I found an excerpt of Wicca: Satan’s Little White Lie this morning.  While reading it, I’ve noticed that while Bill Schnoebelen writes as if he’s trying to convert pagans, it seems that what he’s actually trying to do is make his Christian readers who know bupkiss about pagan religion feel smug.  His accusations against pagans and pagan religions are largely nothing but straw men.

First Bill Schnoebelen declares that everything except his brand of Christianity is Satanism.  Then:

Pagans like to make fun of Catholics because of all the wars they started, but the only difference between the Pagans and the Catholics is that the Pagans never ran a government and had the power to raise armies. I used to read THE GREEN EGG, Tim Zell’s Neo-pagan magazine. Almost every issue contained a vicious feud in the letter columns.

Why? Because you are dealing with sinful, fallen human beings, that’s why! God says the human heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9). Without Jesus Christ, people are going to act like spoiled brats! Look around you! How else can you account for all the evil in the world? Killing, bigotry, rape and war — these are the fruits of Satan-worship, under its many guises.

I don’t think Bill Schnoebelen is going to win over many pagan converts by calling them all “spoiled brats” and holding them responsible for rape and war.

Christianity is not a religion! It is anti-religion!! Religion is man’s attempts to do certain things to please his deity. Christianity is a relationship with the Lord of the Universe, Jesus Christ!

Again, Schnoebelen is most likely trying to pander to Christian readers, not win over pagan converts, because as an ex-pagan, he almost certainly knows that this line is a pile of crap and knows that any potential pagan readers would know this, too.  However, Christians who know very little about other religions wouldn’t.

Not hope, but “KNOW” that you can have eternal life with God forever! Consider the alternative Wicca offers you, supposedly lifetime after lifetime trying to pick up your mistakes from previous lifetimes.(4) I would not treat a DOG that badly!

And yet, he apparently has no moral issues with billions of people suffering in the Lake of Fire for eternity.  I’d take a thousand flawed lifetimes over that, thanks.

Besides, isn’t the prospect of living in resurrected glory with Jesus more appealing than spending a few more hundred lifetimes running around the treadmill of the wheel of karma, chasing a shapeless future?

I find it difficult to believe that Schnoebelen has never heard of the Summerland.

Jesus makes it so easy for you. All you have to do is lay aside your pride and belief in all those Pagan gods and admit that they cannot save you.

Huh?  Save us from what?  Bill Schnoebelen certainly knows that salvation from sin isn’t generally an issue in pagan religion, any more than removal of body thetans is an issue in Christianity.

It’s that simple! Why put your trust in books and rituals that were written by flawed men and women — especially since much of it is manufactured and made up out of whole cloth? Are people like Alex Sanders or Gerald Gardner worth trusting over Jesus? Who else can redeem you?

Bill probably knows that this is an incredibly clumsy strawman, but he probably also knows that his Christian readers won’t be able to tell.  Here, he slyly pats them on the back with the implication that their book is written by a divine hand, unlike the materials pagans use.  He probably knows full well that pagans believe that the Bible was written by flawed men.

If you say, as some “white” witches have to me, that you need no redeemer — that you depend on yourself for spiritual salvation; then you are mouthing the creeds of the satanist! Anton LaVey, the head of the Church of Satan, wrote:

Here and now is our day of joy! Here and now is our opportunity! Choose ye this day, this hour, for no redeemer liveth. Say unto thine own heart, “I am mine own redeemer.” (5)

You see how far into the enemy’s camp you already are? You are telling Jesus Christ that you don’t need Him! You are saying to Him that He shed His blood on Calvary in vain in your case! Why do you ignore the plain testimony of His resurrection and saving power? Why do you ignore the Bible in favor of religions made up by people? Why do you trust Gerald Gardner more than the most trustworthy book in human history?

Here Bill tries to tell his Christian audience that Wiccans aren’t so different from Satanists because they both don’t accept Christianity.  He cannot possibly be aiming this incredible clunker of an argument at Wiccans.

Also, as an ex-pagan, Bill Schnoebelen probably knows damn well why pagans don’t trust “the most trustworthy book in human history,” but he’s probably pretending he doesn’t so he can make his Christian readers feel good about themselves.

Realize, as I did after over a year of study and research, that not one Biblical prophecy has failed to happen exactly as predicted; and that Jesus Himself was the fulfillment of over 300 Old Testament prophecies!

This is just more preaching to the choir.  If you believe that the Bible was written by fallible men for political and religious purposes (as pagans tend to do), then it’s not a stretch to postulate that the “prophecies” were written after the event, or that writers made up details of Jesus’s life to fit old prophecies.

Furthermore, the Bible contains many failed prophecies, and Jesus didn’t fulfill any 300 prophecies.  (Let alone 315 or 365, as some claim.)

Remember, I’ve been there! Wicca, however noble and idealistic it might seem, is a modern, artificial religion created by cleaning up continental satanism a bit. It’s like putting rouge and mascara on a decomposing corpse! The rotten, putrid heart is the same, it just looks nicer.

There are only two kinds of Wiccans, the “higher ups” who know that Satan is their god; and the innocent ones of lower Grade who think they’re worshipping nature deities.

This right here hinges on Bill’s claim that Wicca was secretly created by Satanists to put a pretty front on Satanism and thereby lure Wiccans into “hardcore Satanism.  Once again, it seems he’s pretending to address Wiccans while actually writing sensationalism for Christians.

In case you have any thoughts about trying to remain an “innocent” Pagan, just playing in the forest and worshiping the goddess, hear what God’s Word has to say about nature deities:  

 Professing themselves to be wise (wise ones?), they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Romans 1:22-25

This is generally what Christians think Wiccans are doing.  Of course, it’s a gross oversimplification, but who needs to be correct when you don’t plan on Wiccans reading your book anyway?

Come to Jesus! It will be the best decision you ever made!

And there’s the cherry on top of this sundae of condescension and pandering.