Are we pagans doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past?
By Rev. Terry Power
I have been noticing a dangerous trend in the general pagan and
Wiccan communities of late. And it is one that seriously needs to
be addressed. When I became truly active in the pagan community
some years ago, I began discussing this topic. I have written on it
in the past as well. But recent events demonstrate to me that it is
time to visit the topic again.
That trend, as you've probably guessed from the title, is the rise
of denominational divides among pagans and Wiccans of various
stripes. As a member of the clergy of the Correllian Nativist
Church, one that is founded on principles of pagan unity, I am
appalled by the idea that pagans, after all we have been through,
can actually accuse someone of being "wrong".
In the old days, when we hid from persecution, we were just happy
for company. We didn't care about the details of the beliefs of the
people sharing our hiding spot. We were just glad we weren't alone.
Out of that situation, several large pagan churches emerged. I will
only mention the one I belong to by name. My fear is that any list
would be incomplete and hurt someone through my ignorance. But
again, we shared ideas and professed unity and loyalty and mutual
respect to one another.
But now, I see the disease has entered our communities. That is why
I urges our members to read these words and act.
Having been a student of the history of the Christian Church
(hereafter referred to as "the Church") is see certain parallels in
the actions of contemporary pagans and the 2000 year history of the
Church.
At this point, someone is probably standing up and
screaming, "Objection…. Relevance!" At which point I would ask the
judge (you, the reader, in this case) for a bit of latitude. I
promise to demonstrate the relevance before we finish.
In the early years of the Church, its members were persecuted. They
were often tortured and put to death for their faith. There were
already differences of opinion in the Church within Biblical times.
Peter and Paul debated several issues hotly. But there was still a
sense of unity and community. The basic tenets of the early Church
were few and broad. Once a person was initiated (baptized and/or
confirmed), they were members of the community. They banded
together from need and sought community rather than differences.
In spite of their differences, the Church grew and spread across the
Mediterranean region of the world. Members continued to hide their
faith from their neighbors and the authorities. They practiced and
shared their faith in secret and they continued to seek the solace
of fellows of the faith.
Over the next hundred or so years, however, the persecution
slackened. Neighbors and government officials began to understand
the new faith. It wasn't yet accepted, but it was decreasingly
rejected out of hand. It slowly, but surely, was managing to find a
place in open society.
With the easing of persecution, open exchange began. The members
began to notice differences in the way others practiced this new
faith. These differences were slight and meaningless; but the
differences were noticed nonetheless. At this early stage of life,
the body was still weak and open to infection.
Then, something remarkable happened. The mother of the emperor of
the Roman Empire converted to this new faith. Suddenly, the whole
thing took on a new color. The Emperor Constantine officially
allowed the Church to practice in public. In time, he went so far
as to make it the official religion of the empire.
And that's when it happened. That's when the attitude of inclusion
began to be replaced by one of exclusion. The Church had caught a
disease that had splintered Judaism and several previous religions
over the years – denominationalism had infected the Church.
Like many diseases, the early stages are subtle and hardly noticed
by those infected. The first symptoms of this particular disease
are the establishment of a budding orthodoxy and the silencing of
the voices of those on the "fringe." In our historical model, this
was done with the Council of Bishops at Nicea. Granted, all that
group managed to do, in the early stages of the disease, was
establish a hierarchy within the Church and to exclude the voices of
the Essenes and Gnostics by labeling them "heretics." But the
damage was done. And even then, the disease caused a break within
the church between the Eastern and the Western Churches.
However small, and seemingly insignificant, these measures appear;
the Church was clearly infected and the stage was set for a plague
that would last for the next thousand or so years.
As the disease progresses, three things occur fairly quickly:
First, the established orthodoxy becomes more and more dogmatic and
more and more hierarchical; second, a missionary zeal rises within
the infected body; and third, the persecution once directed from
outside is redirected inward. We will look at each of these
separately for a moment.
