If you think you’re too good to watch American Idol and have therefore not yet heard Joshua Ledet sing “It’s a Man’s World,” check out the video above. Why did such an amazing performer not make it to the finale, you ask? It’s because you think you’re too good to watch American Idol and didn’t vote for him, that’s why. Joshua sang the same song on Thursday night, and brought his mom up on stage at the end for my favorite moments of the season.
“...This is not an angry editorial written with clenched teeth. No, this is much friendlier. I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to roll down the window and tenderly say, ‘You do realize you people are making up a new religion, right?’”
“...The confusion goes beyond the title, my first line reads, ‘They took me in my nightgown.’ At first glance, readers may not understand that the nightgown foreshadows totalitarianism, not titillation.”
“1. GIVE UP YOUR NEED TO ALWAYS BE RIGHT: There are so many of us who can’t stand the idea of being wrong – wanting to always be right – even at the risk of ending great relationships or causing a great deal of stress and pain, for us and for others. It’s just not worth it. Whenever you feel the ‘urgent’ need to jump into a fight over who is right and who is wrong, ask yourself this question: ‘Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?’”
“I don't know what it is about having kids, but there are times that if you can't laugh, you'll just want to die. It starts the day they're born, when you inadvertently poop during labor. To poop yourself while 9 people are watching has got to be the #1 thing on my list of “Reasons to Jump off a Bridge”. Of course, #2 would be being pooped on (which each of my children did within 5 minutes of meeting me). #3? Finding a booger in your hair. Yeah. Been there.”
“We picked up six minnows for 15 cents each at Petco and gently poured them from the plastic bag into the black tub. Noah pulled a metal chair across the concrete patio and sat hunched over the water garden, silvery scales glinting as the fish darted beneath the water hyacinth...Ten minutes later all six were dead, floating glassy-eyed and white-bellied like sardines on the surface."
“...In our services, we need to start to consider singing about a few more things. We might need to sing about anger. Or doubt. Or families. Or friendship. Or grief. If we want our services to be relevant to those attending, we need to be able to address all aspects of our lives. Music is a profound medium. Let’s stop using it as a manipulative device, and allow it to be a means to connect with all aspects of our relationship with God and with one another.”
Best Analysis: Mimi Haddad (at Jesus Creed) with “Gender Blind?”
“Our rebirth in Christ opens doors to service in the church regardless of gender because it was Christ’s humanity, not his gender that made him a sacrifice for all people.”
“The State needs to get out of the “marriage” business. It should recognize that as long as it uses that term, and continues to privilege certain types of relationships over others this issue is going to divide us as a nation, and is only going to become more and more contentious. We need to move towards the system used in many European countries where the State issues nothing but civil unions to anyone who wants them, and then those who desire it may seek a marriage from the Church.”
What do you think of this idea? Does it really represent a compromise?
Most Likely to Make Me Pee in My Pajamas Laughing: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson (Note: If you’re one of the people who gets really upset when I use the word “vagina” or say “WTF?” in a post, you should not read this book.)
"...If L’Oreal wants to join the feminist movement for real, how about they begin by not perpetuating the stereotype that girls are so bad at math and science that they’ll go out and buy a product that promises to 'millionize' their eyelashes.? I mean, what’s next? A 'trillionizer?' A 'gazillionizer'? When you start with “millionize,” there’s nowhere else to go but crazy town.
It reminds me of the text on the back of my shampoo bottle, which promises that all my dry, frizzy hair needs is a little “fortified fruit science” and all will be well.
Fortified fruit science.
Because that’s a thing."
Most Popular Comment: In response to “Enough,” Stacey wrote:
“Thank you. Last night at a women's event at my old church I was made to feel, for the thousandth time, that until I am a wife and a mother I...
- don't know what love is. - am not complete. - don't have a full life.
I needed the reminder that I. am. enough. I am enough today and I will be enough tomorrow and if I ever get married and have kids I will still be enough just for who I am. Thank you.”
So what caught your eye online this week? What's happening on your blog?
Today’s post on faith and parenting comes to us from the uber-talented Leena Tankersley. Leeana is the author of Found Art: Discovering Beauty in Foreign Places(Zondervan 2009), spiritual writings inspired by her time in the Middle East. I met Leena at the 2012 Festival of Faith and Writing and we immediately hit it off. She is funny, honest, insightful, and committed to her art. Leeana lives in Bahrain with her husband and three children, Luke (3), Lane (3), and Elle (2 months). She inspires fellow gypsies at GypsyInk.com. Find her on Twitter: @lmtankersley.
Enjoy!
***
Sometime after my twins turned one, they began throwing food from their highchairs as if it were sport. Bits of turkey, string cheese, and soggy peanut butter crackers were half eaten and then pitched from their perches.
I spent most of my day bent over, butt up in the air, picking up one kind of thing or another. On one occasion, to avoid fainting, I sat down on the floor next to the scraps, piling them up in my hand. Mindlessly, I pick the hair and carpet fuzz off the chunks of banana and sucked-on crackers and then I eat the remains. As if my only sustenance comes from the food I must forage.
This is what we call “a low.”
