Posted on 10/31/2002 9:05:17 AM PST by H8DEMS
(CNSNews.com) - Frustrated by an unsuccessful campaign to achieve religious recognition from the Boy Scouts of America, a Seattle-based Wicca church has launched its own youth program, which is based on tolerance for different beliefs, including differences in sexual orientation.
SpiralScouts founder Pete 'Pathfinder' Davis believes that many of the things the Boy Scouts are doing are "socially inappropriate." He said he created to the SpiralScouts to "fill the void left by prejudicial treatment of other established children's programs."
Davis, who serves as the Archpriest of the Wiccan Aquarian Tabernacle Church, said his main argument with the BSA is that the group has refused to recognize Wicca as an acceptable form of worship, but at the same time, the BSA incorporates the symbols of myriad Christian denominations into its Religious Emblems program.
He said the Scouts rejected a Wicca badge that was designed and submitted by a well-known Wiccan priestess.
In 1999, Davis created the SpiralScouts as the Aquarian Tabernacle Church's "answer" to the Boy Scouts and other youth organizations that subscribe only to "traditional" faiths. Today, the SpiralScouts welcomes children of all ages (four and up) and backgrounds, including Wiccans, pagans, atheists and homosexuals.
Davis said practicing Wicca is not a mandatory activity for the 50 SpiralScout units currently operating across the U.S., Canada and Switzerland. Beyond fostering a respect for nature, it is up to each SpiralScout unit leader to decide whether they will teach children the principles and philosophy of the Wiccan religion.
The vast majority of the SpiralScout units are operated by Wiccan groups and churches, he said.
"When we started to formalize the program, we designed it in a fashion that it's oriented towards earth religion, but so is Scouting, whether they realize it or not," Davis said. Unlike the "pervasive" use of Christianity contained within the BSA, the SpiralScouts was created to accommodate the spiritual beliefs of any minority religious group, he said.
SpiralScouts describes itself as a work in progress. It says it offers children the opportunity to develop interpersonal and life skills and a pagan world view, in addition to learning "the usual handicrafts of scouting and woodland lore."
Boy Scouts dismiss rejection
According to BSA spokesman Gregg Shields, religious emblems are the property of approved religious scouting organizations and are awarded at their own discretion. For example, he said the National Catholic Council on Scouting and the National Jewish Committee on Scouting each have their own unique religious emblem.
"There is no national Wiccan organization," Shields said. "So, that's why there is no religious award for Wiccans."
He encouraged any Wiccan group that would like to charter a troop in their community to submit an application to their local BSA council for consideration.
Focus on tolerance
According to the SpiralScouts membership requirements, it is imperative that parents and leaders promote religious and cultural tolerance so their children may learn to co-exist with society as a whole. Specifically, the group encourages children to accept the "differing roles of male and female throughout nature and culture."
Contrary to the Boy Scout policy of excluding homosexuals - a policy upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court - the SpiralScouts welcomes homosexuals within its ranks. Davis explained that the Wiccan religion accommodates homosexuals because its philosophy is focused on the "balance of polarities" of that exist in nature.
For example, Davis said the SpiralScouts mandates that leaders of individual units should include both a male and a female. However, he said the rules are flexible because some adults, such as homosexuals, "believe themselves to be embodying masculine or feminine characteristics."
Davis believes that such a male/female balance of leadership ensures a SpiralScout's positive integration into the real world. "Children are not born with prejudices," he noted. "They have to learn prejudice and intolerance from others."
Defiance of 'extreme right'
According to the group's handbook, "SpiralScouts is something new, something perhaps of historic proportions for modern Paganism. It certainly will have an unmistakable impact on Pagan children growing up in this era of Christian extreme-right domination of our culture."
According to the SpiralScouts' interpretation of the pagan philosophy, children participating in the program will learn to honor "both the maleness and femaleness we all harbor within us," as the handbook put it. "Perhaps, if we are lucky, even a few parents who may need some brushing up on these same skills may reap benefits just from being there with the children while the kids learn these things."
Nice idea, but my wife is bigger and meaner than I am.
This is not the religion that I have known for the last 30 years.
I am also Christian. I have been very strict with my two daughters in their religious education and they are VERY Christian.
Wicca is not a religion that you choose. It is something you are born with and have no choice about.
When I have a student ask me to teach them, I will spend about 6 months trying to scare them away.
Wicca is darn hard work and not fun!
Utter Bravo Sierra. High Magic and paganism are two completely different systems. A little like comparing trees and hedgehogs.
As for Satanism, Anton wouldn't have had the trappings to wrap his philosophy in if Christians had created the figure of Satan in the first place.
Of course you would KNOW all this if had actually done any study on it outside of Jack Chick's website.
Sorry if I have crossed any lines today, as it was not intended.
However, you have been able to talk to 3 actual Wiccans today and we were willing to answer questions.
As long time Freepers, we share the same ideas, even if we have different views about our God.
This is what religion is all about, since it is a very personal experience between you and your God.
Now I need to get ready for a Minnesota rally in support of Norm Coleman.
Perhaps true, but inasmuch as I understand it, Wicca is more about the belief that nature, and various entities/personalities that inhabit them, can be successfully manipulated by humans into granting said humans some favor.
In short, all of creation is humankind's personal vending machine, and the whole Wiccan thing is just about learning how to use exact change.
Christianity isn't a religion of nature manipulation - it's a religion of ethics. Our relationship with God is based on our ethical standing before Him. No amount of relics, or icons, or potions, or incantations can change that. God is not some impersonal force that we can manipulate if we're skilled enough. The Wiccan's beef with Christianity, as I understand it, is that it places humankind permanently subservient to a single diety, instead of allowing them to pick and choose their leaders (and allegiances), as if they were simply voting for their next senator.
Now you got me curious, I once even heard that from some of my Southern Baptist family the suffer not a witch to live thing. So for kicks and grins I decided to look it up. The actual word is Kashaph (kuf shin pay-sophit) in hebrew, it means "To whisper a spell, i.e. to inchant or practise magic:- sorcerer, (use) witch(-craft) from magic:-sorcery, witchcraft.
So the actual translation in Exodus (the book of the story of departure of the nation of Israel from Egypt) is at EX 22:18 is well over 1000 years BC, or before Christ, LONG before there were any Church fathers.
Now my pagan friend, do you practice magic, enchant, whisper spells? It says nothing in hebrew about poisons or potions. -grin-
Anyway thanks for bringing it up, it was fun looking it up.
The reason that the comandment was given is that the use of demons, (which yes, I know is not wiccan), or their effects (which is the power behind it all, trust me), is against the Creator because THEY Chose to be against the Creator. Those who do not stand with God, fall without Him. He commanded that the practice of trucking with the enemy stop within the people he chose to be his representatives on earth.
It is a lot like outlawing heroin. The inclusion of it tends to corrupt society. So it is made illegal. Now if a man refuses to stop truckin with the enemy in a time of war he is called a traitor and is hung. Given the choice between the death penalty and cutting off contact with Oslama Bin Laudin, would you trust your neighbor if he refused to stop calling him on the telephone and wore America sucks t-shirts?
Same thing...
By the way, I personnaly think that wicca is not that far from discovering Christ and the Creator, I know one Wiccan that ended up doing it that I rather like. And your statement of the history of LaVey shows you do know what you are talking about. LeVay is a jerk as you say, kinda like saying Madonna is a Christian cause of her name and the crucifix she wears.
Your "Christian" training is a bit weak though. -grin-
Your wrong. It has a lot more to do with trying to manipulate nature using the forces of nature directly in a tree hugging kinda way. The demons love it. Lots of fun mind games with the silly humans.
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