Sorry to be picky, but there is no "Book of the Revelations" plural. It is simply "The Revelation." Or "The Apocalypse" . . . the first word of the book.
Yes, but they were wrong--as about many other things. You can look it up. As Proverbs 19:20 says, "Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise" . . . and that is Proverbs with an s.
Thanks for the mention. I'd like to talk to you about this 'wild Christianity' one day. Still a very germinal notion - and of course not a new one, only a clearing away of the leaves and moss from a very old one. But I think it's becoming clearer, and it is exciting, to me at least.
Another Orthodox writer following the same scent, if you've not come across him, is Graham Pardun, one of your countrymen:
This is very topical; thanks for suspending the paywall, although I agree your work is worth paying for, and will eventually subscribe.
Just last night my half-American child and I were talking about how the culture of Catholicism has changed more in my lifetime than in ten of my grandmothers put together. She was lamenting how many young American priests have their heads buried in the internet to the degree that they’re alienating the young, who want the old cultural touchstones (fire, crypts, Mozart, feasts) oriented around “love others as I have loved you,” and not sermons that sound like Reddit threads interspersed with horrible anodyne worship leader music.
More than ever, American youth are looking backward; they don’t seem to have much hope in the future, but can we really blame them? Hopefully as they grow up some of them will keep on looking past the vintage clothing and the old films for their inspiration, and into the big wild world.
My favorite part of the essay is the news that your sister and family will become your neighbors. This is the kind of intention/action that will bring the world turning. Thank you
This is an interesting essay. It really threw me into thinking about a phenomenon which I both somewhat admire and ruthlessly mock: the way in which black metal artists often restrict the number of copies of their music and/ or use outdated and terrible production techniques to drive away the casual listener. As much as I love to mock such kvlt idiots who participate in excessive kvlt-ness for kvlt points, I find something deeply beautiful in the rejection of commercialism and expansionist notions popularity and worth. There is no one song to rule them all, but there is and there should be always new bands, new songs, and new ways of seeing and describing the world. What is valuable is not capturing the attention of millions for a three minute song, but reaching out to the 1, 5 or 500 other people in the world who find your 10,000th description of the joys of freezing to death in the forest compelling. It’s finding the people who want to hear your fifteen minute wind-howling-through-the-forest-and-piano intro. And it’s those people going on to create their own songs. Because that is what I was thinking of as I read about American hegemony- that while popular culture spreads from America to the world, other cultural expressions are far more reciprocal. I’m American and my favorite bands are Canadian, Finnish, Australian, Indian (both kinds), Belarusian, Greek, and Portuguese. I’m finding more and more bands singing in their native languages rather than English.
As far as wild Christianity: I’m not convinced. On the one hand, I love the idea. On the other hand, I find the reality to be less than impressive. I do a lot of homesteading and farming and those communities are full of Christians. And often Christians who are not concerned with converting the world or forcing their ideas on anyone. Which I think is fine in a European context where the church and Christianity no longer are a credible political threat. But here in the US, unfortunately , the situation is not there. I find Satanism to be a wonderful litmus test. Make a casual reference to it or jokingly hail Satan and you’ll find out real quick whether you are dealing with a Christian who has put fear and hate on the back burner. Experience as a metalhead says: maybe one in a hundred Christians have really moved on from identifying with the Christofascist project. And that’s in America. Most of my favorite musicians have been jailed on charges of Satanism in some godforsaken Eastern European country. Seriously, before you throw in too hard with Christians who talk a tolerant game, look up some of the shit that has happened to those who talk too much Satanism (real or just trolling Christians). And that’s just what makes the news. There’s plenty of Christian terrorism left in the US and in the more Christian parts of Europe, so let the Christians take care of their own. They seem to be good at that. And I won’t get too far into the damage done to young women growing up in Christian families. Suffice it to say that gay men have nothing on Baptist women when it comes to self-hatred rooted in their sexuality. Maybe there are some things we should be intolerant of.
'Make a casual reference to it or jokingly hail Satan and you’ll find out real quick whether you are dealing with a Christian who has put fear and hate on the back burner. Experience as a metalhead says: maybe one in a hundred Christians have really moved on from identifying with the Christofascist project.'
You are right to say that Christians don't tolerate the devil. That's kind of the first lesson.
Satan in the Christian tradition is the enemy of God, life, light and goodness. He creates evil and draws all that he can into it. This is very real. That is the tradition that 'Satanists' in the West are drawing on, either to provoke or - worse - because they genuinely lean in that direction. Why should any Christian 'tolerate' this? Not only is it a deliberate provocation, but it is one which, to a genuine Christian, will create a deep heartache and a real pain and fear.
Is it 'fascism' to oppose the enemy of all that Christians (and Muslims, and Jews) hold to be true and good?
Ironically, you end your complaint about the intolerance of Christians by writing, 'Maybe there are some things we should be intolerant of.' I think everyone believes this to be true. The only question is what should not be tolerated. This is why we currently have a culture war.
I would suggest that both you and Anne are mutually suffering from American exceptionalism here. Anne, who is in the United States, experiences a completely different "Satan" than anything you would recognize, Paul. This I can attest to from personal experience.
The Protestant Devil that most are talking about in the US looks like the Satan of Cotton Mather to which I referred in my previous installment of The Mysteria. In fact, if you were to replace the words "fascist" or "transphobe" with "satanic" in the posts, essays, and rants of the US Woke, you could get a very close sense of how American Christians conceive of Satan. For them, everything that is not their particular brand of schismatic Christianity (Southern Baptist versus American Baptist, Pre-millenial rapturists versus post-millenial) is "of Satan."
In fact, it was precisely the way that the US Woke seemed to mimic Evangelicals and Fundamentalists which first made me understand there was something very American and religious happening for the Woke.
On the other hand, Anne likely doesn't have the experience of comparison. Anne's experience of Christians in the US is like mine, but it's the opposite of my experience of them here. I know of no European catholics who believe Satan is hiding in their cereal box or the Netflix logo, nor do I know of any who would react angrily to such jokes. They definitely believe there is a Satan, but there's is a much less terrified obsession and more a confident assurance that their God protects them from him.
That's interesting, thanks Rhyd. I agree with your analysis of wokeness, which is obviously a strain of Christian puritanism of the worst kind, without even the saving grace of Christ to leaven it with forgiveness and a demand to turn the other cheek. I know much less about this particular American brand of 'Christianity', except from afar. The US really is another country.
Mind you, I do know a bit more about heavy metal subcultures - or I did, back in the stone age - and the British version always went in very heavy on the Satanic imagery. Very edgy it was too to us 1980s teenagers. Needless to say that these days I see it rather differently. Not as a threat to civilisation so much as a whole generation without spiritual moorings being duped into something much darker than they know.
"The Protestant Devil that most are talking about in the US looks like the Satan of Cotton Mather to which I referred in my previous installment of The Mysteria. In fact, if you were to replace the words "fascist" or "transphobe" with "satanic" in the posts, essays, and rants of the US Woke, you could get a very close sense of how American Christians conceive of Satan."
The term "woke" apparently originally meant seeing through the illusions of racist America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke Later, it's ethos expanded to include other marginalized people -- gay, lesbian, queer ... and other marginalized ethnic groups, etc.
America's right wing traditionalists began, soon after, to characterize "woke" in the fashion characterized here. And now we have "anti-wokism" as a general dismissal and mischarictarization of the originating ethos of universal justice, kindness and love.
Woke ideology, analyzed from the perspective of a leftist, is the subject of my upcoming book. To be clear , it’s not “anti-Wokism” as in the American right version. The Marxist left rejects this kind of identitarianism from both the woke and the anti-woke.
I hear you -- and understand -- brother Rhyd. My point is that in the mean time, from the beginning of 'woke' as a term to now, is that the term became a floating signifier. It means what the users mean it to mean, and since that means a thousand things, the term has become useless and pointless. It means nothing at all.
But--BUT--Please do comment upon it. I do not wish you to flush your book down the toilet! Just know that it means only what you mean to mean by it. You're a good man. I trust that.
By the way, I'm "a leftist" -- also now a floating signifier.
Well, this is a super interesting discussion, and one I am sad to be having while sick and less than my best. Paul, I hope you will try to understand my intent since my words may be as weak as my cough syrup seems to be at the present.
First, Rhyd, I think you are spot on in expressing the difference between what Paul experiences within Christianity and my experience. That said, I do not think American is quite as exceptional as you claim. Russia’s current regime is wound up with the old church. Belarus, Poland, and Georgia (the European one) have arrested alleged “Satanists”. I don’t believe in a linear timeline of history, where Christian superstition is replaced by science and reason, and so I see America, Russia, and other authoritarianly religious countries not as backwaters to progress but as another direction Christianity as a whole could take.
