Category Archives: Religion

Memes, Religion

Interesting Religions

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Matt tagged me with a new meme he’s trying to start:

what religions do you find most interesting apart from your own? Would
you pick one of the major world religions? Say Islam, or Buddhism, or
Hinduism or Judaism? Or would you pick something more obscure, like
Wicca or Taosim or Rastafarianism or Gnosticism? Would you pick
irreligion, say Atheism or Agnosticism? Or if you’re not Christian,
would you say Christianity?

To participate, state your own religion (or irreligion) as your first
preference, state the other religions that interest you most as your
second and third preferences, then pass onto five others. If you’re
feeling brave, say why they interest you.

So here are my choices:

Orthodox Christianity (and to a lesser degree, Roman Catholocism and those Protestant denominations that still have strong “high church” elements in their worship/liturgy.  What can I say?  My friend Julio got me fascinated.  After he read my essay explaining the concept of mystery using baptism as an example, he pointed out just how close I came to the actual Orthodox teachings on Baptism.  (He also shared my essay with his priest, who purportedly commented that I’m “really Orthodox and just don’t know it yet.)  My exploration of my current path has given me a great appreciation for liturgy, and something I now feel was sorely missing and undervalued while growing up Baptist and during my stint in a Pentecostal church.

Wicca.  Now this may surprise some people (it’ll come as no shock to others).  Some might even think this isn’t entirely a fair answer.  But remember, I don’t consider myself Wiccan.  Also, bear in mind that I tend to use a rather narrow definition of the word Wicca on this blog.  The Wicca I’m talking about fascinates me because it has some strong similarities to the relatiosnship I have with Freyja.  Also, I love the interplay between traditionalism and creativity that can be found among many of its adherents, providing you take the time to actually get to know them.

Voudun, Santeria, and the other African Diasporic relgions.  I find their understanding of the Loa and Orishas to be fascinating and far more in line with my own beliefs about my gods than most other concepts of deity.  I also find the strong animistic, shamanistic, and even tribalistic elements of these faiths to be very invigorating.

In turn, I’d like to tag Yewtree, Lauren, Tina, Barbara, and Erin.

Religion, Society

I guess it was bound to happen at some point.

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Tonight, I logged into Tagged to find the following message waiting for me:

Romans 6:23 “…the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”… Do you know Him?

The person who sent it to me is not on my friends list, so I can only assume that he’s sending this message to random people on Tagged.  This makes him the online equivalent of door-to-door evangelists.  In my mind, it also makes him the online equivalent of a telemarketer calling me to sell something I’m not looking to buy, a Mormon missionary knocking on my door, or a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman (do they even have those anymore?).  In other words, like all those others, he’s a minor annoyance.

I simply don’t understand why people feel it is necessary or good to walk up to someone at random (or contact them online at random) and try to “sell” that person a particular religion.  To be frank, religion is far more important to me, and it’s something I’m only interested in discussing with someone I have an established, fairly well-rounded relationship with.  Anything else is just someone looking to make their next “sale” and gets treated like every other salesperson that decides to peddle their wares to me unbidden.

Of course, I do pride myself on politeness.  I don’t get nasty with telemarketers (unless they continue to press the matter after the polite “I’m not interested”).  I don’t get nasty with Mormon missionaries.  And I didn’t get nasty with this guy.  In fact, I sent what I felt was a rather polite reply:

I’m sorry, but I have a policy against getting into evangelistic
conversations with random strangers.  Please accept my best wishes and
a blessing for a full life, however.

Bye.  Smile

And with any luck, that’ll be end of the whole thing.

Update:  As I was making this post, I received the following reply:

I’m sorry about your policy.

God Bless

And I’d say that’s a pretty good place to leave the whole conversation.

Magic/Magick, Paganism, Religion, Witchcraft

Choice and Power

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Yesterday, I blogged about how the belief that we have no choices in situations is detrimental to our ability to live an ethical life.  Today, I want to discuss another reason why this belief is problematic for witches(1).  A belief that we have no choice in a given situation also destroys our personal power in a given situation as well.

We in the Pagan community talk about self-empowerment a lot.  It’s a key reason a lot of us came to a Pagan path, at least in my experience.  However, sometimes we talk about it in rather vague terms, never really making it clear what it means to be self-empowered.  To that end, I would like to suggest my own definition:  Self-empowerment is the act of embracing the realization that no matter what situation we may find ourselves in, we always have the ability to choose how we will respond and act.

