Rev. Shawn Sanford Beck, an Anglican priest from the Diocese of Saskatoon, calls himself a ‘ChristoPagan’. He practices magic, is a Druid, a Pagan and an Animist.

He doesn’t have a conventional congregation on which to inflict his bizarre and, probably demonically inspired antics, but he does talk to and pray with the “people” inhabiting what the less fanciful among us would regard as inanimate objects.

When he isn’t praying with trees, chatting with the Lady of the Lake or communing with the person embodied in the beef he is masticating, he teaches other Anglican priests to do so in the University of Saskatchewan. This is the future of the Anglican Church of Canada – if it had one.

It goes without saying that Beck supports same-sex marriage.

Ironically, his bishop, David Irving, doesn’t seem particularly bothered by all this: the Anglican Church of Canada is tolerant enough to employ Druids but fires orthodox Christians.

You can listen to an interview with Beck here:

And read a CBC article here:

I am a ‘ChristoPagan’ … I practice magic, study the runes, and talk to trees and fairies; …and I am a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids.

AND I’m an ordained priest in the Anglican Church of Canada.  For 15 years I’ve preached and pastored churches in my diocese.  I’m a regional dean, and I train other priests, deacons, and lay ministers.

…But it has been a very interesting journey for me, almost thirty years of intense reflection and “internal inter-faith dialogue”, culminating finally in a fully blended path.

Am I alone in this?  Are there others out there who are living bi-spiritual lives?

[…..]

“I do identify myself as primarily Christian – heavily influenced and really spiritually transformed by neo-paganism. Specifically it’s about bringing in the feminine face of the divine. Bringing in the pagan valuing of nature as sacred. And the pagan sense of the world as alive and magical.”

He believes both can work together.

“It’s about recognizing that that tree that I’ve been praying beside, is actually alive and conscious and praying with me. It’s about recognizing that if I’m having beef for supper I know who I’m eating, not what I’m eating.” he says. “I’m what you call a Christian animist…and the basic premise of animism is that the world is filled with a myriad of neighbours…After you do that for a few years, for me anyway, something crystallizes about where I find my place in the universe.”