A number of years ago, I wrote a series of articles on Dechristianizing Yourself. I wrote them out of a need to free my own mind of the constructs of Christianity and orient myself deeper into the constructs of the Craft. This is not a retraction of those articles; I stand behind what I wrote, then and now. Rather, this is an invitation to consider where the spiritual path of your upbringing has led you as a practitioner of something else.
My path isn’t for everyone, and indeed it took me a long time to accept that I practiced a dual-faith spirituality. To be honest, it felt like failure, like cheating, like I wasn’t enough of a Witch if I kept an ear to the ground for Jesus and nodded to Mary every time I saw her. As much as I wanted at one time to think these were unwanted beliefs that I should free myself from, they weren’t actually unwanted. They are foundational to the magick that I practice, unique to me because of the experiences I had as someone who had grown up in the Church, divested myself of it, and then came back years later with new perspective.
Would I call myself a Christian Witch? No, because my path is primarily Wiccan and that is the framework that I have built my spirituality on for the last twenty-five years. Would I call myself a follower of Christ? Sure, in the same way that I am a follower of Buddha and a follower of Waheguru and a follower of the Goddess. There are far more similarities than differences in the purposes of these faith traditions, and they have each touched my heart in ways that have changed me on a fundamental level.
I will say, however, that living as a dual-faith practitioner in a culture that neither understands nor endorses such experiences has been a roller-coaster. Attending church in-person feels disingenuous. Watching the service online feels like a cop-out. Discussing my work and relationships with the Christian pantheon to other Pagans would feel like I was inviting them to disparage those relationships and me along with it. Not discussing those things feels like gatekeeping information. Trying to discuss it with Christians feels like an open invitation for judgment and harassment. It’s a sort of mental exhaustion that I don’t have time for yet somehow keep circling back around to.
I will also say that my personal practice and my group practice look very different, and that’s as it should be because they serve different purposes. My personal practice is for my own spiritual growth, development, and refuge. The practices I teach others are there to scaffold the same in my students so that they can discover their own path and adorn it with their own values, morals, and beliefs as they go. Group work is designed to support group priorities, and the sort of coven I would like to lead would have the priority of service to the gods and deliberate spiritual development. In that situation, the deities and spirits we work with and the words and visualizations we use are designed to support and reinforce the group’s collective goals. Those are circles I don’t invite Christian deities into. It would be disrespectful both to the deity and to the group. But Christ isn’t the only friend I have in the spirit world, and that’s okay.
Ultimately, whether I’m taking Communion or practicing the Great Rite, I am connecting to the vast unfathomable energy that has manifested in the Universe and remembering that I am both loved as I am right now and responsible for my actions in the world. As one of my fellow priestesses says, “I am blessed to be a blessing to others.” Though we may have different opinions on where that blessing comes from, we both use it to walk the Way, do the Work, and mend the Web.