Pagans, Diversity, and Tolerance

What about Tolerance for Christians?

What about Good and Evil?

What about the the Goddess and God?

How did you become a pagan?

Green Earth Fellowship FAQs

What if you're wrong?

We suggest reading!

INTRODUCTION: Pagans, Diversity, and Tolerance

Most non-pagans in our society are patriarchal monotheists:  Jews, Christians, and Muslims.  English dictionaries define "pagans" negatively, usually as "people who are not Christian" or who "have no religion."  Modern paganism offers a huge sweep of different religious orientations, and so it is easier to define paganism by what it is not (e.g. institutional, monotheistic, patriarchal, religious, salvation-oriented, etc.).  We understand these historically fixed usages as artifacts of 1700 years of Christian hegemony in the Western world, but such definitions of paganism do not help us understand modern neo-paganism.  Today's self-identified pagans emphasize the positive spiritual elements of nature- or earth-based religious practice.  This is an extension of the very old meaning of pagan, country dweller or village dweller, an idea in harmony with the contemporary ecology movement, "green" political action, and a very small-scale focus of religious community.  Because the spirituality of paganism is not grounded in exclusively male ideas of divinity, monotheism, or strict doctrinal practices, the negative definitions of outsiders are not technically incorrect.  It is also the case that many modern pagans have indeed rejected patriarchal monotheism.  This does not mean that pagans all believe the same things.  Indeed, just as Jews, Christians, and Muslims don't agree with each other about theology or liturgy, even within each of their great religious systems, the beliefs and practices within modern paganism are quite diverse.

Most modern pagans also reject Satanism, regarding it as simply another example of patriarchal monotheism.  In fact, the symbolic system used in Satanic religion today was constructed mainly by Christian theologians.  Most modern pagans simply do not believe in the devil, nor that the historical practices of pagan religions were actually "devil" worship.  Even when pagans are preoccupied with issues of "power" or "patriarchal principles," these orientations are not linked to Satan.  These are all difficult points to make with conservative monotheists today, since in their view any practice or belief that rejects the Christian God becomes, by definition, "of the Devil."    In many respects, however, Satan represents too strong a god concept for most pagans.  Polytheists usually have much more limited or "local," and often more metaphorical, conceptions of divinity than do monotheists.  Joseph Campbell explained this difference by reference to the way the ancient Semites, running counter to most cultures, gave emphasis to their "Creator God" over "local gods."  Pagans, on the other hand, are typically preoccupied with the ways divinity is manifest in all things, great and small.  Such differences present difficulties for extreme patriarchal monotheists who give so much emphasis to the individual obligations each human has to the Father/God.

What about Tolerance for Christians?

Because paganism is so diverse, one of the key themes of our private fellowship is tolerance.  We are very open to diverse opinions within our groups. Indeed, some of the strength of a pagan circle comes from the individual abilities brought by each member.  We do not proselytize, since that is inconsistent with most pagan traditions.  We are open to individuals who want to learn about our interests and beliefs, regardless of background.  We can also be publically tolerant of individuals who feel they have a duty to convert others to a particular belief.  Our forbearance, however, does not extend to those who feel compelled to "witness" to our groups, meetings, or observances.  To the extent our members are interested in learning about or discussing "mainstream" religious perspectives, we attend local churches or Sunday schools.  Unfortunately, few people today study Western church history or theology, so they do not realize that polytheism is very much  present in the backgrounds and continuing practices of  Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Pagans are often well grounded in Christian theology, biblical studies, and the history of Western civilization.   Thus, witnessing to pagans can lead to lively discussion and enlightening revelations. Remember, we are pagans by informed choice, not out of ignorance.

