Episcopaganism, Again

Several people are now discussing Greg Griffith's essay about one Episcopalian who also participates in pagan rites.  It's an exciting article.  [update, Jason at Wildhunt and Jake reply]

A few people have gotten all atwitter (I was thinking of other cliches, actually) about a Gay Episcopalian busy casting a couple medieval pagan / celtic - like spells.  At heart is a perfectly rational question, about how Christians will begin to engage pagans (violence?  conversation over tea?  crossing the street when we see one?). Greg Griffiths argues: “It is time for the Episcopal left to admit it has pagans in its midst, and to admit that this is a problem it needs to address.” Admittedly, I don’t think it is a big problem. Most Episcopal priests, instead, would secretly like to be rabbis. 

Or Shamans.  Rabbis teach, shamans heal.  Priests are supposed to be both.

It is hard to wear two hats here: one as someone who is a believer in Jesus Christ, but another as a student of religion and religious practice. Personally, I’m not particularly frightened of the idea of pagans worshipping in my church; nor am I worried about Pagans praying to Jesus Christ (what happens when people of other faiths pray to Jesus?  Does it work?).  And I just don't know what happens when pagans practice otherwise.  Let me be clear.  I just don't know.  And... I just don't have the energy or the interest to judge.

But if the issue is leadership, the obvious answer to the question: can you be “a Christian and a Pagan,” is that Christian Priests cannot participate as leaders in non-Christian rites. In other words, “No.”  But this has to do more with good, and credible, organizing.

Granted, there are some relevant “buts” and “ifs.” For example, if a pagan only worships Jesus Christ in a grove somewhere and pours out his blood so that he can speak with his redeemer, is he a Christian? And if a Christian throws salt over his shoulder, or eats the body and blood of our lord over a stone table in the wilderness, is he a Christian?

The line between Christian and "pagan" practices is rarely very neat. Hell –I’m drinking blood and eating a body every Sunday. Secondly, how are blessings different than “spells?” The answer is easy – a blessing works. But if a pagan spell works, what does that mean for Christians?

Is there much to worry about theologically? I suspect Jesus would say, worry about hypocrites, opportunists and collaborators.

So the heat with which some get upset about paganism is completely baffling to me. It is even more baffling than paganism itself, with its lack of creeds, rules, boundaries, and set prayers.  Do we know what we are talking about when we toss around the word, “paganism?" My incomplete and woefuly ignorant view is that it is not much different than the sorts of transcendental nature religions that have appeared in our country before. I don’t know if they all read Tarot and contemplate astrology. My Hindu family in India, for example, gives me calendars where Jesus is displayed prominently, along with Vishnu, Siva and Ganesh. Are they pagans, or polytheists? Well, they aren’t “wicca.” Watch what kind of response you get when you call a Hindu a “Witch.” 

Modern paganism bears little resemblance to the paganism of scripture. Paul understood paganism, for example, as intrinsic to empire. I doubt he thought that the ruler of the greatest empire in the world would claim the Christian faith. Scripture assumes that paganism is about powerful countries invading and exploiting oppressed people. It’s part of our historical memory. Is it accurate now? Well, I don’t see it. Pagans seem like flighty vegetarians who wear a lot of black.

I do not feel threatened by modern day pagans. I am surely no more threatened than Christians who find it easy to justify the violence of empire.

Pagans will test interfaith dialogue. Is this a problem? Ever since we’ve started affirming that Jews won’t go to hell, we’ve lost some authority around what happens in interfaith discussions. After all, Jews absolutely reject Jesus. Are they hell-bound? And if they aren’t, who is? If Jesus, and only Jesus, determines salvation, our relationship with Jews is quite tenuous and our responsibility is to convert them. Ironically, it is far more likely that pagans will accept some form of Jesus as a spirit than Jews will.  And, uh, that's what happened.

Episcopal priests cannot take leadership roles in other faiths that do not recognize Jesus Christ as central to our work in this life. I can imagine, however, a theoretical Coven that does such.

But of course, that would be a church.

Comments

[Phil Snyder]

Some excellent comments, John.

But, what do you think Paul would say if one of the congregation leaders at Corinth still dabbled in the cult of Aprhodite or the Church at Crete had an apologist who also led worship at the temple of Mithras?

Having a Pagan or nature worshipper or non-Christian in my congregation does not bother me. It gives me a chance to talk with him/her and to share the Gospel with him/her. I also get to learn more about his/her faith.

However, I don't think that Christian leaders (lay or ordained) should come from those who are active in any other religion - be it modern paganism, Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, or what have you. Neither should a person who is a pagan & a Christian be used as an apologist for anything to do with the Christian faith.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

[John Wilkins]

Hi Phil. You say "Neither should a person who is a pagan & a Christian be used as an apologist for anything to do with the Christian faith."