From my floor-dwelling, my mind wanders . . . to the girl in the Anthropologie catalog. And I want to be her. Perched on a tufted leather sofa, sitting in this most perfectly imperfect artist’s loft wearing ankle boots and a belted bohemian blouse that despite its tunic-ness somehow manages to make me look lean and elegantly unkempt. My children, Pickle and Twice (because I’m just that secure and avant garde), play lovingly in the corner. It’s clear from the décor around me that I’m very talented. It goes without saying that I’m gluten free, passionate about composting, raising some chickens on our roof, and the envy of all who know me. Motherhood sits you down on the floor of life, closes the door, and asks you to do your best work, moment by moment, with no one watching. This is torture for someone like me.
I don’t plod well. I certainly don’t plod well with no one watching. I need a crowd, some adoring fans, a cheering section, loud applause, a fight song in my honor. A full color spread in a magazine, at the very least.
I didn’t know all of this about myself until these two little pink piglets arrived. I didn’t know that hormones would make an otherwise well-behaved woman feral. I didn’t know how much I would long for an escape some days, how desperately uncompassionate I would be with myself, how relentless it would all feel. I didn’t know how desperate I would be to feel seen.
I didn’t anticipate all the angst, and I didn’t anticipate what a lousy companion I would be with myself in that angst.
I once heard Parker Palmer speak about 9/11. Like everyone, he had been struggling to reconcile the terrorists’ acts with his theology, and the only question he could think to ask himself was, “What do these terrorists and I have in common?” His answer:
“We are all heartbroken.”
Was it possible that, in becoming a mother, I was now confronting my heartbrokenness: My longing for the glamour. My acceptance of the Beauty. And the gorge of grief that stretched between.
After some time, I did something radical: There in my floor-dwelling, I told God I was heartbroken. And I asked if he would mind terribly sending Christ to sit with me.
Three years and another baby later, tiny bits of breathing room have arrived, and I am finally able to . . .
let myself be scared of how much I love these kids.
let myself be scared of how much I know I will fail them.
let myself admit how tired I am.
let myself long for a tufted couch and a bohemian blouse.
let myself grieve the losses.
let myself drink an entire case of Coke Zero (only once in awhile).
let myself rest.
let myself laugh.
let myself off the hook, finally and after a long time, realizing that parenting isn’t hard because I am failing. Parenting is hard because it’s hard.
Baby steps. Small miracles. Water into wine. Spit and mud. Healing.
I just finished Some Assembly Required, the latest from guru-turned-grandmother, Anne Lamott. In the middle of the book, Lamott takes a break from grandmothering to visit India. She dreams of watching sunrise from a riverboat on the Ganges.
But, on the morning that she is to climb aboard the riverboat, the Ganges is socked in.
She writes:
It was a thick, white pea-soup fog—a vichyssoise fog—and apparently we were not going to see any of the sights I’d assumed we would see, and in fact we had come here to see.
But we saw something else: We saw how much better mystery shows up in fog, how much wilder and truer each holy moment is than any fantasy.
This is the spiritual discipline I must practice every day, every minute, sometimes every second, if I’m honest: To believe that “each holy moment” can and does supercede “any fantasy.”
God, I love the fantasy. And every month when the Anthropologie catalog (“retail porn” as my husband calls it) shows up, I am bewitched all over again. Wanting to escape into a life that looks so much more enchanting than my own. Wanting to disappear into an image. Wanting to believe that glamour pays better than Beauty.
I believed motherhood would be the Ganges in all its glory. Turns out, some days the whole landscape is so socked in, you can’t see from one moment to the next.
The work, the holy work, is to believe that somehow what is happening in that fog, that haze, that soup—if we will allow ourselves to sit in it and even invite Christ into it with us—is actually the whole point.
Remember our friend Jim LePage, whose Word series captured some of the most beautiful, compelling, bizarre, troubling, violent, and redemptive stories from the Bible in stunning poster-style images?
Well Jim is at it again, only this time he has teamed up with Troy Deshano and a group of extraordinarily talented contemporary graphic artists to create the Old & New series.
Based on biblical stories and passages, the series aims to introduce a new audience to a new type of biblical art. The designs, which come from artists of a variety of faith perspectives, are posted on the Web site every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Best of all, proceeds from the purchase of prints benefit Blood: Water Mission’s efforts to provide clean water in Lwala, Kenya.
What I love about both the Word series the Old & New series is that these artists do a magnificent job of interacting with the biblical text in a way that is honest and raw.
I’ve got a print from the Word series hanging in my office, and I love it. So consider jumping over to the Old & New site to check out some more images, and help provide clean water to those who need it.
What’s your favorite of the Old & New series so far? What image do you find most striking? Most intriguing?
I’ve had several requests to include “ask a Seventh-Day Adventist...” in our interview series, so today I am pleased to introduce J David Newman.
David describes himself as an evangelical Adventist. He has pastored New Hope Adventist Church for the past ten years, and is retiring at the end of June 2012, after which he will enter a PhD program in London, England. He is the editor of Adventist Today, a progressive, lay-owned journal, and has served in various administrative posts for the Adventist denomination as well as an adjunct professor at Andrews University. For many years, he was the editor of Ministry Magazine, an international Adventist journal for pastors.
David was born in Cape Town South Africa of British parents. He spent the first twelve years of his life in Nigeria and Sierra Leone. He then completed secondary school in England and Scotland. He met his wife, Phyllis, from San Diego, California, while studying at La Sierra University in Riverside California.
I’ve never met David, but I suspect he has quite the accent.