The Pagan Campus Ministry serves pagans of basically three orientations:  (a) followers of modern reconstructions of any of the institutional Old World (usually European) polytheistic religions;  (b) followers of historical or extant animistic or "traditional" religions from non-Western cultures in North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean; (c) individual or small group practitioners of witchcraft, "the craft," sorcery, magic, and some so-called "new age" groups.  Following terminology introduced by Isaac Bonewits or Margot Adler, we might call these three kinds of practitioners "historical pagans,"  "anthropological pagans," and "occult or New Age pagans."   None of these generalizations may be applied perfectly, of course, since paganism tends to be much more diverse than, and not necessarily entirely exclusive of the prominent Western religions.

What About Good and Evil?

The fact that many pagans take a relativist view of "good" and "evil" does not mean that they believe in injustice, degredation, or practices of either inhuman self-denial or self-indulgence.  Pagans tend to view "good" and "evil" as depending upon context more than the nature of an action.  In this respect, paganism might be said to be the practice of humanizing ways, an orientation which gives it much in common with non-ascetic Eastern religions.

Because monotheism is "God centered," the Western system tends to take "spirituality" as synonymous with belief in God, or as "acting morally" in a way consistent with a belief in God. This spirituality is typically pursued in the hope of gaining God's reward of eternal life for one's soul--or more usually, of avoiding God's eternal punishment of the soul.  Some pagans share a connection of "spirituality" with belief in "spirit forces" (the "soul," if one prefers).  More often, pagans take "spirituality" to mean something like "just action" or "humanizing spirit" or "empathy."   Pagans seek spiritual connection in small groups of common interests.  Some groups of pagans organize exclusively by gender as a strategy of opening up their members to an "unoppressed" or "unrestricted" humanity.  Though it may seem unjust to some men that women should form exclusively female groups celebrating an exclusively female higher power, these groups can be justified as one kind of reaction to institutional patriarchal religion (just consider the monastic tradition of Catholisicm). Such circles often lead to new levels of openness to people of different gender, social class, or ethnic background.  In this sense, a Dianic coven pursuing witchcraft without men is seen as merely pursuing that aspect of nature most accessible to its members; but even in this exclusivity there may be a purpose of achieving a just complementarity.  Or, as one feminist critic has put it, "the opposite of patriarchy is not matriarchy, it is fraternity."

Our general difficulty with Christian witnesses springs from the provocative attitude with which they typically attack non-believers.  Unfortunately, for all their religiosity,  conservative American Christians tend to be unaware of the long-standing part institutional Christianity has played in the persecution of "outsiders," including minority Christian sects, Jews, and Muslims.  This is hardly surprising, since the scholarship and media surrounding conservative Christianity in particular leaves much history and culture either unvisited or superficially represented.  Without belaboring the details, suffice it to say that there is, today, a rather general ignorance among many Christian believers of such important topics as:  the substance, recitation tradition, and interpretation of Torah; the historical context of Jesus' ministry; the basis of gospel traditions; the ancient conflicts over the concepts of the Trinity; the constructions of Marian virginity for the Church; the origins of and purpose of magical narrative in the Gospels and in Christian theology; the origins of angelic lore in biblical and Christian literature; the borrowed mythic nature of Jesus' infancy narratives; the questions surrounding the resurrection in early Christian theology; the probable Jewish bases for the Eucharist; the unreliability of Pauline testimony; the nature of early non-Pauline Christianity; the tragic sectarian history of the Crusades; the purpose of the Devil in Christian belief and in the establishment of Church authority; the continual and numerous emergence of syncretistic pagan/Christian traditions; and the cultural violence through which Christianity has been imposed upon traditional peoples around the world.

In what appears to some to be an extreme irony, large numbers of pagans espouse a philosophy of "other-orientedness,"  "peace," "friendship to nature," and "tolerance."  For these people, many of the current social and cultural processes of neopaganism parallel the historically documented dynamics of the Christian communities during the time before Christianity became a legitimized, state-sponsored religion.  In the English-speaking world, there are many personalities who represent "traditions" or "paths" within this diffuse and only weakly coordinated Western way.  Though they may use titles like "priest" or "priestess," they typically do so not from an exclusionist point of view.  And commonly within this loosely-defined public perspective, "good" is linked to processes leading to positive humanizing spiritual connection grounded in tolerance, while "evil" is linked to any process that dehumanizes by dividing or imposing hierarchy.   Paganism is the outgrowth of circles and councils, equalitarian discussion, somewhat anarchistic decision-making processes, and resistance of codes of conduct that defy our humanity, individual choice, or nature. This is not to say that all pagans follow perfect equalitarian principles, but just as with Christianity in the 1st Century or Quakerism in the 16th and 17th Centuries, pagans pursue gender equality, communion with the world around us, and a depth of belief consistent with the human rational spirit.

