Christian Wicca:  Oxymoron or the Best of Both World?

Finally, a how-to guide for practicing Wicca, celebrating the return of the original Christian Trinity: the Father, the Mother, and the Holy Son Jesus.  This book is written expressly for Wiccans who wish to walk the spiritual path of earth-based religions, but do not wish to surrender their Judeo-Christian background.  Nancy now offers a simple solution to the rapidly emerging ChristoPagan community.

Wicca, the Old Religion, or the religion of the wise, is the fastest growing form of spirituality in the United States.  Many modern and eclectic Christians have no problem recognizing Jesus as Lord, but instead have a problem accepting the dogma of the organized church.  Seekers are also feeling the absense of the Female aspect of the Divine and wish to re-establish the Goddess in their spirituality.

In the wake of the discoveries of the Nag Hammadi Library, for the first time since 100-300 A.C.E. - the yin of the Christian faith is seeking to restore it's yang!  Despite the overwhelming evidence that there is a Divine Mother --- no one has applied this information to Wicca and the Holy Days of the Wheel of the Year.   "Christian Wicca: the Trinitarian Tradition" does this very task, outlining the Sabbats, the Esbats to include the Holy Trinity . . . also introducing observances expressly for Jesus, called Kyriats!  Blessed Be!!

Nancy Chandler-Pittman is a 40-year-old ChristoPagan author who celebrates her zeal for Wicca and magick through the Kabbalistic-Gnostic Pantheons.  She is an ordained Interfaith Minister, with an Honorary Doctorate in Divinity from the Universal Life Church.  Born on July 4, Nancy’s personality has formed as an independent thinker.  She is also a musician, an author, a teacher, and is in some senses a spiritual rebel.  She has always followed her own heart toward methods of communing with the Genderless Spirit.

A songwriter/musician since her early teens, she has written and produced several albums, and has founded an independent record label and distribution company.  From 1983 until 1998, Nancy traveled extensively, performing and promoting her music.  She has been featured regularly in major magazines and independent publications. 

Passionate about the Tarot and mysticism since age 14, Nancy teaches a 36-week class on the Rider-Waite Tarot deck, stressing the Tree of Life, Jungian philosophies, numerology, and the Hebrew alphabet.  Now owning her own occult store, the Shadows and Light Shoppe, she encourages spiritual tolerance in the magickal community in North Alabama. 

Nancy also teaches Wicca through open circles using a hands-on approach to coven work.  She teaches the celebrations of the Sabbats and Esbats from various Pagan traditions, combined with non-dogmatic Christianity.  Nancy firmly believes that magico-religious tolerance will be achieved through the studies of parallel philosophies, and comparative spiritual research.  Nancy holds true to these ethics in her teachings and life.

Introduction

Christian Wicca is a new path of Christian spirituality and a new tradition of Wicca, often referred to as the modern term for the Old Religion, or “the religion of the wise.”  Christian Wicca is the practice of Wicca acknowledging the Christian Godhead as the practitioner’s choice of Deities, recognizing both the male (God) and female (Goddess) aspects of the One Triune God, as well as the promised Solar God (Jesus), Lord and Saviour.

Wicca is the revival of the religion of the wise, recapturing its spirit and practices.  This modern practice is based on the old ways of communing with the Divine through Nature, along the lines of the Latin phrase Deus et Natura, meaning “God and Nature.”  Originally, this religion did not have a name; it was simply what the people were brought up to believe.  It was not called witchcraft with all its negative associations until the Inquisition found it to be a threat to the rise of the new Religion in Rome called Christianity.

The term Wicca is derived from the old Anglo-Saxon word “wicce,” (pronounced “witch-eee”) and there you can see what gave rise to the commonly used word “witch.”  “Wicce” meant a practitioner of the Old Religion, as well as reflects the influence of the Old Norse word “vitke,” which meant “a priestess or seer.”  The word pagan is from the Latin “paganus,” which means “a country dweller.”  “Heathen,” another related term also misinterpreted, which means “one who dwelt on the heath.”  The heath would be the plains or flatlands. 

The writings and teachings of Gerald Gardner of the New Forest coven in England mark the dawning of Wicca.  After the last of the anti-witchcraft laws in England were repealed in 1954, Gardner published his coven’s Book of Shadows along with others believing that the Craft was dying out.  He dedicated his life to retrieving lost information about the native religions of Europe.  This was a difficult task because most of the old religion was handed down from generation to generation by mouth; keep in mind that most farming cultures could not read or write.  Unlike Christianity, there was no “Bible” simply because the modern printing press had not been invented at the time!

This approach of communing with the Divine as the Holy Trinity via the personal spiritual methods of Wicca is the key to the name of this Wiccan tradition - Trinitarian.  The definition of Trinitarian Wicca is as an eclectic form of Wicca mixed with various aspects of Christianity, which may differ with each practitioner.  These sources of Christianity include the Holy Bible, the Kabbalah, the Apocrypha, Pseudopigrapha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, especially the Gnostic Gospels.

Not all of the Judeo-Christian books written actually made it into the Holy Bible.  For example, the Apocrypha is a generalized term for any spiritual writings that are doubtful of authenticity or of questionable authorship.  The Books of the Apocrypha are the fourteen books of the Septuagint, or the Greek version of the Old Testament.  Judaism rejects the Apocrypha, as does Protestant Christians, who regard is as non-canonical.  However, the Roman Catholic Church fully accepts eleven of the writings into the canonized Catholic Bible.  

The Pseudopigrapha is a group of early writings not included in either the canonized Bible or the Apocrypha.  The “pseudo” aspect of the word denotes that these writings were fictitious or written with the intent to deceive by ascribing them as writings of popular characters of the Bible.  The major difference of the Apocrypha and the Pseudopigrapha is that the authorship of the Apocrypha is uncertain.  On the other hand, the authorship of the Pseudopigrapha is presumed to be written under the false names of famous prophets and key figures from the Old Testament.

