because my baptismal oath to God was made for the wrong reasons and God made clear his displeasure with me). But I also found that, at large, there was actually very little conflict in the first place for a few reasons.

Firstly, I found that there were several types of Christianity. There’s Protestant vs. Catholic, and then there's Angelican, Baptist, Mormon, and hundreds more.  Like Paganism vs. Pagan, Christian and “Christianity” are what we call Umbrella terms used to denote a group or classification that may contain several related things. One can use the umbrella term as a sort of simplified identifier, but it in no way guarantees that they may hold the same beliefs as anyone else who uses that same identifier. You can also be a member of one of these specific denominations under the umbrella, or be “non-denominational”- meaning you hold beliefs that are somewhat congruent, but do not belong to any of the specific denominations and their related (and specific) practices and interpretations. While there may be various denominations of Christianity, they all have their own rules.

This discovery meant that I had to seriously change my method of searching. I found that in order to determine whether or not something is against the religion as a whole, you have to look at it from a non-denominational standpoint first- and then by each denomination’s own rules second. After switching my method of searching, the second thing I found was that, in a lot of cases, the practice of witchcraft is not against God, nor is it against the Christian variations and translations of the Bible in a non-denominational setting… It’s the individual denominations and their own personal interpretations and practices which condemn it, or which make it hard or impossible to reconcile with the faith.

The third discovery was within the scriptures themselves.

Now, I’m a very literal person and I’m not one for conflation. This is relevant because I found that, if we take away the incorrect translations within the King James Bible and correct those inaccuracies, or look at other translations of the Bible? The Bible never actually explicitly condemned “witchcraft” in the first place. Instead, it mentions things like Fortune Telling, Sorcery, Necromancy, and similar things. Now because I’m literal and don’t like conflation? If you say Sorcery, I’m going to go look up the definition of sorcery to see what you mean… And then I’m going to use that definition. I’m not going to use Witchcraft, or Enchantment, or any other word commonly conflated with it, I’m going to use Sorcery because that is what you said. Because of this, it lead me to the conclusion that the Bible, from my (raised LDS Mormon – Christian) standpoint and research, only condemns the use of magics that are considered “unsavory”, or which do the following things:

1. Put you in contact with spirits and other things under the (actually very broad)definition of “Demon”- especially when that contact is in attempts to divine the future, or puts you at risk of being possessed;
   
   
2. Seek to predict or change the future- therefore knowing and/or attempting to alter God’s plan for you;
   
   
3. Manipulate, control, or otherwise seek to do intentional ill will or harm to another person.

Which actually leaves a very large range of things open for one to practice in Witchcraft. Things such as protection and healing magics, for instance.

Another thing I found was that all Abrahamic faiths have a long and rich history of Occult use- up to and including their own Occult systems which also seem to be the foundation for magical and occult systems used even within Paganism. In Islam alone, there are two religious denominations based solely around Islamic mysticism. There’s also groups like the Golden Dawn, and the Rosicrucian Order, Hermetics, plus several variants of Rootwork that are heavily influenced by Christianity- and I’m not even going to get into how many *bala’s there are anymore. Saying that Abrahamics cannot practice Witchcraft- which is an art or a practice similar to cooking and is not, inherently, a religious practice unless you personally choose to use it as such- is a bit wrong given the rich mystic and occult histories and practices within all variants of Abrahamic religions.

But it doesn’t matter, because I also found that Christians- from a non-denominational standpoint- are not technically bound by the laws of the Old Testament where these laws against Sorcery, Necromancy, and other unsavory magics are found. Whether or not an individual Christian denomination follows the Old Testament or similar laws is entirely up to them (though I don't understand it and think it's ridiculous), but those laws are the laws of the Covenant between God and “His Chosen People”- who we know from Biblical history and mythos are the Judaic peoples; the Jewish community and religion.