You know the drill: If you have a question for David, leave it in the comment section. At the end of the day, I’ll pick the top seven or eight questions and send them to him. We'll post his response next week. Be sure to take advantage of the “like” feature so that we can get a sense of what questions are of most interest to readers. Please remember the point of our interview series is not to debate or challenge, but to ask the sort of questions that will help us understand one another better.
I can’t for the life of me recall what book I read it in, but I remember an author saying once that he raised his children to be wary of consumerism by teaching them to laugh at commercials.
Like, the whole family would sit around the TV together and bust out laughing when someone from LG asked, “Is it a washer? Or something better?”
(It’s just a washer.)
I’ve decided I like this idea, particularly as a woman, who most advertisers seem to take for a complete idiot.
Case in point: Last night, Eva Longoria winked at me from the TV screen and, with a gold-colored tube of mascara between her fingers, said, “Don’t just volumize your lashes! Millionize them!”
Okay, first of all, Eva, neither “volumize” nor “millionize” are words.
Second of all, even if it were scientifically possible to “millionize” my lashes, would that really be safe? (I’m getting a creepy vision of Animal in a Muppet Special.)
Millionize your lashes!
And third of all, if L’Oreal wants to join the feminist movement for real, how about they begin by not perpetuating the stereotype that girls are so bad at math and science that they’ll go out and buy a product that promises to “millionize” their eyelashes.? I mean, what’s next? A “trillionizer?” A “gazillionizer”? When you start with “millionize,” there’s nowhere else to go but crazy town.
It reminds me of the text on the back of my shampoo bottle, which promises that all my dry, frizzy hair needs is a little “fortified fruit science” and all will be well.
Fortified fruit science.
Because that’s a thing.
You gotta laugh at this stuff to keep from crying.
Same goes for the magazine aisle. Strategically placed near the checkout line at the grocery store, where, after a frustrating hour of decision-making, calorie counting, list checking, and child-bribing, women would otherwise be forced to stop, wait, and ask themselves a few questions about the meaning of their existence, the magazine aisle dazzles us with photoshopped images of super-skinny models, next to impeccably arranged place settings, next to actresses praised for losing their baby weight in five minutes, next to Martha Stewart holding a perfectly frosted chocolate cake.
As if all of those scenarios are possible at once.
The headlines say things about “10 Ways to Snag a Man” and “4 Recipes Your Family Will Love” and “29 Ways To Lose Weight And Still Eat a Donut Every Day,” but what we really read is:
Are you pretty enough?
Are you crafty enough?
Are you sexy enough?
Are you stylish enough?
Are you domestic enough?
Are you enough?
Too often, we forget to laugh at the absurdity of these questions, and instead find ourselves grabbing a magazine from the rack, flipping through its pages, desperately looking for something that might make us “enough”— fortified fruit science, perhaps?
Well, last week, TIME Magazine skipped past all the subtleties and came right out with it. Next to the now infamous picture of a thin, provocatively posed, bombshell of a mother, defiantly breastfeeding her nearly four-year-old son, were printed the words:
Are you mom enough?
The cover sparked a flurry of responses as women around the world issued a collective, “WTF, TIME?”
There has to be a way to write a compelling cover story on attachment parenting without exploiting every woman’s deepest insecurities, pitting mothers against one another, and making this poor kid’s future college life a nightmare!
But the way I see it, TIME gave us a something of a gift. By stripping that cover of all pretense, it revealed in plain language the lie behind so much of the media’s messages for women: If you aren’t a sexy, put-together, powerful, super-mom, who breastfeeds her kids until they’re four while baking apple pies, making crayon art, and investing in a successful career, then you’re a failure. You will always fall short. You will never be enough.
Such an idea is so absurd, it should elicit laughter, not groans. It’s like millionized lashes and fortified fruit science—too stupid to take seriously!
And yet a small part of us believes it.
Why?
This whole idea of the “ideal woman” is one reason I decided to take on my year of biblical womanhood project. I hated how well-intentioned pastors and leaders were taking the Bible I loved so much and turning into yet another magazine cover that asks: “Are you biblical enough?”
And by “biblical,” most pointed to a glamorized, westernized version of the Proverbs 31 Woman, who rises before dawn each day, provides food for her family, trades fine linens for a profit, invests in real estate, and works late into the night weaving and sewing. Christian books and conferences tend to perpetuate the idea that a woman’s worth should be measured by the details, rather than the message, of Proverbs 31, and like the magazines in the checkout line, often focus on fitness, domesticity, beauty, and success as ways of earning the favor of God and men.
But here’s the thing.
The poetic figure found in Proverbs 31 is not the only woman in the Bible to receive the high praise of, “eshet chayil!” or “woman of valor!”
So did Ruth.
And Ruth could not be more opposite than the Proverbs 31 Woman.
Ruth was a Moabite (a big no-no back then; men were forbidden from marrying foreign wives).
Ruth was childless.
Ruth, was a widow— “damaged goods” in those days.
Ruth was dirt poor.
Rather than exchanging fine linens with the merchants to bring home a profit to her husband and children, Ruth spent her days gleaning leftovers from the workers in the fields so she and her mother-in-law could simply survive!
And yet, despite looking nothing like the ancient near Eastern version of a magazine cover, Ruth is bestowed with the highest honor. She is called a woman of valor. Eshet chayil!