Note that self-empowerment doesn’t mean we always get to control the situations we find ourselves in.  Nor does it mean that we can magically change everything in our environment to suit our needs.  Such a concept of self-empowerment would simply be out of step with and contrary to reality.  Hardships are going to befall us.  People are going to do things we don’t like and that hurt us.  Circumstances are going to limit our options and even make us face some unpleasant choices.  Those who want to find a way to turn their lives into a fairy tale need to keep looking.  They will not find it here.(2)

But what the principle of self-empowerment tells us is that no matter what those situations are, our actions are our own to choose.  It tells us that even if our choices are limited to unpleasant ones, there are still choices to make.(3)  Self-empowerment teaches us that no matter what is beyond our control, who we choose to be and how we choose to act is still our personal domain.  And that is an incredible power to wield, in my opinion.

Saying we have no choice in a situation robs us of that power.  It turns us into victims of our circumstances rather than people who are working to not only make the best of our circumstances, but improve it insofar as we can.  And that is a great tragedy.

And again, this is a creeping problem.  The belief that we had no choice tends to spread throughout our lives.  What started as one instance where we thought we had no control or no power becomes two.  Then it becomes five.  Then it becomes a regular occurrence.  Soon, we are never empowered because we fail to see our choices.  And then we wonder why our lives are nothing like we want them to be.(4)

Now some may be ready to ask me, “But what about magic?”  And it’s a good question, so I will answer it.  Back in 2007, I blogged about the role one’s will plays in magic.  At that time, I suggested that our will is the part of our psyche that initiates action.  It’s the part of us that actually goes about making all of these choices, and it’s central to the process of working magic.

So what happens when we say that part of us is incapable of making choices because there are none to be made?  We are effectively subjugating it or turning it off.  A belief that we have no choices actually hinders our will.  And a subjugated or hindered will simply cannot operate effectively.  Which means our ability to do magic effectively disappears as well.

Notes:
(1)  As witches are not the only people who believe in or value self-empowerment, I’m sure many other people will be able to identify with much of what I’m saying here.  I think that’s great.  But since I’m a witch, I’m going to focus on witches.  Though I do hope anyone who isn’t a witch still shares with me what value they might find in my thoughts.

(2)  In reality, I suspect they won’t find it anywhere.  But I respect their right to continue searching.  That’s their choice to make.

(3)  The other advantage to realizing you still have choices, even if they’re all less than ideal, is that it gives you the freedom to think creatively and look for even more choices.  The ones you see immediately may not be the only ones laying about.

(4)  Of course, there are also times when our lives are nothing like we want them to be because our desires are simply not realistic.  Again, this is because self-empowerment is not about living a fairy tale life.  Sometimes, we just have to find a way to live within our limitations.  But my experience is that even within our limitations, there’s a life that’s well worth living.

Gender and Sexuality, Religion

Thoughts from an Outsider

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LGBT flag

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I’ve been reading a lot of blogs the past few days, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have been a major topic of discussion.  This is because the ELCA has been holding their Church-Wide Assembly this week, and the church’s response to GLBT people in various circumstances has been a huge topic of conversation.  They’ve voted on a statement on Human Sexuality (of which GLBT issues is only a small portion), a policy of allowing local congregations to minister to GLBT people in accordance with their own conscience, and a policy allowing the ordination of GLBT clergy in monogamous, lifelong patnerships.

It’s this last policy that I’d like to talk about briefly.  Although I am no longer a Christian and don’t foresee returning to that faith (and if I did, I’d be more inclined to join the Orthodox church anyway), it’s something that in some ways is near and dear to me.  As someone who loves to help and serve others, it pleases me to see new opportunities being provided to GLBT to help and serve others.  And as someone who once felt called to ministry, I admit some pleasure in knowing that such an opportunity has come in my lifetime, even if I no longer plan to take it.

As I’ve read various people express both their joys and their concerns about this decision in the ELCA, I began to consider my own time of serving in my old (American Baptist) church back home.  While I was not an ordained minister, I spent time as a Sunday school teacher, the leader of the youth group, and even the superintendent of the children’s Sunday school program.  (I also did speak from the pulpit as a lay leader a handful of times.)

