As a company we get pestered by Fundamentalists. We produced the following in leaflet form as our response. Please feel free to use as required.

An Open Letter

It is simply not true to state that Witches and other Pagans worship Satan or celebrate evil. Those Christians and others who think they do are simply misinformed, as mistaken as supposing that Moslems worship Krishna. I recommend them to read the book Gods Within - a Critical Guide to the New Age, written by senior churchman Michael Perry, Archdeacon of Durham, and published by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. When I was a child, the evangelical vicar of my local church told us that Roman Catholics were equivalent to Satanists. Later we were taught that Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists and Jews all, in one way or another, worshipped the devil. Today, better understanding, together with the Race Relations Act and Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Britain is a signatory, mean children are no longer taught such damaging falsehoods, and are beginning to learn respect for different faiths. Now it seems to be the turn of the Pagan Religions to be persecuted. Yet they too are protected by Article 18 which states: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this includes . . . freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest their religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. We all deplored the absence of religious freedom in the old Communist bloc. Are people now to be denied the same freedom in Britain.

The Christian Fundamentalist and the Bible

Asked if the bible is full of contradictions, the reply in the first instance, is No; in the second, Yes; they are put there to try our faith. Argue any point, basing your words on the literal words of scripture. The reply is firstly quotation of that Passage of Holy Writ which contradicts the one you have quoted, and secondly a reference to the Temptation on the Mount, which gives us an illustration of the fact that the Devil can quote Scripture. (YOU are the Devil, of course.) Reply that the Christian Fundamentalist himself has been quoting Scripture, and for all you know he may be the Devil, by his own argument, and you get a mixture of Uriah Heep and Calvin. He is an unworthy sinner saved by grace, putting humbly his trust in the efficacy of the Blood of Jesus, and you are one of those "dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murderers and idolators, who loveth and maketh a lie" referred to in the Apocalypse, and it was mistaken kindness on the part of St John that he did not mention YOU by name. It will be seen that this position is entirely unassailable. Every canon of morality, or of thought itself, is a definite engine of the Devil, if you aim it at a Christian Fundamentalist. While the Catholic Church maintained an almost identical position, centralized in patristic authority and culminating in Papal infallibility; refusing to discuss the question whether any Papal remark was ex cathedra or merely personal opinion, denying reason and logic, she remained unshaken, and the gates of hell did not prevail against her. To open religion to discussion is to destroy it. The Christian Fundamentalist must then be regarded as the only true Christian, if the foundation of Christianity be admitted to be the Bible. They obey each text as it is quoted; and as they cannot quote two texts at once, no possibility of contradiction can arise. For example ask "Shall I buy Railway Shares?" No; railways are not mentioned in The Bible. Or, if one thinks it is good business to buy them: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might!" It is a perfect system; the Christian Fundamentalist can do no wrong; the other man can do no right.

A Christian Reply to those who would Judge Others

the Practice of Judging, against which we have so many warnings in the New Testament, consists not so much in the characterizing of particular actions or modes of life, as in making these the basis for a sweeping, and, in some cases, a final verdict on the character of those to whom they are rightly or wrongly attributed. The warnings are given in the interests of both the critic and the criticized. The practice is equally hurtful to both, and therefore if it is not absolutely condemned, it is surrounded by so many safeguards and limitations as to be practically forbidden. On the one hand it is an infringement of the royal law (Ja 2.13), on the other, it stands in the way of that self-criticism which is necessary to amendment of morals and progress in religion (Mt 7.3). The chief objection to judging, however, is that it must be based on partial knowledge; we are necessarily ignorant of the inner life, the motives and principles of other men; we are not acquainted either with the antecedent conditions of their actions, or the possibilities of justification, or progress, or amendment, that their future may contain. This is the position taken up by Jesus Christ in opposition to Jewish legalists. He declared that the latter judged according to appearance (Jn 7.24) , according to the flesh (Jn 8.15). As their religion consisted in the performance of certain prescribed duties, and the avoidance of outward offences, they had a rough and ready standard by which to estimate character. Christ and St. Paul had a more righteous, because more complete, standard; they took into account the inner thoughts and motives, and, knowing the complexity of these, deliberately refrained from judging, even where the outward evidence seemed absolutely convincing (Jn 8.11, l Co 4.5). One last motive in the prohibition of judging must not be overlooked. It was necessary to exercise patience and forbearance, not only in the interests of the individual, but in those of the Church. This is at least indirectly taught in the Parable of the Tares (Mt13.24), which cannot be limited exclusively to ecclesiastical discipline, and it is a prominent motive with St. Paul. It appears in his treatment of the 'strong' and the 'weak' parties in Rome (Ro 14) and of the rival possessors of gifts in Corinth (l Co 13). In one word, while self-judgement is enjoined, the judgement of others is discountenanced throughout the New Testament.


PS: Crowley thought Jesus a perfectly valid God to be invoked like any other. He was not anti-christianity - just those who practised it. See his Cephaloedium working for further details!
Tony Naylor
Mandrake Press Ltd (Publishers & Distributors of Metaphysical, New Age & Occult books)
Essex House, Thame, OX9 3LS
Tel: 01844260990
Fax: 01844260991
Tony@Mandrake.com
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