Paul, I think you are missing a critical piece here. The point of hailing Satan to see how Christians react is to see if they can step out their Christian prejudices and privileges and see their religion as just another religion. Sure, Satan can be an embodiment of all evil, but he can also be seen as Lucifer Lightbringer, or as an irrelevant fairy-tale. When you invest a word- Satan- with that level of power over you, you create the dark force you seek to oppose. More crimes have always been committed in the name of fighting Satan than in the name of Satan. I prefer to surround myself with people who judge based on actions rather than words. I look at all the Satanic crimes ever committed and I compare them to the crimes committed by those of any other faith and must conclude that “Satanism” is just another word which can inspire evil or good, just as “Christian” or “Buddhist” or “Marxist” can. As Jesus said: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” So long as Christians are drawing the battlelines of good vs evil based on words: “Christian” or “Satanist”, they are projecting their own internal struggles upon others. That projection is the basis of dehumanizing other people. Other people can be hurt, tortured, or killed because the harmer sees in them the traits in himself he would like to hurt or remove. So long as “Satan” lives outside yourself, you are a threat to others and a greater threat given that so many are willing to join in on slaughtering the scapegoat. I would say the genius I find in metal is the acknowledgment that “Satan” (meaning the evil interpretation this time) lives in everyone. He may also be an external force seen in warfare, power, and industrialism, but even when we oppose those things, Satan lives in our hearts. There is no utopia, no force of pure good, no army of God/ good. There are just collections of humans who must always be aware of our own capacity to become a dangerous mobs trying to kill in another what we hate in ourselves. I hope this made some sense, and I apologize for my poor words today. Fifth disease is a nasty thing to get as an adult.
On the point of intolerance, I would say what we should be intolerant of is power. I find it deadly ironic that all the people accusing metalheads of evil and Satanism fail to realize that if we had a prophet, it would be Tolkien- a Christian anarchist. I would say that all forms of power corrupt. Power over women corrupted men, power over nature corrupted humans. Power over POC corrupted many white cultures (the American South is still a shitshow for example). Ethics and morality consist of renouncing power. This is where I doubt the ability of Christianity as constituted to adapt- can Christians drop the idea of the hierarchy of beings with ameobas to fish to mammals to women to men to God? Can they see that Lucifer was right to challenge hierarchy as a basis for spirituality? And I’m doing so, can they integrate Satan back into their own psyches and control their own evil (remember for a second that the Hebrew cognate to Satan was a part of Yahweh- an aspect that tested people)?
The difference here between your view and mine, Anne, is very deep but it isn't politial or cultural, so much as theological. I don't know you, or your faith, if you have one, so I can't judge or comment on that, only on the words here (which is so much of the problem of the Internet as a whole.) Even just based on this, however, the gulf is obvious. It's about an understanding of what the cosmos is.
I am seeing here a modern (or post-modern) worldview, which suggests that forces in the external world are 'projections' of inner forces present in the individual. On this basis, I presume, religions or faiths are also projections of this kind. So notions like 'God' or 'Jesus' or 'Satan', or for that matter 'Vishnu' or 'Allah' or 'Odin' are not entities as such, but simply projections, idols, ideas, manifestations of inner states. For example, you say:
'The point of hailing Satan to see how Christians react is to see if they can step out their Christian prejudices and privileges and see their religion as just another religion. Sure, Satan can be an embodiment of all evil, but he can also be seen as Lucifer Lightbringer, or as an irrelevant fairy-tale.'
As I say, this is probably the most common understanding of religion today in the po-mo West. In this worldview, there is no 'Satan', really, except as an idea, and we can argue over what it represents.
But no Christian can accept this. They (we) cannot see their faith as 'just another relgion' because at its heart is a unique claim: that God took human form and walked amongst us, and that his death and resurrection conquered death itself, and broke the chains that had previously held humanity in bondage. What were those chains? They were sin and death, and they were bound around by this figure who, in the gospels, is referred to as 'the Satan' - literally 'the adversary.' To a Christian, this figure is not an inner state but a real force. The Christian cosmos, like the Jewish one before it, posits a universe which is in a constant state of spiritual warfare. This 'adversary', a created being himself, and his allies, which often enough includes us, is in rebellion against God. Darkness is in rebellion against light (as a Tolkein fan you will recognise the motif.) That's the Christian understanding of reality, and has been from the beginning.
So on that basis it should be clear why Christ is not just another 'teacher' to any of his followers, and why the path he laid out (not a 'religion' in the modern sense in its early form, and perhaps not even now) is not just one path amongst many equally valid ones, but the one which supersedes all others and fulfills them (note that it doesn't necessarily negate them or condemn them - unless they're Satanic of course ...) It should also be obvious why Satan is not a joke, and can never be tolerated. His desire is always to twist and break the culture and its people, and turn it towards the dark.
This explains, even if it doesn't justify in your view, some of what you speak about. It also explains why no Christian is ever going to be 'integrating Satan back into their own psyche.' Not just because the whole Christian path is designed to expel him from it (that's called exorcism) but because ... well, because that would be exactly what he wanted ;-)
You may regard all of this as mad or bad, but I hope it might explain at least why your worldview is never going to fly with a Christian - or a Muslim or Jew come to that. Having said that - and this is important - the correct Christian response to this is to defend the faith and stand firm in truth, but also not to return evil with evil, and to love neighbour and enemy. Plenty of Christians have failed in that regard over the years. We're all fallen.
As for power - well, it's never going to go away. It's part of our human condition. But when we in the West criticise excess power and defend the meek and marginal (as we should) we are running a purely Christian script. The radical thing about the Gospel is that, if you believe that Christ spoke as God, then God's teaching is that all the power structures of the earthly realm are overturned in his kingdom. Blessed are the meek, woe to those who are rich. I always liked the song of the Virgin Mary when she learned what she was about to be gifted:
'He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
I think it comes back to whether you judge by words or by actions. All these words about what you believe Satan to be, about how Christians see the world. I could answer each point, but I think Vine Deloria, Jr laid out everything I could say far more persuasively and with less metalhead trolling in “God is Red: A Native View of Religion”. His book is probably not nearly so well known in Europe, and you need not fear that he is anti-Christian or a Satanist. He gave up Christianity for his people’s religion after becoming a well-respected theologian. He continued to have sympathy and respect for Christians his whole life. I think you might benefit from understanding his perspective, as I think it also speaks to those who see both good and bad in Christianity but have no desire to sign up for the Army of God.
See, that is the main problem I have with Christianity: the view that we are engaged in spiritual warfare. War is hell. And the psychology of warfare is to treat new/ other things with suspicion and to accept a certain amount of collateral damage. Tradeoffs are necessary in war. So it become necessary to destroy the village to save it. Or to burn the witch rather than let Satan get a threshold. During war, ordinary due process is suspended and rather than welcoming strangers and giving them the benefit of the doubt, it makes sense to lock them up in internment camps and to defer humanitarian concerns to a better time. But, in the case of spiritual warfare, another time never comes. The war is never over. Those who advocate for peace or decry the horrors of war might just not be committed enough to the cause. Or maybe they are secretly plants for the other side. Better round them up too. Warfare is the worst possible metaphor for a spiritual life, and the religions based upon it have simply engulfed the world in war. I hope you will think about that, about whether the theology of spiritual warfare and believing Satan is wandering around trying to do evil has brought good or evil into this world. If the theology of spiritual warfare is a good tree, it could not have brought forth such fruit. And that is not to say that all Christians but into spiritual warfare. But pinging them with a “Hail Satan” let’s me know who has beaten their spiritual swords into plowshares and who is facing the world with fear and hate in their hearts. Perhaps you should consider joining the former group. Just consider how much more power Satan has among Christians than among metalheads when we can hail Satan and have brotherhood and tolerance while the words “hail Satan” invoke violence from Christians?
As far as post modernism, I am not a scholar and hesitate to claim agreement with ideas I’ve not personally studied. However, based on your description, I would say I tend to agree that most religions as modern humans relate to them are based upon internal forces and the balancing of internal psychological archetypes or whatever you call them. That said, I think religion has devolved from communion with the divine to the moving around of anthropomorphic pieces on some sort of internal chessboard. And that is why religion is dying. Religion was meant to break our minds of our own importance and it has become a pack of self-indulgent fairy tales about the universe giving a shit about us. The divine doesn’t exist to be our therapist or our mama. We are the fleas the live on the scum that floats on the surface of a ball of magma. The one and only great moral code is that we must be worthy of the lives we take- plant, animal, and fungi- to sustain our own.
As far as power- no it will never go away. That does not justify using it. That was kind of the point of Lord of the Rings. Boromir thought he could power to defend from evil but in doing so he would have become evil. No one can wield power for good. There will always be power, but it is possible to put checks and balances upon it. Many cultures made respect and honor contingent upon giving to the community. Many societies had checks and balances between the power of men and women (tribes where male leaders are chosen by old women, for example). To excuse the use of power by claiming power will always exist is simply to justify giving in to temptation.
