Interview With A Pagan Soldier

Laura M. Wandrie has conducted an interview with military Pagan Keith Roberts in this weeks Witchvox update. Roberts is currently serving active duty in Iraq. In the interview he shares his feelings on being a Pagan in the military and his current service in Iraq.

“I can only speak for myself as a soldier. I’m not always in agreement with policy over here, but as a Pagan, I take honor very seriously. No one that I work with wants to go out shooting and killing. Most of us just want to do the job and get home in one piece. I do hope that readers take a much more active role politically if they seek change. It can’t be just rhetoric and empty words. It has to be backed up with good hard work and action. Nothing in this life that is worth having will come easy. There are always obstacles, but if everyone bands together, we can make this world a better place. Take ownership of the world about you and your activities. Work towards an end of conflicts and better stewardship of the world at large. Get active in your communities. Be tolerant of one another. I guess that ought to do for now.”

Published interviews and communication from Pagan soldiers in Iraq is rare, so I highly recommend reading the entire interview.

The Bullish Spiritual Market

Columnist Terry Mattingly (who also blogs at Get Religion) has a column about the faith and spirituality boom in America.

“If someone had created a stock market for spirituality in the 1990s, all of the prime indicators would have gone off the charts…Some marketing professionals seem afraid to talk about these numbers, in part because religion is often controversial and this demographic is so hard to pin down. Are Faithful Consumers people who believe in God or the gods? Are they united by their broader spiritual concerns or divided by their narrow, specific dogmas? Are they prickly true believers or blowing-with-the-wind seekers? These days, the safe answer is all of the above. Americans love to shop.”

Faith, spirituality, and religion, are a boom market and it isn’t just one tradition or philosophy that is benefiting from this ongoing trend. Numerous reports about the rise in numbers of Pagan, evangelical Christians, Muslims, and celebrity-driven cult adherents can be seen all the time in the media. Mattingly wonders how a business world with open eyes to these trends would react/change. Personally I think corporations are indeed looking at these trends and I’m more wondering how politics will be formed by the booming minority faiths (and how they interact with the booming evangelicals). Sure politicians have to give props to Jesus on a regular basis now (both left and right) but what happens when key districts swing on the Muslim vote, the Buddhist vote, the modern Pagan vote, or gods help me the Scientologist vote. Will speech and actions on religion be guided in the future not by Christianity wrestling with the forces of secularism, but with the forces of minority religious and spiritual traditions? Something to ponder.

Because It Didn’t Exist?

The Arizona Republic profiles a new film by Paul Perry that depicts the early years of the life of Jesus using Coptic sources and “oral traditions” of the days after the family of Jesus fled from King Herod’s wrath.

During the Cairo premiere, Perry visited with Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak, members of the Egyptian Cabinet and other dignitaries. Perry said the first lady, like many people who view the film, was taken aback by the mystery of the remote sites where a young Jesus reportedly raised the dead and destroyed pagan temples. “She kept turning back to me, saying, ‘This is an Egypt I’ve never seen before,’ ” Perry said.

Indeed this isn’t an Egypt we have seen before because it most likely didn’t exist except in the oral traditions and writings of Coptic Christians. Hard to picture the Prince of Peace going around as a child blowing up Pagan temples.

Diametrically Opposed

I was reading a post on Wren’s Nest about a Catholic hospital that has built a lovely meditation room for non-Catholic faiths to use. The room was built at the urging of the local Native population who make up a large portion of the patient population (the room will also be used for daily prayers by the growing number of Muslim doctors serving at the hospital). All fine and good, the article gave me a nice warm fuzzy about different religious traditions finding a way to co-exist until I read this part of the article:

“The hospital has published rules for use of the room. The use of peyote and other drugs is prohibited, as is the “practice of any religion or act which is diametrically opposed to the Roman Catholic Church.” The hospital lists “Satanism, Wicca and Voodoo” as examples.”

