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| Destruction of "Idols" by Protestants (1524) |
First, a good friend persuaded me to look at a particular window at St Mary’s Cathedral (Sydney) for the aesthetics. It showed Mary on a crescent moon with a halo of stars. It was beautiful and as I looked at it I had a strange sense of a medieval and mystical version of Christianity, and a thought “what a shame this type of Christianity no longer exists”.
Second, my approach to religion subtly shifted over a period of many months until I arrived at a position where I was starting to think maybe God exists in some great cosmic sense, and that the Gohonzon (the sacred mandala of Nichiren Buddhism, which I have been venerating for a number of years) is a portrait of God, and that (at least some of) the benevolent Gods might be God’s helpers.
Third, I listened to a podcast on Martin Luther and had a thunderstruck moment when I realised that the religion I had so thoughtfully rejected a long time ago was perhaps not Christianity but something rather more specific – Protestant Christianity. In my mind Protestantism was Christianity and vice versa, simply because I didn’t know any other type. The Christianity I knew (mostly Lutheranism and Anglicanism) was rather uninteresting and uninspiring so it never occurred to me to explore any variations of it. My limited exposure to Catholicism gave me the (probably incorrect) impression it was just Anglicanism with Mary and an autocratic Pope thrown in – I assumed the fundamental doctrines were otherwise the same and for cultural reasons resisted it (400+ years of Protestant ancestry had taught me to look somewhat askance at Catholics). Orthodox Christianity I knew even less about, but all my encounters with it suggested it was a religion inextricably tied up with ethnic and cultural identities that had nothing to do with me, so I never thought about it, other than to admire the aesthetic. I did not even know there was a church further to the east than Lebanon until a few months ago, such was my general disinterest in Christianity.
The notions I had thought were synonymous with Christianity but are actually features of Protestantism (mostly inspired by Martin Luther and then John Calvin in the case of Anglicanism) include:
- Sola Scriptura, which means that the Bible is the only source of religious authority (which inevitably devalues the contributions of saints, priests and other church leaders who came after the canonical portions of the Bible were written in the 1st century CE). Thus Protestants have a tendency to treat the Bible in the same way that the Koran is regarded by Muslims (Muslims were making inroads into eastern Europe in Luther’s lifetime – although I have not read it anywhere, it seems likely to me that Luther’s call to Sola Scriptura was inspired by Islam). This led Protestants to take on a literal, as opposed to allegorical, interpretation of the Bible (John Calvin held that the Bible should be regarded as literal truth). The problem with this is that if one takes the Bible very literally (especially the Old Testament) it is extremely tempting to come to the conclusion that it is all a load of nonsense, because there are too many Biblical stories that the rational mind will be unable to accept.
- Obsession with the internal experience of “faith” (Sola Fide) – this derives from Luther’s notion that the only means of human salvation is faith (he didn’t think moral virtue could lead to redemption in the eyes of God as people are so sinful in any case). Inevitably this leads one to prioritise one’s experience of faith as being the most important aspect of religion. The side effect of this is that those who lack faith, but have been taught to prioritise their internal state as the primary validation of spiritual experience, can easily come to the conclusion that lack of faith equals lack of God, which is where I more or less ended up.
- The notion that faith is the road to salvation and that moral virtue does not lead to salvation (but may be a byproduct of living in a state of grace) is tied up with the notion that people are inherently steeped in sin. Calvin held that ordinary humans existed in a state of “total depravity” and thus lacked sufficient agency to gain redemption by their own actions (which is why faith is so strongly emphasised). Belief in human sinfulness appears to be common to all forms of Christianity but when I was growing up “sin” was this icky, gross thing that stuck to the soul like muck. It took on a character that was excessive. According to the Orthodox Study Bible to “sin” simply means to be “missing the mark” in the quest towards perfection, leading to alienation from God. This much lighter definition is not at all how I understood sin when I was growing up. For me, to abandon the very notion of sin was to walk into the light, perhaps because my understanding of the nature of sin had been so heavy and so hyperbolic.
