Is Christianity really Pagan?.
This might prove too long for the casual blogger, so, if you want to simply know what we ate for breakfast, where we went yesterday or what wine we like, youre going to be really disapointed and maybe angered. My plan is to talk about where I am as a person. If thats of no interest, keep going.
A bit about this five-lettered word:
Pagan. It comes from the latin word
pagus from where we get the word
pasture.Take a moment to imagine what sort of people hung out in pastures. Mangy, low-class shepherds who wandered beneath the expanse of an open unmerciful sky, through abject fields of nothing, left alone for days on end with bleating sheep and, perhaps, a young assistant they most likely kidnapped from a village (St. Patrick for example). They were roudy, incoherrant, uneducated, ruthless people with wild, obtuse imaginations that went berserk beneath the glittering cosmos at night. Granted, Homer was not a mangy shepherd boy, but those in Germany and Ireland were. So when we speak of
paganism were talking about the ideology and theology these people devised:
Wild gods like themselves.
A bit more history is necesary to understand why there is the sentiment that paganism is heresy and anti-christian. Emperor Theodisius 1 in 391 AD made an edict against the "paganism" of Rome (pantheon of gods) which durring that time Christianity was developing a following and gaining political/social strength. When Rome was sacked twenty years later, the city questioned whether or not this Christian god -which one from that time might sa:
now that we think of it, is just as pagan as ours, how do we know its any more credible?- is powerful enough to defend the city. It is at this point Augustine writes in a polemic fever
The City of God in defense of Christianity hoping to preserve its strength and validity. It was durring this time when the word
pagan took on the gravity that it has today. Christians were the first to really develope this word to mean what it does today, and it was all in the name of orthodoxy.
Now we ask ourselves:
what does spurious dogma have to do with the safe, clean realm of Christianity? Isnt there a fine and hard line between them? The word
Pagan always held a negative connotation for me as a child and even until recently i used the word to describe nonchristian ethics and thought. I was recently asked if I believe that Christianity is cognate with other "pagan religions" and not uniquely divine as God has established. No, I dont believe that. But I do believe that it is Pagan at heart and i hope to explain why and show more of who this God is that we're really being beckoned and loved by.
When we come to this God, we might ask ourselves about such figures as David. What he saw in Psalm 19 was a vibrant connect between the
Word of God and the
word of God and it causes him to dance and write and perhaps, mythologize a bit. He, in elegant prose, links the God of creation (not pantheistic in any sense) to the God of the Bible he savored daily. He saw and knew a God who was wild, whose depths were unfathomable and sweetly creative. Now, before David was king, where was he spending the majority of his time? We could, technically, call David a pagan. Or, who were the first to know of the Messiahs birth...pagan doesnt seem to be as bad as our past paints it if God approves of them, does it?
This
paganism doesnt sound like the bullet pointed theology of Calvin or Wesley. I in no way want to discredit their amazing advances for Christian thought and formation. God gifted them with incredible insights and, no doubt about it, an energetic zeal for His word and Truth. There has been created, though, a chasm between the lively and verdant pagan psalms of David and what i grew up with, recently lived in and currently see in many others in the evangelical community. I ssert that the enormous disconnect has come (at least I am theorizing so) from leaving out the Paganity of Christendoms past.
The movie
Dead Poets Society tied for my favorite film (
Good Will Hunting is the other)because it goes to show what staunchy "tradition" does to such an originally pure intention. I feel that Yeats in his poem called
The Scholars clearly depicts the majority of Fundamentalist thinkers as well as myself for a very long time:
"Bald heads forgetful of their sins,
old, learned, respectable bald heads,
edit and annotate the lines
that young men, tossing on their beds,
rhymed out in loves despair
to flatter Beauties ignorant ear"In Scripture, most would consent, that those who we would assume be called to greatness are not those God joyously reveals Himself to. Its to those who are in the lower rung of society...those who spend countless hours in fields or the open sea. Perhaps He finds a bit of Himself in those raw and crazed individuals who link their imaginative minds to the vibrant cosmos.