Well, fair enough. In the end, it comes down to what we believe to be true about the shape of the universe. Not what we might like to be true, but what we think is true. I don't think humans are ever going to reach agreement on that.
War is hell, yes, and terrible. But war seems to be the default state of humanity - not just Christianity. The Christian struggle is to fight the war - the inner war - using the weapons of love. That has always been the teaching.
As I say, it comes down to what we believe to be true. 'We are the fleas that live on the scum that floats on the surface of a ball of magma' appears to your version of reality. It is not mine.
Religion, taken in the round, has brought both good and evil into the world, just as ideology has, just as politics has, just as nations and tribes and every other human institution has. We can all reach for partial pictures. Whatever we do we can do with love or we can do with fear and hatred in our hearts. That goes just as much for metaller subcultures as it does for Christian churches. We do judge each individual tree by its fruits.
Anyway, if you want to go around 'pinging Christians with a hail Satan', that's up to you. Personally I'd just shrug my shoulders. But bear in mind that it's the equivalent of 'pinging' an anti-racist with a quick 'Heil Hitler.' Not really an example of the love and tolerance you would apprently like to see.
Incidentally, a greater proportion of the world is religious now than it was thirty years ago. The West, as in so much else, is an outlier here. It's been a great relief to me to come to a faith at the heart of which is a total renunciation of power, and whose best exemplars throughout history have lived this in such an inspiring way, however badly the worst have betrayed it.
Again, I think using “this is the way it’s always been” as an excuse is both factually wrong and unworthy of someone seeking peace. War is a natural state, sure. As is peace. There have always been young men trash- talking each other and counting coup. However, that does not mean that every culture has been infected with the siege mentality I described above. Even some extremely militaristic cultures avoided that mentality. Few would described the Lakota as peaceful, given that they had a whole culture of raiding other tribes, yet they were so open minded about ideas that they almost lost their religion because they failed to see the threat of the missionaries at first.
As far as everything bringing good and evil, that is tautology. Mussolini made the trains run on time. Does that mean we should no longer think critically about the net results of various political systems since they’ve all done good and bad? And speaking of fascists, I find comparing Hail Satan to Heil Hitler extremely offensive. To compare a random minority religion to the Nazis is both intellectually dishonest and encourages hate towards a minority religion. Something Hitler may have approved of, but I doubt Jesus would have. But then, all’s fair in love and war and Christians have historically had trouble figuring out the difference between love and war.
As far as us being fleas on the scum of the Earth- you seem to think that diminishes me. I find it liberating and beautiful. All parts of this great journey of life are beautiful a worthy- fleas and scum included. Rather than differentiate myself from that which I find lesser, I prefer to view myself as kin to all other life, made from the same stardust. I prefer earthy metaphors simply because I like to poke fun at the snooty with their hierarchies of life. Like the Crusader from Rotting Christ’s “Thou art Lord”, I have stopped marching and fighting for the cross and have opened my eyes to the great green world.
I do hope that I’m future discussions you will polite enough to refrain from putting the worst interpretation on my words. I could quote Slayer at you all day but internet- snarking each other does not seem nearly so fun as a good faith discussion. I don’t generally have time for discussions and feel lucky that this one happened when I’m sick enough to have canceled other obligations. As such discussions are a privilege for me, I prefer them to be in good faith.
Yes, many American christians haven’t accepted that the USA is moving on from being a Christian country (declared to be so by the Supreme Court in the 1890’s and then declared to be a secular country by the Court in the 1990’s) I regard the funeral of Queen Elizabeth 2 as a symbolic funeral of Christendom, an effort starting under Constantine in the 300’s and passing through many permutations - Catholic, Orthodox, Monophysite, and Protestant, an effort to make the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of Christ - despite Jesus saying his kingdom was not of this world and within you and the kingdom being defined in the NT as being “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”. It’s better for Christianity to be regarded as just another religion and not the upholder of the state.
As regards satanists I would separate the human individual whom I am to be friends with, if they will let me and are safe people, and their object of devotion. They are not one and the same. I look first to our common humanity, fellow travelers in this imperfect world. Jesus was called the “friend of sinners” and so I am to be also, following his example, starting with myself and then others.
Christianity can't ever be regarded - at least by a Christian - as 'just another religion', for fairly obvious reasons, though to others of course it will be. I would also say it would be tricky to say the least to be 'friends' with a genuine Satanist. But we are enjoined to love them, like everyone else, and not to return evil with evil.
I do agree about the church and the state. It is never a good combination. I have mixed feelings about some of the results - and history is history. But the time of 'Christendom' at least in Europe is gone.
I recently told one of my friends, who knows I'm a non-theist, that I'm a Christian mystic at heart. It was a weird thing to say from me, and I meant it to be. But so much of what are regarded as the words of Jesus are most aptly read as radically mystical teaching or pointing, and in this respect they are similar to what can be regarded as essentially non-theistic mystical teachings from non-theistic traditions such as Buddhism and Taoism -- all of which nourish my soulful inquiries and journeying.
Mysticism isn't about words or beliefs. It's about what is pointed at with words which cannot be spoken -- as pointed out (pointed to) in the opening words of the Tao Te Ching.
I'm a mystical naturalist, not a scientistic one. For me, the entire cosmos (Cosmos? Kosmos?) ... all of being rests within an inconceivable Mystery which is primary and central to its very being or existence, and which is present in every grain of sand, plant, animal... everything!
Modernity has been, sadly, a Mystery stripper. It has stripped too many people of a sense of belonging within the real world -- for the real world is not a set of descriptions and explanations. It's shot through with unthinkable Mystery.
I think Jesus spoke to this. But folks just cannot hear what he was saying. And the creation of "The Church" was wreck and ruin to the teachings of Jesus.
Hi, James, the words and actions and teachings of Jesus in the Gospels come across to me as intensely theistic and personal Creator God based, God the Father and all that, not Buddhist or Taoist. He was Jewish after all. I think you have to deeply reinterpret and redefine a lot of the words to make Jesus another Buddha or Lao Tse.
Indeed. You have to be closing your eyes to not only most of the actual words in the Gospel, but also the entire historical context of prophetic Judaism, to see Jesus of Nazareth as some kind of 'mystic' in the eastern/modern tradition. As for him being a 'non-theist': really, the mind boggles.
IMO it would be more honest to say Jesus with his ardent personal theism got it wrong and Buddha was right instead of straining to conflate the two teachings. Or to say Buddha and Lao Tse were on a higher level of awareness than Jesus’s lower grade of theism which was okay as far as it went, but not the ultimate. Oops I just inadvertently placed Rhyd’s polytheism the next tier down! My apologies to the host. Tongue in cheek alert for those who may not get it.
There is a tradition of Christian mysticism which challenges Christian orthodoxy. But thanks, guys, for reminding me why I tend never to get involved in theistic debates of a theological kind. Mysticism is experiential, not theoretical or scholastic or scholarly ... or bookish.
"As for him being a 'non-theist': really, the mind boggles."
Naturalistic mystics like myself see not the least actual distinction between divinity and nature. So we tend to call ourselves non-theists only to escape capture by theology. We're not interested in theology. We're interested in the experiential knowing of the ultimate Mystery which some call "God" and others call "nature".
We see theology and theism as a veil which obscures Mystery. We prefer to drink our Mystery straight up, with no extras, fillers, additives or stories.
At the time and place Jesus lived (if indeed such a man ever did exist -- which possibly he did not! In which case he may be a mythic being like Lao Tsu likely was) there had yet to be a strong distinction between myth, poetry, religion, philosophy, science and politics. This is a FACT. Whoever Jesus was, if he was, he may well be a myth in just the same way Lao Tsu is likely a mythic person. Does the fact that Lao Tsu is probably a mythic person make "him" less important and valuable as a font of wisdom? I think not. The person we call Jesus may have been invented by a sect of a pre-Christian religious cult who sought to use the mythopoetic power of story to reveal what lay UNDER the story, as poetry, myth ... but not less true because of its mythic nature.
Jesus, whoever he was, spoke about consuming his body as wine and bread. That's f**king poetry, guys! If you are taking it literally you have no f**king idea what poetry or myth *are*.
And that's as much theology as I'll be doing for the next year. Yuck! I'm inside the very world in which I have eaten this bread and drunk the wine. Whatever you do unto anyone, you do unto me.
“As regards satanists I would separate the human individual whom I am to be friends with, if they will let me and are safe people, and their object of devotion. They are not one and the same. I look first to our common humanity, fellow travelers in this imperfect world. Jesus was called the “friend of sinners” and so I am to be also, following his example, starting with myself and then others.”
I love the idea of being a friend to yourself as a sinner first. Not that I mean to imply you are some awful sinner but that I might have found more value in Christianity had that been emphasized. My dad broke my mind a little when I was kid by saying the Golden Rule only works if you love yourself and it just was so contrary to all the “I beat my body and make it my slave” shit getting preached in church.
