On the west coast of Canada, where my wife and I live, the Halloween cover of a community newspaper pictured a smiling couple, both with long robes and flowing hair, holding a pumpkin. The headline announced, "Wiccan Priest and Priestess to Wed on All Hallow's Eve."

The lead story enthusiastically described the details of the wedding and narrated the couple's pilgrimage to an "ancient faith" away from Christianity. The bride said that after she became an atheist, "It seemed to me that creation was sacred, the earth was sacred, and in the greater scheme of things we were not outside of it, we were part of it."

The newspaper article reflects an undeniable aspect of contemporary life in North America: the rise of neopaganism. Supporters claim it is the fastest-growing religion in the United States, with nearly half a million adherents. On the rural British Columbia island where we live, solstice celebrations can be attended better than the local church. In the city yellow pages, Wiccan is listed with Baptist, Presbyterian, and Catholic churches. (Wicca comes from witch and means one who works with natural forces by shaping or bending them. Thus, the word is closely related to wicker, not wicked.)

The thousand-acre forest that surrounds the university where I teach is called "Pacific Spirit Park" and is described as "a ground for our becoming one with nature." In many bookstores, large sections deal with magic, paganism, and Wicca and are full of volumes by mainstream publishers with titles like The Pagan Path and Voices from the Circle.

Interest in paganism is not limited to the West Coast, where some religious flakiness is expected. The largest pagan group in North America ("The Circle Network") is based in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin. Neopagan sites are among the most frequently visited on the Internet, and hundreds of seasonal festivals in Britain and North America draw pagan celebrants. Many people are willing—even proud—to be called pagans and witches.

How should Christians respond to this growth of neopaganism? The two most common responses are both wrong. The first response, with a long history in Christendom, is to regard all forms of paganism as thinly veiled Satanism, a worship of evil that Christians must oppose. This attitude led to what neopagans often call "the burning times," when many witches, mostly women, were killed. It is impossible to determine the numbers, but some neopagan claims reach into the millions.

The other response, consistent with a growing acceptance of religious pluralism, is to affirm the sincerity of neopagan spirituality. Since there are many "mansions of the spirit," as the current Anglican bishop in Vancouver put it, Christians should accept this form of spirituality as an authentic way to God, just like our own Christian faith.

There are very good reasons to be concerned about the rise of neopaganism: most fundamentally neopaganism, like all religions, is a dead end unless it leads to a knowledge of God through Jesus. Neopaganism is particularly troubling when it shows up in Christian churches, often as an accommodation to two closely related themes in contemporary culture. The first is the beguiling idea that the only God we need to pay any attention to is the god within, a thinly veiled way of worshiping the self under the guise of "my own spirituality." It is a short and fatal step from "finding God within" to an affirmation of the ancient lie that we can ourselves become "like gods."

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