What about the Goddess and God?

These are the reasons many pagans tend to emphasize "the Goddess" as a metaphor of a strong, stable, nurturing, source of our humanity.  Indeed, pagans recast "the God" in his most common historical form, a metaphor of cyclical renewal in union with the Goddess.  While some pagans have looked to the old Egyptian, Greco-Roman or Celtic religions for inspiration, others have looked more deeply into Christian tradition per se.  Clearly, what the 17th century protestants of Western Europe found so offensive in Catholicism, some modern pagans are finding to be a way back into a Goddess-embracing Christianity.  Today, interest in the Goddess has translated into revival of esoteric historical Christian perspectives like the writings of Hildegard von Bingen, study of Marian "thealogy" through the canon and Gnostic gospels, and the establishment of "feminist Christianity" through the reinterpretation of Torah or Gospel laws.  The Goddess is alive and well as Virgin, Mother, and Crone, as is the God as the Son, Lover, and Dying God.  It is this syncretism between neo-paganism and the critical tradition of Christianity which is the most interesting development of the late-20th century.

Is the God secondary in paganism?  As neo-pagan groups have developed and flourished, some have taken an "exclusive" Goddess path, while others maintain something of a "balance" between male and female principles of deity.  While it is true that few modern pagan perspectives take an avowedly patriarchal view of God, there remain some significant "male-oriented" and even "phallocentric" paths among Western and non-Western cultural foundations for paganism.  For most pagans today, the questions surrounding the ideas of God and Goddess pertain to "balances" of emphasis.  But the relative significance of God and Goddess changes throughout the year, and even throughout one's life cycle.  For some of us, the question of how to talk about God and Goddess is not one to be dealt with in a few paragraphs.  We must merely point out that the God and the Goddess are always in the process of change, and remain always complementary, and remain also a whole expression of what they are together.

We tend to view the neo-pagan movement in the United States, Europe, and Australia as a Western "revitalization movement."   Revitalization movements typically attempt to draw together new expressions of old cultural themes at times of crisis, especially when the extant organizations for explaining or dealing with events beyond human control fail.  The "modern period" from the 16th through the 20th centuries was dominated by Western religious institutions, even as it opened the Western world to different cultures and to the horrors of modern technology in the service of warfare.  During that time, revitalization movements were common among the victims of colonialism and Capitalist development; by the late 20th century they had become a subject of considerable anthropological interest.  The 20th century introduced technology, scientific discoveries, historical knowledge, and religious contradictions that have exposed "power" and "patriarchy" as sources of renewal for the most pressing historical threats to humanity: war, pestilence, famine.   Much of the pagan revival is a rejection of the principles which have brought humanity to the brink of self-annihilation.

How did you become a pagan?

There are many stories about how people turn to earth-based religion.  Let us say simply that religion is the enactment of one's theology through metaphorical forms of ritual celebration and daily meditation. Our theology is an expression of the wonderful world in which we live, and through our religion we try to celebrate that world and our place within it.  For most pagans humanity is simply another "part" of the nature in which we find ourselves.   We are not "the reason" for existence, or "above" nature, or endowed with "dominion over" the plants and animals. But we are clever animals, sometimes.  A large part of the practice of paganism, whether historical, traditional, new-age, or of whatever form, is learning about the way the world actually works. Because of our ability to wield tools and ideas, humans have a huge potential impact on the world.  Earth-based religion constantly reminds us to wield those tools and ideas with respect and care.

