I had email today asking if I could reconcile my Faith with my politics. Frankly, I never have had to consider the two together before. The strange thing here is that it is obviously a left-winger asking me to do this. At a time when all good Liberals are flaming Our Good President Bush for being a man of Faith, here I am being asked by a Liberal to defend my brand of Faith vs. my Conservative stance on politics as if no decent Wiccan can be a Conservative.
Will wonders never cease?
Here. Take a look for yourself, then read my reply.
~M*
—– Original Message —–
From: Raijin
To: Sgian_Fada@msn.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 5:12 AM
Subject: [The Bull Speaks!] 9/29/2004 05:12:56 AMHi there. This is a bit off-topic but I noticed in your bio that you are a Wiccan priest. How do you reconcile this with your politics? How do you reconcile the Republican attitude on the environment with your faith?Raijin>> –Posted by Raijin to The Bull Speaks! at 9/29/2004 05:12:56 AM
My reply…
First off Raijin, what do you consider “the Republican attitude on the environment”? Do you rely on the Democratic line, or the sewage spewed by the PETA/Greenpeace groups?
Let me tell you EXACTLY where I stand. Like I’ve said in other post, I don’t feel the need to justify or reconcile my faith and/or politics because there is no conflict. No conflict at all. Why? Glad you asked…
You see, I was conservative LONG before I knew anything about politics. Waste is waste, and there isn’t anything wrong with people EARNING what they get rather than waiting for the Gov’t to come along and make it all better. Further, if you are attacked, you fight back! If people get killed and things get broke, well that is the price of war. The world doesn’t run on ‘kinder, gentler’ rules, no matter how much Kerry may want it to be so. It may sound a bit like “survival of the fittest”, but if you are all up on Nature you shouldn’t have any problem with that. After all, that is how the Gods set things up to work.
Now, to the environment. PETA and Greenpeace, and others like them, want you to do two things. 1) Believe anything they say just because it came from them – you are not allowed to find out on you own. And, 2) Send them money. (Odd, but IMHO the Wiccan faith is seriously in danger of going down this road to ruin itself…)
I refuse to do either.
Instead, I count on my eyes, my ears, and my mind to discover the truth of matters. I had the great luck to have many fine outdoorsmen – both hunters and non-hunters, in my life as a youth. Never can I forget to mention ol’ Grandpa Homer either! They taught me much about the environment and how it worked. I tried to learn from everyone from other hunters, to old stories and manuscripts, to encyclopedias, to any forest ranger or game warden I could make stand still long enough to talk. One thing resulted from listening to those old guys has carried me through since that time. I learned to find out for myself what is and isn’t so. It’s one thing for someone to tell you things, it’s another to put those things to the test.
And test I did.
I’ve tested everything I was taught, and all I could learn and/or conceive, by making trips into the wilderness for days and even weeks relying on little or no equipment. What equipment I did allow myself was never allowed to be more modern than the early 19th Century. (I’m a Living History nut, you see. Here was ALSO a chance to test what our forefathers used to open this continent.) Not only did I make it through these ‘test’, I thrived. Even gaining weight on the longer trips by what I could find of Mother’s Bounty. Never did Nature, my skills, nor my Wiccan Faith let me down.
I’ve also “tested” the Democratic/PETA/Greenpeace line on the environment by going out and looking for my self. And I found it to be FALSE. During no Republican administration in my adult life has there ever been any noticeable “harm” to the environment. (Contrary to the Democratic propaganda.) And, during no Democratic administration has there been any appreciable improvement to the environment. (Contrary to the Democratic promises.) In fact, since I attained voting age in 1980, there has been only increases in the acreage of federally protected land, increases in wild animal herds, and increases in real dollar funding of the environment. Now as an outdoorsman, and hunter, a fisherman, a citizen, and a Wiccan Priest, I feel pretty damned good about that. By the way, PETA, Greenpeace, and all the rest account for practically NONE of the funding on the environment on any level. The truth is that it is the sportsman that pays for it.
So Rajin, if it were to become necessary to reconcile my priesthood with my politics, I don’t foresee any difficulty what-so-ever.
Sincerely,
Rev. Mark T. Jones, H.P. (Ordained 1995)
(The Bull)
