Post by Graveyardbride on Jan 27, 2015 17:47:17 GMT -5
School Bus to Hell?
MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A school bus pentagram has Christian mom Robyn Wilkins worried that Wiccan occult influences are lurking in her town. Wilkins, of Cordova, Tenn., took the pentagram picture when she was in traffic behind the school bus. To her, the pattern of tiny light bulbs under the brake light’s red plastic lens looks like inverted five-pointed stars – the ancient symbol of a pentagram. Wilkins is angry about the symbol appearing and wants the lights replaced WGN TV reported January 22. "Anyone who fears a God, if not God and Jesus Christ, should be outraged," the upset mom is saying. “If you can’t put a cross on there, you cannot put a pentagram on it. [They] should be replaced with solid lights.”
In response to the photo, other parents are also up in arms and have reportedly joined Wilkins via social media to demand the replacement of the light bulbs. Their main concern – what if the pentagram is a subliminal pagan message that their kids are on a school bus to Hell?
While the Durham School Services and the Shelby County School District have remained silent in the matter, local Wiccan Jo Applewhite has spoken to TV reporters and disputes the parents’ claim the pentagram had anything to do with Satan. Applewhite, who has been practicing Wicca for 16 years, says the pentagram is their cross, or Star of David, and says it can be used for good. “Find out what it really means before you start getting riled up and all worked up about something.”
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a pentagram is a star with five points. Historically, the sign was used as a Christian symbol for the five senses or of the five wounds of Christ. In medieval poetry, each of the five interconnected points represented the five virtues of knighthood. During the Renaissance era, the pentagram found its way into the symbolism of modern occultists.
Because of the perceived association with Satanism and occultism, the symbol has become controversial in public school classrooms. Attempts to suspend students wearing necklaces with the symbol were defeated because it violates students’ First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion. A pentagram is the most prominently used symbol of Wicca, an earth-based religion that stresses many deities, karmic laws and individual spiritual paths.
After a 2007 court case, the encircled pentagram (which was referred to as a pentacle by the plaintiffs) was added to the list of 38 approved religious symbols to be placed on the tombstones of fallen service members at Arlington National Cemetery. “The settlement calls for the pentacle, whose five points represent earth, air, fire, water and spirit, to be placed on grave markers within 14 days for those who have pending requests with the VA.” The US Department of Veterans Affairs lists the pentacle as “Available Emblems of Belief for Placement on Government Headstones and Markers.” As for Christian mom Robyn Wilkins’s fears that the school bus with the pentagram symbols might be taking any kids to Hell – education might make all the difference.
Source: Tina Burgess, The Examiner, January 24, 2015.
