Two bloggers at The American Conservative mull over a recent article in Free Inquiry (not available online) by Canadian academic Shadia Drury. In “Against Grand Narratives”, Drury, according to TAC blogger Leon Hadar, argues for a rejection of linear monotheist grand narratives and a return to a “pagan” worldview.

…she [Drury] argues that “Since the triumph of Christianity over the pagan civilizations of Greece and Rome, the West has suffered from the inability to affirm life in the world without an overarching purpose to give it meaning and make it worthwhile.” The Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Muslim provided such grand narratives as part of an effort to “destroy the pagan view of life as an endless cycle” and replacing it with “the cyclical view of history with a linear view that has a magical beginning, an arduous middle, and a very splendid finale.” … Drury promises to explain in her next piece “why grand narratives must be transcended in favor of a return to pagan sobriety.”

While this argument fascinates Hadar, a noted critic of the neoconservative grand narrative, Jack Ross at TAC’s Post Right blog begs to differ that Judiac monotheism should be lumped in with Drury’s criticisms.

“As a practicing Jew following the examples of Isaac Mayer Wise and Will Herberg, I have to take exception to cavalierly lumping Judaism into this mix.  As Philip Rieff argued, against the cant of both “Athens and Jerusalem” and “Judeo-Christian values”, the greatness of Hebraic civilization was that it placed man squarely under the authority of death, the most powerful reproach imaginable to immanentizing the eschaton. Even in the case of Zionism, it is narrowly nationalist in the extreme and therefore can not be considered “world redemptive” in any sense.  As such, it is exuberantly pagan, as yesterday’s blood-and-soil oration by Netanyahu should make abundantly clear. In the ideal, therefore, Judaism stands for rationalism over paganism and for humility before the infinite over the redemption of the world by man.”

What I find fascinating here is that two noted conservative thinkers are willing to (critically) entertain the idea that we might be better off with a cyclic pagan sobriety than a triumphalist Christian narrative. Now, it is to be certain that neither Leon Hadar or Jack Ross are considered part of the conservative mainstream, but if the conservative mainstream is currently being defined by Gingrich, Huckabee, Limbaugh, and Cheney, perhaps on the sidelines (or “underground” if you prefer) is the best place for them to be. In the meantime, I think I might track down this essay by Drury.

The Los Angeles Times interviews Harold Ramis who directs the upcoming film “Year One” starring Jack Black and Michael Cera. Ramis, who was behind comedic hits like “Groundhog Day” and “Ghostbusters”,  explains how he is (hopefully) avoiding offending Christians, Jews, and Muslims in a slapstick Old Testament road-trip film.

“Post-9/11, religious differences were tearing the world apart. Every religion preaches tolerance, yet people were destroying [one another] wholesale,” said Ramis, who co-wrote the script. But how to go about making his point about religious extremism without alienating audiences? “I started thinking, ‘You can’t attack Christianity, Islam or Judaism. But nobody cares if you go after a dead pagan religion.’ “

Now, obviously Ramis may just be joking here, he is a comedian after all. But later in the interview Ramis does take care to mention that he’s getting the film screened by the Anti-Defamation League before it’s released in theatres.

Aware his irreverent take might irk some who take the Old Testament at its word — particularly certain of its promises — Ramis said with some trepidation the Anti-Defamation League would be having a peek soon. “I’m Jewish; that gives me a lot of room to play. Liberal Jews tend to enjoy self-mockery. All it’s saying is that this notion of being chosen or being given land by God is a hard one for people to swallow,” he said. “So the circumcision jokes, I know they’ll be able to take. I think the land joke is the one that might be more offensive.” Ramis is careful to point out the movie is “not an attack on religion; it’s an attack on mindless fundamentalism.” He relates an exchange as it was scripted in an early draft: ” ‘You burn virgins so it rains?’ ‘Duh. Where do you think rain comes from? Clouds?’ “

You see? Attacking the “mindless fundamentalism” of “pagans” who “burn virgins” is funny stuff! Monotheist claims that God granted them certain lands? Not so much. Or at least you have to be sure you couch it in a disclaimer and run it by an anti-defamation group first.

