Can you be a Druid and an Episcopalian?
The controversy over "Pagan" elements on an official Episcopal Church Web site and the husband-and-wife clergy connected with them continues to bubble. Christianity Today's blog has their bishop's statement: the situation is "extremely serious," but there is no rush to the stake, metaphorically speaking. Conservative Anglican bloggers continue to howl for blood. And howl and howl and howl. Notice how they blame the man more than the woman; we know that women are naturally sinful and led astray by the Devil, right?
I suspect that the Revs. Glyn Ruppe-Melnyk (Glispa) and William Melnyk (Oakwyse) are caught up in the Victorian idea of a special "Celtic Christianity," more place-centered and mystical than the Church of England, yet not tainted with Roman Catholicism.
My earlier posts here and here.
The controversy over "Pagan" elements on an official Episcopal Church Web site and the husband-and-wife clergy connected with them continues to bubble. Christianity Today's blog has their bishop's statement: the situation is "extremely serious," but there is no rush to the stake, metaphorically speaking. Conservative Anglican bloggers continue to howl for blood. And howl and howl and howl. Notice how they blame the man more than the woman; we know that women are naturally sinful and led astray by the Devil, right?
I suspect that the Revs. Glyn Ruppe-Melnyk (Glispa) and William Melnyk (Oakwyse) are caught up in the Victorian idea of a special "Celtic Christianity," more place-centered and mystical than the Church of England, yet not tainted with Roman Catholicism.
My earlier posts here and here.
posted by Chas S. Clifton at 9:17 AM Permalink
2 Comments:
Monotheism, by its very definition, says that you cannot be both Christian and pagan, worshipping multiple sets of deities. There are long sections of Old Testament that make it very clear. Where there is accommodation made it is exclusively as a transition from older beliefs to the new dispensation and, where possible, closely supervised.
While a particular pagan belief system (Wicca, Druid, Norse) might allow multiple pantheons, that's just not an option for followers of Christ, never has been. Pagans should be aware of this and understand how offensive such syncretism is to the great majority of christian denominations. It's considered assault, conspiratorial infiltration, something to be stamped out with great urgency and vigor at even the smallest manifestation.
There is a great history of such attempts at pantheon mixing and the nasty consequences thereof. Please don't speak on the issue without a decent understanding of the spiritual risk that christians take in crossing the precedents.
Monotheism may have its definitions, as you say, but I do not write as a monotheist. In fact, I do not accept the notion of human spiritual progress from animism to polytheism to monotheism at all. Monotheism is an inadequate definition of the cosmos, although I can appreciate it when formulated in a Neoplatonic way.
For the practical outcome of monotheism, I refer you to Jonathan Kirsch's recent book God Against the Gods.
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