If we look further at Abrahamic religious history- past Christianity and to Islam- and begin to look at the Qur’an more correctly as the biblical “Sequel” to the myths laid out in the Torah, then it also applies to the Islamic practitioners… But neither the Torah nor the Qur’an- nor their associated religious laws- actually and technically apply to the Christian denominations.

As Sard- a friend of mine- has said on numerous occasions:

[…] A lot of Christians’ emphases on [Leviticus] and [Deuteronomy] are beyond silly in light of all that. Those are decontextualized parts of Oral Torah, and if you’re not a Jew, you can’t and don’t Torah or Talmud, bruh.

Plus, that “blind adherence to Divine-legal plaintext leading to unethical/immoral actions that violate other commandments listed elsewhere in the Torah” thing that numerous Jewish commentators warned about? Yeah, hardcore American Christians- of the Protestant varieties especially- do that all the time. Because they’re not Jews, and moreover they don’t understand Jewish texts and the milieux they were created within; because they just looks at snippets of Jewish law out of context… Law that doesn’t even apply to them.

The Torah, the Qur’an, and similar Judaic and Islamic texts that form the foundation of Christian mythological history and belief  have never, truthfully and genuinely applied to Christians (let alone non-Christians). And if the Qur’an is, historically and religiously, the “sequel” to the Torah for the Islamic faiths and does not apply to non-Muslims? Then it serves that we must too understand that the Christian “sequel” to the Torah is the New Testament- which outlines its own set of laws to which Christians must subscribe, such as the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings of “Our Lord and Savior”, Jesus Christ. And like the Torah and the Qur’an, the Christian doctrine does not apply to the other faiths, either.

And when you sit down and begin to examine the New Testament from a non-denominational standpoint- then compare that to all current Denominations of Christianity, then you find something interesting: From a non-denominational standpoint the only requirements to be Christian which are found throughout all denominations, is 1. The acceptance of and belief in God; 2. The belief in and acceptance of Jesus Christ as your lord and saviour; 3. The belief in and following of the teachings or Jesus Christ- usually from the Sermon on the Mount; 4. A belief in and the following of the 10 commandments; and 5. A Baptism or other ritual, oath, or vocalized repentance of your sins and acceptance of Christ and God- and sometimes the Holy Spirit.

And those teachings of Jesus that Christians are beholden to follow? Say absolutely nothing about a large number of things that people like to claim. So in other words?

1. If you’re trying to reconcile the practice of Witchcraft with Christianity as a non-denominational umbrella term, there’s nothing to reconcile in the first place because unless you subscribe to a specific denomination you do not have to follow their religious laws;
   
   
2. Likewise if you’re trying to reconcile it with the laws of the either the Torah or the Qur’ran, there’s certain parameters you must fall under, but otherwise (again) there’s just not much to reconcile at all depending... And if you're not Jewish or Islamic then it shouldn't matter anyways,
   
   
3. If you’re trying to reconcile it from a denominational standpoint (such as Catholic, or Baptist), then there’s a little more digging and fandangling required depending on the individual denomination’s beliefs- and it might entirely be possible that by the laws and practices of that specific denomination, that you can’t practice at all- but you could always make the argument that Christians don't have to follow the Old Testament Law anyways.

However, none of this at all changes the fact that, regardless of the denomination you choose (if any), unless you specifically belong to a Judaic or Islamic religion / denomination of Abrahamic faith then neither the laws of the Torah or the Qur’an apply to you in the first place and you’re still not beholden to follow them.

And then there's the subject of the Occult and "Actually Abrahamic" vs. Abrahamically Influenced / Oriented- both of which mean completely different things and have a large impact on things; There’s one assumption we as a community make about Christopagans and Christian Witches that grates my nerves entirely. This assumption is the assumption that all Christopagans and Christian Witches (Abrahamically oriented Witches and Pagans in general) are even following Christian doctrine in the first place, or attempting to reconcile their practice and beliefs with the Christian (or another Abrahamic) religion; the erasure of the fact that "Abrahamically Influenced / Oriented" means something completely different than "Abrahamic", and the assumption that all practitioners are "Abrahamic" and cannot only be "Abrahamically Influenced / Oriented"... And there's certainly many ways to be "Abrahamically Oriented / Influenced" without actually being a member of an Abrahamic faith, but I still can't understand why we as Pagans continue to assert thins like "Pagans don't believe in Satan" or "all of these Gods exist, but I don't believe in YHWH".

