Tags
Against the Galilaeans, Apologetics, Bible, Christianity, Julian the Apostate, Lokesh Chandra, Monotheism, Neo-Paganism, Polytheism
Apologetics fascinates me. The rhetorical and written art of defending one’s religious or spiritual path with the focus of an archer. Now, I am not in the habit of attacking anyone’s religious path in life. I consider it to be arrogant and a huge waste of my time. I have, however, been the subject of attempts at conversion as well as occasional brushes with the press regarding the nature and character of paganism.
Paganism is spreading and growing all over the globe. And we are not the only ones aware of this fact. Christians are seeing the same phenomenon, paganism capturing the spiritual hearts and minds of many people all over the globe. This was made keenly apparent to me when I ran across this online course titled “Neo-Paganism: Is Dialogue Possible?”, written from a Christian (I believe a Catholic) perspective. I highly encourage a full reading of this text, as it really gives a number of good insights for the patient and debate loving pagan. The course is tolerant and not invective and because of this it stands out:
It is easy to parody another religion, and neopaganism is a parodist’s delight. One can easily brand its ritual as primitive or just plain weird. Yet serious apologetics requires that one exercise a hermeneutic of respect in the attempt to understand another faith. St. Paul obviously spent time with the Athenians, reading their poets and watching people at worship before daring to address them. Only in this way can Christians begin to dialogue with pagans. We need to put aside fifteen hundred years of offhanded dismissal and listen to pagans as having something intellectually serious and spiritually viable to say. This does not mean agreeing with them but having enough respect to listen and learn.
Some of you may already be aware of this course, some of you may not. What I find fascinating, and well worth consideration are the following critiques:
- “The apologist must ensure that if pagans reject Christianity it is because of the gospel and no human stumbling block.”
- “We need to present God’s ‘maternal’ qualities,[24] likewise the immanence of God. God shares our flesh, becomes God with us’ and suffers. This God comes to us corporeally in worship! There is nothing more immanent than the consumption of Christ’s body and blood.”
The first point. Pagans when explaining and/or dialoguing with Christians need to keep in mind a few things. The indictment against the existence of God by many Atheists is the history of the Church. Now as much as many pagans would like to pretend that paganism has no blood on it’s hands from the past, this is a provable historic falsehood. I have done an earlier post about this. However, I do think it is fair to point out to Christians that the Bible was written down by humans and could contain many “human stumbling blocks” of it’s own. Regardless it fosters greater dialogue between Christians and pagans by discussing our present beliefs more than our past actions. Pointing out the past evils of the church (in this context anyway) will not work for long as Christians will eventually start pointing out the dark history that paganism has as well.
The second point. The immanence of God in Christianity is indeed shown in the Eucharist and the incarnation of the Nazarene. But, from my perspective, that immanence is limited to those particular incarnations. With the planet in as much peril as it is, this kind of artificial separation is a falsehood that could cause suffering on a scale that humanity has experienced before. Why is the body seen as corrupt? Why is sex seen as a barrier to knowing God rather than a key?
There are of course many juicy topics for debate when speaking with Christians or any other flavor of monotheism. I think it is going to become increasing important for pagans to genuinely prepare to defend and present their spirituality in an intelligent, kind, and direct way. Emotional reactions end up reflecting bad on all of us, and *will* be covered by the press when we do. One thing the press loves most? A fight.
I would recommend reading the following articles as food for thought if you are interested in pagan apologetics and or pagan public relations. The first is a treatise written by the the last pagan Roman Emperor, Julian. Called, “Against the Galilaeans“, it provides an excellent (if slightly more invective) overview of the differences between Christianity and paganism from an ancient pagans perspective. The other is a short but succinct essay called “Paganism as a Metagrid of the Future” by the impeccable scholar and pagan, Professor Lokesh Chandra. This poetic and thoughtful essay takes the very complicated belief structure of paganism and distills it in a way that is beautiful, easy to understand, and defend.
