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Smulo: Mike, please tell us a little about yourself. What do you do for work, where you’re from, married, kids, that kind of thing.
Mike: Heh, why not start with the easy questions, eh? In my everyday life I’m a teacher. I teach Drama to 11 to 19 year olds. I am indeed married. I also have 2 children from a previous marriage that ended on reasonable terms and has since become very amicable and mutually supportive. My second (and hopefully final) wife was a hedge witch when I met her, but about a year after we were married she returned to her Christian faith.
As to what do I work for- shamanically I work for healing predominantly. My voluntary work would be engaging in interfaith activities on behalf of the Pagan community (although I personally feel it is on behalf of everyone as good interfaith work is all about education and developing a better understanding between people of different faith groups).
Smulo: You also are involved in Pagan Forum and Pagan and Christian Moot. Please tell us more about your role with these groups, and what their purpose is.
Mike: At Pagan Forum I am a regular member, but we’ve also just begun a new joint venture http://www.tapestryoffaiths.org an Interfaith newsletter, so I’m a part of the newsletter team too. You were kind enough to provide us with an article for our first issue. Thank you again for that. Pagan Forum is essentially a Pagan website that welcomes people from other faith groups too.
Pagan and Christian Moot is my own website and forum. Initially I set the website up after discovering the depth of animosity between Christians and Pagans. I had been aware of this to a degree before. But it wasn’t until my wife converted back to Christianity that I really began to notice it and study the phenomenon. The Moot is an attempt to encourage people of different faith groups to begin to learn about what others believe, to discover that people who hold different beliefs to yourself are just as human as you with many of the same worries, struggles and joys. We discovered after the escalation of hostilities towards and from members of the Muslim community that there were avenues of education and understanding that needed exploring there too. So we recently opened our remit up to include more faith groups than just Pagan and Christian.
Smulo: Did you grow up in a religious family?
Mike: My family were not at all religious. Possibly the closest description would be humanist. However, my great grandmother, who died when I was 12, had explored many eastern religious traditions as well as being a member of the Liberal Catholic Church and a member of the theosophical society.
Smulo: How old were you when you became a Pagan, and what led you to this spiritual path?
MIKE: I was 21 when I became a Pagan. I was at university and a fellow student was looking at spiritual aspects of Indian music. He was also studying Crowley and other occult fields in his spare time. I got reading some of his literature and talking to him about it and started exploring for myself. Since then I’ve explored quite a few Pagan paths, although I’ve been following my current path for the past 10 years.
Smulo: There’s a lot of misunderstandings about Paganism. Can you please briefly share with us what it’s about, and about the particular Pagan path you follow?
Mike: There is indeed a lot of misunderstanding about Paganism. To be fair, some of this misunderstanding is partially down to the great degree of variety in Pagan paths and practice. You were right to ask me about my particular path (more on that later) because the title ‘Paganism’ actually covers a wide variety of different belief systems. Broadly speaking the main path groups could be listed as Wicca, Witchcraft, Druidry, Northern traditions, Ceremonial magic and Shamanism. Under each of those Pagan groups are a number of variations, not all of whom get along particularly well with each other. (Sound familiar?) Most Pagan paths can be described as follows (from the Pagan Federation) A definition of a Pagan:
A follower of a polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion.
A definition of Paganism:
A polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion.
There is more on that to be found at http://www.paganfed.org/intro.php
Smulo: I’m concerned that Christians rarely take the time to truly understand the beliefs and practices of other religions. We’ve done an especially poor job of understanding Paganism, and I’m ashamed of the false stereotypes and depictions of various forms of Paganism I find in most Christian literature on the subject. Can you please share with us your perception of Christianity in general, and as it relates to Paganism?
Mike: My personal perceptions of Christianity… well, you have to remember that I’ve probably looked more closely at Christianity and Christians than many Pagans. So my perceptions might be a little more informed. Christianity…. It is a faith with a very long history. Many people seem to forget that Christianity has its roots in Judaism, so just speak of it in terms of the past 2000 years. Technically accurate, but not particularly helpful if you really want to understand the Christian faith. So, rooted in a very old belief system. I find I have to divide my perceptions of Christianity from my perception of Christians because there is such a great diversity between different groups of people who claim to be Christians. Christianity is, as far as I understand it, a development of Judaism that opens up the promises made to Jews to everyone else with the proviso that they acknowledge Jesus Christ as their personal saviour from sin and attempt to follow his guidelines as reported in the bible. Christianity, when followed that way is not an easy path to follow, which probably goes some way to explain why I feel the need to separate my perceptions of Christianity and Christians.
The bible is a complex book for anyone to work through. It spans thousands of years and lots of cultural and linguistic changes. So quite often people reading it forget to take into account cultural and historical context and misinterpret things. The bible is pretty clear on the matter of worshiping any God other than Yahweh- Yahweh doesn’t like that. So that means that Christianity is not about to look favourably on Pagan beliefs that, by their nature generally don’t have Yahweh as the central deity.
The bible includes passages such as Exodus 22:18 - "Do not allow a sorceress to live. Sounds pretty dire. But then I wonder if there might be some historical and cultural contexts to consider- Witchcraft and sorcery 3000 years ago in the middle east was a very different animal to witchcraft today, whether that is as a part of the modern Pagan revival or traditional witchcraft as practiced today in modern Europe. Part of the concern in Exodus was that Jews were supposed to take their concerns to the priests in the temple. They wouldn’t always get the responses they were looking for from the priests, so they would take those concerns to witches and sorcerers instead. I’ve already mentioned the bit about God/Yahweh not being keen on any Gods being before him. So that wasn’t about to go down very well. Divination was another of the things Yahweh frowned upon, so strike two for witches and sorcerers. But there is that bit about not allowing them to live. People have challenged that against scripture such as ‘thou shalt not kill (murder)’ and although there were crimes for which people might be stoned to death, I’m not convinced that death was what was being demanded for witches. In Jewish culture if someone is evicted from the community a funeral is held for them. It is a symbolic way of saying that they are dead to that community and can expect no acknowledgment at all. I feel the wording of Exodus suggests that shunning is what is being demanded. Just a pet theory.
Ok, so many Christians have great difficulty understanding their scripture and putting it into historical and cultural context. For example, they look at Ephesians 6 for their advice on Spiritual Warfare…. Or do they? Maybe in terms of what they perceive will protect them. But not in terms of understanding that said warfare is a spiritual one and not a battle of the flesh. To support this concept they might refer to Elymas in Acts 13, leaping to the conclusion that Pagans will obviously be trying to work magic against them. They work on the principal that offense is the best defense, and boy are they offensive!
But not all Christians are like that. I’ve been very fortunate to find some wonderful Christians who would much sooner ‘show they are Christians by their love’ and have discussed their beliefs with me in a way that has enabled me to learn quite a bit about Christianity. I look at how Christ is described in the bible and I look at these Christians who don’t leap to righteously smite the unbeliever, but show love and compassion and I see a connection. I see people who are really trying to walk with Christ and are humble as they do so. I have immense respect and love for them in return.
Sadly, many Pagans have been so deeply hurt and disturbed by negative experiences of Christianity from Christians that I fear I am quite unusual in my observations of Christians and Christianity.
WOW! Did I say too much?
Smulo: Thank you very much for taking the time to share with us.
Mike: I’m happy to do so. Anything that helps people of different faiths to begin to understand each other is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.