What if what the person says is true? Constantine had some excellent things to say about the church, and yet, he wasn't baptized until the very end. More recently, Alan Badiou has a wonderful book on Paul, and he's an atheist.

Leadership is a different issue, however because it requires managing a public understanding of authority.

[Caelius Spinator]

"Secondly, how are blessings different than “spells?” The answer is easy – a blessing works. But if a pagan spell works, what does that mean for Christians?"

I have heard trustworthy people speak of loved ones under such "spells" and their deliverance by Christ, I take such things a little more seriously (but consider more psychological explanations). If a pagan spell works, however, it is no surprise. There are other powers in this world besides God. Some of them lead men into witchcraft. Some of them lead men into aggressive war. What would be problematic was a spell from which one could not be delivered.

Mr. Snyder is right. Paul would have had serious problems with anyone among the saints at Corinth being involved in the rites of Aphrodite. Like Patrick, I can say earnestly that Christ is my druid but only because Christ acts as a mediator between the powers of this world and me (preferably keeping them away).

As for the Johnston case, I know many strong Christians who were involved in neo-pagan religions in their past.
"Such were some of you; but you have been washed clean, you have been dedicated to God, you have been washed clean, you have been justified through the name of the Lord Jesus and through the Spirit of our God."

So I'm somewhat worried that Maury is being flogged by his fellow believers over his past without any inquiry into possible repentance or conversion of life.

[ruidh]

But if the issue is leadership, the obvious answer to the question: can you be “a Christian and a Pagan,” is that Christian Priests cannot participate as leaders in non-Christian rites. In other words, “No.”

Hmmmm. What about the non-sectarian, interfaith "prayers" that the clergy are often asked to lead at civic events? (sometimes called Ceremonial Deism.)

Is that a leadership position you feel a Christian clergyperson can assume?

Secondly, how are blessings different than “spells?”

The operative question for me is "Is this a 'Your will be done' activity?"

[John Wilkins]

Ruidh, it is an excellent point. My inclination is that such ceremonial deism it is probably worse. Thus my comment about hypocrisy and opportunism.

Of course, I do participate in the ceremonial deism because I've worked through my issues about being right, pious, and perfect before my lord and maker all the time.

[ruidh]

Sometimes I fanticize abut starting the Church of Ceremonial Deism. Or even the Orthodox Church of Ceremonial Deism. But, then I get sober and forget all about it.

[Richard Zevnik]

There's a post by Fr. Jake including substantial background information and numerous comments relative thereto on Fr Jake Stops the World.

[C. Wingate]

I'd be hard pressed to describe Fr. Jake's post as a source of information per se, especially since he is blocking everything on the post except a sort of festival of character assassination against Johnston's accusers. I did no more than trackback to show that I mentioned his post, and he deleted that too.

It is far from clear exactly what Mr. Johnston's situation is. The January 2006 message, if it allows multiple interpretations, does not naturally lend itself to Fr. Jake's version. I can agree that Mr. Johnston's article isn't discredited by his circumstances, but I also think that the main aim of the "extreme conservatives" isn't in this direction anyway.

The "wedge issue" analysis is a bit specious. If it splits any group, it is those who do not oppose homosexuality. I've given up on identifying "moderates" in ECUSA, and it's hard to imagine that anyone is going to be swayed politically by this. The problem that I see is that there is this persistent dabbling in non- and anti-Christian religion on one end of ECUSA, and that it keeps appearing in such places as that living fossil of the late 1970s, the Office of Women's Ministries, and that the refusal to do anything about this is a scandal that isn't going away. And it seems that the homosexuality lobby in the church is using these people as fellow travellers, when they aren't actually the same people.

[IT]

Mr Johnston has clarified his spiritual journey on Fr Jake's site.

[Annie]

I guess that some people don't believe in conversion?

What about St. Paul? Wasn't he a persecutor of our Lord and a murderer to boot and he converted.

Throwing salt over my shoulder is a pagan practice? EGADS! So where do I throw my spilt salt now?

[J. C. Fisher]

The problem that I see is that there is this persistent dabbling in non- and anti-Christian religion on one end of ECUSA

Me, too: I keep seeing this problem . . . on the reasserter end, w/ all their heresies (Donatism), apostasies (from the vows they took to their bishops), blasphemies (judging God---that God couldn't do what God evidently DID do: make some of the Imago Dei gay) and perversions of Christ's Kingdom ("Nevermind the war, paid for w/ our tax dollars, killing tens of thousands---there are witches to hunt!")

{sigh}

However, I trust that, in God's Good Time, God will bring the reasserters back to the Faith once delivered to the saints...