As far as Satanists, I’m not one but I’ve met some wonderful people who are. I’ve also seen a lot of people use Satanism as a stage of personal development comparable to the lion in Nietschze’s Camel, Lion, Child story. Anyone who defines themself as a negative I suspect of having some growth to do but I don’t see the Satanists who identify as “not Christian” as any better or worse than the Christians who identify as “not Satanists”. I tend to have more respect for people who could take it or leave it and don’t need to virtue signal being part of any religious identity.
If we're dropping coins in the wishing well, why not wish for some form of animism or neoaganism or so to spread in Europe far and wide? Of course, not very likely, but anyway if we're wishing for Europe's spiritual development why not go for it?
Well, yeah--that's my work. I don't run a Pagan publisher just for the fun of it. :) But I also gave up on mass revolutionary projects and messianic promises long ago. Such a return cannot be done by pressure, just by very slow, confident work.
You do amazing work with your publisher :) And sure, I'm not expecting the animist rapture anytime soon either. But to be honest, I feel that Christianity is the "give them an inch and they take a mile" kind of spirituality so I'm not sure that this "wild" Christianity is to be trusted at all.
Something about this discussion has been pinging my subconscious and I think I finally figured it out. It’s that “defending Christians” has historically been such a dogwhistle for Christian violence against anyone and everyone. So, yeah, if some sicko is going after the local Amish, I would be willing to defend the Amish. Because I would take care of anyone in my community. But I really wonder who might be imagined “going after” these wild Christians in a way where their Christianity is relevant? Or this this just another case of Christianity not running the show being rewritten as an attack, like gay marriage is an “attack” on Christianity, or science in schools is an “attack”, or feminism is an “attack”? I see zero forces that pose a credible threat to wild Christians *as Christians* although I see plenty of threats to homesteaders, small farmers, and other groups that contain many of the best elements of Christianity.
You know, I also don't see what would threaten these Christians as Christians. Though, I want to stress that I do not for a moment mean to imply that Rhyd is using dog whistles here.
Perhaps the sense of beleagueredness of those Christians in the article is real, too, as a feeling that exists in their minds and hearts. Maybe that is why they want to be defended. But yeah, living in Europe, I know for a fact nobody here is gearing up to persecute Christians in any way.
I certainly don’t think Rhyd is using dog whistles. Thanks for pointing that out so I can clarify that. I definitely see things which could create a sense of beleagueredness among any wild humans, Christian or not. Unfortunately, here in the US, that feeling is often exploited to gain support for things that will not help the wild humans at all. I see that a lot, where measures are taken that restrict living a more earth-centered, family-oriented lifestyle and it gets picked up by conservatives as an attack on Christianity in a way Rhyd would likely identify as ideological capture. And he has gone over the differences between that and a true dog whistle in a way that makes me ashamed to have used poor terminology.
To be fair, I suspect any folk religion of the future will be deeply Christian- influenced. Outside of conversion by the sword, people don’t really convert to other religions. Even conversion by the sword usually runs skin deep. I think the question runs more into what parts of Christianity are hard no and what parts are neutral or beneficial to incorporate into whatever will evolve in the future? I think the divide between Christian and non-Christian is a wound within our communities which needs to be healed. But, I don’t think we outside the church(es) can heal it. Too often neopagans have tried to seem non-threatening and play respectability politics and the result has been (at best) putting various neopagans groups on the “proper society” side of the us vs them divide rather than abolishing the divide.
Thanks for popping out from the paywall, much appreciated as a former subscriber (I simply had too many subscriptions and it was distracting for me)
As an Anglican Priest I think you, and Paul are on the right track, indeed my sermons on Sunday were broadly within the same frame.
What really resonated as it gave clearer form to something I’ve been watching on my own patch, was the section on villages and why they’re dying. My own church was dominated by the boomer generation- and it was village like. They grew up on a shared life of church dances, church plays, church fairs. It was fabric. But the younger ones who followed were formed by something different and rapidly at present we’re becoming an aggregate of individuals from being a village.
As it happens I’m trying to write a ‘where we’re at’ letter just now - so ‘timely’ :)
Oh, and my Church is dedicated to the Patmos guy ;-)
Long slow patient Soul work - one at a time. I write contemplative study material for my folk which I hope will cause them to pause, but they are subject to such a barrage of 'the latest Christian Thing' on the internet, that it's a very slow coming round, but here and there a few begin to wonder.
But that places far too much emphasis on my agency, which is part of the problem, not my agency in particular, but the foregrounding of what WE do.
This is why I resonate deeply with your comments on the need for Christians to get on with their own soul work which is largely a laying bare of the condition of our heart with its many avoidances. Insofar as I do anything it is the negative work of trying to avoid adding to the rush and the busyness with demands; to provide Space for Silence, to advocate befriending trees, to remind folk that Jesus didn't ask his listeners to 'consider the lilies' because they were rural and 'were he here now he'd point us to factories . . .' (people seem instinctively to realise this when you put it like this) . . . but because our fundamental problem, hugely exacerbated at the end of this age, is that humans no longer understand themselves as woven into Creation. Thus they are alienated from God the Creator.
I also like to gently suggest from time to time that we might have more genuinely fruitful - mutually fruitful - conversations with our pagan neighbours, more fruitful than those perhaps as unaware of creation as we are . . .
In some of the early Christian writings there are books which suggest a far more Creational account of the faith, but they got the chop when establishment and city life took over. I like introducing them from time to time . . .
And personally I try and live at a human pace, by walking whenever possible. By this simple method one is more human. I remember how nomadic peoples when moving take time to allow their souls to catch up. But have our souls lost us? How would they ever find us given our motorised lives?
I am more European today than ever before. The very old have not been immersed in American culture and I will soon miss them forever, along with the times they represented. In some regions, it was an offshoot of the Middle Ages. The old Europe is disappearing and the rare resuscitation attempts are no more than a romantic story, a last cry. The machine will consume everything and recycle it into a product. What remains are memories, until they are no more. Even for Americans.
One of the things I love about reading your essays is feeling how the young-ish joy at "finding a tribe" is maturing into a more resilient sense of community, however distant. For what it's worth, this wild Christian will defend your village rituals - devout pagan or otherwise - with her life, and there's always a place for you in the forest prayer garden we're slowly bringing to life at the edge of our old Pennine churchyard.
Something that keeps coming up for me at the moment - in resonance with what you wrote - is that Christianity is at its most spiritually potent when its institutions have the least geopolitical power. A thread I think I'd like to keep pulling on, to see where it leads and what it might unravel...
And I absolutely agree. Power changes religion, and the alliance Christians made with the capitalists for the last four hundred years really has done no one good except the capitalists.
If you look back to when "christianity" first started, it was a marginal group of castoffs and weird people who'd followed a breakaway rabbi and weren't really sure he came back from the dead or not but wanted to believe. When you look at Jesus of the gospels it's all pretty subversive and against the power of the state (which is why the man Jesus got crucified). When you look at it like this you see the kind of thing I think this "re-wilding" idea is about - but then Constantine ruined everything by co-opting this weird cult that kept trying to help people and love hem - and then the Christianity we think of today was born. That was Constantine's fault. He gave it respectability. The original idea was wild. I think.
About the American culture colonising other parts of the world, I can only add how annoyed I am that, after resisting Americanisms my whole life, my British/German teenage kids say "gotten" instead of "got". Bloody YouTube! Sigh. But it is an integral sign of what you are talking about, isn't it?
My teenage daughter called me "Bro" over the weekend. The threat of a lifetime you tube ban nipped that in the bud, although for how long remains to be seen 😉
Well written essay, touched a number of things in me. One I covered in my response to a comment made by Ann Barton. Thanks for the word sostalgia, there is word like that in another language, which I can’t recall. I am old enough to be your father and when I hear music from the Sixties, Motown, Johnny Cash, Beach Boys and others I am saddened, remembering another, more vital America. I also grew up in a Wisconsin village, now so different with its own special traditions and personal connections fading.
I have been involved in Paul’s Wild Christianity discussion on his website and couple of other sites, sharing my take on it. A piece of that washed up as a comment on a recent post of yours. Hope it didn’t try your patience excessively. I appreciate your kind heart.
Sorry to be picky, but there is no "Book of the Revelations" plural. It is simply "The Revelation." Or "The Apocalypse" . . . the first word of the book.
I can attest that "Book of Revelations" and "Book of the Revelations" were both terms used for it in the megachurch I attended in the America.
Yes, but they were wrong--as about many other things. You can look it up. As Proverbs 19:20 says, "Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise" . . . and that is Proverbs with an s.
Thanks for the mention. I'd like to talk to you about this 'wild Christianity' one day. Still a very germinal notion - and of course not a new one, only a clearing away of the leaves and moss from a very old one. But I think it's becoming clearer, and it is exciting, to me at least.
