UNDER A SPELL

A far cry from Harry Potter or Sabrina (or my sister's favorite, 'Bewitched'), is the current movement toward the Wiccan 'religion'. Lehigh University allows students to miss class on Wiccan holidays. Wiccans are using the Syracuse University chapel. The real draw is explained by one of its practicioners:

Anthony Paige, a recent SUNY Purchase College graduate who started a pagan student group there, said Wicca appeals to some college students because "there is no sense of sin."

"There is a karmic law, but there's no scorn or condemnation," said Paige, who was raised a Roman Catholic and whose book Rocking the Goddess, Campus Wicca for the Student Practioner profiles college-age pagans.

Ah, no sense of sin. Of course that's the problem with our society at large. 'I'm okay, you're okay, and could you pass the eye of newt?' I really have strong doubts that these kids believe in a lot of this nonsense. But they can cast cool spells, call themselves witches and engage in whatever hedonistic activity they want all in the name of their 'religion'.

Thomas Wolfe, dean of Hendricks Chapel at Syracuse, well states,"There is a cultural shift with college students identifying themselves less as religious and more as spiritual." The same can be said of the current rise in popularity of Eastern religions. It all gets back to what Paul explained of the pagan world in Romans 1. This vague 'spirituality' helps fulfill the innate longing that man has for the eternal. But it substitutes a lie for the truth of God. Such a substitution might make us feel better, but as Paul explains, the end result won't be very pretty.