Paganism

Column: Shining like the Sun

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[Columns are a regular weekend feature at The Wild Hunt. Each Friday and Saturday columnists from various backgrounds and traditions share their perspectives and add their insights to the larger conversation in the community. If you like this feature, consider making a small monthly donation or make a one-time donation toward this vital global community venture. Either way, it is your help and your support that keeps daily and dependable news coming to your doorstep each day from wherever its origin.]

It happened a little over a year ago. Suddenly, there was a dead church. It socially collapsed, right there, at the end of my street.

Paganism

Column: The Goddess of Freedom

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[Columns are a regular weekend feature at The Wild Hunt. Each Friday and Saturday columnists from various backgrounds and traditions share their perspectives and add their insights to the larger conversation in the community. If you like this feature, consider making a small monthly donation or make a one-time donation toward this vital global community venture. Either way, it is your help and your support that keeps daily and dependable news coming to your doorstep each day from wherever its origin.]

Back when I was a little kid, something like 20 years ago, my mother took me on a trip to Paris. For about a week, we wandered around the city of lights, visited friends, took the metro, ate crepes, climbed the Eiffel tower and more. On the morning of our last day there, my mother told me we only had time to visit one more place before going home and that I’d have to choose between Disneyland or… the Louvre.

Culture

Column: The Dark Heart of Billy Graham

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On the last day of February and the first day of March, the corpse of evangelical Christian minister Billy Graham was presented for public viewing in the rotunda of the United States Capitol Building. Graham was only the fourth private citizen whose body was honored in a ritual normally reserved for presidents, elected officials, and military officers. The only other exceptions to the rule have been civil rights icon Rosa Parks and two Capitol Police officers who died in the line of duty, Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson. Graham is the first religious leader to be awarded this honor by the government of the United States of America. The first clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Laying out a preacher’s dead body in the central building of the nation’s legislative branch does not establish his form of Christianity as an official federal religion, of course, but it is a bold break with 166 years of tradition at the Capitol, and it clearly gives an official stamp of approval to a man who made his living selling one branch of one faith.

News

Priest Paul Cudby builds bridges between Christians and Pagans

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SHEFFIELD, England — The process of interfaith engagement between the Pagan and the Christian communities in Britain is relatively recent, but is already quite firmly established. Christians have been welcomed into the Druidic orders for some time; there have been at least two members of OBOD who have also been ordained Christian ministers. And, initiatives, such as the joint Pagan/Christian weekend meeting at the Ammerdown Centre – a Christian retreat centre – have proven successful. This is a result of outreach on both sides, and several Christian priests have been at the forefront of contacting Pagans with a view to understanding rather than conversion. One of the central features of this work has been a mutual interest in Forest Church: a means by which Christians engage with the presence of their god within creation by conducting their worship outside through meditation, silences, prayer walks and rituals.

Paganism

Column: Family, Final Rites, and Care-giving

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For every Pagan, Heathen, or Polytheist  who takes care of the ill, the dying, and the loved ones of coven, clan, grove, as well as those who are solitary in their practice, there is the uneven bridge of connection during the time of final rites. Many who come to a variety of Pagan traditions were not born into them; in fact, even for those who are born into a tradition, there may be grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and estranged elders who will attend a ceremony of final rites as a matter of closure. Funeral rites and memorial services are a time of tricky navigation between those who understand and reflect on the importance that the decedent’s faith holds even in matters of death, and those who hold steadfast to tradition from the decedent’s family of origin regardless of how unwanted it may be. For those who have estranged family members, the test is not during a religious holiday such as Christmas, Ramadan, or Rosh Hashanah, but during illness, dying and death. After all, one can escape a family of origin when good health, a safe home, sufficient food, and a good job are present.