As the Church gained prominence in Southern Europe, it became more
dogmatic. More and more, the "fringe" voices were silenced in favor
of the growing orthodox views of the increasingly powerful central
leadership. The debates begun in Jerusalem between Peter and Paul
were ended with a "winner takes all" kind of attitude.
During the "missionary zeal" phase of the disease, the body is
convinced of the "rightness" of its beliefs and the
inherent "wrongness" of everything else. This leads members to
proselytize, sometimes forcefully, anyone whose views or religious
beliefs differ in any way from the new and growing orthodoxy.
Finally, the persecutions of the past are directed inward. During
this "inquisition" phase, the disease is so ingrained in the body
that it turns on itself in a vain attempt at homogony. The thought
police of the time take the dogma of the leadership and use it as a
litmus test for every member of the body. If anyone (even their own
members) differs on any salient point, they are tortured or killed
to remove the "heretical" voices and "purify" the faith.
These three phases continued, unchecked, for nearly a thousand
years, until the disease actually broke the body into multiple
parts. At this point, we have entered the alleged "reformation"
phase of the disease. And it grows quickly and frighteningly from
here.
During the reformation phase, the body splinters into any number of
separate and independent parts. Each of these newly formed parts
now progresses through the previous three phases of a growing dogma,
missionary zeal, and inquisition. For another four hundred years
(give or take), the Church continued to splinter into increasingly
smaller and smaller groups. Each touted the rightness of their
dogma while believing the others were doomed to their eternal
punishment in some sort of celestial blast furnace.
We now enter the late Twentieth Century with the very real threat of
open warfare among people that allege to follow the same basic
religious theory. A growing number of members of all these groups
look around in horror and recognize the disease for what it is.
They realize there is a need for treatment of the body and they
begin their search.
Over time, they found a treatment. They called the
treatment "ecumenicalism". Through the use of ecumenicalism, the
members of various smaller groups of the Church sought to find a
core faith and let the petty differences that led to the infestation
be seen as "personal paths" that were acceptable within the broad
framework of the core faith.
Many of you have by now realized how closely we pagans are related
to this frightening story of plague and destruction. Many are even
looking back over this story and trying to determine which phase is
now infecting our community.
GOOD!
That is the entire point of this history lesson. We need to look at
this story as a lesson. We need to apply the treatment now. If we
see the infection for what it is and treat it now, we might avoid
two thousand years of similar death, torture, horror, and
destruction.
You may also have noticed I never used the word "cure." That's
because there is no cure for this disease. As humans, we are all
carriers. Within our egos, this germ grows with our individual need
to be "right." If we allow the germ to grow without treatment, our
internal needs become externalized and we perceive differences
as "wrong."
This brings us to the key point of the ecumenical treatment of
denominationalism – WE ARE ALL "RIGHT"!
Each one of us carries our own spark of the divine within us. We
are all called into a personal relationship with the Divine.
Whatever path we take or whatever labels we use; we are all
obligated – in fact, we are hardwired – to find this relationship.
It is at the very core of our nature.
We are not, however, obligated (or allowed) to choose anyone else's
path for them. As teachers, many of us accept responsibility for
assisting others in finding their own personal paths; but we can
never choose their path for them. We can guide, and teach, and even
prod our students into the mysteries of our faith. But we can NEVER
choose another person's path for them. All we can ever hope, or
indeed desire, to do is show them the first few steps. The rest,
they must ultimately take on their own.
At this point, I could continue this sermon on ecumenicalism vs.
denominationalism until I become a cure for insomnia. But I won't!
I will, instead, leave it to YOU – the reader – to look around on
your own. I will call on each person to look within themselves and
at our community. Do YOU see these diseased attitudes growing? And
if your answer is "yes", what will YOU do to help treat them?
Or, are we pagans doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past?
Rev. Terry Power can be contacted at silthoron9@yahoo.com
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