Posted on 02/04/2010 7:58:42 PM PST by TaraP
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, February 4, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs has established a pagan circle in the woods on its campus with plans to dedicate it officially in March. However, the site has generated new controversy as Air Force staffers have revealed that a large wooden cross was found at the site, with some calling the placement of the cross a “hate crime.”
The population of self-styled pagans is a tiny percentage of the Academy’s 4,000 cadets. Tech. Sgt. Brandon Longcrier told the Associated Press that he has eight to ten cadets that regularly attend their weekly Monday meetings, of which six or seven he describes as devout pagans. An additional 15 – 20 cadets he described as interested.
Although neo-pagans claim to have a connection to the old pagan religions that once dominated Europe before the rise of Christianity, their revival did not begin until the Twentieth Century, especially in the post-World War II era. Wicca – the religion of modern witchcraft – took off in England in the 1950s following the repeal of witchcraft laws, before spreading to other parts of the English-speaking world. Neo-Druid organizations also began appearing at the same-time as the cultural upheavals of the sexual revolution were taking place in the Western world....
The Air Force Academy has defended its policy to make a place for witchcraft on its campus as an expression of its commitment to cadet’s freedom of religion. However, critics have replied that the move represents a further rejection of the United States’ Judeo-Christian heritage, and makes little sense given that the numbers of actual neo-pagans at the Academy is miniscule compared to other followers of non-Christian faiths, such as Islam.
But the fact that a large wooden cross was placed anonymously at the neo-pagan circle several weeks ago has provoked an uproar at the Academy. The pagan site features two concentric circles of large stones that were installed on a wooded hill within the campus. The circle has a tentative dedication date of March 10.
Air Force Academy officials – who do not yet know who placed the Christian symbol at the pagan site – have condemned the act, and are investigating the matter as a “hate crime.”
“I consider this no different than someone writing graffiti on the Cadet Chapel,” said Academy superintendent Lt. Gen. Mike Gould in a prepared statement.
Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and a 1977 Academy graduate, broke the story, saying one of his clients found the cross made of railroad ties at the site. He compared the presence of the cross at the pagan circle as the equivalent of a swastika in a Jewish center.
But Catholic League President Bill Donahue decried the reaction from Academy officials as “boilerplate” and stated that they were going way too far by treating the incident as “hate speech.” Donahue stated that if he found another religious symbol placed at a Catholic site, he would complain. However, Gould’s comparison of a “cross at a pagan site as the equivalent of graffiti on a church” struck him as offensive, since the Academy superintendent saw “no difference between neutering a religious symbol and defacing religious property.”
“This is more than overkill — it is grossly insulting to Catholics and Protestants,” said the Catholic civil rights leader. Instead of Wiccans and other neo-pagans experiencing persecution at the Academy, Donahue said that a 2005 Academy report revealed that Catholics and Protestants instead had reported experiencing religious intolerance.
“These remarks have added to the chilling atmosphere that Catholics and Protestants must endure,” said Donahue. He added that he was going to take the matter to the members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee, just as he had done in 2005.
“We need to know why hypersensitivity to non-Christians has evolved into insensitivity to Christians.”
*He compared the presence of the cross at the pagan circle as the equivalent of a swastika in a Jewish center*.
Lunacy, Evil and more Liberal PC drivel that is poisoning our world.....
How did people who practice witchcraft get in the Air Force Academy in the first place? Which members of Congress nominated them? It is very competitive, and surely this is evidence of mental imbalance. Has the military gone crazy? Will they accommodate voodoo and people sacrificing chickens and goats there on the academy campus? Human sacrifice? Whirling dervishes? Is anyone in charge capable of drawing any lines at all?
Jesus would cause controversy to those who do not believe..He even said so!
Who has ever “left a swastika” at a church or synagogue?
1st. Timothy 4:1-2 Now the Spirit (of God) speaks expressly, that in the latter times (last days) some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
Gal 5:19 -20 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft...
Now as He [Jesus] sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, “I am the Christ,” and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.
See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.
“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.(Matthew, 24: 3-14)
Gal 5:21 ... they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Onward Christian soldiers!
Perhaps the Muzzies can do a couple of beheadings at a Baptist or Catholic Church. Your ignorance of Wiccan is simply mind-blowing.
Wiccans participate in ALL branchs of the military and are enrolled in all of the service academies. Simply because they see religion differently than you does not indicate a mental imbalance. What does show some degree of mental imbalance this your stupid, uneducated post.
I was wondering what role Jesus Christ plays in Wicca religion?
Funny you should ask.
I encountered a swastika and racial slurs written in a hymnal at the Air Force Academy chapel. It was in the last pew of the nave, so the vandal was probably a tourist visitor, not a worshiper.
I gave the hymnal to the narthex attendant on my way out.
How about congregants who had a ceremony where they ate the very flesh and drank the very blood of their leader?
Not talking about graffiti like what you saw. I mean a physical object like the cross that they’re complaining about. An object that can be tossed in the trash in five seconds if nobody wants it.
Abracadabra; bippity-bobbity-boo. Sorry, but pagan practices are pagan practices. Also: what has Wicca brought to the world since its invention in the 1950s? Besides some charring? It is the low-tech equivalent of Scientology. I don’t have a problem with people, er, worshipping trees and dancing nekkid in the woods under the moonlight, or whatever, but I don’t have to take it seriously, either, and I certainly don’t think the government should be accommodating such foolishness. Human sacrifice? Whirling dervishes? Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Most people watching the Voodoo artists would agree that we are not watching transubstantiation of chicken here.
What congregants do that for their leader?
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