Although there are many books written about paganism, some offering specific cultural practices as ways of being pagan, most of these books and practices are merely expressions of a much more direct and constant connection between individuals and the imminent universe.  From the world around us to the remote reaches of time and space, we are "connected" with the full sweep of evolutionary processes out of which our world is but a single temporal slice.  We appreciate the human cultural history of which we are a part, and more remotely the animal experience that has shaped our species.  And more remotely still, we appreciate the "cousin" species that surround us in our ecosystems.  But rather than have these phrasings give a wrong impression, we must stress that most pagans are pretty rational people who believe the world is simply what it is.  We have thus come to an understanding that the religious metaphors of our culture are often quite inadequate as expressions of continuing reality.

We find that the religion of Western culture offers a poor guide for building healthy and ethical human relationships.  Too much of modern religion is filled with judgement, exclusion, xenophobia, racism, sexism, guilt, and alienation.   In our view, the priorities are all wrong.  The plan for life many monotheists propose for humanity rejects our animal nature, magnifies the differences between women and men in ways that alienate both, and asserts for humanity an indefensible priority.   Thus, we come to rationally reject the ideas of a single creator God, the centrality of the earth in the universe, and the primacy of humanity in creation--all realizations fully consistent with the scientific discoveries of our age.  Are the Father-God and the religious institutions built around His primacy proper metaphors for explaining the world as we know it through experience?  We believe not.  Is the humanly-created biblical account of origins an adequate or believable source of or justification for modern religious precepts?  Again, we believe not. But if we may only express what is outside ourselves through metaphors, then we believe we must choose our metaphors very carefully.

For many people in the neo-pagan community, we became pagan as we awakened to the inconsistencies of the theology and spiritual culture in which we were raised.  Most of us become a little more pagan every time we are witnessed to, attacked, or rejected.  As a result of these realizations, many modern pagans have simply regrounded themselves in a love of the earth, identification with our sister species, and appreciation of each other.   The process of "becoming" pagan is sometimes one of many years of gradual change and growth, of reading and seeking through meditation and study.  For many contemporary pagans, it has also been a process of unlearning religious ideas that are deeply ingrained in us as children, but which are inconsistent with a healthy earth and responsible human relationships.  Only in recent decades have many children been raised without the misguided theocracy of Western patriarchal structures.  Central to modern "earth spirituality" is a connection of our world with a "maternal" or "nurturing" metaphor. In many groups this becomes an explicit "ecofeminism" or "deep ecology" perspective.  Women's and environmental themes are common in the historical and ethical writings of neo-pagan authors.

The embrace of the Goddess sometimes leads to a complete rejection of patriarchy, sometimes not; but whether partial or complete, those who identify as "pagan" still have strong beliefs parallel to significant Muslim, Christian or Jewish thinkers.  Neo-pagan thought can become a spiritual philosophy only slightly removed from the ethical core of Father-centered religious thought.  Like the relationship of the Samaritans to the temple community of Jerusalem in the first century, some neo-pagan thinkers are not even metaphorically far from their fellows in the mainstream Christian community.  On the other hand, there are many points of substance which present nearly unbridgeable differences between contemporary pagan and Western monotheistic worlds.  Given such differences, pagan forbearance in the face of agressive attacks by zealous fundamentalists often gives way to self-isolation, paranoid counter-attacks, or generalized open hostility.  Everyone has their own struggle.  It is the spiritual task of the modern pagan resist being defensive, frustrated, or touchy over issues which mean so much to our lives.

Green Earth Fellowship FAQs

1.  Are you a sanctioned university organization? Yes. The Green Earth Fellowship is a pagan campus ministry that is recognized by the UWF Division of Student Affairs.  We are one of three such organizations in the Florida SUS (see our links page).  Our constitution reflects revisions by different groups of students over the past ten years, and our membership is always drawn mainly from students at UWF.  Although the active membership of the group is small, the number of pagan students who occasionally attend meetings and circles is much larger.  The current membership is the most public and active group in the history of our organization.  As a public pagan student organization, our activities are protected by all of the support institutions of the university.  We have a strong working relationship with other student groups, the division of Student Affairs, the Recreation Department, the University Police, and community pagan groups outside the university.

