Category Archives: Religion

Religion

Courage breeds ferocity

4 Comments

I haven’t been posting much lately due to being ill for the past week. However, to give all my readers something to check out, I decided to post another link. Besides, it’s a good follow-up. Some of you may remember the link I posted to Matt Hill Comer’s blog entry about returning to his childhood church. Well, recently, he received a comment from another member of that church. Matt made a public reply, and it’s well worth reading. The strength of his response is astounding, not to mention well merited (in my opinion at least).

As I commented on Matt’s entry, it amazes me how some evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have abstracted the concept of love to such a degree that they can justify just about any behavior or attitude they might have about people they see as “sinners.” If that’s love, I can’t say as it’s worth very much.

Religion

Now this is courage

5 Comments

I haven’t blogged in a while. I haven’t had the time or energy. And I’m not entirely sure how to write about some of the things that have been on my mind lately.

But to give everyone something well worth reading, I thought I’d point out over to Matt Hill Comer’s experience in returning to his childhood church and confronting the pastor. All I can say is that Matt is one courageous man and an inspiration.

As I read it, I asked if I could do something similar. I’ve decided I couldn’t right now. Of course, to my old church’s credit, they never preached violence and the whole topic of homosexuality didn’t really come up all that much. In fact, in my rural area, I think everyone just pretended that sort of thing didn’t happen. That was a “big city thing.”

Besides, the people from my old church I would consider it necessary to confront mostly happen to be related to me. That adds a whole dimension of scariness in my mind.

Books, Religion

Divine Nobodies: Great Title, Greater Paradox

1 Comment

As I mentioned in my last entry, I picked up a copy of Jim Palmer’s Divine Nobodies and began reading it this weekend. I finished the book yesterday while at my aunt’s home for the extended family Thanksgiving. Let me just say right up front that it is a great book, and I highly recommend it.

The title of the book is the perfect label for the series of chapters about “ordinary” people that Jim has met throughout his life and learned important lessons from in regards to his faith. Indeed, he relays each of these experiences to underscore his own growing belief that God most often brings spiritual growth and understanding not through “big name preachers” (or even preachers at all), but average Joes that we meet all through our lives. In effect, these people — often seen as “nobodies” in the greater religious movements of Christendom — truly offer a direct experience of and encounter with the Divine.

What I personally find interesting in addition to the individual stories (which are all touching and moving), there seems to be a handful of underlying themes that run through many of the chapters. One such example is the fact that Jim constantly finds his tendency to try and “do enough” and “be good enough” to justify his existence and God’s love for him challenged. (This is a theme I can particularly identify with, as that’s a tendency I’ve also struggled with at times.) Many of his experiences he describes offers another chance to revisit this particular struggle in his life and experience further healing from it.

Another common theme in many of the chapters is Jim faced with his own prejudiced opinions about others and the problems they cause. Whether it’s his opinions of Catholicism and closely related denominations being challenged by Father Jeff, his opinions of liberals being blown apart while he peruses the bookshelves at the home of his daughter’s swim instructor, or his understanding of hip hop being shattered by Doug, the author finds himself having to rethink his hard-line assumptions when faced with real people who should fit those stereotypes, but don’t. Indeed, these many experiences strongly show Jim’s own discovery of a more relational approach to faith and those around him.

In many ways, I saw much of my own perspective in Jim’s outlook on life and the world in general, and even found much theological common ground in the rare instances where he delved (however lightly) into theology. Of course, reading his thoughts gives me a few suspicions about the kind of reception his ideas might find in the greater Christian (particularly evangelical and fundamentalist) community. Indeed, I find myself wondering if a witch writing a glowing review of his book might merely give his biggest critics more “ammo.” But I’m hoping Jim would appreciate my words anyway.

Overall, Divine Nobodies was well worth my time. In fact, I hope to follow up by obtaining and reading a copy of Wide Open Spaces in the near future.

Religion

Paid Clergy: Not Just a Pagan Debate

9 Comments

I used to think that the argument about whether to have paid clergy was a uniquely Pagan thing. So imagine my surprise when Pastor Phil brought it up in the context of the Christian Church on his synchroblog post from yesterday. Then I found a post by Adam Gonnerman detailing some of his own thoughts on paid clergy. (He’s for it, but with certain qualifications). It’s a fascinating read and I highly recommend giving it careful consideration.

Beyond my own surprise at this discovery, I think that it’s important. Christians have had paid clergy for a long time now, and if they’re re-evaluating their own take on the matter, I think that we as Pagans would do well to pay attention and consider what they have to say. Even if Pagans, in part or as a whole, do decide to continue the quest for developing paid clergy, we can at least benefit from hearing the lessons people like Adam and Phil have learned through their own experiences and those of their predecessors. In effect, perhaps we can avoid a few mistakes by being attentive listeners.