Regarding your understanding of the Christian view of the immanence of Divinity–I belieive that it may perhaps be too restricted.
Many contemporary Christians are panentheists. Their understanding is that, in the words of The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, “The Being of God includes and penetrates whole universe, so that every part of it exists in Him, but (as against pantheism) that His Being is more than, and is not exhausted by, the universe.”
Less formally, we might say that the panentheistic view is that God is at one and the same time both ontologically distinguishable from the universe and intimately present in every part of it–and, indeed, continually holds every aspect of it in being.
By the way, I am not much of a fan of the whole apologetics piece, which smacks a bit too much of attack and defence. The purpose of apologetics is to convince the other party of the truth of one’s own religious views (and the falsehood of the other’s). It is a win-lose affair. My own preferred mode of interaction is dialogue. In dialogue, as opposed to apologetics, each party’s objective is to learn from the other so that both can grow and change. Win-win.
Thanks for the outside links. The articles you posted are very interesting.
“I think it is going to become increasing important for pagans to genuinely prepare to defend and present their spirituality in an intelligent, kind, and direct way.”
I agree whole-heartedly with this statement! Some of us are already having these conversations, but many of us are not.
Borea
Makarios,
I really only advocate apologetics as an absolute last resort when talking to someone who simply refuses to hear your side. Especially if you are in either a public venue or a setting where ending the conversation may not work. Dialogue is infinity preferable to an apologetics debate, however, if you find yourself in that kind of situation apologetics can be a great friend.
It seems an imbalanced playing field of dialogue, when one side is interested in presenting their deepest ponderings and feelings, as to help the other to understand, and the other side is presenting the same, with the secret goal to get the others to convert. I mean, we have to look at the basic difference between organic and revealed religions here- even in a kindly dialogue- which I agree is better than a debate- one side, the Christian/Revealed side, still must, at bottom, be interested in getting their partner converted. This is an unequal sort of sharing, even if it looks nice on the outside. It defies all reason how any religion could create a basic psychology of conversion, but at least two religions with a billion plus members have; never before in the history of the world (before the axial age) did a “religion” gain such a centralized character and really earnestly seek to talk other people into forsaking their organic, ancestral ways, and “coming on over” to the new side, their side, the “right” side, the “saved” side.
Dialogue until you rot, but you’ll discover what I’ve discovered and doubtless what most of you have discovered- that the basic general differences in worldview make all dialogue and debate a meaningless chore. There is an ominous threat hanging over the world to nearly all Christians- sin, original or otherwise. The world and the human soul is flawed, fundamentally. There is spiritual danger. There is a need for salvation and expiatory sacrifice. Organic religions never teach this, historically. The Native Americans- holders of an ancient complex of religious traditions from the stone age- didn’t think that their lives were screwed-up paths of evil and sin for which they faced great peril in the afterlife; like nearly all animists, and pagans from the other side of the pond, they believed in the “fitness of things”- the appropriateness and rightness of the world. This “rightness of the world” is the core concept of Vedic polytheism, and Indo-European polytheism in general, embodied as “Rta” in the east or Raidho in Teutonic countries.
You simply can’t come to jack or crap of an even-keel perspective if one side has the world being tainted with sin and fallen or wicked, and other side thinks the world is just fine. This basic worldview difference is only one; I could keep this list going.
I love a good argument, or debate, or dialogue. But revealed religions and organic religions are like apples and sea cucumbers. They belong to two vastly different types of consciousness, if you will, so different as to be mutually exclusive. I am torn between my desire to educate and debate, and my soul’s protest that nothing I say can or will matter.
Hello from a fellow Colorado resident! I live in the tiny town of Hillrose, and I work in another tiny town. I have worked, defended, and represented Paganism here diligently, honorably, and with an open mind. To some degree I’m accepted and in others tolerated. Which, in the Christian thick tiny town mentality – was a lot of hard work.
Thanks for posting this.
LOVE hearing from other Coloradans! If you are interested I would love to hear more about your struggles in a smaller town. Care to post more?