A witchy christian manifesto

This feels scary to write - which is exactly why it needs to be written.

As I type this, I am wearing a hoodie with the triple swords of Essex county, and above them, the words “Witch County”.

In Essex, over 100+ women were executed on charges of “witchraft” - more than five times than the more widely known Salem Witch Trials.

It goes without saying that it is sad, and people shouldn’t be put to death for being different.

And though we may claim to be more civilised nowadays, are we really? I see the same dynamic in play across different sides of the spectrum.

In the Christian community, you have the whole “New Age to Christ” trend, with content creators going viral with their conversion testimonies, gathering thousands of followers, disowning their old identity and helping to “rescue” other “misguided” new-agers (looking at you, CrafttoChrist)

And on the flip side, you have new agers and ‘spiritual but not religious’ types who - so put off by the bigotry and fundamentalism of (the noisy, but by no means the majority) religious ones - who then reject and expel the ‘other’ in response, doing the same thing to people of faith, in reverse. Discriminating and excluding, without understanding.

I have no interest in repeating tired old binaries.

Connecting to the divine Source of the universe, celebrating the sacred feminine and masculine, exploring meaning through archetypes, metaphor, myth and stories, connecting to the elements, and participating in prayer as ritual is - and should be - something that is open to anyone of any faith or none.

So why identify as Witchy Christian at all?

Why not just be a witch, or a pagan, or something that is less likely to get people’s bristles up?

Or just a ‘pure’, ‘proper’ Christian?

Why can’t I pick a side?

Because - the fact that it does raise peoples heckles to combine these two things - dividing the world into ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’, and never the twain shall mix - is exactly why I call bullshit.

Because we can keep dancing around the binaries and polarities, picking sides.

Or we can pick a path that is big enough to embody the differences - a path bigger than our petty human nitpicking.

I don’t think God cares if we call ourselves a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew, a Hindu, a Rastafarian, a flying spaghetti monster-ist, a secularist, a humanist, an atheist, an artist, a mum, a not bothered.

People’s connection to divinity is not defined by the label they give themselves.

The most deeply divinely embodied person I know was my dad - someone who for all intents and purposes had no interest in religion. Music as a whole was his whole reason for being - his harp a sound straight from heaven. I have no doubt he is playing up there now - does God give one single shit that he wasn’t a churchgoer, that he wasn’t banging on about the Good News?

A God that is so anal that he wouldn’t let my dad - a person who was regularly called an angel by his many friends, a person who touched souls with his non-judgemental, all accepting nature, who was so warm and embracing of others, who had zero interest in money and only interest in serving others and bringing beauty to the world - if that God is not someone who wants someone like my dad in heaven - then that is not a definition of God I subscribe to. Just to be clear.

I identify as a Christian because:

a) I will not let the fundamentalists have Jesus. He is for all of us.

b) Because my queer, trans, witchy, misfit friends - and everyone - need to know that they are loved and embraced - and not with any of this “love the sinner, hate the sin” hypocritical, judgemental bullshit. We need to stop pretending we know what “sin” is and take the log out of our own fucking eye. Maybe sin is what we do to each other when we divide people into ‘saved’ and ‘not-saved’.

c) Because my mestiza Mexican bones identify deeply with La Virgen de Guadalupe, with Jesucristo, and that divine connection cannot be extracted from me

d) Because I am a weirdo who loves reading the bible - alongside spiritual texts from buddhism, taoism, and just about any other ‘ism’ you can think of (God is so much bigger than labels - and there is so much we can learn from the variety of books in his library; I count all works of art in that library)

e) Because I believe in being divinely led, and collaborating with the Divine - not as a passive, “give me everything I want, and rescue me SkyDaddy” kind of way, but in a - “I am listening universe/God/Source - tell me which way to go - I am open to synchronicities, to nudges, to being your loving hands on this earth”

I shouldn’t need to justify any of this - and I’ve been realising that other people’s prejudice is not my fucking problem.

And yet, when people think of a Christian, there is one image that comes to mind - and it’s probably not someone you feel very comfortable being open around. You’d probably watch what you say. Try not to say ‘fuck’ lest they raise an eyebrow.

I’m a Christian. I say fuck. I used to be a stripper and a drug addict. I own my past. I am not “repenting” for my sins. I embrace all of me - my shadows, my light, and all the parts on this journey of healing. I celebrate the cycles of the moon. I’m an absolute slut for astrology and human design and tarot and woo of all sorts.

It may not make sense to others - but it makes sense to me.

And I know there are so many of us out there - who feel like they don’t fit, who have never seen themselves represented spiritually - and it is for you, that I am writing this too.

All are welcome.

Amen.