I was raised in a relatively small town in the buckle of the bible belt, in a medium
sized pentecostal church. I guess it was what you could call a "fundie" church,
although it certainly wasn't the worst. I was raised with a general suspicion and
mistrust even to the point of predjudice of other Christian denominations. Basically
we believed that our denomination was the truest, most biblical denomination
(the fact that the denomination had been in existence for only a little over a century
didn't seem to phase anyone who clung to this belief.)

I grew up knowing next to nothing about the "other" denominations...all I was told
were stereotypes most of which had no basis in reality. We got sermons
about the evils of rock music...which caused me to be afraid
of "hidden messages" in secular music up until high school.
And of course, every halloween, we got the big "Halloween is evil"
sermon which told us about all the "true" origins of Halloween.

They preached grace, but they lived legalism. Although I had heard the word my entire
life, I didn't really understand the doctrine of grace until I moved out of my
parent's house. One pastor of the church took a Wednesday night to rant and rave
about how women should not be placed in "authority" over a man and how they
shouldn't be ordained to preach. (No danger there...women weren't even allowed
on the church council, and still aren't.)

And of course all witches were lumped
into one group as evil devil worshippers (even though, no other religious group
was being singled out this way. I believe that Christianity is a beautiful spiritual
path. Unfortunately, the loudest Christians are usually the fundies who spend all
their energy practicing avoidance behaviors to appear "righteous."

Fundies are misrepresenting Christianity and they are misrepresenting God as a hateful,
spiteful, fire and brimstone creator who just loves to "torture" people.
A lot of people might not understand the "Christian Witch"
phenomenon...but put simply...it's about putting imagination and
creativity back in our spirituality.

It's also about focusing on "Grace" instead of "Legalism" and focusing on love
and what we can do to make a difference in our world without being hateful and
intolerant of those of other belief systems. There are many factors that
keep other people from understanding the "Christian witch", however the concept is
almost deceptively simple once you get past a few issues of terminology.

On this site, I hope to explore an alternative to "fundamentalism", namely the path
of the Christian witch. I'm going to add my little disclaimer here: There are things
that I believe that some may view as intolerant. Even some Christian witches may think
I'm being judgemental...however, that is not my goal. I hope to be able to share
my spiritual beliefs while hopefully people understand that these are only
my "beliefs."

I didn't just pull them out of a hat (few people choose their beliefs that way.)
I have no idea how God speaks to other people, and I don't know that
some things might just be set up a certain way so we can learn to love and respect
one another despite our theological differences. I have taken an odd route even for a
"Christian witch." We may have to agree to disagree on some points, but
the one thing that doesn't change is our love and desire to connect to the creator!
Blessings,
Zoë Grace =)

Special Thanks to Whyte Myst for use of the beautiful border!
also special thanks to "Butterflies are Free"