Another Orthodox writer following the same scent, if you've not come across him, is Graham Pardun, one of your countrymen:
https://sabbathempire.substack.com/
Terrific essay. I don’t have much to add, but I agree that we’re breaking links to the past at an alarming rate.
This is very topical; thanks for suspending the paywall, although I agree your work is worth paying for, and will eventually subscribe.
Just last night my half-American child and I were talking about how the culture of Catholicism has changed more in my lifetime than in ten of my grandmothers put together. She was lamenting how many young American priests have their heads buried in the internet to the degree that they’re alienating the young, who want the old cultural touchstones (fire, crypts, Mozart, feasts) oriented around “love others as I have loved you,” and not sermons that sound like Reddit threads interspersed with horrible anodyne worship leader music.
More than ever, American youth are looking backward; they don’t seem to have much hope in the future, but can we really blame them? Hopefully as they grow up some of them will keep on looking past the vintage clothing and the old films for their inspiration, and into the big wild world.
“Worship leader music” Boy does that bring back memories. And why bother trying to make music that’s only feature is it’s religious content?
My favorite part of the essay is the news that your sister and family will become your neighbors. This is the kind of intention/action that will bring the world turning. Thank you
A very interesting article!
I think we're currently in a golden age for "new" folklore, traditions and events.
This is an interesting essay. It really threw me into thinking about a phenomenon which I both somewhat admire and ruthlessly mock: the way in which black metal artists often restrict the number of copies of their music and/ or use outdated and terrible production techniques to drive away the casual listener. As much as I love to mock such kvlt idiots who participate in excessive kvlt-ness for kvlt points, I find something deeply beautiful in the rejection of commercialism and expansionist notions popularity and worth. There is no one song to rule them all, but there is and there should be always new bands, new songs, and new ways of seeing and describing the world. What is valuable is not capturing the attention of millions for a three minute song, but reaching out to the 1, 5 or 500 other people in the world who find your 10,000th description of the joys of freezing to death in the forest compelling. It’s finding the people who want to hear your fifteen minute wind-howling-through-the-forest-and-piano intro. And it’s those people going on to create their own songs. Because that is what I was thinking of as I read about American hegemony- that while popular culture spreads from America to the world, other cultural expressions are far more reciprocal. I’m American and my favorite bands are Canadian, Finnish, Australian, Indian (both kinds), Belarusian, Greek, and Portuguese. I’m finding more and more bands singing in their native languages rather than English.
As far as wild Christianity: I’m not convinced. On the one hand, I love the idea. On the other hand, I find the reality to be less than impressive. I do a lot of homesteading and farming and those communities are full of Christians. And often Christians who are not concerned with converting the world or forcing their ideas on anyone. Which I think is fine in a European context where the church and Christianity no longer are a credible political threat. But here in the US, unfortunately , the situation is not there. I find Satanism to be a wonderful litmus test. Make a casual reference to it or jokingly hail Satan and you’ll find out real quick whether you are dealing with a Christian who has put fear and hate on the back burner. Experience as a metalhead says: maybe one in a hundred Christians have really moved on from identifying with the Christofascist project. And that’s in America. Most of my favorite musicians have been jailed on charges of Satanism in some godforsaken Eastern European country. Seriously, before you throw in too hard with Christians who talk a tolerant game, look up some of the shit that has happened to those who talk too much Satanism (real or just trolling Christians). And that’s just what makes the news. There’s plenty of Christian terrorism left in the US and in the more Christian parts of Europe, so let the Christians take care of their own. They seem to be good at that. And I won’t get too far into the damage done to young women growing up in Christian families. Suffice it to say that gay men have nothing on Baptist women when it comes to self-hatred rooted in their sexuality. Maybe there are some things we should be intolerant of.
'Make a casual reference to it or jokingly hail Satan and you’ll find out real quick whether you are dealing with a Christian who has put fear and hate on the back burner. Experience as a metalhead says: maybe one in a hundred Christians have really moved on from identifying with the Christofascist project.'
You are right to say that Christians don't tolerate the devil. That's kind of the first lesson.
Satan in the Christian tradition is the enemy of God, life, light and goodness. He creates evil and draws all that he can into it. This is very real. That is the tradition that 'Satanists' in the West are drawing on, either to provoke or - worse - because they genuinely lean in that direction. Why should any Christian 'tolerate' this? Not only is it a deliberate provocation, but it is one which, to a genuine Christian, will create a deep heartache and a real pain and fear.
Is it 'fascism' to oppose the enemy of all that Christians (and Muslims, and Jews) hold to be true and good?
Ironically, you end your complaint about the intolerance of Christians by writing, 'Maybe there are some things we should be intolerant of.' I think everyone believes this to be true. The only question is what should not be tolerated. This is why we currently have a culture war.
I would suggest that both you and Anne are mutually suffering from American exceptionalism here. Anne, who is in the United States, experiences a completely different "Satan" than anything you would recognize, Paul. This I can attest to from personal experience.
The Protestant Devil that most are talking about in the US looks like the Satan of Cotton Mather to which I referred in my previous installment of The Mysteria. In fact, if you were to replace the words "fascist" or "transphobe" with "satanic" in the posts, essays, and rants of the US Woke, you could get a very close sense of how American Christians conceive of Satan. For them, everything that is not their particular brand of schismatic Christianity (Southern Baptist versus American Baptist, Pre-millenial rapturists versus post-millenial) is "of Satan."
In fact, it was precisely the way that the US Woke seemed to mimic Evangelicals and Fundamentalists which first made me understand there was something very American and religious happening for the Woke.
On the other hand, Anne likely doesn't have the experience of comparison. Anne's experience of Christians in the US is like mine, but it's the opposite of my experience of them here. I know of no European catholics who believe Satan is hiding in their cereal box or the Netflix logo, nor do I know of any who would react angrily to such jokes. They definitely believe there is a Satan, but there's is a much less terrified obsession and more a confident assurance that their God protects them from him.
That's interesting, thanks Rhyd. I agree with your analysis of wokeness, which is obviously a strain of Christian puritanism of the worst kind, without even the saving grace of Christ to leaven it with forgiveness and a demand to turn the other cheek. I know much less about this particular American brand of 'Christianity', except from afar. The US really is another country.
Mind you, I do know a bit more about heavy metal subcultures - or I did, back in the stone age - and the British version always went in very heavy on the Satanic imagery. Very edgy it was too to us 1980s teenagers. Needless to say that these days I see it rather differently. Not as a threat to civilisation so much as a whole generation without spiritual moorings being duped into something much darker than they know.
"The Protestant Devil that most are talking about in the US looks like the Satan of Cotton Mather to which I referred in my previous installment of The Mysteria. In fact, if you were to replace the words "fascist" or "transphobe" with "satanic" in the posts, essays, and rants of the US Woke, you could get a very close sense of how American Christians conceive of Satan."
The term "woke" apparently originally meant seeing through the illusions of racist America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke Later, it's ethos expanded to include other marginalized people -- gay, lesbian, queer ... and other marginalized ethnic groups, etc.
America's right wing traditionalists began, soon after, to characterize "woke" in the fashion characterized here. And now we have "anti-wokism" as a general dismissal and mischarictarization of the originating ethos of universal justice, kindness and love.
Woke ideology, analyzed from the perspective of a leftist, is the subject of my upcoming book. To be clear , it’s not “anti-Wokism” as in the American right version. The Marxist left rejects this kind of identitarianism from both the woke and the anti-woke.
I hear you -- and understand -- brother Rhyd. My point is that in the mean time, from the beginning of 'woke' as a term to now, is that the term became a floating signifier. It means what the users mean it to mean, and since that means a thousand things, the term has become useless and pointless. It means nothing at all.
But--BUT--Please do comment upon it. I do not wish you to flush your book down the toilet! Just know that it means only what you mean to mean by it. You're a good man. I trust that.
By the way, I'm "a leftist" -- also now a floating signifier.
Well, this is a super interesting discussion, and one I am sad to be having while sick and less than my best. Paul, I hope you will try to understand my intent since my words may be as weak as my cough syrup seems to be at the present.
First, Rhyd, I think you are spot on in expressing the difference between what Paul experiences within Christianity and my experience. That said, I do not think American is quite as exceptional as you claim. Russia’s current regime is wound up with the old church. Belarus, Poland, and Georgia (the European one) have arrested alleged “Satanists”. I don’t believe in a linear timeline of history, where Christian superstition is replaced by science and reason, and so I see America, Russia, and other authoritarianly religious countries not as backwaters to progress but as another direction Christianity as a whole could take.