She is called a woman of valor before she marries Boaz, before she has a child with him for Naomi, before she becomes a wealthy and influential woman.
Because in God’s eyes, she was already enough.
The brave women of Scripture—from Ruth to Deborah to Mary Magdalene to Mary of Bethany—remind me that there’s no one right way to be a woman, and that these images of perfection with which we are confronted every day are laughable to those of us who are in on the big secret: We are already enough.
We are enough because God is enough, and God can turn even the smallest acts of valor—letting go of a grudge, cleaning puke out of a kid’s hair, inviting the homeless guy to dinner, listening to someone else’s story— into something great.
Proverbs 31:25 says the wise woman “laughs at the days to come.”
I don’t think the Proverbs 31 Woman laughs because she has it all together.
I think she laughs because she knows the secret about being enough.
And so my big act of valor this week will be simple: I’m going to pick up the first magazine I see in the grocery store, point to the cover, and laugh like a maniac, right in front of God and everybody.
....Let’s just hope it’s not something sophisticated like The Atlantic, cause then I would look like an idiot.
So I confess that, perhaps unfairly, I felt some trepidation about inviting a pagan to participate in our interview series. But, after receiving over 100 questions from you last week, Jason Mankey rose to the occasion with some really informative, thoughtful, funny, and gracious responses. I had no idea how little I actually knew about modern paganism until I entered this conversation. This turned out to be one of my favorite interviews of the series. (Guess it pays to get out of your comfort zone.)
Jason is a Pagan writer, blogger, and lecturer, and an initiated Wiccan. In addition to writing for the Ipinion Syndicate and at Patheos, he is active on the Pagan lecture circuit. Jason grew up just outside of Nashville Tennessee, and was president of his Methodist Church Youth Group there. He converted to Paganism at age 21 and has been involved with that ever since. Currently living in Northern California, he is involved with many Pagan groups in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also blogs at Panmankey.com, and you can follow him on Twitter here.
Hope you learn as much from this as I did.
***
To start, several readers were interested in your conversation story. What led you from your Methodist upbringing to paganism?
My childhood was spent mostly in the Midwest, while my junior high and high school years were spent in Gallatin Tennessee, just north of Nashville. During my teenage years I was a conservative Republican and heavily involved in the Methodist Church. I was even President of my church youth group and gave a sermon at an Easter Sunrise Service.
During my first two years of college I spent a lot of time at the Baptist Student Union on campus. It was a pretty conservative group and when my brother came out of the closet during my sophomore year the BSU was not very supportive. I heard a lot of “he’s going to hell,” while I argued that “he’s a better person now that he’s being honest with himself and everyone around him.” I was told that didn’t matter, and all that mattered was his sexual preference. I know a lot of Christians who are loving, tolerant, people, these folks weren’t, and their attitude caused me to re-examine a lot of spiritual things, and to deal with a lot of my questions about Christianity, which I’ve always had.
I remember asking a youth counselor once “What if we are wrong as Christians?” His response has stuck with me over the years, “well if we are wrong, it’s a good way to live your life.” I agreed with him then, and I agree with him now. Christianity is generally a very good way to live your life, but I’ve always had doubts. By the time I was in the second grade, I was extremely interested in other religions and various mythologies. I consumed Greek myth like it was going out of style, and started reading books on comparative religion by the fifth grade. I never understood why there was only one pathway to God when there were so many different people on Earth. If Yahweh wanted the Ancient Greeks to worship him, why didn’t he just say so? And why would someone growing up on the Fiji Islands be condemned to hell for not hearing about Jesus? That’s completely illogical to me. Wouldn’t it make more sense for deity to reveal itself in ways that make sense to the local populace?
I also found the idea that God was exclusively male to be a troubling one. Women are over half of the world’s population, why should deity strictly be masculine? Wouldn’t it make more sense for deity to be both male and female? The world is full of duality. We have night and day, girls and boys, summer and winter, etc. I worship both a Goddess and a God, while not condemning everyone who disagrees with me to the fires of hell. That’s why modern Pagan cosmology makes sense to me.
As a spiritual person, I’m looking to connect with deity. I very rarely felt connected to deity sitting in a pew listening to someone talk about God. I wanted to experience God. I practice Wicca (one of several Modern Paganisms), and Wicca’s ritual framework allows me to have that experience with deity that I often felt was missing as a Christian. There’s not a series of complicated rules separating me from the divine; it’s right there waiting for me anytime I want to experience it. I felt complete and whole the first time I prayed to The Goddess.
From Gina: How would you define the word pagan? I feel like the answer to this question is essential for us to understand what's actually being discussed.
It’s my belief that there are several different definitions of the word “pagan.” For a long time, the most common definition of the word pagan read something like this "anyone who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew." This definition is still used by a lot of people, and when those people stumble upon a faith outside of the Abrahamic Tradition they label it "pagan" by default. This definition nearly matches the use of the word pagan in some anthropological circles. Many anthropologists will label native religions as pagan, even if that religious tradition in Africa has nothing in common with one in the Philippines.
In my own writing, I often use the word pagan to refer to ancient pagan religions of Europe and the Middle East. Since most of those religions are unique unto themselves, I sometimes call them ancient paganisms. While it's true that both the Ancient Greeks and the Vikings worshipped a multitude of gods, the similarities mostly stop there. They get lumped together in 2012, but they wouldn’t have been lumped together in the year 300; they would have been separate faith traditions.