So there you have it. I can understand their reaction towards “Satanism” as they know it (even though most Satanists are mainly non-theistic hedonists), but having this attitude towards modern Pagan traditions and the faiths of the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora is ignorant and hypocritical. How different do you think the theology of a Vodoun Mambo is from a Native American Shaman?

Wicca, Asatru, and other forms of modern Paganism are attempts to regain, reclaim, or recreate a pre-Christian religion, they are no more diabolic than any tribal belief system. Most are based around a simple reverence of their gods, the ancestors, and the world around them. The “magick” practiced by your average Wiccan is scarcely different than the smudging and prayers now allowed in this new meditation room.

The funny thing is that this need not have become an issue. By posting this completely unnecessary sign they are going to alienate people and create controversy where none need have arisen. As a commenter on the Wren’s Nest post stated:

“If any of us Wiccans or Pagans went in there and did our thing, they’d have no idea we were engaged in activity they consider “prohibited” because they wouldn’t recognize it as such. It would look almost exactly like what the Native Americans are doing in there. If Native Americans can practice their faith there, then we can, too.”

Oh, and by the way, regarding one other piece of the article:

“Sister Renee Zastoupil, director of pastoral programs for St. Alexius, said the meditation room is the first of its kind. “We know that it just is,” she said.”

I hate to disagree with you Sister, but when I visited St. Mary’s Hospital at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN they also had a lovely meditation room for non-Christian faiths to use. They didn’t feel the need to post a sign telling me to not pray there.

Early Christian Shennanigans

University of St Andrews in Scotland is undertaking a historic translation project of early Christian texts from the 3rd centrury CE to the Middle Ages.

“Some wrote oracles in the name of a pagan prophetess, and some even ignored biblical laws against magic, making use of spells and incantations that were attributed to biblical characters and which even invoked pagan gods.”

Perhaps the old ways really do die hard. You can find out more about the project by going to the project web page.

Paganistic Peanut-Buttery Pool

Perhaps the quote of the day from New Haven Advocate columnist Dexter on who is to blame for the canceling of controversial reality show “Welcome to the Neighborhood”:

“Worth pointing out, then, that it’s not fair to blame only the network for the cancellation; there was a veritable coalition nay an umbrella of coalitions of folks arrayed against the broadcast of the show. Also, it wasn’t just stereotypes of the potential minority/homosexual/pagan/non-Polo-wearing families the show was likely to perpetuate, but also stereotypes of white Christian Republicans. And as we all know, conservative Christians are the most persecuted people in the godless trough of hedonistic, atheistic, paganistic, holistic, communistic, peanut-buttery pool of hell-sputum that America has devolved into.”

Now that’s imagery.

Dear Philosophy Student

It was with interest that I read the article about a program that helps underprivileged and underrepresented students continue on to graduate school. But I’m worried that you are being encouraged in some flawed ideas. Witness this quote from the piece:

“For Vernon, however, his research has become more than an academic interest. It has become his passion. “I looked around the planet, and I see people hating other people, and I think a lot of that has to do with religion,” he said. Vernon said he has come to believe that the universe itself is God and that each individual within the universe is a part of that deity. His mission, he said, is to unite all religious traditions ? Christianity, Buddhism, Wicca ? under this one theological view.“

Yes people hate other people, if only it were as simple as a difference of theology. But sadly hate is also bred by economic status, race, gender, politics, war, sexual orientation, greed, lust, and a host of other factors. Plus (and I hate to tell you this), but I don’t want to be united theologically with different faiths. I like being a Pagan and I like my theology. I don’t want to water mine down to please some ur-faith and if I don’t want to you can bet my evangelical friends won’t want to. Heck we can’t even get theological agreement within major faith traditions!

But at any rate, good luck with graduate school. I wish you a deepening of wisdom and knowledge.