Personally, I still have mixed feelings on the idea of Pagan getting paid (and especially full time) clergy. And I think I’m still against it in some ways (at least for my tradition, which I strongly feel calls for each member to be their own priest, which would make paid full-time clergy unnecessary and wasteful), but I don’t feel as strongly about it as I once did.

Paganism, Religion, Spiritual Development, Witchcraft

Leaping into Darkness?

Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking about writing a spiritually-themed post for the past couple of weeks. However, until tonight, I haven’t gotten around to it. In part, this is due to laziness on my part. I simply haven’t taken the time to sit down and try to put my thoughts in order.

Of course, it’s also in part because we have entered the dark half of the year, and the part of the Wheel where silence tends to reign. So my thoughts have turned inward, and I find myself wanting to spend most of my time mulling about spiritual matters — especially how they apply to my life — rather than blathering on about them.

And then there’s the fact that my musings and experiences have taken me into realms that I’m simply not sure I want to talk about quite yet. In many ways, I’m still adjusting to recent events and new things in my life and I’m not ready to be broadcasting some of it. So in many ways, I expect this post will be short and somewhat vague.

It is clear that I have started a new leg of my spiritual journey, and one that will be guided and influenced quite heavily by my lady and patroness, Freyja. This is not surprising, as anyone who knows me well likely has a good sense of how dear and important she is to me. So it’s probably not too surprising that she has chosen to strengthen and deepen our relationship.

Of course, this has not been a sudden thing. Indeed, the first conscious indication that new things were coming occurred during the Friday night seance at the naturist festival I went to back in August. During that seance, Freyja began to prepare me energetically. I spent the entire evening feeling like my head was buzzing. (She even made her presence known to Belinda in order to confirm for me what was going on.)

Since that time, things have continued to progress between her and I, and it’s been an exhilarating if nerve-wracking experience. I’m not entirely sure where everything is going, though I’m becoming more comfortable with the overall experience.

I do know that it means that I’m going to end up taking a more visible and active role in the world around me. I have work to do, and I have work to do in order to get ready for it.

Online Life, Paganism, Religion, Society

Another great synchroblog

1 Comment

Last month, I posted a bit about a synchroblog wherein a number of Christian bloggers talked about Christianity and Paganism and discussions between members of both faith groups. This month, the same group is having another synchroblog, with the topic being about Halloween this time. So far, I’ve read a handful of posts from the event and enjoyed them thoroughly. The link above is to Sonja’s post, where anyone interested can find links to the rest of the participants’ blogs.

I’m not going to say much about the synchroblog yet, as I’m still reading. I expect to have many thoughts to share by the time I’m done. I will briefly note that Sonja’s daughter cracked me up with her “emergency vampire protection” though.

Paganism, Religion

Thoughts on a Synchroblog post

4 Comments

Yesterday, I posted a link to a syncrhoblogging event focused on dialogue between Paganism and Christianity. Today, I wanted to highlight one of my favorite posts among the excellent collection. I’ve chosen to highlight Paul Walker’s contribution on the grounds that in my book, the man deserves a medal for bravery (and quite possibly a second one for his steallar integrity).

Paul admits at the outset of his post that as he discovered what the topic for this month’s synchroblog (the first he planned to participate in, no less) was something he knew nothing about. However, he chose to press on anyway, which in itself takes guts. Talking about a topic you know nothing or very little about can be a frightening thought, as it opens yourself up to the possibility that a large group of people will happily point out just how little you know about the subject (and not always nicely, no less).

What impresses me more than that, however, is how Paul chose to alleviate his lack of knowledge in order to write his post. He didn’t choose to simply move on based on what he thinks Paganism might be. Nor did he choose to ask fellow Christians about Paganism. Instead, Paul chose a much more direct approach. Consider his own account:

Here’s what I decided to do : since I know pretty well nothing about paganism, I decided to try and find out more. I searched around to find one of the larger pagan forums on the Net, created a user account, announced to the members that I was writing a piece for my blog on Christian-Pagan dialogue, asked if anyone there would help me out, and sat back to wait for the fur to fly….

He found a group of Pagans and asked them questions. In my book, that shows a great deal of integrity. He didn’t want second-hand knowledge, but direct communication. Information from the horse’s mouth, if you will.

It also took courage, because based on Paul’s own statement, he expected there to be something of a negative reaction to his inquiries. Now, I will admit forthrightly that I don’t blame Paul for that expectation because when I got to this point in his narrative, I became worried about what kind of response he might report getting.