It tends to be these passionate and wild men like St. Patrick who found a way into peoples lives with Gospel orthodoxy through the use of native-pagan myth and lore.
In reading Thomas Cahill's
How the Irish Saved Civilization and
Mysteries of the Middle Ages. I have come to see what the use of Art/Humanities can do for ones faith. Patrick being the first missionary to the Irish, came into contact with a rowdy brood of people(I wont go into detail here because I wish you all to read this book). The book explains in playful prose how Patrick connected their "pagan" theology to orthodox Christianity by revealing how Christianity is truly, in its essence
Pagan. The three sided uniqueness of the Godhead was relateable to the three sided faces of Druid gods. Three was a magical number in Celtic mythology and was how divinity revealed itself. Their blood hungry gods who demanded a sufficient sacrifice -with human blood- for error or victory in war seemed so similar to Patricks God...yet, as Patrick would elegantly explain, His God has made Himself human and sacrificed Himself to Himself, appeasing that wrath...and now what God wanted was their lives, not their death, as a gift. He did this through prose, poetry, and his own variation of Christian myth in his
Breastplate:
I see his blood upon the rose
and in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.
I see His face in every flower;
the thunder and the singing of the birds
are but his voice - and carven by His power
Rocks are his written words.
All pathways by His feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree. How this resonates whith the God of David! its like honey, oil and wine that please the face and heart of mankind!
Now, for a bit of a digress why i write this:
Why i take the time to write a posting most people dont have the time or patience to sit through (after all this is
only a blog...people dont really
want to know how your doing; just want funny anecdotes from your life) is because as an individual I am experiencing heart ache and strife over what it means to be a Christian. Those who know me at all know that I am sickened by mindless following and passionless devotion (in myself first). Its all or nothing in your heart, and when its all its as fierce as a lion and as humble as a lamb. Neither of those are something i would consider myself. I'm ravenous with my words like a baboon and his feces and have the hubris of a chihuahua convinced it could actually take a car down. But deep down within me I really want to taste and see what He is truly; not what we've made him out to be from theological thinkers who write books of their own unique experience. This is also perhaps a credal confession that I dont read the Bible anymore...at least like I used to. The Bible for a long time became a tool that I used to condemn other "unorthodox" thinking, to find my way into the groups at church who I thought had it together spiritually (yes, like rubbing elbows with my own pastor and his hip followers). It was a specimen, like those frozen pigs we cut into in high school biology. It was lifeless, cold, full of sinews and organs that I tried desperately to figure out so I could say with confidence:
behold I am wise and know God.Yet i never savored it. That all faded because it was lifeless...or, perhaps better said,
i was. a bitterness towards christianese began to fester in me and the Bible's words were once again the bumble of liturgical rote. I was dismayed and fell into darkness.
Has any one read
The Dark Night of the Soul? I havent, but know enough about it to know thats sort of where I am (its the next book I am going to read). That darkness I mentioned is not the darkness of death, but the darkness that comes just before dawn. Its that time when God takes everything you presumed to know about Him and throws it into a churning sea. He turns the light off and sucks dry what passions you had. Then, in those moments that seem like forever, He shows you a twinlking light of something that you were always told wasnt Him. Its this time when He takes
you, the person He distinctly and wonderfully made, and relates His truth to you in a way that brings you to life like you've never known was possible. For me it was in a literature class at Clark College. The profesor (whom I believe was Catholic) showed me Jesus Christ like I have never known before. It was incredibly frightening, angering, "unorthodox!" I would shout from within the cell of my mind. it was in this "corrupt" thinking that this small light began and grown to almost blinding. it set within me a fire i am afraid will consume me. I havent sat down to read the bible in nearly a year (i have sporadically, though for no longer than 30 minutes). Contrast that with the time preceding the darkness, where at least an hour was spent in meditation and prayer over scripture daily, leading bible studies and attending small groups; a time my best friends called the most vigorous spiritually theyve ever seen me. I look back and see a corpse. What i am really trying to say is that God has shown me that He speaks in many diverse ways and that we can know more of Him than soley through the Bible. Whoooaaaa! wait a second, do we smell heresy????
