07AR12-34

( - previous issue - )

Apologia Report 12:34

September 13, 2007

Subject: "Young Man's Guide to Wicca" includes telling insights

In this issue:

MORMONISM - yet another look at Mitt Romney's faith uncovers much to give voters pause

SECULARISM - new study finds that kids are predisposed to rejecting their faith, regardless of higher education's influence

WITCHCRAFT - teenager's guide to Wicca provides insider's perspective on the thinking that gives rise to solo practitioners

-------

MORMONISM

"A Mormon President?" by Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp -- with this cover story, Maffly-Kipp, who teaches American religious history at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, acknowledges that "even if [Mitt] Romney were to explain his religious beliefs at length, I doubt that most people would feel at ease" with his Mormonism. At the beginning of her story, Maffly-Kipp summarizes that "Although all [LDS groups] share a common core of teachings, the groups range from some that could pass as Unitarian to the polygamist sect led by fundamentalist Warren Jeffs. The LDS Church, by far the largest Mormon communion, falls somewhere between these extremes."

The meat of the story examines the "three politically relevant issues" regarding Romney's candidacy: "religious authority, moral values, and church-state relations." As for the first of these, Maffly-Kipp notes that "some faithful Mormons interpret all the teachings of top church leaders - in addresses given at General Conference and in published articles - as a form of authoritative scripture. For many Christians and many Americans, this possibility is troubling."

Maffly-Kipp briefly mentions a troubling 1964 event in LDS political history related to the candidate's father former Michigan governor and 1968 presidential candidate, George Romney. "LDS apostle Delbert Stapley warned [George] Romney that a civil rights bill he favored was 'vicious legislation' that contradicted God's 'curse upon the negro.'"

As for the topic of moral values, Maffly-Kipp reports that "Rather than seeing children as sinners in need of chastisement and redemption, Mormons tend to see discipline as a strategy for teaching self-control. Mormons are, in this respect, heirs to a very liberal theological tradition. ... The Mormon approach to family values has imbibed contemporary psychological models of human development to a much greater extent than has conservative evangelicalism. ...

"For Mormons, salvation is a joint effort. It involves a measure of individual initiative, ... but it is also a family endeavor, dependent on members helping one another and contributing to the common good. The highest goal of a faithful church member is to be sealed to one's family for eternity."

Maffly-Kipp explains: "For Mormons, human beings were created by God as 'spirit children' before the beginning of this mortal life. ... In this respect, all human beings are brothers and sisters, literal children of God." The moral significance of this is that "Abortion is wrong because it goes against the goal of enabling fellow spirits to enter the mortal world."

As she concludes, Maffly-Kipp finds that Romney's political identity isn't clear. "He is known now mostly for his ability to change his mind."

In her final paragraphs, Maffly-Kipp considers the views of potential evangelical allies for Romney. One remark stands out. "Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who has firmly declared that Mormonism is antithetical to the Christian faith, has expressed conditional support for Romney" on National Public Radio (no other source/date info provided). Christian Century, Aug 21 '07, pp20-25.

---

SECULARISM

In "Why College Doesn't Turn Kids Secular," Hunter Baker's online-only article [1] for Christianity Today (posted August 16) begins: "For years the running assumption has been that higher education secularizes students. ... A new study by Mark Regnerus, Jeremy Uecker, and Margaret Vaaler in the Spring 2007 issue of Social Forces [2] suggests ... that higher education doesn't secularize students."

In this interview, Baker asks Mark Regnerus, also the author of Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers [4], to explain. Regnerus reports that "One thing that we're quite convinced of is that most of the seeds for 'secularization' are planted well before college, but it's only during college that the diminished participation in organized religion emerges and becomes evident." It is actually "those who never enroll in college [who] are the most likely to stop attending church and to not return."

Regnerus says "we're now convinced that it's not higher education that secularizes, but rather the freedoms that young adults experience during this period of life. We think the story is in what kind of young people avoid college today: They're largely not the familial types.... Instead, they're more troubled, they're more likely to come from broken families.... [T]he most religious Americans tend not to exhibit these traits. As a result, an increasing number of devout youth are pursuing higher education (though largely not growing in faith during those years)."

In this regard, Regnerus notes that "Most of them are just putting their religious faith in the closet during the college years, only to pull it out after a time, dust it off, and put it on again." And instead of being challenged in college, Regnerus finds that "very many young adults are no longer even asked to wrestle with issues of faith, religion, values, and ultimate beliefs. They're just in college to get good grades.... And universities seem okay with this because it pays. All the while, humanities professors are a shrinking share of the faculty...."

Almost as an aside, Baker remarks to Regnerus that "Postmodernism is often a bit of a bogey-man in Christian circles, yet your article suggests its impact may actually be to make the university more friendly to religious persons." Regnerus explains that pomo-types have increasingly tolerated evangelicals on campus, but they remain unfriendly.

For more on this, see: <http://www.geocities.com/deeann_regnerus/LosingmyReligion.pdf> and <http://tinyurl.com/fhvh7>

---

WITCHCRAFT

Since the beginnings of modern witchcraft, conflict has existed between traditionalists and independents who do their own, self-styled thing. Sound familiar? A good example of the latter is found in Sons of the Goddess: A Young Man's Guide to Wicca, by Christopher Penczak [5]. From the book's bio page, one finds that Penczak has written several books, including Gay Witchcraft [6]. He is also "a founding member of the Gifts of Grace Foundation [3], a non-profit organization in New Hampshire made up of individuals from diverse spiritual backgrounds dedicated to service to the local communities."

In the book's concluding chapter, "The Magickal Promise: Dedication to the Craft," Penczak considers what it is that qualifies someone as a witch. "The pagan community continually debates the importance of initiation and formal titles and degrees. Many traditionalists feel they're absolutely necessary, while others think they're not. I'm in the second group, and think personal experiences, not titles, are the most important things in living the life of a witch. I always learned that your are your own authority in your Craft. ...

"I started as a skeptic. I wanted to know the science and philosophy of magick. I wasn't looking for a religion. I didn't understand that it was spiritual, at least not at first. But the more I practiced it, even as a science, the more I found the spirituality and claimed the word 'witch' for myself. ...

"Many people have a subconscious fear of the word 'witch.' Now I think it's an important word to reclaim and to reeducate the world to its true meaning as 'a healer and wise one.'"

In recruiting his readers, Penczak makes suggestions for developing certainty in determining one's initial identity as a witch. This includes the advice of performing a dream ritual in which one writes out the following on paper, slipping it under a pillow while sleeping: "I, [supplied name], ask the Goddess, God and Great Spirit to know if the path of the witch is the path for me at this time. ... I thank you all and ask this be for my highest good. So mote it be."

--------

Sources, Digital:

1 - <http://tinyurl.com/2okrs9>

2 - <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/social_forces/toc/sof85.4.html>

3 - <http://www.tolinterfaithfellowship.org/giftsofgrace.html>

-------

Sources, Monographs:

4 - Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers, Mark Regnerus (Oxford Univ Prs, 2007), hardcover, 304 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195320948/apologiareport>

5 - Sons of the Goddess: A Young Man's Guide to Wicca, by Christopher Penczak (Llewellyn, 2005, paperback, 216 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738705470/apologiareport>

6 - Gay Witchcraft: Empowering the Tribe, by Christopher Penczak (Weiser, 2003, paperback: 265 pages

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578632811/apologiareport>

--------

( - next issue - )