Paul, I think you are missing a critical piece here. The point of hailing Satan to see how Christians react is to see if they can step out their Christian prejudices and privileges and see their religion as just another religion. Sure, Satan can be an embodiment of all evil, but he can also be seen as Lucifer Lightbringer, or as an irrelevant fairy-tale. When you invest a word- Satan- with that level of power over you, you create the dark force you seek to oppose. More crimes have always been committed in the name of fighting Satan than in the name of Satan. I prefer to surround myself with people who judge based on actions rather than words. I look at all the Satanic crimes ever committed and I compare them to the crimes committed by those of any other faith and must conclude that “Satanism” is just another word which can inspire evil or good, just as “Christian” or “Buddhist” or “Marxist” can. As Jesus said: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” So long as Christians are drawing the battlelines of good vs evil based on words: “Christian” or “Satanist”, they are projecting their own internal struggles upon others. That projection is the basis of dehumanizing other people. Other people can be hurt, tortured, or killed because the harmer sees in them the traits in himself he would like to hurt or remove. So long as “Satan” lives outside yourself, you are a threat to others and a greater threat given that so many are willing to join in on slaughtering the scapegoat. I would say the genius I find in metal is the acknowledgment that “Satan” (meaning the evil interpretation this time) lives in everyone. He may also be an external force seen in warfare, power, and industrialism, but even when we oppose those things, Satan lives in our hearts. There is no utopia, no force of pure good, no army of God/ good. There are just collections of humans who must always be aware of our own capacity to become a dangerous mobs trying to kill in another what we hate in ourselves. I hope this made some sense, and I apologize for my poor words today. Fifth disease is a nasty thing to get as an adult.
On the point of intolerance, I would say what we should be intolerant of is power. I find it deadly ironic that all the people accusing metalheads of evil and Satanism fail to realize that if we had a prophet, it would be Tolkien- a Christian anarchist. I would say that all forms of power corrupt. Power over women corrupted men, power over nature corrupted humans. Power over POC corrupted many white cultures (the American South is still a shitshow for example). Ethics and morality consist of renouncing power. This is where I doubt the ability of Christianity as constituted to adapt- can Christians drop the idea of the hierarchy of beings with ameobas to fish to mammals to women to men to God? Can they see that Lucifer was right to challenge hierarchy as a basis for spirituality? And I’m doing so, can they integrate Satan back into their own psyches and control their own evil (remember for a second that the Hebrew cognate to Satan was a part of Yahweh- an aspect that tested people)?
The difference here between your view and mine, Anne, is very deep but it isn't politial or cultural, so much as theological. I don't know you, or your faith, if you have one, so I can't judge or comment on that, only on the words here (which is so much of the problem of the Internet as a whole.) Even just based on this, however, the gulf is obvious. It's about an understanding of what the cosmos is.
I am seeing here a modern (or post-modern) worldview, which suggests that forces in the external world are 'projections' of inner forces present in the individual. On this basis, I presume, religions or faiths are also projections of this kind. So notions like 'God' or 'Jesus' or 'Satan', or for that matter 'Vishnu' or 'Allah' or 'Odin' are not entities as such, but simply projections, idols, ideas, manifestations of inner states. For example, you say:
'The point of hailing Satan to see how Christians react is to see if they can step out their Christian prejudices and privileges and see their religion as just another religion. Sure, Satan can be an embodiment of all evil, but he can also be seen as Lucifer Lightbringer, or as an irrelevant fairy-tale.'
As I say, this is probably the most common understanding of religion today in the po-mo West. In this worldview, there is no 'Satan', really, except as an idea, and we can argue over what it represents.
But no Christian can accept this. They (we) cannot see their faith as 'just another relgion' because at its heart is a unique claim: that God took human form and walked amongst us, and that his death and resurrection conquered death itself, and broke the chains that had previously held humanity in bondage. What were those chains? They were sin and death, and they were bound around by this figure who, in the gospels, is referred to as 'the Satan' - literally 'the adversary.' To a Christian, this figure is not an inner state but a real force. The Christian cosmos, like the Jewish one before it, posits a universe which is in a constant state of spiritual warfare. This 'adversary', a created being himself, and his allies, which often enough includes us, is in rebellion against God. Darkness is in rebellion against light (as a Tolkein fan you will recognise the motif.) That's the Christian understanding of reality, and has been from the beginning.
So on that basis it should be clear why Christ is not just another 'teacher' to any of his followers, and why the path he laid out (not a 'religion' in the modern sense in its early form, and perhaps not even now) is not just one path amongst many equally valid ones, but the one which supersedes all others and fulfills them (note that it doesn't necessarily negate them or condemn them - unless they're Satanic of course ...) It should also be obvious why Satan is not a joke, and can never be tolerated. His desire is always to twist and break the culture and its people, and turn it towards the dark.
This explains, even if it doesn't justify in your view, some of what you speak about. It also explains why no Christian is ever going to be 'integrating Satan back into their own psyche.' Not just because the whole Christian path is designed to expel him from it (that's called exorcism) but because ... well, because that would be exactly what he wanted ;-)
You may regard all of this as mad or bad, but I hope it might explain at least why your worldview is never going to fly with a Christian - or a Muslim or Jew come to that. Having said that - and this is important - the correct Christian response to this is to defend the faith and stand firm in truth, but also not to return evil with evil, and to love neighbour and enemy. Plenty of Christians have failed in that regard over the years. We're all fallen.
As for power - well, it's never going to go away. It's part of our human condition. But when we in the West criticise excess power and defend the meek and marginal (as we should) we are running a purely Christian script. The radical thing about the Gospel is that, if you believe that Christ spoke as God, then God's teaching is that all the power structures of the earthly realm are overturned in his kingdom. Blessed are the meek, woe to those who are rich. I always liked the song of the Virgin Mary when she learned what she was about to be gifted:
'He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.'
I think it comes back to whether you judge by words or by actions. All these words about what you believe Satan to be, about how Christians see the world. I could answer each point, but I think Vine Deloria, Jr laid out everything I could say far more persuasively and with less metalhead trolling in “God is Red: A Native View of Religion”. His book is probably not nearly so well known in Europe, and you need not fear that he is anti-Christian or a Satanist. He gave up Christianity for his people’s religion after becoming a well-respected theologian. He continued to have sympathy and respect for Christians his whole life. I think you might benefit from understanding his perspective, as I think it also speaks to those who see both good and bad in Christianity but have no desire to sign up for the Army of God.
See, that is the main problem I have with Christianity: the view that we are engaged in spiritual warfare. War is hell. And the psychology of warfare is to treat new/ other things with suspicion and to accept a certain amount of collateral damage. Tradeoffs are necessary in war. So it become necessary to destroy the village to save it. Or to burn the witch rather than let Satan get a threshold. During war, ordinary due process is suspended and rather than welcoming strangers and giving them the benefit of the doubt, it makes sense to lock them up in internment camps and to defer humanitarian concerns to a better time. But, in the case of spiritual warfare, another time never comes. The war is never over. Those who advocate for peace or decry the horrors of war might just not be committed enough to the cause. Or maybe they are secretly plants for the other side. Better round them up too. Warfare is the worst possible metaphor for a spiritual life, and the religions based upon it have simply engulfed the world in war. I hope you will think about that, about whether the theology of spiritual warfare and believing Satan is wandering around trying to do evil has brought good or evil into this world. If the theology of spiritual warfare is a good tree, it could not have brought forth such fruit. And that is not to say that all Christians but into spiritual warfare. But pinging them with a “Hail Satan” let’s me know who has beaten their spiritual swords into plowshares and who is facing the world with fear and hate in their hearts. Perhaps you should consider joining the former group. Just consider how much more power Satan has among Christians than among metalheads when we can hail Satan and have brotherhood and tolerance while the words “hail Satan” invoke violence from Christians?
As far as post modernism, I am not a scholar and hesitate to claim agreement with ideas I’ve not personally studied. However, based on your description, I would say I tend to agree that most religions as modern humans relate to them are based upon internal forces and the balancing of internal psychological archetypes or whatever you call them. That said, I think religion has devolved from communion with the divine to the moving around of anthropomorphic pieces on some sort of internal chessboard. And that is why religion is dying. Religion was meant to break our minds of our own importance and it has become a pack of self-indulgent fairy tales about the universe giving a shit about us. The divine doesn’t exist to be our therapist or our mama. We are the fleas the live on the scum that floats on the surface of a ball of magma. The one and only great moral code is that we must be worthy of the lives we take- plant, animal, and fungi- to sustain our own.
As far as power- no it will never go away. That does not justify using it. That was kind of the point of Lord of the Rings. Boromir thought he could power to defend from evil but in doing so he would have become evil. No one can wield power for good. There will always be power, but it is possible to put checks and balances upon it. Many cultures made respect and honor contingent upon giving to the community. Many societies had checks and balances between the power of men and women (tribes where male leaders are chosen by old women, for example). To excuse the use of power by claiming power will always exist is simply to justify giving in to temptation.
Well, fair enough. In the end, it comes down to what we believe to be true about the shape of the universe. Not what we might like to be true, but what we think is true. I don't think humans are ever going to reach agreement on that.
War is hell, yes, and terrible. But war seems to be the default state of humanity - not just Christianity. The Christian struggle is to fight the war - the inner war - using the weapons of love. That has always been the teaching.