Now, I’m not getting bent out of shape about this, religion (and the human foibles attached to religion) has been a comedy goldmine since the days of Lucius Apuleius Platonicus. Only humourless extremists can’t laugh about their faith, or tolerate a joke told by someone else about your belief system, so don’t expect any calls to protest or complain about “Year One” from me (heck, considering some of the talent involved, I may go see it in the theatres). But I do think it is extremely telling that we have reached a point where certain segments of the dominant monotheisms are so insecure and reactionary that film-makers wanting to skewer the Bible have to deflect barbs onto pre-Christian religions in order to avoid controversy. As I’ve said before, modern Pagans (who look to the pre-Christian religions that Ramis satirizes) should fight genuine hate-speech but avoid the tone-deaf excesses of some “rights” groups.

“…the last thing I want to see is for Pagans to adopt the tactics of groups like the Catholic League. Constantly scanning the news looking for the next outrage, the next rallying cry for those who believe some great religious conflict is brewing. I don’t want us to become unable to laugh off something stupid, I don’t want us to become unable to tell the difference between an innocuous trifle, and real anti-Pagan hate speech.”

Ancient pagan religions may be easy to joke about, but let’s hope Ramis doesn’t use that as an excuse to de-fang his Biblical satire in “Year One”. After all, the only safe way to avoid offending a specific group in comedy is to be an equal-opportunity offender.

For as long as I can remember Pagans of various stripes have been quick to point out that they don’t recognize the existence of (or worship) Satan, that an embodiment of pure evil just doesn’t fit into a nuanced polytheistic (or pantheistic, or duotheistic) model of the divine. Well it seems that we aren’t the only ones, according to the evangelical polling outfit The Barna Group, most Christians don’t believe in Satan either.

“Four out of ten Christians (40%) strongly agreed that Satan “is not a living being but is a symbol of evil.” An additional two out of ten Christians (19%) said they “agree somewhat” with that perspective. A minority of Christians indicated that they believe Satan is real by disagreeing with the statement: one-quarter (26%) disagreed strongly and about one-tenth (9%) disagreed somewhat. The remaining 8% were not sure what they believe about the existence of Satan.”

Interestingly, roughly half of the Christians who don’t believe in a literal Satan do believe that there are “demons” or “evil spirits” that can play havoc with your life. Does this mean that in a sizable portion of the Christian mind a pantheon of spiritual forces (good and evil) seems more likely a single living embodiement of supreme evil? Looks like Pagans and Christains have more in common than I thought! Not that it is helping us have better relations, only 5% of Christians have a positive view of Wicca (and by extension, I assume other Pagan faiths) while a whopping 55% percent don’t like us one bit. Still, it does open some interesting doors for conversation don’t you think?

One big misconception outsiders hold concerning modern Paganism is that the faith flourishes as a rebellion against Judeo-Christian norms or as a result of secularism’s ills. But such an analysis is not only incomplete, but ignores our own history, and the present state of modern adherents across the globe. For example, British Traditional Wicca emerged in 1950s England, long before there were serious worries about “aggressive secularism” running rampant. While today, modern Pagan communities have sprung up in some seemingly unlikely places, like Greece and South Africa. Now, Haaretz reports that Paganism is alive and well in the state of Israel too.

“Like many other soldiers who took part in the Gaza operation, Omer, 20, occasionally took a few moments to pray, but he did not pray to the Lord of Israel. Omer considers himself pagan, and has sworn allegiance to three ancient gods. During combat, he says they appeared before him, giving him strength during the most arduous moments. Omer is still in the army, and therefore refused to be interviewed for this story. Yet he did say he belongs to a religion whose goal is to revive worship of ancient gods. In an online Hebrew-language paganism forum, Omer’s accounts of his Gaza experience are standard fare. Another user recalled how he prayed to Anat, the Canaanite god of war, while serving in an elite combat unit. The two soldiers are part of a tiny community of pagans that has developed in Israel. Influenced by movements in the United States and Europe, followers believe in multiple gods.”

