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Wicca 101 - Concepts of Deity

Who do you worship?
Wiccans view divinity as dualistic, an equal God and Goddess representing balance in nature. They are intimately involved with the material world but are not necessarily immanent within it. Various practitioners ascribe a myriad of names to the God and Goddess. Popular ones include Apollo, Bridgit, Cernunnos, Cerridwen, Diana, Dionysus, Hecate, Isis, and Pan. The God and Goddess are also frequently referred to as the Horned God and the Triple Goddess.

The exact nature of the deities varies between Traditions and individual practitioners. The Gardnerians, for example, believe the God and Goddess to be part of a larger, higher force called the Dryghton. Wiccans can be any of the following (and are frequently more than one):

• Polytheists - Believing in multiple gods which possess distinct and unique identities.
• Pantheists - Believing that the gods and nature are one in the same.
• Panenthiests - Believing that the gods are both immanent and transcendent, a part of nature and yet greater than it.
• All gods are one god, all goddesses one goddess - Those believing this believe that we are all worshipping the same entities, regardless of what name we give them. The names may represent distinct aspects, but they are aspects of a greater whole.
  

"Henotheism" is sometimes incorrectly used to describe us. While we acknowledge the existence of many gods, we each individually worship more than one - two is minimum (God and Goddess). [more]

Are you goddess worshippers?
No. The term goddess worshipper generally refers to someone who follows only a Goddess, an arrangement I find unbalanced and hypocritical, since it is generally in rebellion against patriarchal religion. The Goddess Spirituality movement can, however, trace its origins back to Wicca through such well-known authors Starhawk and Z. Budapest. [more]

Are you nature worshippers?
No. Wiccans revere nature as creations of the gods and often believe the gods to be immanent within it, but our worship is always of the gods, not of trees or rocks.

Do you believe in Jesus?
We do not believe in Jesus as Savior because we do not believe that anyone is in need of "saving" in the Christian sense. The material world is not evil, nor is sex a shameful act, nor is any person held accountable for the transgressions of an ancestor, such as in the belief of original sin.

What are dark gods?
This is simply a classification of certain deities, no different than if you were to speak of sun gods or fertility gods. Dark gods are generally termed thus because of association with death and destruction. Interest in dark gods does not imply that one wishes to cause death and destruction - it's more like an acknowledgment of their existence. Dark gods help us face our fears, respect power, and understand the cycle of rebirth. [More]