I came out to myself as a gay man towards the end of my senior year in college.  When I graduated and returned home, I also returned to my small rural church an quickly found myself pulled back into leadership.  I almost immediate took over the Sunday school class for grades 7-12 as well as the youth group.  That summer, I also co-led our church’s Vacation Bible School program.  A few months after that, my aunt stepped down as superintendent of the children’s Sunday school program and I was asked to take over.

At the time, no one in my church (with the possible exception of a couple of family members) knew that I was gay.  To be honest, I’m not sure how the other members of the church would’ve reacted if they knew, and I was too afraid at the time to find out.  So I kept my sexuality a secret and focused on doing my duties as a leader in the church.  And I suffered in silence.

Yes, I suffered.  Those first few months to a couple of years after you come out to yourself can be quite difficult emotionally.  You find yourself sorting through a lot of feelings and trying to understand what it means to be gay and all the implications it has for your life.  So here I was trying to act as a leader in my church and deal with my own problems, and I was afraid to turn to any of the other church leaders to seek help during this time of my life.

At one point, I began having trouble upholding my responsibilities as a church leader began to sag due to the issues I was trying to work through.  (And things got even worse the few months before I finally left the church — as I had also begun to add in the complications that come with one’s first real relationship.)  I started to procrastinate and forgot to do certain things.  A few of the other leaders began to get upset, especially as they relied on me for certain things and I let them down on more than one occasion.  And I was frustrated because they never once asked what was going on with me or why I was becoming less dependable.  But to make matters worse, even if they had asked me what was wrong, I doubt I would’ve had the courage to tell them.  I just wasn’t comfortable.

As I think of my experiences, I think of the ELCA’s decison with some pleasure, knowing that at least some GLBT people who wish to serve in a Christian community will now be able to do so openly.  And this means that they will be able to get the support I felt was denied to me back when I was serving as I felt called.  And that is something that pleases me greatly.

Religion

Choice and Ethics

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The opening page of Spinoza's magnum opus, Ethics

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“But I had to do it!  I didn’t have a choice!”

I think most of us have heard that statement or similar ones like it.  In fact, I’d be willing to go out on a limb and say that most of us have made that statement or similar ones.(1)  It’s a common sentiment to express when we are faced with a tough decision, especially one with ethical implications or consequences we’re not entirely comfortable with or feel defensive about.

Claiming that we had no choice in such circumstances allows us to feel better about our choices.  It helps us feel less responsible for them and their consequences.  It’s away to mollify our own sense of discomfort and even guilt.  It’s an entirely human temptation.  The problem is that it’s both self-deceptive and anti-thetical to living an ethical life.

As I’ve mentioned before, choice is essential to ethics.  If one cannot make a choice, then there is no way to act ethically.(2) So in order to act ethically, one must acknowledge and accept not only that one had a choice, but that one made a choice.

I think that this is sometimes hard to do because we’re actually uncomfortable with the ethical choices we are forced to make.  It’s easy to make the easy choices when it comes to ethics.  It’s easy not to steal from our neighbor.  It’s easy to refrain from beating up the person who makes you angry.  In contrast, it’s not always so easy to decide how to handle a hurtful situation with a loved one.  It’s not always so easy to deal with a situation involving a painful truth.

I think that it’s these harder situations that make the “I had no choice” argument so appealing.  If we can claim that our chosen course of action — that might hurt our loved ones to some degree — is beyond our control and choice, then we can escape responsibility and the sense of guilt involved.  It becomes “not our fault.”

The problem with this approach, I think, is that taking such an escape becomes easier the more we do it.  It becomes easier to forget our own agency in our actions the more we deny it.  So suddenly, nothing we do is of our own choice, nor are we responsible of it.  In effect, we become free of our ethical obligations.  But again, the problem with this is that we cannot then be ethical.(2)

I would suggest that it is better, rather, to accept that we do have an element of choice in such tough situations.  It allows us to acknowledge that we (hopefully) made the best choice is among a list of rather undesirable choices offered to us.(3)  This allows us to acknowledge both our sincere attempts to live ethically in a given situation and the difficulty and imperfection of the situation.  And it puts us back in a position of agency and personal empowerment.