Reporter Ofri Ilani talks with several Israeli Pagans both in and out of the “broom closet” including Alon Kobets founder of the Wicca Israel web site.  Kobets estimates that there are around 150 Pagans in Israel, most of whom are living semi-closeted existences, aware of the pervasive religious tensions present. Meanwhile Dr. Marianna Ruah-Midbar, organizer of the First Israeli Conference for the Study of Contemporary Spiritualities, believes modern Paganism could thrive in the holy land.

“At the moment paganism is not a large-scale practice here, but I believe it has very big potential,” she said. “Pagan religions are the fastest growing religions in the West, and it could succeed here too, because Hebrewism and Zionism could connect to paganism due to the emphasis on land and Hebrew holidays. Paganism is a close, unusual parallel of more common practices, like environmentalism or traveling to the East. In practice, it really is not very different.”

So even in places where a single (non-Pagan) religion dominates culturally and statistically (like Judaism in Israel or Orthodox Christianity in Greece), modern Paganism still emerges and grows. This can’t simply be blamed on creeping secularism or an overly tolerant culture. Perhaps, as some have argued, polytheism is a natural impulse. One that humanity constantly returns to, no matter how dominant monotheist (or atheist) impulses may be at a certain time or place. Could the Holy Land of the dominant monotheisms soon find itself, like the prophet Jeremiah, having to face those who would make offerings to the Queen of Heaven once more?

The conservative David Horowitz-edited FrontPage Magazine features an editorial by economist Mark W. Hendrickson defending the honor of monotheism. While mainly a defense against criticisms of Christianity by atheists, Hendrickson takes special care to bad-mouth polytheism to bolster the inherent superiority of single-god worship.

“Authors who condemn monotheism seem oblivious to how much their own comfortable, free lives owe to the historical impact of monotheism. The pre-monotheistic worldview was pagan. Paganism exalted nature above all, and taught human subjection to nature. Paganism was fatalistic; it inculcated resignation to a static social order. To the pagans, individual lives were unimportant, cheap. The welfare of the collective, which in practice was the welfare of the ruling elite, was supreme. There was no theory of individual rights opposed to this arrangement. If you were born a drone, you lived the life of a drone, and if the rulers decided that your life should be forfeited to the sun god or in some military campaign to obtain booty for the rulers, then your fate was sealed.”

It is fairly obvious why Hendrickson is an economist and not involved in religious studies. Any sensible scholar on pre-Christian religions would have given him a big fat “F” if he turned in that summary of polytheism as a paper. Indeed, his description of Paganism is straight from the conservative Christian party-line, a thoughtless reductionism that undermines his own defense of monotheism. A parrot of slurs that have been discredited for years. The truth is that many of the things that we take for granted, that we often falsely accredit to Christian (or Enlightenment) moral advancement actually originated within pre-Christian thought and politics. Capitalism, democracy, social welfare for the poor, and the foundations of science, medicine, and philosophy all had their genesis in pre-Christian thought and culture. While many pre-Christian cultures had a reverent and respectful approach to the natural world, it is a gross exaggeration to say their were “subjugated” to it.

This straw man argument by Hendrickson shows the intellectual dishonesty so often employed by defenders of monotheism. Only by first creating an utterly decadent and morally bankrupt paganism can they then trumpet the vibrancy and ethical superiority of their own religious preferences. The truth, of course, is far too nuanced and complicated to declare monotheism (or polytheism) the truly superior method of belief. Sadly, nuanced discussions of competing religious world-views don’t make for good “red meat” rants designed to reinforce your audience’s preconceived notions and values.

Salon.com interviews gay Catholic author Richard Rodriguez about gay marriage, the “Desert religions”, and the power of women in religious life. What is striking about the piece, from my perspective, is how close he gets to endorsing a shift away from monotheism (or at least male-oriented monotheism) while discussing religion.

