One of the things that I dislike the most about contemporary Paganism is that it often comes across as little more than a Protestant heresy. This is made apparent in a number of ways starting with the rather telling inability of Pagans, even after close to a century of the community’s existence, to come up with a coherent and widely accepted definition of their religion that does not directly reference Christianity. That many Pagans are profoundly uncomfortable even describing what they do as “religion” and instead prefer terms such as “spirituality” or “a way of life” or “having a relationship with one’s deities” is also a holdover of this Protestant mindset. (If I had a nickle for every sermon I sat through as a kid on the topic of Religion Will Send You To Hell; It’s Only Being Born Again Through The Blood Of the Lamb And Accepting Christ As Your Personal Savior That Gets You Into Heaven, why, I’d have a sock full of nickles I could swing at the Pagans who piss me off today.) Likewise most forms of contemporary Paganism reject institutional hierarchy and downplay the need for a priestly class or other intermediaries between the individual and the divine — just like Protestantism and unlike almost every polytheist culture over the course of history. Theologically many express themselves in quasi-monotheist terms and there is also a strong focus on ethics and progressive social action that was often quite lacking in antiquity.
The indebtedness of this type of Paganism to the reforms of Luther, Calvin & Co. is nowhere more apparent than when they are engaging in polemics about where to draw the boundaries within the community — something that our cultural ancestors were little concerned with. A boundary that most Pagans can agree on (ironically enough) is the one separating Christianity from Paganism. And like the good Protestants that they are the usual reason given for this is that it violates Christian doctrine and the teachings of the Bible to combine the two. Inevitably in such disputes chapter and verse are cited as if that should settle the matter once and for all.
It doesn’t.
Even leaving aside the fact that the Hebrew and Christian scriptures contradict themselves at every turn — and nowhere more plentifully than with regard to the natures of Yahweh and Jesus — Christianity has never limited itself just to what was said in the Bible, except among the most extreme literalist Protestant sects. In fact for the entirety of its history there have been many competing forms of Christianity, each with its own body of traditions and practices which inform its understanding of things. As far back as Saint Paul’s conflicts with the nascent church in Jerusalem (headed by members of Jesus’ own family and inner circle) we find the seeds of schism. Most of Paul’s epistles were actually written as correctives to communities that held views he passionately disagreed with, such as the Christians in Corinth who had no problem participating in Pagan ritual and feasting in the temples of their neighbors or those in Galatia who worshiped Jesus alongside a host of gods, angels, daimones and other supernatural beings. Likewise even among Jesus’ disciples there was profound disagreement concerning the exact nature of his being, what he had preached and who that message was intended to reach. These disagreements solidified with time and distance until the various camps had almost nothing in common. Hundreds of documents circulated in those early centuries, all of them claiming to represent the authentic form of Christianity in opposition to all of its competitors.
One must also keep in mind that literacy was the preserve of elites within antique society and Christianity has always drawn its largest following from among the lower classes. No doubt their conception of things was very different from that held by an Athanasius or Valentinus. For the most part we only get a glimpse of what these average Christians believed and did when they are being chastised and condemned by representatives of the powerful orthodoxy and they are far from an unbiased source.
And yet most Pagans today are willing to take them at their word that they and only they represent the true and proper Christian viewpoint — even though it is clear from their constant denunciations (from the Roman on up to the early modern period) of heretical belief, idolatry, magic, syncretism and outright backsliding into Paganism, that other forms of Christianity existed alongside their own.
Not only does one often find common and at times quite fruitful ground between Paganism and these “alternative” Christianities but I think that we have an ideological obligation to reject the exclusive truth claims of the dominant, orthodox church. When we support the assertions of men like Apa Shenoute, Savonarola or Fred Phelps that they are the real Christians, even if it is so that we can condemn and oppose them, we are lending our tacit support to the oppressor. The same aggression that led them to wipe out the indigenous polytheist traditions of the various European populations as well as those in Africa, Asia, the Americas and anywhere else they infected with missionaries — was also turned against their fellow Christians. To say that this aggression is somehow inherent to Christianity is to argue that they were justified in taking this course of action and besmirches the character and memory of all those men and women who held a faith in Christ that did not require them to war against all else that is sacred. And despite what many on both the Christian and Pagan side would have you believe, this faith was quite common. This material is abundantly available in histories and sourcebooks dealing with late antiquity and the middle ages, as well as online at sites like Tertullian.org, Early Christian Writings, the Internet Sacred Text Archive, Internet History Sourcebooks Project or my own no longer updated Eklogai Project.