Notes:
(1)  The variation I’ve personally struggled with recently is, “You put me in this position so I had to do it!”  The idea behind this is that someone else has created a situation where I had to make a hard decision, one that I could’ve avoided if they had made a different choice themselves.  The thing is, my entire argument still stands.  They may have created a situation where I had to make a hard choice, but it was still my choice to make in the end, and I have to own it.

(2)  This is not necessarily the same as being unethical, mind you.  But it does put us in a position that is not one that I would personally enjoy.  Nor would I enjoy the company of one who chooses to live in such a position.

(3)  I also suspect that the “I had no choice” argument is often tempting due to a fear that we didn’t make the best choice in a given situation, or that we might even discover that we totally overlooked a better choice.  That’s a concept I might come back to in a future post.

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Movies, Religion

Squint and tilt your head to the left while you hop on one leg…

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Transformers Optimus Prime G1 Encore Reissue -...

Image by mdverde via Flickr

Fred Clark over at Slacktivist recently made another post in his series about what motivates some people to disseminate false, injurious information about others despite that information being demonstrably false.  In this particular post, Fred uses the videos over at Good Fight Theater as an example for the continuing discussion.  While I highly recommend Fred’s post and the ongoing series of which it is a part, I wanted to look at a related but slightly different topic:  The way that groups like Good Fight Ministries tend to stretch and twist whatever they’re looking at to make it fit Christian theology and/or cosmology.

For this post, I’m going to focus on GFM’s video regarding the first Transformers movie.  I’ve watched clips from a few other GFM videos, and I get the impression that my criticisms can be adequately applied to most of their videos.  But as the Transformers video is the only one I’ve watched in full, I’ll focus on that one.

The goal of the GFM video is to suggest and argue that Transfomers — and other movies about aliens (and an interest in aliens in general) — is an attempt to brainwash humans into accepting the lead of demons during the final battle of Armageddon as portrayed in Pre-Millenial Dispensationalism.  (As an aside, Fred also offers a wonderful look at PMD theology as part of his ongoing review of the Left Behind series.)  GFM does this by suggesting that in Transformers, Michael Bay is effectively portraying the fallen angels of Armageddon with as the good guys — in the form of the Autobots — and God and the angels of Heaven as the bad guys — in the form of the Decepticons.  However, it seems to me that GFM has to make a lot of assumptions — assumptions I’m inclined to question, challenge, and even refute — in order to make that argument.

The first assumption is that the Cube — the original source of creation life on the Autobots’ home planet — is somehow representative of the Christian god.  It’s not clear to me why GFM makes this claim.  While it is certainly understandable that the Cube possesses capabilities that is often considered the sole domain of the Christian god, I find that a tenuous argument for this comparison.  After all, nothing suggests that the Cube is the creator of the entire universe or even all life in it.  If the Cube is not the sole source of life — and much in the movie left me with the impression that its not — then the comparison between the Cube and the Christian God quickly falls flat.

Another consideration is the nature of the Cube.  Specifically, the Cube is not portrayed as a conscious being with personality or identity.  Again, this separates it from the god of Christianity, which is very much a conscious being with personality and identity.  This alone suggests that a better parallel to a divine force found in other religions that have a more impersonal conceptualization of God.(1)

This impersonal nature of the Cube creates another problem for the assumptions in GFM video.  The GFM video suggests that Transformers is based on the Gnostic idea that God is evil.  However, how can an impersonal god like the Cube be evil?  The Cube has no plans and gives no orders.  All of the actions of the Decepticons — those GFM ministries would like us to believe are the stand-ins for Jesus and the heavenly host in the movie — come from Megatron, not the Cube.

Theologically, this causes problems for GFM’s claims.  If we accept that Megatron is the stand-in for Jesus in this movie(2), then that would mean that Megatron is acting on the authority of God’s stand-in, the Cube.  However, it is clear that Megatron’s authority and power is not granted by the will of Cube, but is gained by him by his control of the Cube.  Such a discrepancy further destroys the analogy that GFM is attempting to make.

This also comes into play when we consider Optimus Prime’s plan to destroy the Cube.  GFM points to this as paralleling the fallen angels of his own theology who wish to destroy the Christian god.  The problem with this comparison is that the fallen angels of GFM’s wish to destroy God in order to take his place and rule over the universe.  In contrast, Optimus Prime merely seeks to destroy the Cube as a last resort in order to prevent Megatron from using its power to destroy and control others.  In this sense, it’s not only the actions that are being inverted in Michael Bay’s supposed “retelling” of the Final Battle, but the players’ motives as well.