As I say, it comes down to what we believe to be true. 'We are the fleas that live on the scum that floats on the surface of a ball of magma' appears to your version of reality. It is not mine.
Religion, taken in the round, has brought both good and evil into the world, just as ideology has, just as politics has, just as nations and tribes and every other human institution has. We can all reach for partial pictures. Whatever we do we can do with love or we can do with fear and hatred in our hearts. That goes just as much for metaller subcultures as it does for Christian churches. We do judge each individual tree by its fruits.
Anyway, if you want to go around 'pinging Christians with a hail Satan', that's up to you. Personally I'd just shrug my shoulders. But bear in mind that it's the equivalent of 'pinging' an anti-racist with a quick 'Heil Hitler.' Not really an example of the love and tolerance you would apprently like to see.
Incidentally, a greater proportion of the world is religious now than it was thirty years ago. The West, as in so much else, is an outlier here. It's been a great relief to me to come to a faith at the heart of which is a total renunciation of power, and whose best exemplars throughout history have lived this in such an inspiring way, however badly the worst have betrayed it.
All the best,
Paul
Again, I think using “this is the way it’s always been” as an excuse is both factually wrong and unworthy of someone seeking peace. War is a natural state, sure. As is peace. There have always been young men trash- talking each other and counting coup. However, that does not mean that every culture has been infected with the siege mentality I described above. Even some extremely militaristic cultures avoided that mentality. Few would described the Lakota as peaceful, given that they had a whole culture of raiding other tribes, yet they were so open minded about ideas that they almost lost their religion because they failed to see the threat of the missionaries at first.
As far as everything bringing good and evil, that is tautology. Mussolini made the trains run on time. Does that mean we should no longer think critically about the net results of various political systems since they’ve all done good and bad? And speaking of fascists, I find comparing Hail Satan to Heil Hitler extremely offensive. To compare a random minority religion to the Nazis is both intellectually dishonest and encourages hate towards a minority religion. Something Hitler may have approved of, but I doubt Jesus would have. But then, all’s fair in love and war and Christians have historically had trouble figuring out the difference between love and war.
As far as us being fleas on the scum of the Earth- you seem to think that diminishes me. I find it liberating and beautiful. All parts of this great journey of life are beautiful a worthy- fleas and scum included. Rather than differentiate myself from that which I find lesser, I prefer to view myself as kin to all other life, made from the same stardust. I prefer earthy metaphors simply because I like to poke fun at the snooty with their hierarchies of life. Like the Crusader from Rotting Christ’s “Thou art Lord”, I have stopped marching and fighting for the cross and have opened my eyes to the great green world.
I do hope that I’m future discussions you will polite enough to refrain from putting the worst interpretation on my words. I could quote Slayer at you all day but internet- snarking each other does not seem nearly so fun as a good faith discussion. I don’t generally have time for discussions and feel lucky that this one happened when I’m sick enough to have canceled other obligations. As such discussions are a privilege for me, I prefer them to be in good faith.
Yes, many American christians haven’t accepted that the USA is moving on from being a Christian country (declared to be so by the Supreme Court in the 1890’s and then declared to be a secular country by the Court in the 1990’s) I regard the funeral of Queen Elizabeth 2 as a symbolic funeral of Christendom, an effort starting under Constantine in the 300’s and passing through many permutations - Catholic, Orthodox, Monophysite, and Protestant, an effort to make the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of Christ - despite Jesus saying his kingdom was not of this world and within you and the kingdom being defined in the NT as being “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”. It’s better for Christianity to be regarded as just another religion and not the upholder of the state.
As regards satanists I would separate the human individual whom I am to be friends with, if they will let me and are safe people, and their object of devotion. They are not one and the same. I look first to our common humanity, fellow travelers in this imperfect world. Jesus was called the “friend of sinners” and so I am to be also, following his example, starting with myself and then others.
"It’s better for Christianity to be regarded as just another religion and not the upholder of the state."
Yes. For the world, but even more so for the Christians.
Christianity can't ever be regarded - at least by a Christian - as 'just another religion', for fairly obvious reasons, though to others of course it will be. I would also say it would be tricky to say the least to be 'friends' with a genuine Satanist. But we are enjoined to love them, like everyone else, and not to return evil with evil.
I do agree about the church and the state. It is never a good combination. I have mixed feelings about some of the results - and history is history. But the time of 'Christendom' at least in Europe is gone.
I recently told one of my friends, who knows I'm a non-theist, that I'm a Christian mystic at heart. It was a weird thing to say from me, and I meant it to be. But so much of what are regarded as the words of Jesus are most aptly read as radically mystical teaching or pointing, and in this respect they are similar to what can be regarded as essentially non-theistic mystical teachings from non-theistic traditions such as Buddhism and Taoism -- all of which nourish my soulful inquiries and journeying.
Mysticism isn't about words or beliefs. It's about what is pointed at with words which cannot be spoken -- as pointed out (pointed to) in the opening words of the Tao Te Ching.
I'm a mystical naturalist, not a scientistic one. For me, the entire cosmos (Cosmos? Kosmos?) ... all of being rests within an inconceivable Mystery which is primary and central to its very being or existence, and which is present in every grain of sand, plant, animal... everything!
Modernity has been, sadly, a Mystery stripper. It has stripped too many people of a sense of belonging within the real world -- for the real world is not a set of descriptions and explanations. It's shot through with unthinkable Mystery.
I think Jesus spoke to this. But folks just cannot hear what he was saying. And the creation of "The Church" was wreck and ruin to the teachings of Jesus.
Hi, James, the words and actions and teachings of Jesus in the Gospels come across to me as intensely theistic and personal Creator God based, God the Father and all that, not Buddhist or Taoist. He was Jewish after all. I think you have to deeply reinterpret and redefine a lot of the words to make Jesus another Buddha or Lao Tse.
Indeed. You have to be closing your eyes to not only most of the actual words in the Gospel, but also the entire historical context of prophetic Judaism, to see Jesus of Nazareth as some kind of 'mystic' in the eastern/modern tradition. As for him being a 'non-theist': really, the mind boggles.
IMO it would be more honest to say Jesus with his ardent personal theism got it wrong and Buddha was right instead of straining to conflate the two teachings. Or to say Buddha and Lao Tse were on a higher level of awareness than Jesus’s lower grade of theism which was okay as far as it went, but not the ultimate. Oops I just inadvertently placed Rhyd’s polytheism the next tier down! My apologies to the host. Tongue in cheek alert for those who may not get it.
There is a tradition of Christian mysticism which challenges Christian orthodoxy. But thanks, guys, for reminding me why I tend never to get involved in theistic debates of a theological kind. Mysticism is experiential, not theoretical or scholastic or scholarly ... or bookish.
"As for him being a 'non-theist': really, the mind boggles."
Naturalistic mystics like myself see not the least actual distinction between divinity and nature. So we tend to call ourselves non-theists only to escape capture by theology. We're not interested in theology. We're interested in the experiential knowing of the ultimate Mystery which some call "God" and others call "nature".
We see theology and theism as a veil which obscures Mystery. We prefer to drink our Mystery straight up, with no extras, fillers, additives or stories.
At the time and place Jesus lived (if indeed such a man ever did exist -- which possibly he did not! In which case he may be a mythic being like Lao Tsu likely was) there had yet to be a strong distinction between myth, poetry, religion, philosophy, science and politics. This is a FACT. Whoever Jesus was, if he was, he may well be a myth in just the same way Lao Tsu is likely a mythic person. Does the fact that Lao Tsu is probably a mythic person make "him" less important and valuable as a font of wisdom? I think not. The person we call Jesus may have been invented by a sect of a pre-Christian religious cult who sought to use the mythopoetic power of story to reveal what lay UNDER the story, as poetry, myth ... but not less true because of its mythic nature.
Jesus, whoever he was, spoke about consuming his body as wine and bread. That's f**king poetry, guys! If you are taking it literally you have no f**king idea what poetry or myth *are*.
And that's as much theology as I'll be doing for the next year. Yuck! I'm inside the very world in which I have eaten this bread and drunk the wine. Whatever you do unto anyone, you do unto me.
I agree, for me the Trinity is not just another religion but fiery life and peace.
“As regards satanists I would separate the human individual whom I am to be friends with, if they will let me and are safe people, and their object of devotion. They are not one and the same. I look first to our common humanity, fellow travelers in this imperfect world. Jesus was called the “friend of sinners” and so I am to be also, following his example, starting with myself and then others.”
I love the idea of being a friend to yourself as a sinner first. Not that I mean to imply you are some awful sinner but that I might have found more value in Christianity had that been emphasized. My dad broke my mind a little when I was kid by saying the Golden Rule only works if you love yourself and it just was so contrary to all the “I beat my body and make it my slave” shit getting preached in church.
