I am not 'pagan'

I am a Pagan

My mother was a member of the local Presbyterian church in Pennsylvania where I grew up. When I started Jr. High she encouraged me to join the youth group. I was wary since the last thing I wanted was to get harassed on the weekends, as well as in school. However the leadership stopped anyone from bullying, and the youth pastor was kind and had a true calling to Christian leadership. The other adults who helped out were always there, a consistent, supportive presence. It seemed perfectly reasonable that I would take confirmation classes.

The classes were dreadful.

The required beliefs of Presbyterianism didn’t seem to have any connection to the people who’d been guiding and protecting me for the last two years. These beliefs made me a bad person for the feelings I had, feelings that I didn’t have much control over. Some of those feelings seemed like they might be a good thing rather than a bad thing [such as sexual desire.] The worst part was the [Calvinist] idea that some of us were already saved, and some weren’t and that was that. There was nothing we could do about it.

Conservatives object to the nihilism that can arise from the lack of belief in something greater than ourselves. This is entirely justifiable. However, the idea that some people aren’t going to the happy place and some are, and there’s nothing we can do to change it, is also a recipe for nihilism. I didn’t see myself being the rigid, conforming adult which was my only model of a good Christian person. I couldn’t forgo what I felt in the forest or heard in the stars, or even deny the blooming sexual urges that are a biological fact at that age.

I did the Confirmation but I cried for two hours before it, and through the entire ritual. I didn’t know why.

Later, I realized I desperately wanted it to mean something and it didn’t. The whole thing felt hollow and broken. I decided to look at other religions. I read about Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and others that were more obscure. [Religion continues to be something I study 40 years later, and I got 58 credits into an M. Div. before quitting. Maybe I’ll go back someday.] It was Paganism that spoke to me. The book The New Pagans, by Hans Holtzer [first printed in 1972] left me with chills. The people he interviewed had similar experiences to my own. Most Pagans don’t convert. We recognize what we are.

I have some friends who are ardently Christian. Sometimes they have really [really] incorrect ideas about Pagan religion. The other day one of them posted ‘A 1955 letter sharpens our understanding of what the left’s return to paganism means,’ and tagged me. I could have been offended. A lot of Pagans would have been. That’s a mistake.

I’ve written about what I see as the positive aspects of Christianity here, and about the Mennonite woman who raised me here. I agree with several things the author, Andrea Widberg says. Marxism is a bane on our society and a horrid ideology. Male and female is a primal biological fact and we ignore it at our peril, and human sacrifice and cannibalism are bad. [Apparently, this now needs to be said. Sigh.]

I understand why my Pagan brethren get upset about this sort of misunderstanding and get freaked out about by Christians talking about moral values. They get visions of being burned at the stake. But this post isn’t for my fellow Pagans,* it’s for those Christians who are quite unclear about exactly what Pagan religion is. If you’re going to use words, know what they mean.

Widberg uses the term ‘pagan’ to encompass about anything that isn’t Christianity. Presumably, Jews don’t fall into this category, and Dennis Prager [whom she cites] has a positive view of Judaism. But she’s no more specific than that, and appears to mean ‘people whose views I find abhorrent.’ The word ‘pagan’ comes from the Latin ‘paganus,’ which means rural, or rustic. Christianity rose first in cities, and the people of the countryside were slower to adopt it, so the term became an insult among devout, practicing Christians. It’s worth noting that people who farm tend toward a more conservative view. Conservative, in that change should be viewed with wariness and adopted with caution. [Much as many Christians do now.]

In the middle years of the Roman Empire, Christianity was the new thing, an upstart religion only recently adopted by Constantine. He asked for the Christian god help him win a battle. Upon doing so, he rolled back Diocleatian’s rules for Christians. [This was a good thing, at least by modern standards. Diocleatian was the emperor who slaughtered Christians in large numbers.] But while it was usual in ancient empires for the god of the winning side to be revered and raised above local gods, it doesn’t appear that Constantine did this, and the common people weren’t expected to stop worshiping the gods they knew and related to. Monotheism wasn’t common in the ancient world.

