This is an older blog prompt from August of 2009, but I thought it was a good question:
If you were planning to attend a pagan ritual (public or private) and you realized that the ritual space was in a Christian church basement, would you have a problem with attending? Would you refuse to attend? Or would it make no difference to you?
This is actually a very good question. I know of some Wiccans and Pagans who would never even consider to hold their rituals in a space dedicated to a deity they do not worship. I also know of Wiccans and Pagans who have absolutely no problem going into a Christian church and practicing their faiths.
We actually have a Wiccan group here who did their practicing in a church basement. They held their meetings, rituals, etc in that church basement. The church knew that they were Wiccan, knew that they were practicing their faith and had no apparent problems with it. Of course, this could be due to the fact that frankly, they group was probably paying the church for the privilege of using their basement.
I would not have a problem if the ritual, meeting, etc was held in a church basement – for the simple reason that I believe that the Christian God is merely another facet of the deities I worship. While they do not ascribe to the belief in a Goddess, their God can be seen as a facet of the God and for that reason, I have no problem attending a ritual or meeting in a church basement.
Pagan Blog Prompts is currently on hiatus, however, there are plenty of older questions that you can answer if you haven’t already!