This is particularly notable when you consider Optimus Prime’s plans for destroying the Cube if it becomes necessary.  The leader of the Autobots plans to destroy the Cube in a way that will require him to sacrifice his own life.  Indeed, the decision to ultimately destroy Megatron along with the Cube is actually Shia LeBeouf’s doing.  Optimus’s plans for self-sacrifice strike me as far more, well, Messianic.

In order to accept GFM’s interpreation of the movie, one must completely ignore the actions, goals, and motives of the characters being portrayed.  One must completely ignore where the analogy quickly falls apart.  And one must be willing to accept the wanton disregard for life and the desire to control and destroy others is an acceptable depiction of God’s just wrath.  (3)

In other words, to accept GFM’s interpretation of this movie as an inversion of the Final Battle of PMD theology, one has to put the entire movie through a blender and force it into preconceived notions.  It makes far more sense to me to watch the movie and consider the ideas it offers on their own merits.

Notes:
(1)  Of course, it’s possible that the folks at GFM consider all non-Christian religions to be nothing more than inversions and perversions of Christianity.  So this distinction may not matter to them.  However, I personally think it’s an important one.  After all, not everyone sees everything in terms of being a direct perversion of or attack on Christianity.

(2)  Bear in mind that the biggest argument for this supposition appears to be that
Megatron sounds a lot like Metatron, which is a name mentioned in
certain extra-Biblical texts and might be another name for Jesus
according to extra-Biblical commentaries on those extra-Biblical texts.  So not only is GFM playing fast and furious with the movie to make it fit their theology, but their having to invoke appeals to theology that many of their fellow Christians might find questionable.

(3)  And there I think is the greatest problem with GFM’s interpretation of this movie.  In order to accept this, one must not only believe in a god that is a wanton tyrant who treats his Creation with contempt and disregard for its ultimate well-being, but you must believe that such a god is worthy of respect and adoration.  Perhaps teh folks at GFM can do so, but my own conscience forbids it.

Religion

Good, Evil, Morality, and Human Nature

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embpent1.gifI recently ran across the LJ community pagan_prompt, which looks to be a pleasant replacement for the mostly defunct Witch’s Weekly site.  As I feel I’ve been suffering from a bit of writer’s block, I decided to blog about their latest prompt:

Is Human Nature generally ‘good’, ‘evil’, or something else? Why?

In many ways, I’m inclined to declare the question inappropriate and irrelevant.  Discussing human nature in terms of “good” and “evil” makes no sense in the faith I have come to understand and practice.  This is because in my mind, the question is based on an understanding of “good” and “evil” that is absent from my faith.

The question is rooted in the idea that “good” and “evil” are abstract realities embodied and controlled by external, often supernatural forces.  The question at its core is asking which of those two forces have the most direct influence over, control over, and ownership of human beings.

To me, however, good and evil are concepts in morality.  And morality is about choice.  A choice is good or evil, determined by factors such as what virtues or vices it promotes and what overall effect it has on a person, those around them, and the world at large.  There is no good or evil without a choice, and therefore human nature itself cannot be good or evil, because human nature is an abstract concept rather than a choice.

Human nature consists of impulses, desires, needs, feelings, and many other things.  Human nature will certainly influence the choices we make in our lives, and those choices will ultimately be moral and immoral (and I think it’s safe to assume that the average human being will make both kinds of choices throughout their lives).  However, all those complex factors in our nature make both kinds of choices possible.  So to say that we are inherently moral or immoral makes absolutely no sense.  It’s simply a matter of what aspects of our nature we choose to nourish, encourage, and pay heed to.