The original meaning of the word pagan means "country dweller," and comes from the Latin word "paganus." Whether subconsciously, or as a result of the word pagan's origins, a lot of people refer to old or rustic practices as “pagan.” I’ve seen various old folk dances (such as Morris dancing) referred to as “pagan” on a number of occasions even though it lacks any real connection to the paganisms of antiquity. There are a lot of holiday customs which are also referred to as pagan even though they lack a religious element, or developed entirely from Christian elements. (Halloween is not as pagan as you think it is.)
When I use the word Pagan (capital-P), I'm using it to signify one specific thing: an ambiguous but somewhat unified theory of Western Religious thought. I generally preface the word Pagan with “Contemporary” or “Modern” in order to differentiate it from the various other uses of the word outlined above. (While I used the words Modern or Contemporary, many Pagans prefer the term Neo-Pagan, and it was common in academic circles for awhile.) In my mind, Modern Pagans generally share three or four characteristics. Some Contemporary Pagans practice all of these things I'm going to list, some just one or two, but all are pretty recognizable as facets of today's Paganism.
Nature Religion: Pagans revere nature. Pagan holidays aren't birthdays or death-days. They occur on celestially auspicious occasions, generally equinoxes and solstices and the “cross quarter” days between those events. Basically we celebrate the changing of the seasons and this annual cycle is often referred to as “The Wheel of the Year.” While the level of "revering nature" varies from Pagan to Pagan—some worship nature while others simply honor yearly cycles— it’s still pretty universal.
I like to use the phrase “we are a part of nature, not apart from it.” I wasn’t put here to have dominion over the Earth; I was put here to be a part of it. This is a tenant that separates Paganism from a practice like Modern Satanism. I don’t want to manipulate this world, I want to exist in harmony with it.
Polytheism: Calling all Pagans polytheists is rather limited, some are duotheists, and many believe that "all gods are one god,” which could be looked at as a form of monotheism. I even know a few atheist Pagans. What makes Paganism unique, and why I use the term polytheist, is that Pagandom will generally support your experience with the gods. If you worship Thor and I worship Pan, we aren't necessarily adversaries. Your religious experience is just as valid as mine. We may not worship the same gods, and we may have different concepts of what deity is, but as a community we don't invalidate someone else's religious experience. These last few sentences also apply to how I view the religious traditions of others. Your spiritual experience is valid to me, and most Pagans don’t think of other religious traditions as being “wrong”; we just disagree with anyone who thinks they have a stranglehold on the truth. Even when we disagree on the nature of deity, Pagans generally use the same type of language during ritual. We talk about The Goddess as being real even if there are those around us who have a more pantheistic view of deity. As a Pagan, if you attend a public ritual you go in knowing full well that a whole plethora of different deities might be called upon.
The Feminine Principle: Most Pagans revere a Goddess, or are open to the idea that deity is not exclusively male. Pagan Goddesses are equal to male deities. In addition to honoring the Divine Feminine, Pagan Circles generally see equality among the sexes. Women can lead rituals (and in many traditions are actually above men) and participate as equals (or superiors) in 99.9% of all "Pagan" traditions.
The Western Religious Tradition: The majority of things that make up Modern Pagan Religious practice come from Western Sources. Most of us tend to worship European and Middle Eastern deities, and the nuts and bolts of ceremony are also generally European. Many Modern Pagans attempt to recreate (or at least re-imagine) Ancient Western paganisms, whether they are Greek, Roman, Celtic, Egyptian, or Norse. In addition, there are several groups out there that would prefer not to be under our umbrella. Labeling Native American Traditions "Pagan" is a recipe for trouble. The same goes with Hindu traditions. That doesn't mean Modern Pagans ignore ideas, beliefs, and deity from outside of Western Culture; it just means that those impulses are generally filtered through a Western prism. Lots of Pagans I know worship Eastern Gods, and use Native American Ritual Techniques, but if they wanted to focus exclusively on those things they would join a Shinto Temple or petition the Lakota tribe for membership. Paganism is highly flexible and it's easy to add things to it, but those things are generally adapted for Contemporary Pagan use.
So when you ask me to define the word “pagan” you get a very complicated (and long) answer. It’s safe to say that it has a variety of different meanings (and a few I didn’t get to in this answer) depending on the context. I also prefer to see the word Pagan capitalized when referring to the modern religious practice.
From Shane: Do you represent any kind of pagan orthodoxy? Is there such a thing? I've always thought of paganism as a catch all for a tribalistic spirituality that is outside the framework of the world's major religions. Are your beliefs ones that you share with a community or are they just your beliefs? Assuming there is solidarity among modern first world pagans, is it in what you have in common or in who you are reacting against?
Paganism is an umbrella term, encompassing dozens of varying belief systems. As a result, there is no “Pagan Orthodoxy,” but certain traditions could be said to possess an orthodoxy. Gardnerian Wicca is an initiatory, oathbound practice with certain rules and a consistent ritual structure. If you were to practice it in a way that violated its structure and teachings that could be considered a violation of orthodoxy. What makes Paganism unique is that we acknowledge that there are hundreds of ways to practice it, and as long as you doing at least a few of the things I outlined above, the rest of us are fine with you standing under the umbrella.
