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Wicca, the pagan temptation for youth increases followers By ALAN BRANCH Baptist Press Published September 8, 2005 I recently had the opportunity to meet with several youth ministers from Southern Baptist churches here in Missouri. Each impressed me as having a deep commitment to biblical authority and personal passion for Jesus Christ. As we discussed the challenges facing current youth ministers, a concern all shared was the fact that many youth, including youth in evangelical churches, are dabbling in Wicca. So, what is Wicca? The word “wicca” was an old English word which meant “shaman.” The word was reintroduced into...

Wiccans encircle an altar of fruit and bread as day turns to night in Central Park. The lush strains of a nearby performance of Puccini's "Turandot" blend with the prayers of an ancient Celtic harvest festival. Wicca is a modern reconstruction of the pre-Christian nature-based religions of Europe. "There is an exquisite, ecstatic sense of the sacred," said Phyllis Curott, lawyer, author and the priestess of the Temple of Ara. "You literally feel your heart open. Being in the circle is like being in the womb of the great Goddess."

NEW PORT RICHEY - Pagans are coming out of the closet. After years of being labeled as devil worshippers who sacrifice animals under a full moon, the modern-day followers of ancient beliefs want to be part of the community. In Pasco County, they're planning the first Pagan Pride Day in a popular city park. ``People think paganism is evil,'' said Robert Crom, regional coordinator for Pasco Pagans. ``Some people, especially among mainstream religions, feel threatened by us.'' Crom, 25, said he wants to clear up public misconceptions about pagan religions. The group, formed a couple of years ago by transplants...

A United Methodist pastor in Virginia has been placed on "involuntary leave of absence" for refusing to allow a homosexual to become a member of his congregation. The Rev. Edward Johnson was placed on a yearlong involuntary leave of absence, effective July 1, by action of the clergy of the denomination's Virginia Annual (regional) Conference on June 13. He will receive medical benefits but no salary. The clergyman, pastor of South Hill (Va.) United Methodist Church for six years, could be reinstated as a United Methodist pastor in good standing if he fulfills recommendations from the conference's board of ordained...

As well as being extraordinarily popular, the [Harry Potter] books have encouraged millions of children to start reading for the first time.... For those who have a problem with the idea of fantasy and alternative universes alongside ours, we need to recognize that almost all children play imaginative games in their minds starting at a very young age and have no difficulty whatsoever in distinguishing between fantasy and reality.... Additionally, the Harry Potter books send a strong message about moral order. There are beautiful and enjoyable human relationships among the characters, and there is a depth of commitment and service...

The Episcopal Church Self-Destructs over Homosexuality Episcopalians Defend the Consecration of a "Gay" Bishop By Allan Dobras The Episcopal Church has been flirting with a disastrous schism for the last thirty-five years, and now a formal breakup seems inevitable following an unapologetic June 17–22, 2005, appearance before the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Nottingham, England. The purpose of the meeting was to hear the church's defense of its consecration of "gay" Bishop V. Gene Robinson. Over the years, the denomination continued to hang together as it blundered through several divisive issues while causing its rolls to plummet by about 1.3...

Using an end run around a previous vote against a bill authorizing same-sex marriage, a California legislator is seeking to revive the issue believed dead for this session in a parliamentary maneuver known as "gut-and-amend." The original bill, AB19, authored by San Francisco Assemblyman Mark Leno, fell four votes short in the Assembly last month because seven of his Democrat colleagues failed to vote on the measure when the roll was called, a practice known as "taking a walk," according to an editorial in today's San Francisco Chronicle. Unable to reintroduce his original bill, Leno deleted the language of a...

The United Church of Christ's rule-making body voted overwhelmingly Monday to approve a resolution that endorses same-sex marriage (search), making it the largest Christian denomination to do so. The vote is not binding on individual churches, but could cause some churches to leave the fold. Roughly 80 percent of the members of the church's General Synod voted to approve the resolution. They debated for about an hour before voting. On Sunday, a committee of about 50 United Church of Christ (search) representatives gave nearly unanimous approval to the resolution, recommending that the General Synod approve it. It was supported by...

The United Church of Christ - famous for setting precedent - considers backing same-sex marriage at its national synod. As a federal constitutional amendment on marriage garners growing public support, one American Protestant church could soon go against the grain. During its national synod, which begins Friday in Atlanta, the United Church of Christ (UCC) will debate three marriage resolutions - one backing "full marriage equality" for same-sex couples, one defining marriage as between a man and a woman, and a third proposing further study of the issue. No one is predicting the outcome, but the UCC - a union...

Rodney Harder and Tony Gray Rodney D. Harder and Ray B. Gray Jr., artists and art teachers in New York, celebrated their partnership yesterday. The Rev. David A. Murphy, a priest of the American Catholic Church in the United States, led the ceremony at the couple's home in Cooks Falls, N.Y. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/fashion/weddings/26hard.html http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/fashion/weddings/26DAWS.html?pagewanted=all John Daws and Lance Erickson John Thomas Daws, the son of Fay Tomlinson Daws of Dillon, S.C., and the late John T. Daws, is to celebrate his partnership today with Lance Michael Erickson, the son of Joan Tracey Erickson and Granville Erickson of Brooklyn Heights. The Rev....