2.  Does Green Earth Fellowship sponsor public programs?  Yes.  All of our activities are open to public participation.  This web-site is the primary vehicle through which we inform our members when they cannot attend meetings.  The regular meetings are on every Tuesday evening at 7:00, usually in room 125 of building 13 on the UWF campus.  We sometimes move the meeting to other locations on campus for special circles, lectures, or activities.  We also hold regular religious services on each of the solar holidays.  These are announced on the web page and at meetings.  Most of these observances are held at the Oak Grove, a picnic area on the UWF campus.  We strongly urge interested individuals to attend our regular meetings before attending circles.
This is so we may orient new members and visitors on circle etiquette, provide exact directions to the meeting place, and integrate new people into the pot-luck dinner preparations.

3. Does Green Earth Fellowship follow a particular path? No.  The fellowship is a pagan ministry designed to support the needs of pagans of diverse backgrounds.  We follow a changing pattern of eclectic observances, occasionally reproduced in written form as part of our "liturgy project."  Our earth-centered religious observances thus constitute a group-directed learning and study process.  Students who participate in meetings plan and enact the activities at our circles.

4.  Is the Green Earth Fellowship a "coven"? No.  Although some members of the fellowship are members of covens, the fellowship itself is a public organization with no initiations, dues, or hierarchic organization.  Indeed, we are something of a "dis-organization," though our information activities on campus and in the community involve strong commitments from our membership.  See our constitution.

5.  Can children attend Green Earth Fellowship activities? Yes.  But children must be accompanied by legally responsible adults.  We are strongly family centered, but we are not a teaching organization for young people wanting to learn about paganism as solitaries.  There are several children who attend regular meetings with their parents.  We have had children as young as three in attendance at circles.  We do ask that parents control their very young children during activities.  We also try to integrate older children into the observances as much as possible.  If someone is coming to our meetings or circles, we expect that they will be prepared to participate fully.

Watch here for more FAQs as they develop.... These items were last edited on 11 May, 2001
 

What if you're wrong?

We've been asked this question a lot by committed Christians.  From our point of view, knowledge and life are not so clear cut as "wrong" and "right."  We know that isn't satisfying to many people, so that usually prompts us to answer by asking:  "Well, what if you are wrong?"   Then people can feel how audacious the question is.   One of the things about growing up in a traditional community (i.e., "a community with a narrow cultural viewpoint") is that one is not taught to question one's own premises.  We neo-pagan types tend always to be second-guessing ourselves, because most of us don't agree on much and are thus constantly engaged in critical discussion.  Within most churches this doesn't happen.  There are discussions, to be sure, within relatively secure islands of received opinion.  But institutional doctrines today are not discussed with half as much rigor as "the divinity of Jesus" was at the council of Nicea in 325 CE (and the Nicene creed did nothing to resolve the issue).  And, typically, ordinary congregants are never really informed of what the real theologians of their denominations are writing or thinking (If they were, the artifice of the denominational dogmas would be exposed and the whole system of faith would come crashing down.).  But we are not here to destroy anybody's faith, are we?  We simply say, believe what you want. And act on it, as long as you don't hurt anybody.  But don't try to act like your view is "God's truth" just because a lot of people say they believe the same thing.  Believing the same thing as a large group is comfortable because there is lots of reinforcement and nobody ends up asking too many questions.  One thing is certain, a large majority of those who got thrown out of Sunday school or catechism because they asked too many questions are pagans today, because they just went on asking questions.  It must be difficult to lose all of the best students.  But such testimony and affirmation is not a basis for claiming that our knowledge is any better than anyone else's.  Suffice it to say that being thought to be wrong by others is something that inquiring people get used to pretty quickly.