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by Leon HowellNote: Outside links open in new windows.
Look up "The Rev. Mary Kraus" using the Google Internet search engine. The first few listings confirm her position as a United Methodist pastor. They are followed by a lectionary commentary she wrote for her annual conference newspaper and the sermon she preached Sept. 16, 2001. [WebEd Note: Google searches on particular words are constantly changing. The link to Google above will give results different from those search mentioned about that was done in March 2003.]
Then a few lines down, "Mary Kraus" is listed under "Occult." Click on this entry. An article pops up about "Wicca / Witchcraft Infiltrating Churches and Denominations."l Can this article be about the same Mary Kraus-- pastor of Dumbarton United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. for the past 13 years; a former missionary to Brazil; and a former district superintendent in Baltimore-Washington Conference? The article implies that Mary Kraus is a dangerous "witch" who is "undermining the ministry" of other pastors through her teaching of false doctrine and participation in pagan rituals!2
Kraus explained:
At the end of December 1998, I was notified formal complaints had been filed against me. My immediate response to my bishop was that I was more than a little curious about what I had done to warrant such a dubious honor. I quickly learned that I and colleague and friend, Nancy Webb, had been served with the following complaints:
I was mystified about what I had managed to do that would cause a clergy colleague to file such an action. I did not know the Rev. Karen Booth before this time and was taken aback that a clergywoman would do this without any prior contact with me. I still did not know what I had done but then was told that it related to articles that Nancy and I had written about my 50th birthday celebration on New Year's Eve 1993.
We had been asked to write an article for the clergywomen's publication WellSprings on the ritual of croning that was designed to celebrate this transition. For those unfamiliar with the term, croning refers to a ceremony based on an ancient practice that celebrates a woman's passage into her older years. It honors the wisdom she has amassed over several decades and nurtures a positive self-image.
This ceremony has experienced a renewal in recent years and is celebrated by women in all walks of life. Nancy Webb and Rebecca Ruth Richards wrote about the fun they had designing my croning celebration. I explained why such a ritual was important to me, and the wonderful way it helped me embrace my 50 years of living. It had been empowering and life-giving.
It took some time for me to realize that this complaint was real, that Karen Booth and Elaine Wood, lay leader of a United Methodist church in Delaware, saw this private birthday party as a pagan ritual so dangerous I ought to be removed from pastoral ministry.
As Kraus proceeded through the complaint process, she was accused of such things as being steeped in pagan knowledge, advocating non-Christian beliefs and potentially leading young people astray. The experience became unnerving and demoralizing.
"It was like a force was trying to suck life out of me," Kraus said, adding she found herself on the defensive.
No matter how ridiculous I knew this whole thing was, those bringing charges weren't about to listen to my perspective. No matter how hard I tried to engage them in a dialogue, the response would be a challenging re-statement of what they felt were the grievous actions I had committed. They shaped it as a power struggle to 'get' those whom they saw as having done something anti-Christian.
I found myself moving in a world of distortion. Karen Booth held a premise that my birthday party was a pagan ritual. Because I had written about it in a published journal, I had caused serious damage to her ministry. Everything Karen said indicated that this had to be 'exorcized' from The United Methodist Church. That meant my credentials should be revoked.
When the bishop offered the service of a mediator to work with us in further conversation, Nancy Webb and I agreed to meet if a mediator was present. Karen Booth and Elaine Wood declined to participate since they disagreed that any common ground could be found.
It was at this point that Booth and Wood published an account of the supervisory sessions. The bishop had explained that the sessions he conducted were to be confidential. The charges against Kraus never went beyond this first level of inquiry because confidentiality had been broken.
"The article by Booth and Wood is filled with distortions and unfounded accusations," Kraus said. It first appeared on the Unofficial Confessing Movement's website -www.ucmpage.org -and is listed under UM Accountability Watch.3 The next month, Mark Tooley ran an article in UMAction, an Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD) publication.4
The article was brought to Kraus' attention by members of her church who enjoyed ribbing her about the charges of witchcraft. "We just couldn't believe it," church member Ginny Lapham said. "Mary is a remarkable pastor and a woman of deep Christian faith."
So how is it Kraus' name appears under the "Occult" in the Google search? The occult website picked up the Unofficial Confessing Movement website article.5
Endnotes
1. "The Occult Page. Traditional Catholic Reflections, "Wicca / Witchcraft Infiltrating Churches and Denominations," http://www.tcrnews2.com/genoccult.html.
2. Unofficial Confessing Movement, "Complaints Filed."
3. Unofficial Confessing Movement, "Published 'Croning' Leads To Complaints–Possible Cover-up Leads To Complainants 'Going Public'," http://www.ucmpage.org/news/wicca_story6.html.
4. Mark Tooley, "A Crone Bishop [scroll down]," UMAction Briefing, December 31, 1999.
5. This article is on both the official and unoffical Confessing Movement websites. See: Wicca Infiltrates the Churches and Woman UM Bishop Cannot Deny Personal Involvement With Other Women Clergy In Witchcraft (posted on November 16, 1999, http://www.ucmpage.org according to http://www.ucmpage.org/news_more2.html). The story appeared originally in Insight Magazine Online, Vol. 15, No. 45 -- December 6, 1999 [Published Date November 12, 1999] on online magazine that, like the Washington Times, is a publication of the Unification Church. Note that it appeared on the Unofficial Confessing Movement website four days later.
Additional Web Notes
Karen Booth and Elaine Wood later appealed to for help from The Coalition For United Methodist Accountability. She was a part of the team that RENEW sent to the United Methodist Women's Assembly in Philadelphia in April 2002. On July 1, 2003, Booth became executive director of the Transforming Congregations program an unofficial United Methodist organization that seeks to convince gay and lesbian people to that the "practice of homosexuality" is sinful that they should abstain from sex or marry persons of the other gender.
The Coalition For United Methodist Accountability (CUMA), Press Release, "September 8, 2000.
Excerpt: DALLAS, TX -- The Coalition for United Methodist Accountability (CUMA), a group of church renewal leaders within the 8.4 million member denomination, met in Dallas September 7 & 8 to consider further actions-- including the filing of complaints and/or charges-- against a number of clergy and bishops for their disobedience of church law, especially regarding homosexuality. . . . Among the situations CUMA is currently investigating are:
. . . Two Washington, D.C. clergywomen, including the director of Christian education at Foundry United Methodist Church, which President Clinton attends, have acknowledged their participation in a "croning" ritual. Croning is traditionally tied to wiccan practices. One of the clergywomen admits that she practices "white magic." Bishop Felton E. May (Washington, D.C. Area) has not held them accountable.
United Methodism @ RISK is copyright © 2003 Information Project for United Methodists. "You've Got to Be Kidding" is an excerpt from chapter one of the book, pp. 37-40, with additional material added on the web version.
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