Riddle me this if you can: If you are or subscribe to a theism which believes in the potential existence of multiple Gods from a large range of Pantheons and cultures then how on Earth can you choose to deny the potential existence of the (complete) Abrahamic pantheon- the Devil and Satan (two completely different Abrahamic entities and concepts), included? How can you believe in the existence of the Greek, Norse, and Japanese pantheons and more, yet deny that the Abrahamic God(s), their Angels, their Demons, etc. the same existence? It makes no sense to me, personally, and feels a bit hypocritical.

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to worship or work with these beings or subscribe to the Abrahamic ideals and concepts, etc, just because you acknowledge their potential existence alongside your own Gods. It just means that there are a lot of people who do still acknowledge that they could exist too, right next to their own beliefs, Entities, and Deities. There are actually a lot of Pagans who subscribe to what people would call the Abrahamic pantheon and their beings and philosophies, and so much more- even if they do not directly work with them or consider themselves a member of an Abrahamic faith.

But that aside, you do not necessarily have to be a member of an Abrahamic faith in order to work with (let alone believe in the existence of) some portions of the Abrahamic pantheon- not any more than you have to be a member of Astartu to work with the Nordic pantheon, or Kemetic to work with the Egyptian one.

While I don’t generally encourage Eclecticism, it is possible to work with pantheons without subscribing to the individual religious philosophies and claiming membership within the religions that traditionally include those divine figures. Should you acknowledge their history, how they came about, and the ways in which they are traditionally worshiped? Yes. Should you respect these ways, methods, and ideals? Yes. Is it more respectful to worship them in their traditional manners? Sometimes, yes. But you do not have to be Christian in order to believe in or worship any Christian entity. It is entirely possible to worship an entity from one pantheon outside of the constraints of their traditional religion; it’s entirely possible to believe in and worship the Christian God, or any other entity from the Christian Pantheon without actually being Christian or following any Abrahamic denomination, because the “laws” of those religions are what make you a member of that individual and specific religion. It doesn’t mean you can’t work with those entities outside of their traditional religions, though... Now whether or not the Abrahamic God zirself is ok with this arrangement is up to them and that is only between the practitioner and their Gods, their Entities, etc. and that’s another discussion for another day. 

Saying that all Pagans automatically don’t believe in, work with, or worship these entities is kind of degrading to those who do- especially those who are Satanists or primarily Abrahamic in practice and belief, actual Demonolatrists and Satan Worshipers, or anyone who chooses to be members of the Pagan community but subscribes to similar Abrahamic influences.

Speaking of Satanism- which always gets the short end of the stick- doubly so in the Pagan community: When you get right down to it there are several different variants and denominations of Satanism. There is Theistic Satanism, Luciferianism, Anti-Theistic Satanism, Modern Satanism, Traditional Satanism, and on and on. While some of them may, most certainly, be Abrahamically influenced and derived from the Christian beliefs, teachings, practices, and their pantheon? They may not all follow the laws of Christianity and its tenets. Therefore some of these denominations and variants sometimes cannot be considered a Christian Religion either in a very technical sense… So where does that put them? Are they still Abrahamic because they are influenced by the Abrahamic pantheon? Or are they Pagan? Really it should be up to them whether or not they choose to embrace either of the religious umbrellas they could fall under. 

I really do believe that the Pagan community would benefit- overall- by buckling down and doing some good, old fashioned historical research on Satanism and the various Abrahamic religions. It really would stick a cork in a lot of the anti-monotheistic “Christian Shoulder Chip” we have going on in the community if people would just take the time to actually learn something from a legitimate source.