Part the First.
Wherein we are seeing, or have been seeing over these past few years, a gradual slackening of the Christian Ethic that guided the western world since it's inception, and to be more focused, established the values and ethics acceptable to the 'average American' post Second World War. The ethic created for white middle-class Americans by the Jewish element (not meaning that at all in a perjorative sense) in Hollywood, and in network television (a phenomina steeped in irony, and worthy of a study in it's own right). Even the upheaval of the 1960’s was not as radical a departure from ‘acceptable beliefs’ as is that which we are seeing today, for the Sixties allowed behavioral changes for the most part.
Today, we are seeing changes to observations of spirituality. Wicca is accepted to be the fastest growing religion worldwide these days., although perhaps paganism would better describe the movement away from the established church’s. We see on prime time television entertainment that advocates acceptance of wicca, paganism, magick, and calm acceptance of the palpable evil in vampyres and demons.
'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', 'Charmed', 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch', 'The Worst Witch', and of course the venerable 'Bewitched', 'The Monsters', and the 'Addams Family', all programs who’s central characters are involved with the occult. Films the likes of 'Practical Magic', 'The Witches of Eastwick', 'The Sixth Sense', 'Stigmata', and a host of others, dealing with acceptance of the supernaural.
These are aimed at the fears we have inherited through generations of religious conditioning, and while not denying the ethic the church represents, they do indeed question the substance of the institution itself.
All church’s.
Their innate ability to define that which is reality, that which is 'the Truth', and the reliability to deal with problems supernatural is now under public scrutiny.
While our media assures us that there is something, in fact assured us there is much more than we might allow, bound by a church doctrine, it is reinforcing that which the church initially was to have represented, ‘faith’, is valid.
Again, all church’s.
The cornerstone of Christian teaching is tolerance, as it is the same with paganism. This similarity is being forcefully brought to light, and the issue of 'acceptability' is being re-examined.
We are calling for a radical redefiniton of that which constitues ‘good’ and ‘evil’, for at the moment, at best, such definitions are defined by demographics and geographical location. There is no universal ethic . To the ears of Western man, that statement is anathema, for Christianity preaches of the sanctity of life above all else, and universality of man's relationship to 'God'. However, life is not so sacred in societies such as India, where religious faith allows for the transient state of this body, and innures to some extent the grief associated with death. To a degree, in Western societies, it is grief itself that has become sacred, and suffering a condition to be almost admired. This simply as an example, of 'one man's meat..' being more than an adage. As for 'universality with that which is God', the definitions of that which constitutes 'universality' are too many to count, and far too many to consider in their whole in as short a work as one hopes this might be.
It is possible, in examening both paganism in it’s purest form, by defining it’s ethic, and Christianity, by treating that faith equally, to find too many similarities for either pagans to be persecuted, or Christians to be ridiculed. Keeping firmly in mind there are fanatics and zealots belonging to both camps, and while the Christian obstreperous are more evident, the pagans are no less aggravating.
We might begin with a comparison of some of the basic tenets of paganism and Christianity in general, but we shall try to do this with as much scholarship as can be mustered during this epoch, and with the tools currently at hand. Therefore perhaps an exegesis of 'The Wiccan Rede', followed by a similar treatment of the apocryphal 'Gospel of Thomas' would at least set out the ground, be it common or not. It might be pointed out to begin, that the Rede is a short document printing unto something less than a page. The Gospel of Thomas is relatively short itself, saying much the same thing in nine pages. However, keep an eye on the footnotes.
In fact, what we will begin with is an hermaneutic and exegetical approach to the Wiccan Rede, which will be followed by a similar treatment of the 113 verses in the Gospel of Thomas, after which we will compare the ethics and strictures of both, to see where they agree, and where they differ.