National Council of Churches(NCC): Celebrate July 4th by Slamming the War, Calling for Withdrawal, Caving to the Jihadists From the NCC website: The Governing Board of the National Council of Churches USA invites you to join them in this call to pursue peace and justice in Iraq. A Call to Speak Out. July 4, 2005 This year our nation is at war as we observe the 4th of July, a day that honors those founders who spoke out for independence from tyranny. Today in Iraq a cruel dictator has been deposed, yet the suffering of the Iraqi people continues. Mandated...

THE Anglican Church moved closer to schism yesterday when members of its central administrative council formally asked the Churches of Canada and the US to go. Unconvinced by the justifications offered by both Churches on Tuesday for their actions in ordaining an openly homo- sexual bishop and authorising same-sex blessings, members of the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Nottingham asked them to leave the council and its central finance and standing committees. Although the motion invites the Churches to withdraw voluntarily, it amounts in effect to a punishing expulsion. The debate was held behind closed doors at Nottingham Univers-ity yesterday,...

Bruce Smith and and Tony Carroll have been together for 10 years. They've been married for two. "We were as married as people could be," Carroll said, so they didn't expect their relationship to change once they tied the knot in Canada. "But it did feel different having the validation of a whole country." In November, Texas voters will be asked to validate the opposite idea as they consider a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage. Smith and Carroll plan to be active in the campaign against the amendment. And Houston is emerging as a focal point for both sides. Carroll...

Scientology's Nut Job Founder Cruise a kook? Check out these gems from L. Ron's FBI file JUNE 24--As Tom Cruise and his Scientology cohorts show Katie Holmes the religion's ropes, they surely won't be spending any time focusing on L. Ron Hubbard's wonderfully entertaining FBI file. Which, of course, is TSG's job. This Hubbard guy, the bureau documents reveal, was quite a raving lunatic (who could have imagined?). When he wasn't diming out a supposed Nazi, beefing about his wife, or complaining about being harassed by Cuban commies, Hubbard wrote to the FBI about a bizarre home invasion. Hubbard,...

SAN FRANCISCO — Gay marriage, runaway brides, abortion, sex education and AIDS all have one thing in common, say sexuality researchers. They're examples of ''moral panics" — a topic that's the focus of an international sexuality conference being held this week at San Francisco State University. "Moral panics are a kind of sexual scapegoating," said Gilbert Herdt, director of the National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State. "They're collective eruptions of deeply felt emotions such as fear, rage, disgust, loathing, shame." In the 1980s, homosexuals and hemophiliacs were made into scapegoats for spreading the AIDS virus. Earlier this century,...

Three major cable providers are buying into the launch of two new homosexual cable networks that will air homosexual programming around the clock for the first time in U.S. television history. In April, Comcast and Cox Communications agreed to offer the homosexual network "Here," put out by Regent Entertainment through their video-on-demand offerings. Viacom will offer its own advertiser-supported homosexual network, "LOGO," as a basic cable channel starting on June 30. "I don't think most parents want their children flipping channels on their way to the Cartoon Network and running across a scene of two men kissing in bed on...

San Francisco -- Less than three weeks after a bill to legalize same-sex marriage died in the California Assembly, a Democratic lawmaker said Monday that he plans to revive the measure this session by attaching it to legislation already pending in the state Senate. Assemblyman Mark Leno, one of six openly gay members of the Legislature, said he has decided to employ a legislative maneuver known as "gut and amend" to resurrect the bill that on June 2 fell four votes shy of gaining the simple majority it needed to pass the 80-member house. "My hope is that we will...

Gay advocates fight churches' charity status Institutions fear losing tax breaks if they oppose same-sex unions; Rightly so, gay-rights group says Alex Hutchinson The Ottawa Citizen Sunday, June 12, 2005 Churches that oppose same-sex marriage legislation have good reason to fear for their charitable status, a leading gay-rights advocate is warning. "If you are at the public trough, if you are collecting taxpayers' money, you should be following taxpayers' laws. And that means adhering to the Charter," says Kevin Bourassa, who in 2001 married Joe Varnell in one of Canada's first gay weddings, and is behind www.equalmarriage.ca. "We have...

SALT LAKE CITY -- David Johnson stopped believing in the Mormon church about three years ago, when he came out of the closet. At 24, he is ignoring strict principles of a church that teaches that homosexuality is a serious sin by living the life of a gay man. But he chooses to live here, in the capital of one of the nation's most conservative states, which is shadowed by the worldwide headquarters of a church that suffuses nearly every aspect of life in Utah. The Mormon church, one of the world's fastest growing faiths with about 12 million members...

I recently saw this on TV: a commercial for a Fresno "Gay Pride" parade. Get this: after encouraging everybody to come out and showing videos of "Gay Pride" demonstrators and featuring more rainbow colors than a hippie music video, the commercial finishes with the statement, "Comcast proudly supports Fresno's Gay Pride Parade..." What? How far have we come as a society, if a company as reputable as Comcast openly endorses homosexual "pride" gatherings, especially in such a conservative area as this, without any fear of reprisal? And they aren't going to get bad press for this, they aren't going to...