Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 2:48am

Kids!

Christopher Johnson, a non-Catholic who has taken up the cudgels so frequently for the Church that I have named him Defender of the Faith, addresses at Midwest Conservative Journal the perennial question of what to do when a child decides to go astray:

From the dawn of time, parents everywhere have dreaded having to face that terrible moment when one of their children rejects the family religious tradition:

Oh, the kids.

They don’t know the history. They don’t know how hard it was in the old days. And many ditch their spiritual upbringing for the next new thing.

It happens to Catholics, evangelicals, Jews, and yes, pagans, too.

Second-generation pagans — those whose parents were converts to pagan spirituality — are a lot like their peers in other faiths. They often do spirituality their own way. Or not at all.

Yeah, that had to have been one awkward dinnertime conversation.

“Remember that Samhain begins this Friday night so sure to be at the Sacred Maple Tree of Fuinseoig no later than…”

“Mom?  I’m going to skip that this year. NWA Central States Wrestling is promoting a wrestling card in town this weekend, the Missouri State Heavyweight Title is on the line, Mike and I bought four tickets, we’re going to take our girlfriends and both of us have looking forward to it since it was announced last June.”

“But Samhain is the holiest day of our… you’d actually skip Samhain for something as base and common as…professional wrestling?”

“About that.  Look, there’s no easy way to say this but lately, I’ve been kind of rethinking the whole ‘pagan’ idea.”

“What?  Why?”

“I’ve been dating this Pentecostal chick named Ashlee.  She’s smokin’ hot, she’s way into non-WWE wrestling promotions like Ring of Honor and she totally kicks ass at World of Warcraft and stuff.

“But your father has already bought you a sacrificial goat.”

“I’m really not comfortable with the whole animal sacrifice idea any more.  If you let me keep it as a pet, I’ll be happy to take care of it but I’ve got no interest in killing it.  Seems really stupid, if you ask me.”

“Stupid?”

“Anyway, we’ve talked a lot about all this and, quite frankly, Ashlee’s basically convinced me that my religion is, well, complete crap.”

“Crap?  CRAP??  It…it…OUR FAMILY’S RELIGION certainly makes a lot more sense that that Christian old-man-in-the-sky garbage.”

“Ma?  We worship trees.”

Go here to read the hilarious rest.

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Mrs. Zummo
Mrs. Zummo
Thursday, August 7, AD 2014 7:38am

I actually knew a pagan guy in college (very into LARPing). I believe his family was/is Catholic. We had a conversation once about what it would be like to raise a child as a pagan. He couldn’t really answer my questions. Will your kids go to pagan Sunday school? Will the whole family dance around the back yard naked on the full moon? As far as I know he’s still a pagan according to Facebook, and he has a kid. This dinner conversation might be in his future.

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