The word "canon" comes from the Greek word kanon, a rod used to measure.  The meaning of canon applied to the Bible is a list of books considered the true authoritative scripture by a particular religious sect.

This is a very important time in the history of Christianity.  The Dead Sea Scrolls uncovered answers to many questions that the world has asked for over two thousand years.  The cover up of so many mistruths about Christ and the early Church is causing the world to rethink organized religion.  Many people are turning to Wicca, but they are not turning away from Christ.  This is going to be the most difficult point for fundamental Christians to accept.  The need for the presence of Jesus with the cosmic balance of a Heavenly Mother as well as a Heavenly Father is the new pathway to the Christian Divine - and many are taking this pathway by the means of Wicca.

The term eclectic is often associated with Wicca.  It is best defined as selecting and composing spiritual knowledge from various spiritual sources, magio-religious systems, and doctrines of enlightenment that brings the practitioner closer to the One True Creative Spirit. 

The eclecticism of spirituality is becoming more and more prevalent in our society today as spiritual seekers of knowledge are becoming increasingly aware that there is no “single true way” of enlightenment nor is there any one single religion that has all the answers to the meaning of this life and the after life.  It deals with the simple fact that there is no one single book of prophecy and enlightenment, which does not contain contradictions or missing aspects of seemingly pertinent information.  The most realistic reason for these contradictions is not “blamed on God,” but the fact that man has tampered with Holy Scriptures for various reasons and humankind is imperfect.  To gain perfection and be more like the Divine is the reason for religion.  It is said that religion is the act of  “re-legion” with the One True God; psychologist and spiritualist Carl Jung believes this to be one of humankind’s basic natural instincts.

Another term often associated with Christian Wicca is esoteric.  Specific spiritual ideas, literature, and doctrines intended for and only understood by a select group of individuals is the practical definition of this term.  Its definition also includes information understood by an inner group of disciples or initiates, in reference to an organization it refers to those who study spiritual knowledge and practices beyond the understanding of the average religious practitioner.  Esoterica deals with abstract spiritual thought, study, and meditations for positive results, greater understanding, and ultimate communion with the Divine.

Necessity is the mother of invention.  While this is a common phrase and philosophy, perhaps this is the first time that the invention is not material.  Trinitarian Wicca is an invention that deals with spirituality, not the inventions of physical ideas made manifest on the material plane.  The spiritual necessity in this case is that young people are not getting what they need in their spiritual diet from organized Christian churches.  Christian Wicca is the invention, which has self-manifested as a direct result of this emptiness concerning the soul which continues to look to the Judeo-Christian Pantheon, most specifically Jesus Christ and the recovery of the Feminine aspect of God.  

Anyone with open eyes and an open mind can see that teenagers now fill New Age isles in the literary chain stores.  Metaphysical bookstores are springing up everywhere as the youth of today are seeking a form of spirituality that their own fundamental Christian churches are not providing. 

These are normal youths.  I am not speaking of rebellious teenagers, drug addicts, and social misfits.  I am speaking of the “kids next door.”  They are not seeking affiliation with dark entities, exerting power over others or involvement with Satanism; instead, they are simply looking for spiritual peace and balance in their lives.  Why are today’s youth looking for spiritual peace and balance in non-Christian based religions?  It is simple; the Modern Church in any form or denomination is not doing its job!  It is not providing spiritual peace and balance. 

This should be a warning sign to all of Christianity!  Alarms should be going off to the Modern Church, telling the Church leaders that something is dreadfully wrong in their organizations’ spirituality departments.  The Modern Organized Christian Churches are letting their young people down; as a direct result, people are looking for spiritual wholeness in the earth-based religions. 

The younger generations have not been so pleased with what organized Christian religion has offered; they have many unanswered questions.  What these generations now see in organized religion is not inner peace, love, and understanding.  The church is now viewed as a facade for hypocrites, embezzlers, and users and squeezers; they have made the House of God a medium for comfortable business transactions within their own community, while moral charades are carried on in the name of saving people’s souls on prime time television.

So, what happened to cause this change in the system of Organized Religion?  Why are the newer generations finding no comfort in “the church”?  Fundamental Christianity seemed to be so right for our parents and grandparents.  What happened?  Perhaps it is because those born starting in the 1940s (often referred to as the “baby boomers”) were one of the first generations to have easy, widespread access to higher education, more solid world communication, and ready access to more news and information on more subjects.  Therefore, since the middle of the 20^th century, people have been entering the world with more choices, and they have had a better view of what they wanted simply because they were aware of more options.  No longer did the family unit stay simple and isolated “down on the farm”; the scales of supply and demand were tilting and the material world took its toll on spirituality.

In the interviews for this book, I questioned family, friends, and acquaintances, both young and old.  I questioned why Organized Religion has in fact hardened their hearts.  The first response came from an immediate family member with “I am just not interested in getting into that,” and they hung up.  The next call produced an even more stinging answer: “What do those people have that I don’t?  At least I get to sleep late while they are chasing an old fairy tale every Sunday.”  To say the least, I was very surprised.

A more solid and intellectual take was given as  “I think people today are not so different from our grandparents, but it takes life dealing you a bad hand from time to time and a great deal of mental baggage to make older persons finally turn to the church.  This is a recurring cycle and the Baby Boomers and Generation X (those born during the 60’s) just aren’t to that point yet.”

Then came one very simple answer that I tend to agree with: “... along with more opportunities for educational and world wide communication... we have more things that sizzle and pop and shine in our lives to hold our attention than the church.”