So there’s no reason to be this woefully ignorant — unless, that is, one agrees with the Protestants that truth may only be found in the Bible. (And even those texts show quite a few Christians of a polytheist persuasion!) Therefore if you want to keep Christopagans out of the community — but have no problem letting in Jedis, Discordians, Pastafarians, Dianics and atheists — try actually coming up with some solid arguments for a change instead of just parroting what a handful of Bible verses say.
what a brilliant and delightful rant!
:) khairete
suz
I don’t have a problem with bigotry, per se. (I’m bigoted against atheists, for instance.) I’d just like to see a little more logical consistency. It’s especially annoying among people who fetishize tolerance.
As someone who was raised in a nonreligious household, I have often wondered why modern paganism is so often defined by its relation (or opposition) to Christianity. Thanks for illuminating that for me.
Honestly I suspect it’s because contemporary Paganism has such close ties to Protestantism. Without the Reformation, Counter-reformation and Renaissance there would have been no Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, Romantic longing for a return to a fabled past, Modernism, Post-Modernism, etc. which are all strong currents that led to Paganism as we find it today.
“You got Jesus in my paganism!”
“You got paganism on my Jesus!”
Heh. Exactly.
“It doesn’t matter which sect teaching loses to which, it is all to the shame of the Buddha”
-Japanese Saying
Oh noes! Don’t make the Buddha cry!
And countdown to a counter-rant from Curt / Apuleuis Platonicus, wherein he will attempt to explain that this behaviour you call out is all perfectly logical, even though it’s clearly circular reasoning, in five, four, three….
I suspect he no longer reads my blog because of all the Catholic-inspired stuff I’ve been posting.
To be fair, you only have evidence that he no longer comments directly (at least as of the moment I make this comment). It is quite possible that he still reads and waits for a post just like this, so that he can post a five part rebuttal to his own blog.
Personally, I’m no fan of Christianity, and I don’t see the point in monotheistic Christopaganism, but there’s an historical basis for the whole “Jesus as a demigod / hero” thing, and not only was pre-Nicean Christianity was practically a Crayola box of different paths, and the cornucopia of Protestant religions is proof enough that not all Christianity is the same. Does he have a point about certain kinds of Christianity, specifically about the dominant sects? Sure, but boy clearly has some issues.
Oh, couldn’t agree with you more. There are plenty of folks who identify as Christopagans and in my hardly unbiased opinion are taking all the wrong elements from Christianity when they do so. I very much see it from a polytheist perspective with the saints as equivalents of the Hellenic heroes and Yahweh, Jesus, Mary, Sophia and other Christian deities as just a couple extra in the uber-pantheon.
Oh, and I can certainly see the arguement of Catholic saints as demigods –but having grown up Catholic, the Saints are “officially” regarded as something closer to the Hellenic heros or agathose daimones who are intermediaries between man and god, so the logical inconsistency from some people who, on one hand, will insist “all people’s beliefs should be respected” and then with the other insist “Catholicism is polytheistic”, well, that’s not really respecting the beliefs of Catholics themselves.
That said, this quirk of Catholicism (“officially”, saints are part of the Church of England and Lutheranism, but in my experiences with my Anglican grandparents and Lutheran friends, “saints” in those churches aren’t really given all the esteem that the average devout Catholic has for their favourite Saints), has made it easy to syncretise with polytheistic religions –Venezuelans who worship Maria Leonza and Her court have absolutely no logical problem fancying themselves as Catholics, even though the official stance of the church is “Maria Leonza is a pagan cult that has nothing to do with Catholicism”. Santeria is famous for mixing Catholicism and Yoruba tribal religion. And the Irish re-imagined some of their deities as Saints long before Columbus bought a boat.
It’s interesting how, looking at the history of Catholicism, it was basically forced to adapt to the people it sought to convert by basically taking the polytheism out of polytheism while changing little else.
There is a monumental arrogance to the way that many pagans interpret folk Catholic and African Disaporic traditions as if they understand them better than the actual practitioners.
Oh, totally, but then again, I’ve learnt to expect little more from the average white Anglophonic pagan, especially from North America (interestingly, I think the clearer colonialism left in mainstream post-Empire British society encourages self-identified pagans in the UK to be a bit more conscious of this –but sometimes, let me tell you, Internet…). Seriously, I may be a little hopeful when someone is pitching the opt-in definition of “pagan” and / or points out the major groups that eschew the word, but I stopped being surprised by the inconsistency of the arrogance you speak of a LONG time ago.