As far as Satanists, I’m not one but I’ve met some wonderful people who are. I’ve also seen a lot of people use Satanism as a stage of personal development comparable to the lion in Nietschze’s Camel, Lion, Child story. Anyone who defines themself as a negative I suspect of having some growth to do but I don’t see the Satanists who identify as “not Christian” as any better or worse than the Christians who identify as “not Satanists”. I tend to have more respect for people who could take it or leave it and don’t need to virtue signal being part of any religious identity.
See my comment to both you and Paul below. :)
If we're dropping coins in the wishing well, why not wish for some form of animism or neoaganism or so to spread in Europe far and wide? Of course, not very likely, but anyway if we're wishing for Europe's spiritual development why not go for it?
Well, yeah--that's my work. I don't run a Pagan publisher just for the fun of it. :) But I also gave up on mass revolutionary projects and messianic promises long ago. Such a return cannot be done by pressure, just by very slow, confident work.
You do amazing work with your publisher :) And sure, I'm not expecting the animist rapture anytime soon either. But to be honest, I feel that Christianity is the "give them an inch and they take a mile" kind of spirituality so I'm not sure that this "wild" Christianity is to be trusted at all.
Something about this discussion has been pinging my subconscious and I think I finally figured it out. It’s that “defending Christians” has historically been such a dogwhistle for Christian violence against anyone and everyone. So, yeah, if some sicko is going after the local Amish, I would be willing to defend the Amish. Because I would take care of anyone in my community. But I really wonder who might be imagined “going after” these wild Christians in a way where their Christianity is relevant? Or this this just another case of Christianity not running the show being rewritten as an attack, like gay marriage is an “attack” on Christianity, or science in schools is an “attack”, or feminism is an “attack”? I see zero forces that pose a credible threat to wild Christians *as Christians* although I see plenty of threats to homesteaders, small farmers, and other groups that contain many of the best elements of Christianity.
You know, I also don't see what would threaten these Christians as Christians. Though, I want to stress that I do not for a moment mean to imply that Rhyd is using dog whistles here.
Perhaps the sense of beleagueredness of those Christians in the article is real, too, as a feeling that exists in their minds and hearts. Maybe that is why they want to be defended. But yeah, living in Europe, I know for a fact nobody here is gearing up to persecute Christians in any way.
I certainly don’t think Rhyd is using dog whistles. Thanks for pointing that out so I can clarify that. I definitely see things which could create a sense of beleagueredness among any wild humans, Christian or not. Unfortunately, here in the US, that feeling is often exploited to gain support for things that will not help the wild humans at all. I see that a lot, where measures are taken that restrict living a more earth-centered, family-oriented lifestyle and it gets picked up by conservatives as an attack on Christianity in a way Rhyd would likely identify as ideological capture. And he has gone over the differences between that and a true dog whistle in a way that makes me ashamed to have used poor terminology.
To be fair, I suspect any folk religion of the future will be deeply Christian- influenced. Outside of conversion by the sword, people don’t really convert to other religions. Even conversion by the sword usually runs skin deep. I think the question runs more into what parts of Christianity are hard no and what parts are neutral or beneficial to incorporate into whatever will evolve in the future? I think the divide between Christian and non-Christian is a wound within our communities which needs to be healed. But, I don’t think we outside the church(es) can heal it. Too often neopagans have tried to seem non-threatening and play respectability politics and the result has been (at best) putting various neopagans groups on the “proper society” side of the us vs them divide rather than abolishing the divide.
Hi Rhyd
Thanks for popping out from the paywall, much appreciated as a former subscriber (I simply had too many subscriptions and it was distracting for me)
As an Anglican Priest I think you, and Paul are on the right track, indeed my sermons on Sunday were broadly within the same frame.
What really resonated as it gave clearer form to something I’ve been watching on my own patch, was the section on villages and why they’re dying. My own church was dominated by the boomer generation- and it was village like. They grew up on a shared life of church dances, church plays, church fairs. It was fabric. But the younger ones who followed were formed by something different and rapidly at present we’re becoming an aggregate of individuals from being a village.
As it happens I’m trying to write a ‘where we’re at’ letter just now - so ‘timely’ :)
Oh, and my Church is dedicated to the Patmos guy ;-)
I trust you are well
Eric
I'd be curious how you think you might be able to change or restore things there...
Long pause :-)
Long slow patient Soul work - one at a time. I write contemplative study material for my folk which I hope will cause them to pause, but they are subject to such a barrage of 'the latest Christian Thing' on the internet, that it's a very slow coming round, but here and there a few begin to wonder.
But that places far too much emphasis on my agency, which is part of the problem, not my agency in particular, but the foregrounding of what WE do.
This is why I resonate deeply with your comments on the need for Christians to get on with their own soul work which is largely a laying bare of the condition of our heart with its many avoidances. Insofar as I do anything it is the negative work of trying to avoid adding to the rush and the busyness with demands; to provide Space for Silence, to advocate befriending trees, to remind folk that Jesus didn't ask his listeners to 'consider the lilies' because they were rural and 'were he here now he'd point us to factories . . .' (people seem instinctively to realise this when you put it like this) . . . but because our fundamental problem, hugely exacerbated at the end of this age, is that humans no longer understand themselves as woven into Creation. Thus they are alienated from God the Creator.
I also like to gently suggest from time to time that we might have more genuinely fruitful - mutually fruitful - conversations with our pagan neighbours, more fruitful than those perhaps as unaware of creation as we are . . .
In some of the early Christian writings there are books which suggest a far more Creational account of the faith, but they got the chop when establishment and city life took over. I like introducing them from time to time . . .
Oh, and eating together!
A few thoughts - thank you for asking
And personally I try and live at a human pace, by walking whenever possible. By this simple method one is more human. I remember how nomadic peoples when moving take time to allow their souls to catch up. But have our souls lost us? How would they ever find us given our motorised lives?
I am more European today than ever before. The very old have not been immersed in American culture and I will soon miss them forever, along with the times they represented. In some regions, it was an offshoot of the Middle Ages. The old Europe is disappearing and the rare resuscitation attempts are no more than a romantic story, a last cry. The machine will consume everything and recycle it into a product. What remains are memories, until they are no more. Even for Americans.
One of the things I love about reading your essays is feeling how the young-ish joy at "finding a tribe" is maturing into a more resilient sense of community, however distant. For what it's worth, this wild Christian will defend your village rituals - devout pagan or otherwise - with her life, and there's always a place for you in the forest prayer garden we're slowly bringing to life at the edge of our old Pennine churchyard.
Something that keeps coming up for me at the moment - in resonance with what you wrote - is that Christianity is at its most spiritually potent when its institutions have the least geopolitical power. A thread I think I'd like to keep pulling on, to see where it leads and what it might unravel...
Your prayer garden sounds lovely.
And I absolutely agree. Power changes religion, and the alliance Christians made with the capitalists for the last four hundred years really has done no one good except the capitalists.
If you look back to when "christianity" first started, it was a marginal group of castoffs and weird people who'd followed a breakaway rabbi and weren't really sure he came back from the dead or not but wanted to believe. When you look at Jesus of the gospels it's all pretty subversive and against the power of the state (which is why the man Jesus got crucified). When you look at it like this you see the kind of thing I think this "re-wilding" idea is about - but then Constantine ruined everything by co-opting this weird cult that kept trying to help people and love hem - and then the Christianity we think of today was born. That was Constantine's fault. He gave it respectability. The original idea was wild. I think.
About the American culture colonising other parts of the world, I can only add how annoyed I am that, after resisting Americanisms my whole life, my British/German teenage kids say "gotten" instead of "got". Bloody YouTube! Sigh. But it is an integral sign of what you are talking about, isn't it?
My teenage daughter called me "Bro" over the weekend. The threat of a lifetime you tube ban nipped that in the bud, although for how long remains to be seen 😉
Thank you Rhyd for sharing this freely. A really good read. Thank you
It's an honor to be working with you too, Rhyd!
Another fantastic entry in this series. I would be over the moon to see you and Kingsnorth do further work together on this Wild Christianity.
hey, thank you so much for the shoutout, and for publishing our essay!
i'm absolutely here for re-wilding Christianity. maybe something "gnostish," to use GW's term?
Well written essay, touched a number of things in me. One I covered in my response to a comment made by Ann Barton. Thanks for the word sostalgia, there is word like that in another language, which I can’t recall. I am old enough to be your father and when I hear music from the Sixties, Motown, Johnny Cash, Beach Boys and others I am saddened, remembering another, more vital America. I also grew up in a Wisconsin village, now so different with its own special traditions and personal connections fading.
I have been involved in Paul’s Wild Christianity discussion on his website and couple of other sites, sharing my take on it. A piece of that washed up as a comment on a recent post of yours. Hope it didn’t try your patience excessively. I appreciate your kind heart.
https://youtu.be/Tkvf7OLgAQg
You might like this song about nostalgia. It’s one of my favorites. Don’t worry- it’s sweet and soft and sad not scary