WP: For Gods and County

[MountainLaurel]

About an Army chaplain who converted to Wicca, and tried to become the military's first Wiccan chaplain.

The night wind pushes Don Larsen's green robe against his lanky frame. A circle of torches lights his face.

snip

Of the 16 self-described witches who have gathered on this Texas plain to celebrate a late-winter pagan festival with dancing, chanting, chili and beer, all but two are current or former military personnel. Each has a story. None can compete with Larsen's.

A year ago, he was a Pentecostal Christian minister at Camp Anaconda, the largest U.S. support base in Iraq. He sent home reports on the number of "decisions" -- soldiers committing their lives to Christ -- that he inspired in the base's Freedom Chapel.

But inwardly, he says, he was torn between Christianity's exclusive claims about salvation and a "universalist streak" in his thinking. The Feb. 22, 2006, bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, which collapsed the dome of a 1,200-year-old holy site and triggered a widening spiral of revenge attacks between Shiite and Sunni militants, prompted a decision of his own.

"I realized so many innocent people are dying again in the name of God," Larsen says. "When you think back over the Catholic-Protestant conflict, how the Jews have suffered, how some Christians justified slavery, the Crusades, and now the fighting between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, I just decided I'm done. . . . I will not be part of any church that unleashes its clergy to preach that particular individuals or faith groups are damned."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/18/AR2007021801396.html

[Ilsa]

1. from page 5:

"But if it's not a valid thing, all bets are off," Ammerman says, adding that Wiccans "run around naked in the woods" and "draw blood with a dagger" in their ceremonies. "You can't do that in the military. It's against good order and discipline."

Oh, my, can't have any blood being drawn? "Warriors" are saying that?


Good for Larsen. I may have to find a way to make it up to their circle some time.

[MountainLaurel]

2. Holy sense of irony, Batman!

Erm, isn't the whole point of the military to hurt other people?

[icymist]

3. MY oh my! He sounds so good and proper until that bit about....

what other religions (which he is not part of) do the things he says that they do even thought he's not there. The only question in my mind for this man is why? Frankly, I should not have to explain longer. Why, my good person, would you force your religious laws and views upon those who have never heard of these?