“The desert religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — are male religions. Their perception is that God is a male god and Allah is a male god. If the male is allowed to hold onto the power of God, then I think we are in terrible shape. I think what’s coming out of Colorado Springs right now, with people like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, is either the last or continuing gasp of a male hierarchy in religion. That’s what’s at stake. And women have a determining role to play. Are they going to go along with this, or are they going to challenge the order?”

While Rodriquez talks about how the traditional monotheisms feel “threatened by the rise of feminism”, he seems unable to look outside the “desert religions” and see that millions of women are indeed challenging the order by leaving it entirely for a variety of faiths that are more egalitarian in outlook. From Wicca and modern Pagan faiths, to various New Age spiritualities and heretical Christian off-shoots, to the post-creedal and post-Christian Unitarian-Universalists, more and more women are simply opting out of a system that they feel oppresses them. Rodriquez seems almost blind to these shifts, and believes that feminism will continue to produce incremental changes within institutional Catholicism and other male-dominated monotheistic religions.

“The Episcopal Church in America is now under the leadership of a woman. Feminism is going to change a great deal. The most radical people in the Roman Catholic Church are women. They’re challenging everything from the priesthood to the male God to what it means to be married. I don’t expect to see gay marriage enter these conservative institutions in my lifetime. But I do see change.”

The problem with these proposed incremental changes is that they aren’t really working as feminists and other activists intended. The Episcopal Church is slowly splintering, the Catholic leadership is maintaining a hard line against feminist reforms, and anti-gay religious coalitions are becoming more strident. In fact, one could argue that not much progress has been made since some initial breakthroughs in the tumultuous 1970s.

I may be biased, but perhaps the best way to challenge the notion of a solitary male-defined deity is to stop participating in the systems that perpetuate it. The dominant monotheisms know how to handle dissenters and heretics, indeed the very history of monotheism is a history of heretical behavior, but empty pews are another matter altogether. If you want to see change, you have to hit them where it hurts, at the collection plate. Reform comes only when the Vatican can’t afford Benedict’s designer clothes. In the meantime, I advise Richard Rodriguez to investigate the wonderful word of polytheism. We have all the women priests, female deities, and gay-friendly rites you could possibly hope for.

My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

Author and ceremonial magician Donald Michael Kraig sings the praises of Silver Raven Wolf for the Llewellyn Journal.

“I was very impressed with what she was doing. Silver and I wrote to each other several times. It was clear to me that she knew more than most people about Paganism, writing, publishing, and marketing. It was inevitable that I would ask her the following question: “So when are you going to write a book?” She was too busy and had never written anything in such a long format, she replied, but I have to admit that I recognized a writer and knew that just as my question and encouragement was inevitable, there would be an inevitable result.”

Kraig, while heartily endorsing RavenWolf’s new book, also discusses how he met her through the (seemingly) now-defunct Wiccan/Pagan Press Alliance. Perhaps, in the age of blogs, e-zines, and podcasts, a new and revitalized press alliance is needed?

Side-Line Magazine interviews Olaf Parusel, the mastermind behind the classic darkwave band sToa, about his band’s new album “Silmand”, stoic philosophy, and working with famed “faerie” musician Louisa John-Krol.

“Louisa and [I] know each other from the old times on [the] Hyperium-Label. Fortunately [the] Internet has enabled us to stay in contact. When Louisa was on tour in Europe, we have met. We have made music together very intensively in that time. For example, we went to a church of a remote monastery high up on a hill, put up a microphone and performed medieval vocal improvisations. It’s the famous monastery found by Konrad of Wettin. Later on I composed music for a historical documentation on Konrad of Wettin and used Louisas phantastic recordings for it.”

To listen to sound samples, check out sToa’s MySpace page. You can also hear tracks from sToa’s latest album “Silmand” on my A Darker Shade of Pagan podcast.