Movies, Paganism, Religion, Society

Religion and Movies

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DVDs.jpgWhile guest-blogging at The Wild Hunt, John Morehead proposed using science fiction movies as a basis for interfaith dialogue. His idea and the post itself are fascinating, and I strongly encourage my readers to check it out.  It’s certainly a concept I want to think over and explore more closely.  In the meantime, though, I’d like to turn my attention to one of the responses that John’s post generated.  Hadiah Starlight commented a bit on the poor representation of Wiccans and other Pagans in cinema in general:

I agree that cinema is a reflection of what is going on socially in our
world, but as a Pagan I find it very sad, and disheartening that we are
still not presented in a more “positive light”, and that people’s idea
of witchcraft is the Harry Potter films, or The Craft. We are briefly
presented in a more positive light, in the Lord of the Rings series,
but until we are presented as anything other than “Science Fiction” we
will never be taken seriously.

Leaving aside the question of whether or portrayal in cinema really affects how seriously we’re taken (I’m personally inclined to think that if any causation between the two points exists, it’s more likely to run in the opposite direction), this comment caused me to wonder how Christianity and religion in general fairs in cinema.  So I walked over to my media cabinet, combed through the 300+ DVD’s I currently owned, and started pulling out any DVD I felt had some sort of religious portrayal in it.  I ended up with about 25 DVD’s (a smattering of them are represented in the picture attached to this post).  Furthermore, I felt my choice to include some of the titles might have been a bit generous.

While I don’t claim that my personal DVD collection is a representative sample of all cinema out there, I do think that the relatively low percentage of titles I pulled that I felt had some religious content is quite telling.  It would seem that a great number of movies simply don’t have much to say about religion at all.

I began to comb through the titles that I had pulled out and started considering the similarity between how religion was incorporated into the movie.  I began to notice that the titles seemed to fit a few different categories.  The first and most obvious category were those movies that were intended to offer editorial commentary on religion or certain aspects of some religious subcultures.  Two such examples are Saved! and Dogma.  As these kinds of movies tend to be heavy in satire and highly critical, I’m not sure we as Pagans sould be in a hurry to see these kinds of movies about our own faith traditions.  They may be helpful in the future as our traditions become more established and could benefit from such criticism.  But for right now, I think we’re better off being grateful that our religions aren’t being represented by these kinds of movies.

Unsurprisingly, a considerable number of movies in this category were science fiction movies.  In these movies, religion became framework for understanding the classic battle between good and evil that drive these movies.  The Exorcist, Ghost Rider, Constantine, and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe are all good examples of this category of movie.  Indeed, the abundance of these kinds of movies suggests that it’s not just Pagan religions that are most easily explored, represented and expressed through science fiction.  So that’s a limitation we may simply need to accept for now.

I will note, however, that Christian-themed science fiction does appear to be of a theologically superior quality than Pagan-themed science fiction most of the time.  Each of the movies I listed above spend a great deal of time exploring a cosmology and theology that explains the world where these fantastic and even supernatural stories take place.  The nature of heaven and hell as well as their relationship to the “natural world” is explored in Constantine in fascinating detail that suggests a worldview far more complex than anything seen in The Craft.

But when one considers the amount of Christian theology and cosmology that is readily accessible to the average screenwriter, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.  Many of them probably grew up learning about it.  Almost all of them have spent their lives surrounded by it.  And then there are simply libraries full of books that they can learn about it from.  And some of the best religiously-themed science fiction — such as the Chronicles of Narnia — have been written by Christian theologians themselves.

Compared to this, Pagan theology and cosmology (in its numerous forms and variations, no less) isn’t as easily accessibe.  There’s not nearly as much written about it.  Most people have not learned it first hand, nor do they come into contact with it regularly.  Is it any wonder that Pagan theology is less well developed in the movies then?

The final general category of movie I found was those movies in which religion somehow influenced the plot and created.  The best examples of this in my collection include Latter Days and Rock Haven, which are movies about young men who find themselves facing romantic and sexual feelings that their religious says are sinful and must be changed or repressed.  These movies then center around that conflict, the effects it has on the characters, and the eventual resolution.  Similar movies exist that deal with other faith struggles, such as understanding and coming to terms with tragedy and loss.

Personally, I would love to see similar movies from a Pagan perspective.  I would love to see movies where a Pagan character tries to reconcile his faith with life issues or find comfort and guidance through tragedy and difficulty from his faith.  The problem is, writing such a movie again requires a deep understanding of Pagan theology and philosophy, as well as how the affect the rest of an adherent’s life.  This is not the kind understanding that the average screenwriter is going to possess.  In short, Hollywood isn’t going to make this kind of movie simply because it’s ill-equipped to do so.

