The American experiment has always been imperfect.
From the founders who declared “all men are created equal” while owning slaves, to the “great emancipator” allowing slavery to continue in allied states, to the leaders who fought the racist Third Reich while enforcing segregation in our own armed forces, to the “pro-life” activists committing premeditated murders, we have always been a nation with a wide disparity between our self-aggrandizing rhetoric as torchbearers of freedom and our actions as defenders of oppression.
Yes, the United States of America today are deeply divided. Yes, it can seem like the power of hatred is overwhelming.
It has been ever so.
“To speak up for democracy, read up on democracy”: WPA poster, between 1935 and 1943 (Library of Congress)
There is no need for shocked pearl-clutching at the various contradictions and crises we face today. Instead, there is need for each of us to stand against the rising tide of anti-democratic and hate-driven activity that surges around us.
Whether we will or no, religion is central to this forever war within American culture.
Identity
The religious have always played a role in this nation’s internal conflicts. They have invoked a lone god and godliness all along the spectrum from right to left, insisting that the teachings of their faiths justify both granting rights and taking them away, both ensuring equality and promoting privilege.
Simply insisting on the complete separation of religion and politics doesn’t accomplish much.
Faith is a part of identity. For many, it is an enormous part. To say that it should have no role in how we live our public lives is as much a dead-end as insisting that other aspects of who we are should play no part.
The religious portion of our identities necessarily shapes as much of our experiences and forms as much of our worldviews as do our ethnicities, races, genders, sexualities, abilities, and health. To pretend that we can simply turn any one of these facets of our lived lives on and off at will is to fundamentally deny the complexity of our intersectional identities.
I do not mean that we should legislate our belief systems or enforce holy law on others. We have had more than enough of that approach.
As someone who thinks a lot about the knowability of ancient religious worldview, the possibility of modern religious worldview, and the intelligibility of public theology informed by the first and built on the second, I mean that any religious worldview that we truly and honestly hold will, by definition, affect how we view public life and our place in it.
The question is, what difference does it make when one is a member of a minority religion instead of a majority one?
Experience
If we are at all serious about having a Pagan, Ásatrú, Heathen, or related worldview that is threaded through our lives – that is, one that colors our perception at times other than only during ritual activity – that worldview should already have a strong effect on how we relate to the public issues we face today.
If we really have this worldview as part of us, and not just as a something we put on like Viking-ish ritual dress when performing group rites, it should not take conscious effort but should flow naturally from our study, reflection, discussion, and practice.
Now, even those claiming to share a worldview aren’t predetermined to agree on how their participation in the same or related new religious movement shapes their understanding of specific issues. Pagans and Heathens are an argumentative lot, especially when challenged on their own prejudices.
Yet we all share, at least, the general common experience of belonging to religious traditions so small that they disappear into “other,” “unaffiliated,” and even “none” in the big surveys of religion in American public life. Many of us have had the experience of being ignored by, or excluded from, “interfaith” organizations and events, of being treated as if our faiths have no place in the public sphere. Some of us have been treated as outsiders in our own families, or have felt obliged to hide our religious affiliations at work and in daily life.
Hopefully, these experiences have built a sensibility that flowers into understanding, empathy, and determination to defend democratic ideals.
Freedom
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Witch. But I think a lot about the Wiccan Rede.
“An’ it harm none, do what ye will.”
Admittedly, I first came across the phrase “do what thou wilt” via my Led Zeppelin obsession as a 1980s rock ‘n’ roll high school kid. In those long-ago pre-internet days, I just knew it was a phrase inscribed on the vinyl of Led Zeppelin III and connected to Jimmy Page’s fascination with some strange dude named Aleister Crowley.
I wasn’t consciously aware of the Wiccan phrase until after I began practicing Ásatrú in the 21st century, but it pops into my head a lot these days.
There is much talk of freedom in the United States right now, but it’s not a conception of freedom that I can get behind. So many of our fellow Americans embrace the “do what ye will” part while gleefully stomping on the “an’ it harm none” bit.
The freedom to vote has been twisted into the disenfranchisement of those considered likely to vote for the other side. The freedom of a community to be honestly represented has been jettisoned by gerrymandering that specifically breaks up minority communities to dilute their political input.
The freedom of democratic debate has been denigrated by those promoting armed insurrection to overthrow the electoral process. The freedom of working together for the common good has been ridiculed by self-obsessed grifters and their willing victims.
The freedom of bodily autonomy has morphed into the bizarre pairing of determinedly controlling women’s bodies while boastfully flouting all pandemic mitigations. The freedom of living a healthy life has been abandoned for the dark joys of tormenting those who follow the advice of medical professionals, even when ignoring that advice means the death of loved ones or oneself.
How does membership and participation in minority religions, new religious movements, and often misunderstood and misrepresented faith communities feed into our relationship to today’s anti-democratic movements that falsely wave the banner of “freedom”?
Faith
For those subscribing to the Wiccan Rede, it is as simple as insisting on both halves of the maxim. It’s such a wonderfully basic diagnostic that can be used to examine so many of the problems in the public sphere today.
For those who practice Ásatrú, Heathenry, or other modern Pagan traditions, there must be some serious moments of reflection, discussion, and self-interrogation.
Do the texts of our specific religious traditions have anything to say about working for the common good? Are there teachings that address the need for community and the responsibility to help others?
Does the historical record of ancient practitioners suggest that joining together in discussion and debate was valued? Was the rule of law respected in a way that protected the community from the harmful selfishness of callous individuals?
In the modern faiths that reconstruct, recreate, and reimagine the old polytheist religions, is diversity of fundamental importance as a lived value and pillar of community structure? What have our communities done to affirmatively build diverse memberships?
How have negative experiences of religious prejudice directed at us shaped our understanding of majority-minority dynamics in the United States? How have these experiences encouraged empathy for the challenges of those considered minorities by other measures?
We don’t practice ancient religions. We are members of new religious movements that are informed and inspired by what we know of ancient practice. When we address questions of democracy, it’s important to consider both the ancient and the modern – to learn from the past but to act in the present.
I believe that there is a place for faith in democracy. We can bring our religious worldview into play when we consider the problems we face today, and we can let our faith in democracy itself motivate us to mobilize our religious communities in positive ways to take beneficial actions that support our democratic institutions rather than standing by and watching democracy be burned down.
Our experiences as members of religious communities can inform our actions as members of civil communities. We have much to contribute when our faith drives us to take positive action in defense of our social structure.
Let us have the will to do not only what harms none but what actively helps our fellows in this shared land of ours as we act on our faith in democracy.
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