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Christians and Pagans Square Off Over Lifestyles, Beliefs

By Sneha Dey
Spectrum staff

Eight Christians stood outside the Astor Place subway stop, sweating, carrying wooden crosses and handing out pamphlets of Bible scriptures. That Saturday, for a second consecutive year, they had shown up to counter the Pagans who were hosting their annual Witchfest on the very same spot.

“It’s not a protest,” said Caroline Conrad, 54, who wore a navy blue T-shirt emblazoned with “Jesus & Lord.”

Conrad didn’t call it a protest. But there was shouting.

“Why are you judging us?”  Kiara Jonesport-Ford, 17, one of the Pagans, yelled at the Christians.

In an America where religion can be and often is a point of debate, spiritual beliefs—and the lifestyles those beliefs dictate—collided that afternoon on Astor Place.

Conrad became a born-again Christian 13 years ago. She believes the world has moved “away from God. They’re taking the Bible away from schools, men are marrying men, women are marrying women, men are turning themselves into women.”

In her mind, by showing up across from those Pagans, she was helping her fellow Americans find their soul’s salvation. “We don’t want anyone going to hell,” Conrad said. (She asked this reporter if Jesus Christ was my savior.)

A woman who said she was a law enforcement agency administrator would only give her witchcraft name, Shaniah. The 60-year-old said she feared she’d get fired if her bosses knew she was Pagan. She also said she was born and raised as a Catholic. She still wears a crucifix necklace. But, for her,

the presence of the proselytizing Christians reminded her that Pagans of the past had been lynched or burned at the stake for practicing what they believed.

A male who would only give his name as Milo and his age as 15 yelled at the Christians that he was gay and proud of it. “They told me it was a sin … that I could be fixed … after they told me Jesus loves everyone,” said Milo, adding that he is an atheist.

It was his first time confronting people who blatantly oppose his lifestyle, he said. “I just don’t think they should be here.”

Responding to that and other criticism from passersby and bystanders, Andy Martinez, 31, one of the Christians, recited scriptures … The saints will judge the world … A spiritual man judges hoping that he himself is rightly judged by no man …

He sees the Pagans as demonic and is “judging them [but] righteously so.” He welcomes the debate, he said. He just wants to get the Pagans “to see God … to see the truth.”

Seth Vargas, 21, was videotaping the back-and-forth. “It feels like two brick walls trying to talk to each other,” Vargas said.

He was wearing a red hat, bearing President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. “This hat is the most divisive thing right now,” he said, “but I’m here just trying to listen.”

The Christians said they’re part of a group of demonstrators who, when they can get time off work, travel the country to make their point. They’re not affiliated with any denomination or church organization, but met through mutual friends and church-sponsored functions. “We’re all Bible-believing Christians. God brought us together,” Conrad said.

Last year was the first time they showed up at Witchfest.

“It’s basically bullying,” the Rev. Starr RavenHawk, of Wiccan Family Temple, founder of Witchfest, said of how the Christians show up.

Before this year’s Witchfest, RavenHawk tried but failed to bar the Christians from the event, mainly because the gathering was being held on a public street.

Blue wooden “Do Not Cross” police barricades divided the Wiccans from the Christians.