Does this look familiar? If you've been to St. Matthew's Episcopal church, it should. It's one of the cushions at the alter rail. It's a triquetra, in this case, a symbol of the Christian Trinity.
I think that's only true if you believe it's true. St. Paul describes this strange little problem in Romans: As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If you think you're sinning by having something in common with that delightful but silly little tv series but you do it anyway, you are. But if you've gotten to the point in your relationship with Christ (and it's okay not to be there yet, just don't stay there) where you realize that nothing is unclean in itself then it isn't "unclean".
For those of you who enjoyed the show attached to this guilty pleasure, this next image should also look familiar.
In this series, it's an occult symbol, and it symbolizes the three sisters the plot is centered around.
So who does it belong to? The Christians? The Pagans? The ages? I'm going to go with humankind.
It means what we intend it to mean in a given context. No more, no less. It isn't copyrighted. Just because someone assigns a new meaning to something, or digs up an old meaning through research, it doesn't change what a symbol means in the context it was used in.
The alter cushion predates the series Charmed. That doesn't mean that the witches in Charmed are Christians, unbeknownst to themselves. The neopagans didn't steal it back from the Christians, and the Christians didn't steal it from the Germanic pagans in the first couple centuries of Christianity. It already belonged to them. It was their culture that produced the symbol and not the other way around.
It means precisely what we intend it to mean, no more, no less. Paranoid folks would like you to believe otherwise. They want you to believe that you can unintentionally worship another god. They want you to believe that by donning that adorable ring your boyfriend gave you for your birthday with this thing on it, you can unintentionally become a witch and an idolator.
I think that's only true if you believe it's true. St. Paul describes this strange little problem in Romans: As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If you think you're sinning by having something in common with that delightful but silly little tv series but you do it anyway, you are. But if you've gotten to the point in your relationship with Christ (and it's okay not to be there yet, just don't stay there) where you realize that nothing is unclean in itself then it isn't "unclean".
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