Quest article on Paganism

This is an article by Shirley Ann Ranck, interim minister of Marin Fellowship (Unitarian Universalist) in San Rafael, California, USA. It is from "Quest", the monthly newsletter for religious liberals published by the Church of the Larger Fellowship, Unitarian Universalist. You may reproduce it, provided credit is given to the author and to the Church of the Larger Fellowship, 25 Beacon Street, Boston Massachusetts 02108, USA. Phone: 617-742-2100.

In many parts of the country, Pagan groups are forming and they provide a religious alternative to Judaism, Christianity and the religions of the Far East. Old myths are being re-told and reinterpreted to meet the needs of people today. This revival and transformation of old Pagan traditions is of interest to Unitarian Universalists in at least three ways:

• The first is what we might call the internalization of religion. Contemporary Pagans speak of the God or Goddess within each of us. Their rituals are intended to awaken a heightened sense of wholeness and selfhood. "Thou art Goddess," they say to each other; "thou art God." They practice a religion that places divinity within the person. Myths are accepted as ways of telling the story of our inner journeys.

  Since the divine is experienced as internal, it is described in female as well as male terms. In the Old Religion of the ancient word, for many thousands of years the chief deity was female, because the female was experienced as the primary source of new life. She was sacred.

  UUs have for the most part rejected belief in a supernatural God while insisting that we are religious people. Like the Pagans we too tend to describe the divine as internal, as a spiritual journey toward full selfhood, toward awareness of our potential. We come together much as the Pagan covens do, to share our stories and to work on the questions we have about life.

• The second way in which the contemporary pagan religion is of interest to us is in its concern for the well- being of the earth. Just as the divine is within human beings as the shape of our creativity, so also is the divine immanent in all of nature. Pagans, like many UUs, see themselves as interdependent or connected with every part of the natural world. Such a view has not been characteristic of Judaism or Christianity. These traditions have tended to keep God separate from the world, and human beings separate from the rest of nature. We have taken the position either that God created us at the beginning of time to rule over nature, or that we have evolved as the ultimate achievement of nature and are therefore superior to all the rest and should be in control of it. Neither of these views does much to put us in harmony with the rest of nature.

  Pagans celebrate the cycles of nature, the seasons, the waxing and waning of the moon, the life stages of human beings. And they combine these celebrations with a modern scientific understanding of the way things change. For many UUs, Christmas has become a celebration of the winter solstice and Easter a celebration of the spring equinox. In moving away from the idea of a divine savior, we have returned to the more ancient awareness of religion as our relationship with the cycles of the natural world. This emphasis is crucial if we are to avoid complete ecological disaster.

• A third characteristic of Pagan religion is its non-authoritarian attitude. Leadership is shared, and there is no hierarchy. Freedom and responsibility for ones own life and belief is central just as it is for UUs. Do as you will so long as you harm no one is the rule of Pagan religion. There are no creeds, no scriptures handed down. The creativity within each person is tapped, and new poetry, new meditations, new stories are written.

Perhaps it should not surprise us that our values make us kindred spirits with Pagans. These values may seem familiar and comfortable to us, but they are by no means accepted in the world at large. We need tremendous inner strength and power and many kindred spirits to face the world with the values we profess: an understanding of the divine as residing in us and in all of nature as the creative potential, a profound concern for the earth, and a commitment to the freedom of all persons to take responsibility for their own lives.

Last uploaded on June 16, 1996.
(c) 1996 Alan Hamilton <alan@spdcc.com>
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