A Chritianized Buffy
POSTED BY: Zicsoft
UPDATED: Friday, August 22, 2003 16:41
VIEWED: 10431
PAGE 1 of 3
Here's a column by one Todd Hertz, an evangelical Christian who dissents from Parents TV's condemnation of Buffy. He is, in point of fact, an avid fan. But he's sufficiently disturbed by the "gratuitous violence and sexuality for its own sake" and the "immoral lives" of some of the characters that he doesn't let his kids watch it. Perhaps LivingImpaired should have a word with him.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/136/31.0.html
Curiously, Hertz is bothered by the way God goes unmentioned, but not by the portrayal of very un-monotheistic deities such as Osiris and Glory. Perhaps he considers Paganism to be just another non-Christian religion he has to tolerate.
JOSs, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!
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Guess we better not tell this guy that JW's an atheist.
________________
"I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass." —Maya Angelou
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Quote:Well, I'm an atheist, and I have Christian friends. And I mean adherents of the more conservative denominations. Not all Christians are bigots -- just the noisy ones.
Originally posted by LivingImpaired:
Guess we better not tell this guy that JW's an atheist.
JOSH, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!
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You know what. This guy pisses me off. First of all, am I the only one that is enraged when the Christian right continuously confuses Wicca with Satanism? Why is it that when people discriminate against Jews, Muslims, Buddists, or any other religion, it's BAD, but when Christian nuts stand up and say that witchcraft is Evil, no one bats an eye?
Oh, and does anyone here really think that Angel losing his soul was about the moral dangers premarital sex?
But back to witchcraft. These people claim to follow a religion that is teaches you to "love thy neighbor," and "judge not least you be judged." So why are they so intolerant of other belief systems? Why are they so bigoted? Who are they to be so judgemental?
Here endith the rant.
________________
"Note to self. Religion: freaky." -Buffy, "What's My Line pt. 1"
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Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:Quote:Well, I'm an atheist, and I have Christian friends. And I mean adherents of the more conservative denominations. Not all Christians are bigots -- just the noisy ones.
Originally posted by LivingImpaired:
Guess we better not tell this guy that JW's an atheist.
JOSH, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!
I know. I'm agnostic with friends of all kinds of beliefs. But bigotry against wicca doesn't seem to be confined to just the wackos out there. And I'b be lying if I told you that it doesn't bother me. A lot.
________________
"I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass." —Maya Angelou
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Is it impossible to understand that a Christian can still "love his neighbor" while disapproving of his actions?
It is not ours to judge, but it is our place to want to remove ourselves from immoral behavior.
No, Christians should not denounce Wicca differently from other religions. The problem some Christians have is the dangerous power that can be associated with the religion.
BTW, most (not all, sadly, but most) Christians do understand the difference between Wicca and Satanism. (Though all of them might not realize that Satanism itself also has nothing to do with the worship of Satan.) However, as we see it, supernatural powers achieved through this (and yes, some other religions) is in fact supplied by Satan and his horde. The reason many Christians seem to be misunderstanding Wicca is that they believe that (unbeknownst to the followers themselves) they are in fact being empowered by the devil.
But I've always said I have no more trouble seeing witchcraft being portrayed on TV than I do, say Hinduism. Or Atheism! (Perhaps a more dangerous religion, in the long run, anyway.)
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Quote:
Originally posted by LivingImpaired:
I know. I'm agnostic with friends of all kinds of beliefs. But bigotry against wicca doesn't seem to be confined to just the wackos out there. And I'b be lying if I told you that it doesn't bother me. A lot.
I think my biggest complaint about the majority's views on Witchcraft, Wiccan beliefs, Pagan beilefs and Satanic beliefs is that they all the same. (Joss, whom I love and adore, is not exempt from this scorn. I am greatly displeased by the way he and his marketing crew use "wiccan" as if it were exactly the same as "witch")
Witchcraft (all the stuff that they show Willow doing on the show) is not necessarily Wiccan. Osiris is an Egyptian god. And while paying tribute to him would be considered Pagan, it is not Wiccan. Pagan is defined by dictionary.com as:
Quote:
One who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, especially a worshiper of a polytheistic religion
Some background on the word:
Quote:
Middle English, from Late Latin pgnus, from Latin, country-dweller, civilian, from pgus, country, rural district. See pag- in Indo-European Roots.
Country-dweller. The reason for this is that the city dwellers, who were detached from the earth and the growth of crops were easier to convert to Christianity, because it is more of a "god will provide" religion, and has nothing to do with actually growing crops. But the "country-dwellers", the ones who had spent generations praying to the god of rain and the goddess of the harvest and the god of the sun, etc., etc., etc... feared that giving up their gods would risk their crops. Therefore, they were much more difficult to convert. Pagans.
A lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of witchcraft, and paganism. I remember years ago watching the ridiculously terrible movie "Dragnet" and seeing that the villains of this movie were "PAGAN: People Against Goodness And Normalcy".
As for Joss, All those "Wanna Blessed Bes" Willow was dismissing in Season 4's episode "Hush" are a what most neo-pagans really are. I have always been willing to suspend disbelief about Willow's powers because they never really tried to introduce any "witches" who were not like her: powerful and magical. But I was incredibly annoyed the introduction of the wiccan circle for no other purpose than to be the butt of a joke.
so the point of this rant, (and to get back to the quote at the top here from our friend "LivingImpaired") is that when you say you are bothered a lot by wiccanism, is it really Wicca that bugs you? or is it Joss Whedon's version of Wicca (which is not really wicca at all)?
______________
Nowadays every girl with a henna tattoo and a spice rack thinks she's a sister to the dark ones.
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Quote:
Originally posted by bobknaptor:
A lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of witchcraft, and paganism. I remember years ago watching the ridiculously terrible movie "Dragnet" and seeing that the villains of this movie were "PAGAN: People Against Goodness And Normalcy".
You seem to have missed the fact that the whole movie was a spoof of the original 50's TV show and its rather straight-laced moral attitudes.
The PAGAN thing was actually a joke (ok not a great one) on the fact that the main bad guy was a prominent clergyman. Pagan - as you pointed out - being by definition not Christian and in some senses opposite to it.
Quote:
As for Joss, All those "Wanna Blessed Bes" Willow was dismissing in Season 4's episode "Hush" are a what most neo-pagans really are. I have always been willing to suspend disbelief about Willow's powers because they never really tried to introduce any "witches" who were not like her: powerful and magical. But I was incredibly annoyed the introduction of the wiccan circle for no other purpose than to be the butt of a joke.
Neo-paganism and even Wicca means a lot of different things to different people (as does Christianity or Socialism). There quite clearly are 'dabblers' in all faiths. People who like the trappings but have missed the point of the main beliefs. I think the Wanna Blessed-Bes represent those kind of people.
You get into problems if you interpret that scene as being any kind of comment on real Wiccans. Because you then have to say that Joss actually believes in a superior Willow-type of Wiccan who's able to do stuff like float pencils. Clearly he doesn't - so both sets of beliefs in that scene are fictionalized versions of Wicca. Using the name Wicca to conjure (no pun intended) certain background associations.
A bit like the way they use computers on the show. There's no way you can remotely do the kinds of things they've done with computers on the show. And if you did they wouldn't look the way they show it. But I don't worry about it because I know that they are using computers in a fictional way.
I'd be as foolish to base any opinions of real world Wiccans on what's on Buffy as I would to try to use a computer in the way Willow does.
Shug
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Quote:
Originally posted by bobknaptor:
so the point of this rant, (and to get back to the quote at the top here from our friend "LivingImpaired") is that when you say you are bothered a lot by wiccanism, is it really Wicca that bugs you? or is it Joss Whedon's version of Wicca (which is not really wicca at all)?
You misunderstand me. Paganism in any form doesn't bother me in the least. What bothers me is religious intolerance. Just because someone believes that there is an invisible man that lives in the sky with a list of 10 things you shouldn't do, or you'll go to a Bad, Painful, Ouchy place Forever--well, that doesn't give them the right to condemn people for thinking the invisible man is actually three women (womyn).
I really don't think that was a sentence.
________________
"I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass." —Maya Angelou
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Quote:OK, I'm confused. Where does Herz talk about Wicca or Satanism? He talks about Willow's fascination with magic having nasty consequences. I admit that comes close to implying that all witchcraft is evil. But consider his audience: fellow Evangelicals who see an anti-Christian agenda in any portrayal of magic. He's trying to get them to watch the show with the idea that it's portraying a non-Christian world view, not advocating it.
Originally posted by LivingImpaired:
You know what. This guy pisses me off. First of all, am I the only one that is enraged when the Christian right continuously confuses Wicca with Satanism?
Quote:Well yeah, actually, I do. Sleeping with a non-evil vampire and causing him to lose his soul may not be an everyday experience. But like so much of the "fantasy" on Buffy, it parallels some very real experiences. Whedon loves to talk about teenage girls who tell him, "I relate to that story because it happened to me. I really loved this guy, and he was good to me. But then I slept with him and he turned into a monster."
Oh, and does anyone here really think that Angel losing his soul was about the moral dangers premarital sex?
It seems to me that Whedon's and Hertz's moral attitudes are closer than you credit. It's true that Whedon doesn't share Hertz's belief that sex outside of marriage is categorically wrong. But Hertz justifies his beliefs in terms of consequences, not holy writ. As does Whedon.
JOSS, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!
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