Modern Paganism might have very well started as a reaction to the industrial revolution. A lot of the language found in Modern Paganism can be traced back to the English Poetry of the Romantic Era, an era where poets like Keats, Shelley, and Byron were lamenting the loss of the eternal English countryside. (If you are really interested in learning more about the origins of Modern Paganism, I suggest picking up Professor Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon.) Today though, it’s not the loss of the countryside that unites most Pagans, but a deep love of the Earth and a desire to see that creation as sacred, which means maybe we haven’t changed much at all.
From RHE: As I was selecting guests for our interview series, I had second-thoughts about inviting a pagan. Which seems strange considering the fact that we've interviewed an atheist, a Muslim, an Orthodox Jew, and several other people representing decidedly non-Christian faiths. Based on some of your articles, it seems like this sort of hesitancy to engage is common. Why do you think Christians are especially wary of paganism? Do you think this is based on misconceptions regarding pagan beliefs and practices?
The word pagan is pretty loaded, and it conjures up a lot of negative images for a lot of people. These people associate Modern Paganism with the pagan religions of antiquity, which were in direct competition with early Christianity. I think some of my ancestors threw some of your ancestors to the lions, and then you turned around and did the same thing to my ancestors. In ancient days, it was a pretty adversarial relationship, and some of this is expressed in the Bible. The Jews weren’t real happy with a lot of their pagan neighbors, and the priests in the Temple tended to get upset with the Hebrew people when they would worship a goddess. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul certainly doesn’t come across as a cheerleader for our side. The Bible paints a pretty negative picture of ancient pagans. That has to have contributed to some degree.
The largest tradition within Modern Paganism is Wicca, or Witchcraft (there’s some debate in our community whether or not the words are actually synonyms, but I’m going to use them as such). Like the word pagan, Witch and Witchcraft are loaded words. When people hear the word witch, they might think of something out of a fairy-tale or myth. If you associate the word “witch” strictly with vampires and zombies, it’s going to be hard for you to look at a religious community using that term as a serious one. The word “witch” is also a lot like the word “pagan”; it has various definitions depending on who is using it. In anthropology, it often signifies a person using magic to harm or manipulate people. Movies are still being made with “evil witches,” so our P.R. person is not the best. At its best, “witch” can be used to represent an empowered woman, which for some in the Christian Community is also frightening.
Part of the problem also lies within certain segments of the radical Evangelical Christian movement. I have a bookshelf dedicated to volumes like Wicca: Satan’s Little White Lie, and Halloween and Satanism. Many of these books are full of sensationalist garbage, freely mixing Satanism and Modern Paganism with no respect for truth, only an ideological viewpoint. What’s so frustrating about some of these books is that they sometimes have an element of truth to them, and then go straight from nature religion to “Black Masses” and “Human Sacrifice.” If I was a Christian and had been exposed to this type of stuff, I probably wouldn’t want to talk to Pagans either.
I once worked with a girl who believed that witches were sacrificing babies to Satan annually on Halloween. She had been told this in church, and no amount of reasonable conversation would convince her otherwise. This is what we are up against in some segments of the Christian Community. A Christian friend of mine was unfriended on Facebook by a former pastor just for sharing one of my blog posts on interfaith dialogue. Even associating with Pagans is still seen as taboo in a way that associating with Muslims or Buddhists is not.
In some segments of the Christian community, there’s a lot of “guilt by association.” Just saying the word pagan can get you into some trouble. There’s also a big misconception out there that we are trying to “convert” people to Paganism. Nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t want to convert anybody, I’ll respect your beliefs if you respect mine, or at the very least just leave me alone to practice in peace.
From Grae Dream: Jason - thanks for being open enough to tread into these waters! I am a Christian...but an astounding number of agnostics and pagans and atheists keep coming into my life, and I love them to bits. Not the least reason being that I've had better spiritual (grand sense) conversations with some of them than many of my Christian friends! So thanks again for dialoging. One thing I've heard from my pagan friends is a sense of frustration that for them, they seem to feel a lot of pressure from society that you have to be "religious" to be moral. Obviously, as you've said, you don't sacrifice kittens or anything melodramatic like that. My question really is this: What would you say influences your own moral/ethical framework? Is it the Rede? The practices of whatever god/goddess you follow, seeing as you're a Wiccan? A general belief in the goodness of human kind? Philosophy? What influences your moral code?
My church youth group did an exercise once where one of our adult counselors took on the role of an atheist. Our job was to convince him of the truth about Jesus Christ. I remember many of the arguments we made were moral in nature, but our “atheist” kept relating a moral code that was just as triumphant as the Christian one, so we were forced to abandon that tactic.
Eventually, we made our way to “you’re going to hell if you don’t believe in Jesus,” and I remember his response being something like “I live a moral life, why would I be going to hell?” This exercise probably had the wrong effect on me considering where I ended up, but from that moment on I began to see morality as something that could be separated from religion.
Pagans are not a “people of the book.” We don’t have a Bible, or a long moral code, but there are several things which generally contribute to the ethics of Paganism. For many Wiccans (and even some who don’t use that term), it’s the Wiccan Rede, which states “an it harm none, do what you will.” It’s a very simple phrase, but it’s applicable in plenty of situations. Drunk driving for instance, would fall under the Rede; you shouldn’t drive drunk because you could obviously harm someone while doing so. Many of the rules which come up in the Ten Commandments are covered by the Rede (do not kill, do not steal, do not lie). The Wiccan Rede has a lot in common with “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
In addition to the Rede a lot of Pagans believe in karma and the “threefold law.” Many of us believe that what we do comes back to us, often in triplicate. If I’m nice to others, then I will be rewarded with nice things happening to me. If I project positive energy, positive energy will come back to me. If I engage in negative things and hurt people, I will wind up experiencing negative things. This is sometimes also called “The Law of Return.”
