Source:  Institute on Religion and Democracy

January 14, 2010

By Jeff Walton

The monthly meditation had a playful air about it.

“A crone is an old woman. A crone is a witch. A crone is a wise woman. Which one will you be, my friend? Which one I?”

Wrapped around a rite for “croning”, the meditation embraced a history of mystical women and offered prayers to “Mothering God” and “Eternal Wisdom.” But the article was not in a new age publication or Wiccan blog: it was on the pages of the September newsletter of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.

Entitled “Crone Power”, the meditation innocuously sat opposite a story about choosing a children’s Bible and next to a column on St. Jerome. The newsletter quickly drew the attention of Anglican bloggers, many of whom found the placement of what appeared to be a Wiccan ritual to be jarring in an official church publication. But intentionally or not, the publication and placement of the rite were reflective of a new reality: one in which practices drawn from or inspired by pagan belief, including witchcraft, are increasingly finding acceptance within the ranks of the Episcopal Church.

“Croning rituals have been a part of modern day witchcraft since [English occultist] Gerald Gardner invented it in the 1950s,” explains Catherine Sanders, author of Wicca's Charm: Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality. Sanders, an evangelical Christian, spent several years researching pagan practices and witnessed their incorporation into the church during the writing of her book. Sanders said that croning, the practice of honoring a woman who has gone through menopause, became more popular in the 1970s with the women’s movement.

“Most of the mainline denominations had people within them experimenting with pagan rituals,” Sanders said. “A lot of these people were searching for a way to affirm what they were going through in their lives.”

While the croning ritual was notable for its prominence in a diocesan newsletter, such pagan-inspired practices are not new in the Episcopal Church. In 2005, Pennsylvania Episcopal priest Bill Melnyk was outed as a Druid (he belonged to the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids) after posting a druid ritual to an Episcopal Church Women’s website. Melnyk, who had taken the name “Oakwyse,” was forced to resign by his bishop.

Pagan influences in women’s spirituality were also a prominent part of the “Reimagining” movement that appeared among some mainline Protestant feminists in the early 1990s. The Reimagining movement encouraged worshippers to refer to God as a feminine deity known as “Sophia,” loosely based on the Greek concept of the wisdom of God. Controversy eventually subsided after denominational leaders, responding to pressure from traditionalists, distanced themselves from the Reimagining liturgies.

The diocese of Washington itself has a track record of embracing mystical rites, most recently hosting a Native American “smudging” ceremony at the National Cathedral. During an interfaith conference, Sacred Circles: a Celebration of Women’s Spirituality, smoking tobacco was offered to the spirits of the four cardinal directions.

Crone Power

The author of the rite that appeared in the Washington Window was herself far from the traditional images of covens and witchcraft. An older parishioner at St. Alban’s Church, Helma Lanyi arrived from the Roman Catholic Church ten years ago after taking issue with Catholicism’s hierarchy and patriarchy. . .

Read the entire article here. 

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