A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from Reuter’s News Agency, April 30, 2002 with a headline: “Witches say Christians violated their rights” dateline: Los Angeles.Like any other church group they have their potluck suppers, charity fund raisers and mid week fellowship meetings.The Witches and Warlocks of Lancaster, California also happen to practice an ancient earth-centered religion known as paganism, which involves invoking spirits and spells, concocting herbal potions, praying to an array of gods and goddesses and performing mock animal sacrifice rituals by melting chocolate bunnies in fondue pots and eating the gooey remains.In the spirit of diversity and political correctness the growing group of more than 300 residents of the suburban enclave 40 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, sometimes invite the public to their gatherings, but they say their Christian neighbors violated their rights on the evening of March 16th when they showed up for a sacred spring equinox ceremony in the parking lot of a local pagan gift shop praying loudly to Jesus while drowning out their singing and chanting with Christian praise music.What followed next has since sparked heated debate among residents over the definitions of frees speech and hate crime and whether various religious groups in the predominately conservative Christian area will ever coexist peacefully.The unorthodox dispute has attracted the attention of representative of state and the federal governments who are monitoring the situation.At first, the Christian guests remained mostly seated along the periphery of the pagan ceremony, praying quietly.Among them was a volunteer chaplain from the Lancaster Sheriff’s Office who sat in an SUV with its motor running.But as the ceremony got rolling the Reverend John Canavelo, who has since been suspended from his post with the sheriff’s office for his involvement in the incident, allegedly pumped up the volume on his car stereo drowning out such old pagan standards as “We all come from the goddess,” “Earth, Fire and Water,” and “Spirit I Am” with a loud blast of Christian music said high priestess Cyndia Rycker, owner of Witches Grove Gift Shop which hosted the event.“They interrupted a sacred ritual,” she told Reuters. “When we yelled ‘sacrifice the chocolate rabbit’ they jumped out of their parked cars and started to circle us.They were praying hard.It was really chaos.But we were focused because we were determined they weren’t going to stop us and force us to hide.They believe we are Satan based, and we are not.We don’t believe in the entity so therefore, he doesn’t exist.”The pagans are planning to lobby the California legislature for tougher laws against people who interrupt religious ceremonies.Meanwhile, Rycker, a former Lutheran said she has not cast any negative spells on the Christians and is open to welcoming them back to her circle.“If they want to pray for my soul, that’s fine, as long as they do it quietly,” she said.
Tom:
Dave, I think this is a good example of Christians acting in a way that’s foolish in a situation that’s quite absurd.I mean they are sacrificing chocolate bunnies?
Dave:
Well Tom, it’s not calculated to enhance your relationship with these people and get them to hear what you might want to say.If you want to present the gospel to them it’s a sad situation.Here is zeal without knowledge.Zeal gone astray.What is the point?Why do you want to offend these people?You are not going to stop them from what they believe.It’s almost like the Taliban, you know?You are going to do it our way or else!The gospel is not to be force upon anyone.Jesus said, “If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink.”“Whosoever will may come.”Christianity is not forced.It has to come from the heart.We must believe in the heart.“Romans:10:9That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
See All...,” we sang that in Sunday school.If you believe with all your heart—that’s what Christianity is all about and you’re not going to get people to believe something when you are acting like this!
Tom:
Dave, this is not an isolated case.We get letters from people.We get people who write to us because they say well we have a deliverance ministry and we believe we have to take control, we’ve got to bind Satan and we’ve got to move in and deliver this territory from it’s evil oppression and so on.I don’t find that in the scripture.
Dave:
Well you are getting into something else now.Territorial—
Tom:
Well it’s kind of related.This is what they are trying to do. They’ve got an area in their community that they feel they have to come in and pray and bind these spirits.
Dave:
Yes, territorial demons and didn’t we have a Religion in the News piece some months ago about people who were burying crosses around a school and—
Tom:
Actually that was about a year ago.
Dave:
A year ago, okay.Well when you’re getting as old as I am time flies.
Tom:
Get out of here!I wish I had your memory!I wish I had your ability to remember things.
Dave:
But Tom, you don’t overcome Satan by yelling at him and putting on loud Christian music and offending people.You are not going to stop these people from their practices.They can practice it in their home.They can practice it somewhere—I mean they invited the public here.They were invited to come.
Tom:
They were guests.
Dave:
They were guests, right.
Tom:
Even this woman, the head witch demonstrated charity.Come, but sit and be quiet and pray for us if that’s what you have in mind.Why couldn’t they just follow that?
Dave:
Yes.Well I was at a church recently and I appreciate, I love these people, but they were all praying at once and some of them were yelling.If you want to hear yourself, so it’s like conversation at a banquet you know.You’ve got to keep talking louder and louder and louder.I almost said, “Look folks, God is not hard of hearing.We can pray in our hearts to him too you know.”Tom, I’m not trying to be critical and I’ve got my own problems I am sure.People could point out problems with me, but here they are, it’s like they are going to drown out Satan.We are going to get this Christian music up so loud we’re going to drown out Satan.It doesn’t work that way.That’s not the point, but the worst part of it is Tom, I would have to be on the side of the pagans in this situation as far as comportment, as far as the way they were willing to treat other people—and they wanted to be fair with the Christians.They welcomed them, but they certainly didn’t act like guests.
Tom:
Yes.Dave, and that’s my heart here as well.We want people to receive our message.You have to offer it in a way that it can best be received.It’s not by might, nor by power, it’s by God’s Spirit.Doing things his way.Presenting his gospel.
Dave:
Yet speaking the truth in his love.