The editorial pages are tackling the thorny free speech and religious expression problems presented in the Summum case currently before the Supreme Court. The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel hopes a solution can be found that “respects this nation’s undeniable Judeo-Christian roots”, while the Austin-American Statesman mulls over the thorny First Amendment problems of letting the Ten Commandments statue remain alone.

“Because the government allowed a memorial to troops who died in the Vietnam War does not mean it also must accept a memorial to those who died opposing it. But a different question arises when the government accepts a religious symbol because the First Amendment prohibits government from establishing a religion. If a monument to the founding tenet of Judaism and Christianity is acceptable in a public space, why are Wiccan pentagles or Summum aphorisms or Mormon angels unacceptable?”

Those two are hardly alone in voicing an opinion. The Concord Monitor says: “Bring it on!” Jewish groups are torn on which side to take according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, while The Week explores editorials that argue if the already existing Ten Commandments monument should be removed. All sides will have a while more to argue, since the justices won’t be handing down a decision on the case until Spring.

The Berkshire Eagle reports that a local Catholic Church had its statue of Mary destroyed. Who are the culprits? Fr. Michael Shershanovich seems to suspect dark occult powers!

“Shershanovich said several black marks had been spray painted on the statue and on the church in the weeks leading up to the desecration, including a pentagram, a five-pointed star synonymous with witchcraft.”

Yes, synonymous with witchcraft, because no other group or organization uses a five-pointed star. In fact, Witches love to roam the night and bash Catholic statues with road signs. That’s just how we roll. Has the secretive, thousands-strong, cult of disturbed teenagers struck again?

In a final note, The Chicago Tribune reports on the precarious fate of religious minorities in Iraq, and how one of them, the Mandaeans, are on the brink of extinction.

“Mandaeans, known as Sabis in Arabic, are just one of several minorities who have historically given Iraq its distinct identity as a cradle of religious diversity. All have suffered disproportionately from the spread of anarchy and extremism in the wake of the U.S. invasion. Iraq’s once-substantial Christian community has seen its numbers dwindle from about 800,000 to 500,000. Yazidis, a lettuce-shunning minority that venerates the forces of good and evil, have been targeted for attacks in their enclaves along the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan. Shabbaks, a Muslim sect that permits alcohol and is neither Sunni nor Shiite, have been persecuted in their ancestral lands near the northern city of Mosul.”

The fruits of a militant monotheism is that all heretics and potential rivals must be eliminated. Once the secular (though evil and tyrannical) government of Saddam Hussein was overthrown and war raged, the old rivalries were able to come to the surface once more. It seems increasingly unlikely that plans to restore the best elements of pre-war secularism will succeed, and many are expecting/fearing Iraq’s future will be as a Islamic Republic in practice, if not necessarily in name.

That is all I have for now, have a great day!

A few weeks ago I linked to an L.A. Times editorial by classical scholar Mary Lefkowitz. Lefkowitz argued for a return to polytheism, specifically Greek polytheism, and extolled its superiority over monotheism.

“Ancient Greek religion gives an account of the world that in many respects is more plausible than that offered by the monotheistic traditions. Greek theology openly discourages blind confidence based on unrealistic hopes that everything will work out in the end. Such healthy skepticism about human intelligence and achievements has never been needed more than it is today.”

You didn’t think the monotheists were going to take that lying down did you? So two* Christian theologians (Paul Capetz, and James A. Sanders) have written a joint editorial in response, singing the praises of monotheism and revealing the supposed failings of polytheism.

“…a few theologians apparently have forgotten all the struggles of the prophets, the sages and Jesus. They cast wistful eyes at what seems like a paradise lost of religious tolerance and inclusiveness that is supposed to have characterized Greco-Roman polytheism but, in truth, never did … Polytheism leaves us with a fragmented world of chaos and a failure to see things as a whole. For that reason, we are convinced that only a genuine monotheism can serve as the basis for a truly inclusive mode of thinking and acting in our time.”

