{"id":20111,"date":"2012-11-15T02:03:38","date_gmt":"2012-11-15T05:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=20111"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:12:54","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:12:54","slug":"wiccan-service-packed-at-air-force-basic-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/15\/wiccan-service-packed-at-air-force-basic-training\/","title":{"rendered":"Wiccan Service Packed at Air Force Basic Training"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\u00a0Cauldrons, spell books, brooms, and swords in a military witchcraft ceremony.
\n<\/em>Photo credit: Katrina Gutierrez<\/a><\/p>\n

A local paper — in an article briefly titled “No Hocus Pocus” — noted that “hundreds” of basic trainees have attended Wiccan services at Lackland AFB<\/a>, Texas:<\/p>\n

[There is]\u00a0a curious multiplication of Wiccans at Lackland. Hundreds of basic military trainees have chosen to study witchcraft at the base.
\n\u00a0
\n“When we come over here on a Sunday, often times, there are 300 to 400 (trainees),” Tony Gatlin said.
\n\u00a0
\nGatlin is the coven’s high priest. His wife is the high priestess.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Wiccan services at Lackland were actually highlighted last year<\/a> as well, and Gatlin — a retired senior Air Force officer — was introduced at the time.<\/p>\n

Gatlin explained the support process behind their service in a self-authored article<\/a>.\u00a0 He acknowledges\u00a0that “only a small number” are actually members of a Wiccan “faith.”\u00a0 Basic training chapel services are often packed — filled both by those who are driven to faith by hardship, and by those who are looking for free doughnuts and some time away from drill sergeants.\u00a0 A few months ago, a chaplain posted a similarly-themed article on his Facebook page, noting hundreds of US Army trainees had been attending Buddhist services.\u00a0 The post was subsequently pulled down.<\/p>\n

That “vulnerability” is why religious freedom critics like Chris Rodda of Michael Weinstein’s MRFF have berated similar Christian gatherings<\/a>.\u00a0 Of course, Rodda criticized only<\/em> Christian gatherings because, well, that’s what Weinstein’s group does.<\/p>\n

The local Air Force chaplains accurately note they provide the means for all to exercise their spirituality, to the extent the mission and resources allow:<\/p>\n

“Our job is to make sure that, to the extent that we reasonably can, we accommodate the religious views and free exercise rights these military members have,” said JBSA-Lackland Chaplain Col. Michael Heuer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On a somewhat unrelated note, it was interesting to see the article describe why one young troop got involved with witchcraft:<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old became a witch five years ago after being a religious wanderer. He said fantasy books and the Harry Potter phenomenon fueled his interest in the Wiccan faith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are still some who think video games, movies, and the like are harmless distractions, regardless of their content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Cauldrons, spell books, brooms, and swords in a military witchcraft ceremony. Photo credit: Katrina Gutierrez A local paper — in an article briefly titled “No Hocus Pocus” — noted that “hundreds” of basic trainees have attended Wiccan services at Lackland AFB, Texas: [There is]\u00a0a curious multiplication of Wiccans at Lackland. Hundreds of basic military trainees have chosen to study witchcraft […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[134,88,37,38,5284,175,3688,1433,3687,85,2,5218,7,10,171,2483,77],"class_list":["post-20111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-air-force","tag-army","tag-buddhism","tag-chapel","tag-chaplain","tag-chris-rodda","tag-harry-potter","tag-lackland-afb","tag-michael-heuer","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-tony-gatlin","tag-wicca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}