This morning a friend of mine in Denmark wrote asking me what I thought of an article titled ‘Wicca Infiltrates the Churches,’ by Catherine Edwards.  Its author is quite alarmed at what she sees as unchristian influences seeking to undermine traditional Christan doctrine.  As she puts it, “Feminist proponents of Wicca . . . can now be found within the clergy promoting the cult of the Goddess in many mainline Christian denominations.”

After I replied to her, I decided this issue might make a good blog post.  

Edwards’ article first appeared 10 years ago, in 1999.  But a close friend with many years’ work in interfaith affairs recently told me he has been quite surprised at how many liberal Christians are seeking to harmonize their beliefs with the earth and Goddess religions.  They say they find their deepest inspiration through their experience and understanding of Jesus and seek to somehow incorporate both spiritual sensibilities.

I want to discuss two issues raised by Edwards’ piece.  First, Edwards is way over the top to say Wiccans are ‘infiltrating’ churches.  At most, because many Pagans mesh their Paganism with other religions, including Christianity or Buddhism, and feel practice is more important than dogma, some would find a minister sympathetic to Goddesses and the sacred in nature quite attractive.  As for those ministers, if they are looking for inspiration along those lines, they would likely look at Wicca for inspiration given that there is so little in their own tradition- though taking a look at Virginia Mollenkott’s book  might give them some, to me, more appropriate avenues to explore.

But what Edwards writes about is a Christian problem, not a Wiccan one: how do you address the sacred feminine in a religion whose daily practice has denigrated it for around 2000 years?  Hence, ‘Wiccan’ IDEAS are ‘infiltrating’ because some Christians find them in some respects more insightful than their own tradition.  Which on those matters, they are.

But Wiccans (1) do not believe any particular religion has The Answer  (Nor do they believe in any Big Problem, such as the fall.) (2)Do not try and convert. (3) Have no umbrella organization able to do this kind of thing even if we wanted.

There is an even more basic reason, however.  Why would we want to?  Christian services and Wiccan circles have nothing in common other than that both seek contact with the divine.  When I taught at St. Lawrence University, local Pagans, including me, would occasionally offer public Sabbats in the campus chapel.  (St. Lawrence had formerly been a Unitarian seminary, and is now completely secular.)  I was impressed with how inappropriate even beautiful church buildings were to our kind of practice, especially when we had a large crowd.

But there is another dimension to this issue I think is important.

Christian clergy, unlike Pagan Priestesses and priests, are monotheists.  Especially beginning in the 60s, the Christian Churches came under increasing pressure to be more inclusive regarding women and the Divine Feminine.  Conservatives reacted  in very negative ways to this desire, liberals attempted to address it inclusively.  The latter in particular could have something like the following chain of thought:

God is beyond gender.  We attach gender to God only in order to emphasize qualities essential to understanding God’s message.  Historically, in patriarchal cultures, God has usually been described as male.  In our time of enhanced interest in the Divine Feminine and appreciation for the past oppression of women, the feminine side of God should be emphasized.  Therefore having Goddess rituals and terminology is in keeping with the deeper task of the church to address all people at all times.

I suggest calling this approach “serial monotheism.”

Whatever we call it, this attitude can lead in very liberal Christian circles to a blending of pure Goddess spirituality, which can be quite monotheistic, within their traditional practices.

Monotheistic Goddess spirituality is not Wiccan, which emphasizes BOTH genders as central to our practice.

Even more problematic, this attempt continues the spiritually imperialistic idea that some single kind of practice or religion can do justice to the Divine better than other kinds can.  But by definition the divine is superhuman, and any and all religions necessarily focus on some aspect of the sacred as their primary message or practice.  The Pagan tradition historically has been very varied without anyone making exclusive claims. Pagans are notorious in many places for relating to different deities, and ways of practice, at different time.  This drives monotheists up the wall, but does not bother most of us at all. 

The more anyone tries to incorporate everything, every dimension of the spiritual, the more abstract and bloodless they become – which necessarily under states the immanent dimension of the sacred.  

I’d like it much better if the liberal Christian Church simply acknowledged the legitimacy and goodness of other paths, rather than trying to incorporate them into some spiritual Borg.