Merry Meet

by Guest Blogger Jen Whitten: Your Dark Passenger

My brain is a veritable wasteland of pointless trivia.  For whatever reason, I have this need to continually pick up bits of knowledge whenever I can, almost as though I’m training for some dumbed-down version of Jeopardy that doesn’t require participants to speak 27 dead languages and be experts in all world religions.

Of course, I find the study of religion and spirituality to be fascinating so it’s one of those things I end up researching on a regular basis.  It occurred to me during one of my information romps through cyberspace that the average person barely knows more than the basics of their own faith, much less the intricacies of others.  This wouldn’t pose a problem if it didn’t seem to foster arrogance and prejudice towards those of opposing views in all too many cases.

Here’s the thing…We all know our own opinions of other faiths, but how many of us know how we’re looked upon?  Sure, sure…we have an idea of what they think, not that it matters much since those willing to tell us are often the most mean-spirited and rude people we’ll ever meet.

So, I thought I’d go ahead and steal their thunder by telling y’all about the Christian perception of Paganism.  Here goes nothing…

1. Pagans are uneducated
2. Pagans are immoral
3. Pagans practice black magic
4. Pagans are devil worshipers
5. Pagans are going to hell

Before the proverbial villagers come at me with torches and pitchforks, I’d like to point out that these aren’t actually my opinions; they’re just the most common things that were mentioned by other Christians while on the subject of Paganism.  Don’t kill the messenger.

I imagine this list looks pretty silly to y’all, being that a Pagan knows what Paganism is all about; yet Christians actually believe they can justify these beliefs.  Unfortunately, that would be a different conversation entirely.

Who knows?  Maybe I’ll get invited back one of these days to go into some more detail on this for you.

Thanks, Jen! We look forward to reading more from you soon. Readers, please note–we understand that this is not how all Christians feel, but we are noting the common misconceptions here. As always, comments are welcome, and please check out Y our Dark Passenger.

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