[C. Wingate]

I'm not sure that the donatism accusation is correct, and surely no American can say that oaths are unconditional and do not depend upon the fidelity of bishops to the received faith. Blasphemy? That's histrionic.

More to the point, though: now that we've laid accusations on both extremes, I have to ask which sins I can live with. I'm afraid to say that at this point, I'd have to go with the reasserters. I am not a donatist about Robinson, and I don't have any vows to bishops to worry over. But I do see a lot of pressure to make changes to the liturgy, and what I see is pressure to change the liturgy to say things that I cannot bring myself to say. It seems to me that the pressure to make those changes comes from the same people and institutions where the paganism problems keep cropping up, and it seems to me that there is a spiritual kinship between those changes and the kind of spirituality I see in neopagan ritual and discussion. The usual accusations of bad faith and hypocrisy directed against the reasserters do nothing to improve this; to my ear they sound like attempts to distract us from the present problem of theological influences.

[Marty]

CS: So I'm somewhat worried that Maury is being flogged by his fellow believers over his past without any inquiry into possible repentance or conversion of life.

IT: Mr Johnston has clarified his spiritual journey on Fr Jake's site.

Indeed it seems he has.

Maury is not a Christian, nor is he totally a Pagan. He is a non-committal Unitarian Universalist, but he doesn't like the label much. Conversion? Apparently not, C.S. Repentance? More like defiance, it seems.

[IT]

I find it interesting how some people presume to define the spiritual journey of others.

I'm just a visitor, but to me it seems perfectly well explained that Maury is a Christian who ventured out into a pagan-naturalist viewpoint for a while before finding his way back to your faith. He uses very dramatic and colorful language tinged by that journey. His concept of Christ does not sit with the language used by more conservative folk, any more than a Dali or Mondrian sits well with those whose idea of painting stopped with Claud-lorrain. But for someone ELSE to presume to announce that what Maruy says he believes, he doesn't, because it doesn't correspond with your use of language?

One might equally say that an austere, old-fashioned, and judgmental viewpoint of what constitutes another person's faith is anti-Christian. Yet I do not think you mean to be.

Surely.

[janinsanfran]

Paul understood paganism, for example, as intrinsic to empire. I doubt he thought that the ruler of the greatest empire in the world would claim the Christian faith. I assume you are referring to GWB? Now that is a matter of some importance for U.S. Christians to ponder.

What goes on between Mr. Johnston and God seems none of my business.

[Phil Snyder]

IT, when Mr. Johnston says that he is "post-Christian," I assume that he is not Christian, but believes he is past all that stuff.

If I were to refer to myself as a "post-doctoral student" (which I am not) then you would assume that I am not a doctoral student. Likewise, if I say I am a "post adolescent," then you would assume that I am (mostly) finished with my adolescence.

Mr. Johnston seems to take some images from Christianity and some language from Christianity and combines them with some images from other religions to come up with "Johnstonism"

This is not important, except that it affects the whole body of Christ. Because Mr. Johnston is held up as a leader by some, there are those who will believe it is harmless to emulate his religious practice and will do harm to their relationship with God in the process.

Heresy has implications for our relationship with God. That is why the early Church defined these things as heresy. They saw the corruption that occurs to peoples' spirits as they practiced what they believed.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

[J. C. Fisher]

Mr. Johnston is held up as a leader by some

Phil: because Fr. Jake has published a couple of his essays, and some of us appreciate his spirited defense of LGBTs in the Church, does that now make him a (my?) leader? (As +Spong is constantly alleged to be?)

As long as Maury wants to be in Christ's Body, then Maury is my brother in Christ: nothing more (and nothing less! NB, to those Christians who would say they "have no need" of him)

*****

I do see a lot of pressure to make changes to the liturgy, and what I see is pressure to change the liturgy to say things that I cannot bring myself to say. It seems to me that the pressure to make those changes comes from the same people and institutions where the paganism problems keep cropping up, and it seems to me that there is a spiritual kinship between those changes and the kind of spirituality I see in neopagan ritual and discussion.

Speaking of "histrionics": do you have some specific accusation in all that, CW? (Because it smells like Joseph McCarthy and "Right here I have a list of known Communists" yada-yada-yada)

I have to ask which sins I can live with

Aren't the only sins about which we ought to ask that question, be our own? (And shouldn't the only Christian answer to it be, "None of 'em"?)

*****

Let us pray for all who have not received the Gospel of Christ;

*For those who have never heard the word of salvation
*For those who have lost their faith
*For those hardened by sin or indifference
*For the contemptuous and the scornful
*For those who are enemies of the cross of Christ and persecutors of his disciples
*For those who in the name of Christ have persecuted others

That God will open their hearts to the truth, and lead them to faith and obedience. (Solemn Collect for Good Friday, BCP p. 279)