I've been getting a lot of e-mail from people who want to know,  if they can be a Witch and a Christian too? The Good Witch Of The North Website was intended to be a place to help you as you seek information on witchcraft and Wicca, This website was to be used as a tool or a guide for you as you seek enlightenment, on your spiritual journey. It's amazing how many seekers there are. I find it hard sometimes to keep up with all the e-mail I receive, most of the people come here looking for something, trying to find out who they are and where they may belong in this great big mixed up universe, Wanting and feeling a real need to be a part of something wonderful, like Wicca butt still feel a need to keep  Christ in there life. I've finally decided that what is needed is a special place devoted to just the issues of how one would become a Christian Witch.

It is important to remember that the term "Christian Witches" covers quite a lot of diverse folk. Among them you will find some whose practice of their Witchcraft is nothing at all like Wicca, you might also find some who seem to be completely Wiccan except for them the Lady is Mary and the Lord is Jesus. Some of these latter may even be iniates in Wiccan covens. It may appear that some Christian Witches are mixing elements of Wicca with Christianity. However, it seems to me that behind this question is usually an unexpressed and hidden assumption, namely that it is wrong to be in one religion and be influenced by others. Christian Witches get this reaction from some folk from both Christian and Wiccan. The Christians seem to think that being influenced by other faiths is nothing but a pollution of the true faith. The Wiccans seem to think that Christianity and Wicca are so incompatible that the very idea of mixing them is an oxymoron.

However, this is all nonsense. All religions have been influenced by other faith systems. Christianity in its early days had no problem in borrowing Philosophical concepts and terminology from Greek Pagan thought. We also know that Judaism borrowed ideas from Zoroastorianism during the period of the Persian Empire. Scholars tell us that older Hebrew prayers and psalms bear a striking resemblance to Egyptian and Caanitic hymns. Islam borrowed directly from Christianity the idea of pilgrimages and a fasting period every year and directly from Judaism the uncleanliness of pork. Hinduism absorbed ideas from Buddhism and Christianity even placing Jesus in its pantheon of incarnations of Vishnu. The Buddhism of East Asia is so heavily influenced by Taoism that it is almost a totally different faith than the Buddhism of South Asia that never went through this process. Christian Witches as they seek to follow Jesus by walking the threefold path of Nature Mysticism, Spiritual Feminism and Psychic Ritualization often find that the Spirit works through enlightened folk of other faith systems. This is an old Christian idea and is the reason why classical Christianity has no problem relying on Plato, Aristotle, and Virgil as enlighened vessels through whom the Spirit worked. It only follows that when one goes looking for resources in Witchcraft that the majority of them will be written in a Wiccan framework, after all Wicca is the Religion of Witchcraft. Individual Christian Witches will determine for themselves what they find in these Wiccan influences that are transferable over into their Christian practice of Witchcraft and what isn't. This really isn't much different than some Christian groups being heavily influenced by Judaism, even to the point of calling their churches synagogues, meeting on Saturdays, and following the Torah. Many Christians churches that don't go that far still have no problem singing Jewish folk songs in their Christian worship. Some might say, "But Christianity came from Judaism and so that is different." But it is important to remember that Christianity also always had Pagan influences too. For instance the New Testament emphasis on Jesus Christ being "Lord", or "kyrios" in Greek, was clearly understood as a Christian parallel to the Pagan idea that Ceasar was "kyrios". Biblical Scholars tell us that many of the primitive Church's language about Christ was derived from Pagan sources and transfered over to Jesus. What is considered one of the two central holidays in the Christian life, Christmas, is clearly a parallel of the Pagan Winter Solstice feast where the birth of the sun was celebrated. The veneration of Mary and the Baby Jesus is so close to the ancient Eygptian devotion to Isis and Baby Horus that there is no way to deny the influence of the one on the other. Furthermore, if one were to attempt to purge out of Christian practice all things which might be borrowed from other faith systems, one would be left with hardly anything. This would include praying, singing, dancing, meditating, congregating, memorizing one's Scripture, studying and preaching one's Scripture, a common meal of bread and wine, washing with water to symbolize or create spiritual washing, having holidays, communing with the Divine at certain times of the day, making weddings and funerals spiritual events, belief in an afterlife, belief in sin and redemption, belief in righteous living, belief in a moral code, having clergy, using flowers, candles and incense in worship, having choirs, meeting in buildings, having vestments in worship, asking individuals to make personal committments of their own faith, making pilgrimages to holy places, and evangelizing. Such a purge would turn Christianity from a vital Religion that makes it possible to live out ones spiritual connection with God in Christ into nothing but a few disembodied doctrines about Jesus that did nothing but exist in the believer's mind. So the issue in the Christian Witch's mind isn't if they are being influenced by others in other faith systems or even if they are mixing their Christianity with Wicca. The issue is solely rather the concepts and rituals they are incorporating into their religious life are compatible with their Christian faith. The source of these concepts and rituals are irrelevant. When the question comes up whether influences from Wicca are or are not compatible with Christianity there are three areas that keep being raised by both Wiccans and other Christians. One is that Wicca is Polytheistic and Christianity is Monotheistic and that it would seem that Witchcraft requires a Polytheistic mindset. Another is the question of magick which we have partially addressed, basically the idea that the Christian path is reliance on God's power while the magick path is a seeking of one's own power and forbidden in the Bible. Finally there is the whole concern that Christianity teaches a belief in the Devil and evil spirits and that any kind of Witchcraft is occultic and demonic even if the practioner doesn't think of it that way.

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