Being Christians, their argument is peppered with scriptural references, and they argue that “genuine” monotheism (as opposed to the aberrant “henotheist-monotheists” who engage in intolerant behavior) is intrinsically superior to polytheism, and provide a typical laundry list of polytheists acting intolerantly (the death of Socrates, Roman persecution of Christians). There are also some obvious flaws in their reply, including the cherry-picking from history, equating Greek polytheism with Roman polytheism, and comparing ancient forms of polytheism with (again cherry-picked) modern Christian ethical thinking.

One wonders if this will be the final word, or if Lefkowitz (or some other pro-polytheist advocate) will be allowed to continue this dialog in the L.A. Times editorial pages. If they do, I’ll be bringing the popcorn for round three!

* Two against one is no doubt the standard protocol when monotheist theologians engage in rhetorical “battle” with a polytheist.

So lets say you run the biggest religion and spirituality web site on the Internet, and you decide to run a cover-story on a Wiccan who just won the lottery. What supplementary articles do you pick to run with the Associate Press story?

B-Net’s balancing act.

“…idolatry, polytheism, and witchcraft are really just three manifestations of the same error – to which, interestingly, Hebrew gives no name. They share the mistaken assumption that divinity can be broken down into discrete entities (gods) and manipulated for our benefit. By contrast, the God of the Bible, a purely spiritual being, must be the ultimate unity and perfectly free to act as He sees fit, unaffected by our attempted manipulations or any other circumstances.”

Before you think I’m about to lay into Beliefnet again, let me just say that I applaud B-Net’s move to balance things out like this. I look forward to articles on why monotheism runs counter to our natural religious impulses by Jordan Paper, or perhaps an essay on the superiority of polytheism by John Michael Greer to “balance” out the next front-page story about something good happening to a Christian or Jew. I mean, fair is fair right? I’m sure B-Net won’t let us down. But you might want to remind them to stay consistent, just in case they forget.

A story on the growing popularity of Pagan prayer beads or “rosaries” has made the rounds to some of the heavy-hitters on the religious Internet. It appeared in somewhat truncated form on Beliefnet and now the media commentary site Get Religion has profiled the story.

“The story does a good job of making it clear that this kind of prayer rite produces a form of spirituality that may seem to create a bridge between different faiths. The experience is similar, as is the yearning for a physical object on which to concentrate while praying. But the contents of the prayers are different, which means the doctrines are different.”

This story brings up all sorts of questions concerning the mixing of Christian ideas with non-Christian faiths. “Christo-pagans” while odd-seeming to many Christians (and in many cases to other Pagans), aren’t really that unusual. When one religion is culturally dominant (as Christianity, in all its forms, is in America) syncretism often occurs among the other religions it encounters. While syncretism is a common occurrence within the history of polytheism, it is still considered very much taboo from a monotheist point of view. This was illustrated recently by Pope Benedict XVI who warned against inter-religious dialog that ventured into syncretism.

“In our world, evermore conditioned by the urgencies of globalization, a deep and demanding dialogue is necessary between cultures and religions. But this is not to diminish them with an impoverishing syncretism; rather, it is to enable them to develop in a climate of reciprocal respect so that each one works, according to its own charism, for the common good.”

These tensions point to very different perspectives on the nature of religious truth. While a polytheist may acknowledge that there are many paths to the divine (though they may think theirs is the best way), generally speaking most monotheist traditions warn against any activity that places foreign practices or powers on an equal level with their own.

“Monotheism was revolutionary and maybe, argues Leonard Shlain in the book “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess,” also dangerous. People who believed in many gods, he argues, respected the gods of other people and expected their gods to be respected in return. But to believe that only one God exists, an abstract God that different people might perceive in different ways, “loosed into the world an odious impulse,” he argues. The question of whose perception of the one deity is the correct one ‘has goaded monotheists to wage war with an intensity and purpose never witnessed in polytheistic cultures.’”

In the end, any lasting peaceful dialog between monotheist and polytheist points of view will have to address this underlying tension concerning the nature of religious truth (is their one or many ways). If this fundamental difference isn’t acknowledged misunderstandings and ongoing adversarial attitudes from both camps could prevail in the long term.