I’m celebrating Easter today by watching Jesus Camp, a documentary about fundamentalist evangelical Christian children’s ministry.

I was never that out there as a kid but my churches would have proud if I was. We were taught all of the things that the kids in the movie are being taught. The idea that there are other valid points of the view would have been considered proof that the devil was trying to toy with your mind.

I wanted to see it mostly for the Ted Haggart part since it was filmed about a year before it was revealed that he was gay (he’s since been “cured”). It is extra painful to watch knowing what we know now.
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Goddess, help us but the husband might be going through a religious conversion. He wants to be a pagan. I’ve told him that he’s not allowed.

I know that isn’t exactly the correct response but you have to understand that the husband never does anything without thinking about how it will help him achieve world domination. That’s not a joke. So, he started thinking about paganism because he wanted to learn to cast spells to get power and money. I offered introductory books to explain what paganism is about but he isn’t interested in a nice nature religion. He has the Christian mindset that we are all evil witches putting hexes on people and consorting with the devil to influence the world. In his warped mind he doesn’t see that as a bad thing. He wants to know how to sign up!

Over the last 2 weeks we’ve been having conversations off and on but I just get frustrated with him because he only wants the sensational. I told him that if he really learned about paganism he would be sorely disappointed. But I guess he’s been discussing religion with his programmers and it turns out that the newest one he hired is an open Wiccan. I haven’t met her yet but she’s been explaining things to him too. Now he’s starting to believe that we aren’t just hiding the magical secrets to wealth and power from him. Poor guy. It is horrible to be so disillusioned.

If he really wants to learn to cast spells he should watch Jesus Camp. They are doing some powerful stuff. They denounce witchcraft with the obligatory anti-Harry Potter rant – “If Harry Potter was in the Old Testament, he would have been put to death!” – but they have kids look at a ceramic mug and visualize it as the U.S. government. Then they have them smash it with a hammer to break the power of secularism over the government. They pray for protection and blessing over their space and equipment before services. We have more in common than most want to admit.

We are heading out to an Easter dinner at our friends’ house. I had to warn the husband that the are hard core fundamentalist Christians. He was disappointed because he wanted to share what he was learning about paganism. He asked if they knew about me. I said no. This is the friend that returned the fall quilt pattern because it had witch buttons and she couldn’t have witches in her house. I advocated a policy of keeping his mouth shut for this afternoon.