In any case, the things Widberg fears weren’t an issue. Socialism didn’t exist except in communities of Asetics. In the corner of Earth from which Christianity emerged, human sacrifice was no longer acceptable and cannibalism was never a thing. Slavery was already being questioned by the early Greek Stoics and the Jewish Essenes, while even devout Christians still owned slaves. As the Catholic Church spread, it took existing old religious sites and holidays, and co-opted them, changing the original meaning. Augustine even co-opted ancient Pagan theology [we’d call it philosophy] into his City of God.

When talking about ‘paganism,’ Widberg and my Christian friends, see a broad sweep of things that will pull an individual away from Christian moral behavior and toward depravity and darkness. So, I’d like to clarify a few things about my religion.

The modern version of Paganism as a formal religion emerged in Great Britain in the 1950s with Wicca, and branched outward to reclaim some of the ancient religious practices that Christianity had largely wiped out. Gods from Egypt, Greece, and the Viking and Celtic cultures were extracted from mythology, addressed, meditated upon, and given offerings. They answered.

This is not the generalized ‘paganism’ Widberg refers to. Much as many modern Pagans deny it, we all come from a Christianized culture. Not one of us is going to think that human sacrifice or cannibalism is acceptable. The Pagan friends I cherish are people who have moral sensibilities that aren’t so different from Christians’. That being said, I don’t deny we can be misguided about some things, and there aren’t very many of us talking publically about our religion and what it means to us. So, I get why Widberg and others can’t be bothered to make a distinction. We haven’t made it worth her time to do so.

For my part, it’s possible that if my Christian mentors had a clearer explanation of the purpose and value of what they were offering, I might have embraced it. But the reality is that they didn’t. I’m not sure they believed all of what was being taught [especially that predestination thing.] Nothing they offered gave me more solace from my internal pain than being outside and feeling the wind on my skin, the rain on my face, and the earth under my bare feet.

There was also the issue of me being female and there being nothing female in the Christianity of my youth. Humans are not all male. Conservatives are legitimately discussing the differences between male and female but this happens in a space that still claims that god is genderless while always referring to him in the masculine.

Not. Helpful. At 59, I’m still trying to figure out what it means to be female in a world that told me I should want to be male. Christianity went right along with that, offering nothing about how to be a female in the 20th century. [Hint Christians: you need some updated theological thought if you don’t want to keep losing people.]

My bio says I’ve been to Hades in a handbasket more than once. My gods have been with me while this happened. They held me up and kept me from feeling utterly alone. They guided me directly and helped me be a better person. Some Christians would claim that the ancient gods were all demons. They can claim what they like but that’s not my experience.**

I’m interested in theology and in building/rebuilding/reclaiming the theology of polytheism. I think this matters and will write more about it later. I have no problem with Christians expressing their opinion that I’m wrong, and damned. Faith that can’t be challenged isn’t faith.

*I have issues with my religion. But Christians can’t fix Paganism [articles like Widberg’s don’t change minds, but I don’t think that was her intent anyway], any more than I can fix the issues with Christianity. If you’re Pagan you can find my thoughts on the matter at

**I do NOT address the gods for whom human sacrifice was desirable. I don’t see how that’s a good idea and I don’t know anyone Pagan who does.

Selina Rifkin, M.S. [Nutrition], LMT, has been to Hades in a handbasket. More than once. This has given her some opinions. Like most of her generation [X] she’s okay with snark. Most days she tries for good writing. But the snark, and side comments creep in. She lives with her husband, and is Mother of Cats; four boyz and one cranky gurl. Selina has written The Young Woman’s Goodlife Guide: Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 20. Or… Learn From My Pain, and How to Train Your Cat: Using a Clicker and Leash to Keep Your Indoor Cat Happy and Healthy, and the Goodlife Guide to Nutrition.