I’ve often wondered why it is that otherwise reasonable, intelligent, well-informed, historically-minded, people of discernment can fall so short when it comes to these matters. Just because various Christians (or Muslims, or Jews, or any number of other people for that matter) have a particular theological viewpoint on these matters doesn’t mean it is right, or that we have to accept it or abide by it as if it is true. They have no qualms about considering our gods demons; why can’t we consider their gods just more gods among the many that we already recognize?
There is a larger point to be made here, which liberal-minded people are often remarkably uncritical about, involving the privileging of insider discourse (even when it is theologically and politically motivated), which is an important set of considerations to take into account on this point. But, I’ll save it for later…! ;)
Oh, I know. And it doesn’t make any sense to me, especially since a lot of that other material is a hell of a lot more theological interesting than mainstream Christianity.
You make a good point about privileging. So much of what’s offensive comes from those in power (often trying to bolster their tenuous hold on that power.) You read accounts of peasants and other “minorities” (who often make up the majority in any culture) especially in the rare instances when they were able to leave their own records of such things, and their take is often not that far from the polytheist position.
Indeed–and sneeringly so in many cases (e.g. in medieval Irish sources, when we hear of “the ridiculous stories of the druids” in 655 CE, or that the peasantry revered the stepmother of Niall of the Nine Hostages as a goddess, etc.). So, that’s a whole thing…
But, then there’s also this tendency to say “Well, Muslims don’t believe that, so we shouldn’t contradict them,” or “Christians don’t believe that, so we should go with what they think [which is usually what their institutional authorities think],” etc. I think there is a fear of cultural appropriation that motivates this to some extent–though it’s more like a fear of theological interpretation, i.e. having our own theological interpretations of other religions and philosophies and thought forms and theologies. My own notions of tolerance do not extend to abiding the negative opinions and falsifying theologies that other religions have of me and my gods, nor do I think they should in the name of some “truer” or “more authentic” notion of tolerance and love that we should uphold to…what? Be better than the Christians at their own supposed game that they’re not even playing any longer and aren’t keeping score on any more? I don’t know…
It’s a mess and a muddle and a pool of nonsense, for the most part. And, I don’t think stirring the pot as some have on the topic recently leads to anything other than more nonsense in the now-larger pool.
Being a bit of an asshole who has never been overly concerned with offending people, that’s an element of this I hadn’t considered previously. Hmm. Interesting.
This is because, IMO, most of modern Neo-Pagan thought is descended from Gardner’s Wicca, which *is* a reaction to/against 20th century Christianity. 20th c. Protestant Christian thought is still the default paradigm for most neo-Pagans. In my experience it is *less prevalent* (but still occurring) in the polytheist (esp. recon) circles, just because we actually have pre-Christian resources to turn to and benefit from.
I have a spare sock full of nickles, if you want….
True, but there are a lot of Protestant notions even within recon circles, especially the primacy of the written word and the literalist approach to it. This seems to be especially true among Heathens which I find particularly amusing since they have such a paucity of source material to draw on (especially compared to more highly literate cultures like Greece, Rome, Egypt and Mesopotamia) and the bulk of that was written down by extremely biased Christians.
yeah, I’ve noticed that in the Heathen circles that worship of the Gods is sometimes replaced by worship of historians and archaeologists (I used to be a heathen, before I discovered it wasn’t quite the right fit and accepted our Lord and Savior Dionysus :P ).
Amen and pass the wine-cup!
Elizabeth Vandiver makes one important point very concisely in one of her lectures for The Teaching Company (it’s a point I’ve actually made before, but I came across it from her last night so it’s top of mind at the moment). Here she is speaking specifically of the Classical tradition, but it’s true across the board: the writings we have are just that – the writings we have.
They are a record of (a) what happened to get written down, and then (b) the subset of THAT, that happened to survive. Is it likely that what got written down was more “mainstream”? Possibly… but still there were probably gods-know-how-many variant myths, alternate theologies, and possibly entire schools of thought that are completely lost to us. Internalize that realization, and the whole idea of being able to say “Just this and not that – ever” kind of falls apart, as a universal. There are things that will never be a part of MY practice or theology (entheogens, for instance), but I certainly couldn’t say that they are *never* Hellenically appropriate…
Oh, that is utterly brilliant!
I personally get a kind of Discordian kick out of people who are very very firm about adhering to religious strictures of religions they claim to have no ties to.
If they weren’t so damned annoying I’d totally be with you there.
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