Esoteric Artist Featured In New Exhibition

RedNova reports on a new traveling exhibition of Latin American artist Xul Solar. This show will focus more on the esoteric, mystic, and spiritual influences of his work. It will also see the first individual American exhibition of the artist when it debuts at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

I think it is great that mystic and esoteric art from outside the dominant Eurocentric viewpoint is getting some attention. If you have the opportunity check out this artist Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges called “our William Blake.”

The Pagan/Fascist Meme, Following Up

I thought my last post on Hitler and Paganism would be my last for a little while but the ‘Fascism = Paganism’ meme popping up in my news searches prompted me to do a follow-up post. The One Republic Journal features an editorial by Bruce Thornton a professor of Classics at Cal State Fresno. In the editorial about Islam Thornton gives this little nugget of wisdom:

“The key to this mistaken interpretation is the short shrift given to the power of spiritual needs–an omission surprising given how religious the media keeps telling us this administration is. That ignoring of spiritual reality is what makes the analogy with fascism and communism false. Both of those ideologies were anti-Christian: fascism was a species of debased Romantic neo-paganism, and communism was blatantly atheist. As such, both ran counter to the powerful Judeo- Christian forces that shaped European and Russian civilization, and so could not satisfy for long the spiritual yearnings of the people, yearnings denied their traditional expressions. Thus these ideologies were doomed because they denied not just political freedom, but the powerful human need for religious expression and spiritual experience.”

This remarkably limited view of fascism is troubling, if for nothing else than the idea that fascism couldn’t happen in a strong “Christian” nation. For the press and pundits to constantly reiterate that the rise of fascism is tied to “Romantic neo-paganism” creates a dangerous meme where so long as one thumps the Bible hard enough a fascist state could never emerge from a restrictive controlling government.

In related news Unitarian-Universalist blogger Jaume de Marcos in reply to my first post about Hitler and Paganism, takes me to task for my interpretation of Nazi mysticism and it’s relationship to modern Paganism. I started writing a response but it became quite long and I realized that I wanted to get some input from a few modern American Asatru before posting a response. But I just wanted to let him and any readers waiting for my response know that I’m working on it.

Caged Faith

Indiana is trying out a new rehabilitive program in three prisons. The program is centered around intensive segregated religious education for the inmates willing to participate.

“Three Indiana prisons — one each for men, women and juveniles — are joining a growing trend in corrections by creating segregated housing units for prisoners who volunteer to be immersed in religious training. For those uninterested in such lessons — and to appease critics who call the faith dorms a tool for state-supported religion — prison officials also are offering a secular track that would focus on character building. But the majority of the first 202 volunteers are going the faith-based route.”

The plan which is already drawing fire from the local ACLU places the participants in separate dorms where they are meant to build supportive relationships with eachother.

“…the segregated dorms put inmates seeking a spiritual path to redemption under one roof, where they are encouraged to live as a supportive community. There will be classes and assigned readings concerning their sacred texts, spiritual self-assessments and work on developing a moral code that falls in line with their chosen faith. They will keep journals, attend small group discussions and hold personal reflection times, in addition to regular worship services.”

In theory, all faith traditions will be allowed to participate and be granted mentors from their faith of choice.

“Prison officials hope to find volunteer mentors for each faith, said Tim Brown, a corrections official who helped develop the program. But if teachers of pagan, Wiccan or humanist beliefs can’t be found, for instance, other open-minded volunteers will be asked to do the best they can.”

I’m of a mixed mind on the issue. I will be interested to hear about what response local Pagan groups will receive when they offer to become mentors, and I will be interested to see how harmonious these mixed-faith groups are in the long run (will a evangelical inmate find harmony with a Pagan or Native inmate). They are definitely skirting the church/state separation line here and I will expect legal challenges to be forthcoming. I think that what would make these programs work isn’t so much God (or gods) but instead the intensive social retraining and one-on-one interaction the program promises. But maybe a greater influx of religion could at least reform the brutality of most modern prisons, I know that if I found myself in jail I would sign up for this even if they didn’t offer a course for Paganism.