Where Pagan morality differs from Christian morality is that we don’t see things as a cosmic test. If two people choose to engage in premarital sex and they are being upfront and honest about it with each other, then it’s not a problem. If someone were to manipulate another into a sexual situation, then that’s a huge problem.
From Karl: As a pagan, do you believe the God of the Christian Bible exists, and simply reject him in favor of paganism? Or do you believe the God of the Christian Bible doesn't exist and that paganism is a more accurate reflection of reality? And what do you believe about Jesus Christ? Does paganism take a stance on this or is your view here yours alone but not reflective of other pagans?
First of all, Pagans do not “reject” anything. When someone chooses to embrace Paganism, there are no oaths which call for the rejection of Jesus or his Dad. Becoming a Pagan means acknowledging a different path, but it doesn’t mean paving over the old one. So I’m extremely uncomfortable with using the word “reject,” because it doesn’t apply to us. There are many Pagans who continue to embrace Yahweh and Jesus in their rituals; they just supplement them with other gods. It’s not common, but it happens, and it’s something I used to do with regularity.
If I’m going to argue that all of the pagan gods of antiquity are valid representations of deity, I have no choice but to look at Yahweh as a valid representation of deity. So yes, I would say your God exists; I just don’t see him as “the only way,” just as one of many ways. I find that Paganism better reflects my own worldview (gender balanced, earth is sacred, direct pathway for communion with deity), but I don’t think it’s necessarily superior to anything else. As long as you are tolerant and accepting of others, I think your path is just as valid as mine.
Where we would disagree, of course, is in how we view the Bible. To me the Bible is a divinely inspired work, but it’s not inerrant or infallible. It has a lot of problems, and reflects the biases of the people who wrote it and the time(s) in which it was written. Modern Bible scholars for instance will tell you that the Apostle Paul only wrote seven of the thirteen epistles generally attributed to him. That’s a problem, and while I don’t think that revelation diminishes anything in the New Testament, it speaks to the very human nature of The Bible.
Jesus is a more complicated topic. There are a lot of Pagans who greatly respect the teachings of Jesus. If Christians paid more attention to the Beatitudes and less attention to Leviticus, the world would be in much better shape. My personal belief is that Jesus was a man who preached a message of love and peace, and probably believed that the end of the world was near. When Christians worship Christ, I believe they are worshipping a genuine deity that reflects the values of the man Jesus. Yes, this is a complicated way to argue that Jesus was both a man and is now a deity, and in no way represents Pagandom as a whole. I’m sure that there are Pagans who view Jesus as just a human teacher, or perhaps they see him as a metaphor for something else. Some Pagans claim him as one of ours whose message got distorted.
I think that faith in Jesus often makes people better. There’s a lot of positive in his message, and whether or not someone sees him as divine or not doesn’t change that. Yes, we disagree on what his mission was, or what it all means from a cosmological perspective, but that doesn’t mean we have to argue about those points. A lot of Pagans have had bad experiences with Christianity. They feel as if they’ve been judged and cast aside for their religious choices. Curiously, I never really hear any Pagans bad-mouthing Jesus, just his followers sometimes. (Paul is another story, but I digress.)
From Katherine: I read on your website that you practice spells. I'll admit that most of my perceptions regarding spells come from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I am guessing are not truly representative. Are there any "rules" or code for practicing spells? In BTVS (I know, I know...), Willow gets slammed for using magic for her own enhancement and messing with the order of the universe. Is there really such a thing as black magic? What does that entail? Are there certain rituals that are strictly off limits?
I hate the word “spell” because I don’t think it accurately reflects what we do. For most Pagans, magic is simply the manipulation of energy, an energy that’s already around us. Have you ever gone to church and been in the middle of a really moving service and felt a heaviness in the air? My favorite example is probably the “electricity” in the air at a major sporting event, there’s something there that you can feel while not being able to touch it. Those things are representations of energy. Pagans generally just direct that energy towards specific goals or purposes. Let’s say I need a job, I could gather up that energy and direct it towards me finding employment
In a lot of ways, magic is a lot like prayer, just minus the middleman. Instead of having to seek someone’s approval to change a certain circumstance, we just try to change the circumstance. If my Dad were to have surgery on his heart, I wouldn’t ask deity to make sure he’s OK; I’d try to direct energy towards him to make sure everything turned out alright. That doesn’t mean I think that magic (energy) can cure cancer, but it might help alleviate suffering or provide enough oomph to get someone through another day. A famous Wiccan High Priestess once said that “magic is like an intense prayer” and I agree wholeheartedly.
When it comes to magic, most Pagans respect “free will.” You shouldn’t do a spell to get Justin Beiber to fall in love with you; you should do a spell to bring love into your life. Getting Biebs to fall in love with you would be manipulating his free will and a violation of “an it harm none.” I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using magic to better your life, but there is something wrong with using it to better your own life at the expense of others.