If we as Pagans really want to see positive portrayals in cinema, I think we’re going to have to find those in our community who are ready to be the story-tellers and the screenwriters who will do it.  After all, we are the only ones who can portray our lives because we are the only ones living our lives.

So as much as I’d love to see better portrayals of my faith on the big screen, I won’t hold my breath until I or another fellow Pagan is prepared to write them and try selling them to a movie studio.

 

Gender and Sexuality, Online Life, Religion, Society

Synchroblog Review

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btg cover.gifNow that it’s past, I thought it would be good to do a review of yesterday’s synchroblog event.  It was an excellent experience and overall, I felt it went quite well.  Wendy and her sponsors did a fantastic job putting it all together and the participants wrote some wonderful posts, some of which I will highlight in a moment.

The one thing I was somewhat disappointed in was the fact that despite the efforts of a couple of us (including Wendy), the event seemed primarily geared towards Christians.  As far as I know, Christine Bakke, YewTree, and I were the only three non-Christians who participated.  This is probably due to a number of reasons.  For one, those who sponsored this event were Christian and therefore had the most Christian contacts.  Then there’s also the fact that it’s much harder to convince a non-Christian to participate in an event to encourage Christians and gay people to talk to one another.  On the whole, we non-Christians probably don’t see as big a need for such conversation.

More troubling, however, is that I did feel there was a certain undercurrent even among many of the participating bloggers that this was about gay and straight Christians talking with each other.  I saw more than one post in which the sentiment seemed to be that the foundation for such conversation was the fact that those involved were all “brothers and sisters in Christ.”  While this is a fine sentiment and I’m glad that some people were able to find that common ground, that doesn’t extend the conversation to the rest of the gay community — those of us who don’t consider ourselves “brothers and sisters in Christ.”  So perhaps it may be a while longer before the entire gay community will find a welcome in the greater community.

Having said that, I wish to be clear that I don’t mean to be too critical because of this.  I think that this synchroblog was a great next step in the overall dialogue process.  And I have confidence that even my concerns can be addressed as that dialogue continues.  I think we all just need to keep plugging away with patience, compassion, and a bit of understanding.

One of my favorite posts was over at Focused Conversations, which demonstrated a deep and practical understanding of the Golden Rule.  Sandy tells of her own wedding and the people who supported her and helped her with her wedding, despite the fact that they felt she was making a bad choice.  In retelling that story, she comes to a conclusion which she applies to same sex marriages:

I understand the desire to declare your commitment to your loved one in
a formal ceremony. Whether or not I think it is the right thing doesn’t
take away from that. As a Christian I live with that tension.

It sometimes takes a special person to realize how her own situation at one time mirrored that of another person’s and to place herself in that person’s shoes.  Sandy’s willingness to be such a person spoke a lot to me.

Over at Based on a True Story, Nathan takes a similar approach and draws parallels between his own relationship with his wife and same-sex relationships:

My relationship with my wife runs very deep and there are plenty of
factors that play into it. If my relationship was all about sex, it
would not be much of a relationship. We know though, that a part of
marriage and relationships runs a lot deeper than just what happens
with our bodies. One of the more beautiful parts of a marriage is the
commitment and covenant to each other no matter what life brings. We
should be affirming and blessing mutual covenants of love between any
person and not denying them of a basic human need. We need to focus on
what we affirm rather than what we want to get rid of. Why are we so
bent on taking away all the good in a relationship? Is it just to prove
our theology? Is it just to satisfy our own desires for holiness to be
met around us?

In doing so, Nathan actually attacks one of the most damaging stereotypes about gay people:  The idea that our relationships are just about sex.  Nathan’s willingness to challenge that stereotype and then ask very hard questions about the implication of opposing relationships that clearly have a lot of good in them is superb.

Of course, not everything was perfect.  Despite some great posts, there was the occasional argument in some comments.  Some people wanted to argue over what constituted compromise or capitulation, while others wanted to discuss who (usually the other side) needed to do what in order for their to be dialogue.  Some even questioned if dialogue is possible in the end.  But that’s okay.  This conversation is long overdue and it’s the kind of conversation that is never going to go perfectly smoothly.  And that’s okay.  The important thing is that people are still talking.  Hopefully, that will remain the case.

And hopefully, people will continue to listen.