Probably. however, i hope i am credited with a bit more integrity than to assume i am now a pluralist or pantheist. the Bible is errorless and divinely inspired and the unique way we can know the gospel of Christ and Gods plan and a portion of His heart; but no, i dont believe it is the only way to encounter Him, or see a glimpse of Him. But I do believe it is vital, sustaining your spiritual life and without it theres not life, for He is the Word, but He can sustain you with out it if thats the way He's leading you. Id say in the last year I have learned more of Christ through other literature than through the Bible...is that wrong or false? What I am trying to say is that He is greater and more mighty and creative than we (or i) attribute to Him, and can come to us in ways we'd never expect. Emergent? Post-post-modern? Who the hell cares anyway! Im trying to shake that off and discover life to the fullest, and if that means im emergent then so be it...i just want Christ.
Getting on with the whole thing. Has anyone ventured to read Paul's rigid epistles like intoxicating prose?
Though he possesed divine estate
He was not jealous to retain
Equality with God.
He cast off his inheritance,
he took the nature of a slave
and walked as man among men.
He emptied himself to the last
and was obedient to death-
to death upon a cross.
And therefore, God has raised him up
and God has given him the Name-
Which-is-above-all-names,
That at the name of Jesus all
in heaven high shall bow the knee
and all the earth and depths
and every tongue of men proclaim
that Jesus Christ is Lord-
to the glory of the Father.Yes, Philipians 2.6-11 taken from Thomas Cahill.
I have been warned not to read the Bible as
just literature out of fear that its value might be reduced. what that thought process to me reveals is possibly what that person actually views the Bible or God as. If the bible is an active word, sharper than any two-edged sword, and we approach it like we should approach a great book (willing to be impacted and moved by it because of its literary authority) wont the Almighty God speak to us? Or do we have to spiritually fix ourselves up first in order to find vaulable nuggets within? You'll never understand what Voltairs
Candide or the
Aeneid if youre just looking for some clever insight or "deeper" meaning. You need to make yourself vulnerable to really enjoy any good writing. Let it speak to you before you man up on it with an educational scalpel.
Ill conclude with this poem by
William Blake:
"Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
in the forest of the night,
what immortal hand or eye
could frame thy fearful symetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
burnt the fire of thine eyes?
on what wings dare he aspire?
what the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what the shoulder, & what art,
could twist the sinews of thy heart?
and when thy heart began to beat,
what dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
in what furnace was thy brain?
what the anvil? what dread grasp
dare its deadly terror clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
and water'd heaven with their tears,
did he smile his work to see?
did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
in the forest of the night,
what immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symetry?"
and another little something about mythological paganism and God:
"'The boy with the wild face is Bacchus [Roman god of wine] and the old one on the donkey is Silenus [Foster-father to Bacchus, a greek forest deiety]. Dont you remember Mr. Tumnus telling us about them long ago?'
'Yes of course. But I say, Lu-'
'What?'
'I wouldnt have felt safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we'd met them with out Aslan,'
'I should think not.' said Lucy." -
Prince Caspian.
"Safe? who said anything about safe? of course hes not safe; But he's good." Mr. Beaver warned joyfully about Aslan, Narnia. Its in this sense that i am comming to know God, like St. John of the Cross's vision of Him as the Ocean, the one we need to jump into and submit to...that fearful unknown...yet so alive and wild i cant stand to be away from it.
How this relates to Paganism (in my warped little mind at least) is that i really feel that the pasture wandering heathens who wrote of a beast with fearful symetry and would at any moment bow to it, had it right and better than i have in the past. To me, God has become a domesticated house cat -like myself- not a fearful tiger who consumes me with a power i cant resist.
{I dont think for a moment that all of a sudden because one guy finds a little link from Paganism to Christianity, things will change. Thats not why this is written. Its more of adapting a new view on our faith and perhaps, what we might miss out on with out its presence}