For the record, I should also point out that belief in magic is not something unique to Paganism. Every religion, including Christianity, has had magic users. Putting a dream catcher up in your bedroom is a type of magic; you are using it to catch “good energies” and bring them into your life. Magic is something that can be totally separated from a religious context. I don’t need to pray to Aphrodite to use magic, I can just use it. The whole “power of positive thinking” thing is magic, same with creative visualization. It’s not something that requires dusty old books and iron cauldrons.
I once told a friend that “I don’t really use magic” and he began laughing hysterically. When he was done laughing he told me that i use it every day. At the time I managed a coffee shop and on a daily basis I tried to fill that store with “good vibes.” What I was doing was projecting positive energy and that energy generally made people like me. “Like attracts like,” so to speak. In order to be successful I had to create an atmosphere that people wanted to visit.
From Sarah: Where do you see some common ground for paganism and Christianity?
I think there’s a lot of common ground between Pagans and Christians who care about issues of social justice, acceptance, and the environment. I believe both groups care about looking out for others and being good environmental stewards. You may not share my religious beliefs, but as long as you respect them, I’m fine with it.
From Kat W.: I've known of pagans who run the gamut from secular agnostics who treat their spirituality as completely metaphorical, to those who are pagan re-constructionists attempting to resurrect ancient tribal religions and espouse a literal belief in their chosen pantheon of gods. Where along this spectrum do you fall? Would you say it's common for Wiccans to have a "personal" relationship with their god(s) similar to how Christians think of Jesus, or is that not how pagans generally view their association with a deity?
It depends on the Pagan obviously. If I’m more of an agnostic Pagan. I’m probably not going to have a relationship with deity in the way a Christian might with Jesus. I’m probably more focused on deity than the majority of Pagans, and in my practice interacting with deity is an important part of my spirituality. I believe wholeheartedly that my gods have a certain consciousness and that I’m capable of interacting with them.
Sometimes, when talking to Christians, my interactions with the god Pan parallel their interactions with Jesus. They talk to Christ like I talk to Pan, and we both feel a certain “presence” when we commune with our gods. Some Pagans make devotion to a certain goddess or pantheon their focal point; others are more involved with seeing the Earth as a manifestation of deity. My wife is extremely partial to Aphrodite, and sometimes she’ll say things like “I think Aphrodite disapproves,” or “I think Aphrodite was the one who put this dress on sale.” She’s a lot like me in that she has a very personal relationship with deity.
From Monika: My question relates to something I have been thinking about for awhile. From what little I have seen of Pagan art, imagery, ritual, ect, it appears there is a sincere honoring of both the male and the female energies. In particular, I get the impression that harmony between male and female is especially celebrated. This strikes me as very beautiful and positive for our world. I couldn't help but contrast this with the very sad track record Christianity has on these things. Institutional Christianity, to its own detriment, has often pitted male and female against each other, and downplayed the female energy, while Paganism sees the Divine in both. Am I correct in my impressions? And can you share thoughts on your religion's stance on these things, and how we all can move forward in understanding, no matter our faith?
One of the things that separates Modern Paganism from most other Western Religions is how much emphasis we place on The Lady (or The Goddess). Though there aren’t any hard or fast numbers, it’s my belief that more people have come to Modern Paganism through The Goddess than any other factor. We celebrate her in art, poetry, song, and deed. Along with nature, she’s the beating heart of our movement. My own personal beliefs are a reflection of the balance I see between Lady and Lord, but there are a lot of Pagans who worship a Goddess (or goddesses) exclusively. I still think they are a part of our tribe.
One of the things that Christianity lacks is figure of female divinity. In Catholicism, the Virgin Mary is revered a lot like a goddess (as are some of the female saints). In the modern age, due to books like The DaVinci Code and Holy Blood Holy Grail, it’s become hip to look at Mary Magdalene as kind of a female Christ figure, even though those books don’t quite articulate it that way. I’ve heard arguments that Yahweh is neither male nor female, but we are so conditioned to thinking of him as male (and you’ll notice that I wrote “him” there without a second thought) that it’s been hard for that idea to take root.
Early Christianity has a very positive message for women. While none of Jesus’ twelve apostles were women, Mary Magdalene was considered an important figure in his life, and it was the ladies who first found out about Jesus’ victory over death. Paul mentions females in positions of authority in his (authentic) letters, and early Christianity was unique in pagan antiquity in that it allowed everyone to sit at the table, regardless of ethnicity, sex, or status as slave or master. If Christians were able to move back to this more equitable, and inclusive, version of Christianity, I think that “sad track record” could be mended.
I’ve really enjoyed answering your questions, and I’m grateful to Rachel for the opportunity to do so. Before signing off, I think it’s important to remind everyone that while I’ve tried my best to write about Modern Paganism from a variety of perspectives, it’s a very subjective thing, and you might hear completely different answers from other Pagans. I don’t speak for all of Pagandom, but I like to think my views are pretty typical.
If you have questions after reading this, I’ll be around in the comments section for a while and will do my best to answer any additional queries.
Blessed Be,
Jason Mankey
***
Check out the rest of the interview series - which includes an atheist, a Catholic, a Mormon, a nun, a Muslim, an evolutionary creationist, a humanitarian, an environmentalist, a gay Christian, a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian, a Quaker, a Pacifist, and many more - here.
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