Authentic Paganism, Pre-Christian Ethics, and Organic Spirituality
13 Comments | September 20, 2007 at 1:48 pm by mahud
Filed under Paganism, Christianity
I discovered the article Why Pagans Aren’t Really Pagan, via Under a Violet Sun, submitted to Metapagan. Basically the author claims that just because the ancients did not identify themselves as Pagan, then modern day Pagans are nothing of the sort.
One thing moderns who think of themselves as pagans have that ancient pagans never had: self-consciousness. Ancient pagans never thought of themselves as being “pagans.” They were Romans, or Britanni, or any number of folks, and they had a world-view which included a belief in various supernatural forces and the way one related to the earth, sky, the seasons, etc. But they had no self-consciousness as belonging to a religion.
Why Pagans Aren’t Really Pagan
I’m not an expert on the origins of the term Pagan, but I’m sure it became a kind of derogatory term reserved for country dwellers, who had yet to convert to Christianity as in the surrounding cities and towns. I see no problem with todays Pagans reclaiming the religious label of Pagan. I’m sure that the Christians themselves adopted the name of Christian, from Pagans (again, probably derogatory), and eventually adopted in for themselves. Does this mean that because the first Christians didn’t refer to themselves as such (according to the New Testament, they referred to themselves as ‘the way’), that they are not authentic practitioners of the Christian faith?
Neo-Pagans seek to practice many forms of ancient religion, regardless the labels (ancient or modern) assigned to a particular practice doesn’t undermine the practice itself, as something reaching back and reclaiming the wisdom of our ancient ancestors, that over a thousand generations, had evolved naturally through a process of trial and error into something that worked.
I’m a relative newcomer to Paganism, but I often wonder if the ways of the ancients and their enumerable cultures and different perceptions of the divine, offer us a spirituality that is organic, as opposed to the instant religion of Christianity?
Unlike a religious structure that enforces man made doctrines, Neo-Paganism recovers and encourages natural spiritual growth. Neo-Pagan Spirituality is constantly evolving and adapting to fit modern patterns of life.
Both Neo-Paganism and Christianity achieve growth and renewal through individual and collective innovation with a community, but I wonder if all new expressions and denominations Christianity, unlike in Neo-Paganism, are destined to fall apart, because of its man-made inorganic foundations?
In part a comment on this post The young fogey, said:
What you wrote - religious self-consciousness is Judæo-Christian - echoes what Touchstone’s Mere Comments regular Stuart Koehl has said, that neo-pagans are really obviously apostate Christians keeping a lot of the same mindset and morals only shorn from their foundation in Christian theology.
While Christianity has a enriched and unique morality, It is incorrect to imply that before Christianity and the Religion of the Trible of Israel, there was no ethical mindset in Pagan communities. Somewhere around 500 years before Christ the Buddha taught a moral doctrine, it’s five basic precepts:
- I undertake the precept to refrain from taking the life (killing) of living beings.
- I undertake the precept to refrain from stealing. (lit. “taking what is not offered”)
- I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual misconduct (adultery, rape, exploitation, etc).
- I undertake the precept to refrain from false speech (lying).
- I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxicants which lead to heedlessness. (Can include intoxicating ideas)
Beyond that, the law of love usually refered to as The Golden Rule, that Jesus himself adopted from his own religious tradition.
In many respects ancient morality is essentially the same as it is today. A good (and short) book to read on the subject is The Abolition of Man by C.S Lewis, especially his final chapter entitled Illustrations of the Tao. To clarify, C.S Lewis uses the Chinese concept of ‘Tao’ in the sense of a cosmic ethical order, like Dharma (Hindu), Rta (Hindu), Maat (Egyptian), Me (Sumerian), from other ancient religious traditions.