Truth be told, we Pagans sometimes have a tendency to respond to inquiries from Christians with a certain amount of hostility. (I know I’ve been guilty of it to some degree at various times.) And while I can certainly point out that this is because many Christians tend to make their inquiries disrespectfully or often are only making them to start an argument in order to prove us wrong, I think that only explains our tendency for a negative response. It does not excuse it, however.

Of course, even when Pagan’s don’t respond with hostility, we can sometimes be rather condescending and even arrogant in our attempts to “educate” the inquirer. Too often, we tend to like to think of ourselves as more learned or “spiritually advanced,” and it comes through in our dealings with people who honestly want to understand us better.

Unfortunately, this can have an unfortunate effect, as such condescension is far too often counter-productive to our stated goals of fostering mutual understanding. Such an attitude more often creates a further rift and resentment between the two groups. After all, who wants to enter into dialogue with someone who doesn’t treat you with the respect deserved by a fellow equal?

While I admire Paul’s courage, I do have to admit that his post and concerns about what kind of reception he might receive continues to give me pause. Based on some of my own past experiences with exchanges between Pagans and Christians, I do find myself wondering how well prepared Pagans as a whole are for sincere dialogue. In the past, Pagans have accused many Christians (and in some cases, rightfully) of not being open to sincere dialouge. But I have seen cases where some Pagans (myself included, in some instances) use that fact to hide our own lack of willingness to converse civilly. I hope that Paul’s very positive experience is a sign that we’re more open to such dialogue now than some of my own past experiences might suggest.

Religion, Society

A Kathy Griffin post worthy of some link love

1 Comment

A couple days ago, a friend decided to express his views on the Kathy Griffin “Suck it, Jesus” comment at the Emmy’s. I thought I’d share it with you because while not exactly praising Ms. Griffin, James actually applauds her comment as one of the most honest he’s heard. He goes on to express why he finds other celebrities (namely the one’s Ms. Griffin referred to before telling Jesus to “suck it”) worthy of his criticism:

Why does it not offend us when celebrity after celebrity thanks Jesus, yet their lives and films show very little (if any) of actually following him? And do we really think that the Emmy Board is spending time in prayer and fasting to determine who Jesus thinks is the best actress in a comedy series? Doesn’t thanking Jesus for an award imply that Jesus prefers Ricky Gervais over Charlie Sheen?

One of the things I’ve always appreciated about James was his ability and willingness to portray a topic in a rather unique perspective. Of course, there are days that I think it’s nothing short of a miracle that he hasn’t attracted any hate notes yet.

Gender and Sexuality, Religion, Society

The Most Slippery Slope?

2 Comments

InterstateQ blogger Matt has a post advertising the Can you be gay and Christian forum hosted by Michael Brown and the Coalition of Conscience. I’m looking forward to reading Matt’s thoughts on the forum, as he went to it. In the meantime, I’d like to draw attention to the conversation between Dr. Brown and myself in the comments regarding slippery slope arguments. I’d also like to expand on my thoughts further.

I have a big issue with the use of slippery slope arguments to justify discrimination of any sort. (Actually, I have a big issue with the use of slippery slope arguments to justify just about anything.) As I mentioned in the comments, I find myself wondering how one ultimately draws the line in determining whether a slippery slope is legitimate in a particular situation. Again, can my own argument about the correlation between a belief in absolute truth and a tendency to persecute those who don’t subscribe to that truth be used to outlaw the belief in absolute truth? After all, by closing the door to a belief in absolute truth, we keep the door to persecution based on that belief closed as well. Similarly, can we shut the door to all automobile future crashes by outlawing the use of automobiles? After all, if one supports Dr. Brown’s slippery slope argument, what unique argument can they provide against supporting either of my slippery slope argument? Indeed, the fact that the slippery slope argument can be used against itself is possibly one of the best reasons to discount it.

But let me suggest a hypothesis here. The fact that someone would even bring up a slippery slope argument may well suggest that the reason to argue against something is poor indeed. After all, a slippery slope argument relies on what might happen (often suggesting it’s too inevitable to chance) rather than considering the original proposition on its own faults and merits. It’s a red flag that tells those listening, “We can’t come up with a better reason why we oppose this, so we’re going to rely on everyone’s fear of something else that may come up as a result to make our case.” And one must wonder, if no case against the original proposition can be made on said propositions own faults, should any case be made at all?

And does reacting to something based solely — or even primarily — on a fear of what may be make any sense? To put an even finer point, is such a rationale appropriate for adherents of a religion that has a rather negative opinion of fear? Indeed, one must wonder why Christians who have been given a spirit of love and power as well as a sound mind would be so strongly motivated by the fear of what may be? And one wonders why Christian leaders would encourage such motivation through slippery slope arguments.