- Predestination of souls, such that God extends grace and salvation only to a chosen elect with a corresponding implication (emphasised by John Calvin) that many people are damned. I have thought a lot about this one over the years, as it seemed to me that some of my (now dead) devout relatives have thought that I am damned, and so treated me in a way I did not altogether like. I came to somewhat internalise the idea that I was damned and that God (if He existed at all) hated me. This belief was, for me, a death-blow to my “faith”, as it made me conclude that the Christian God was basically a massive d-ck and so totally unworthy of love or reverence.
The last time I had attended church with any degree of “faith” I was probably in my late teens. It was an Anglican service in an old stone church with little decoration. There was a somewhat iconoclastic feel about the space and much talk of “the father and the son”. The sacred feminine was totally absent. For some reason I emailed the priest the next day complaining about these things and he replied in the most Protestant way imaginable: “that’s just what it says in the Bible”.
Thus I abandoned what little faith I had and for decades I utterly rejected this religion called Christianity, but perhaps I did not know Christianity? Perhaps what I rejected was … heresy?
If I did not understand the most widely practiced religion in the world then surely it behoved me to look at it with fresh eyes, uncontaminated by Protestant presumptions? I decided to buy the Orthodox Study Bible (because it boasted many explanatory notes and Orthodox Christianity seems so different to Protestantism) and I began with the Book of Matthew. In truth, I expected to be bored and alienated by it but I found myself drawn in to a strange and beautiful story. I read one Gospel and then the next over the next few days and weeks, and shortly before I finished the Book of John I watched, for the first time, The Passion of the Christ – a shocking and unbelievably intense movie, during which I secretly cried multiple times (I didn’t want my friend to notice).
The Crucifixion Through Pagan eyes
A new way of looking at the death of Jesus occurred to me – as an inverted Greco-Roman sacrifice. Ancient Romans made blood sacrifices to the Gods to demonstrate their piety. Depending on the rite, they ritually ate flesh from the sacrificed animal, and further offerings of mola salsa (made from wheat and salt) and wine were common. In the crucifixion of Jesus the fundamental Pagan ritual is reversed – God makes a blood offering to man, including wheat and wine (via the flesh and blood of Jesus / the eucharist), and so God honours man. Early Christians, who lived in a world soaked in Greco-Roman Paganism, probably had a keen sense of this beautiful inversion as a demonstration of God’s love for mankind.
Rome’s contribution goes further: if there were a God who sought to emanate Himself among men, and for written stories describing that emanation to travel far and wide, then ancient Rome was the most perfect location and time, if for no other reason than the unprecedently long and complex trade routes that existed along which religions could spread. Thus Rome and Christianity are utterly entwined with each other, and this intertwining could be said to be sacred because it was Romans who carried out the sacrificial rite.
Where then do the Roman Gods feature in this? Or the Germanic Gods? Or the Buddhist Gods? My current hypothetical perspective is unconventional. I tend to think that just as the Old Testament (OT) is preparation for Jews of the new covenant* (called Christianity), so too Greco-Roman philosophy is like the OT for Greco-Romans, ie, they prepared Romans for Christ, as did the Germanic Gods for Germanics, the Buddha for Indians, Nichiren for the Japanese, and so on. Perhaps God was preparing each civilisation in a different way for the new covenant according to their needs? Take the Havamal for example, it sets the stage for conceiving of a God who is a most “High One” (in this case, Odin), as well as promoting moral virtues such as being trustworthy, brave, not hoarding wealth, being generous, valuing love and friendship, not giving into feelings of despair, and so on. It also advocates literacy and, strangely, sacrificing to the Gods less often.
“Better not invoked, than too much sacrificed: a gift always looks for a return; better not dispatched, than too much slaughtered: so Thund [Odin] cut before the creation of nations: he rose up when he returned [Havamal, verse 145 in The Elder Edda, Penguin]”.
Another translation of this verse goes:
“It is better not to pray at all than to pray for too much; nothing will be given that you won’t repay. It is better to sacrifice nothing than to offer too much, Odin carved this before the birth of humankind, when he rose up and returned again [verse 145 from The Wanderer’s Havamal, Hackett]”.
I have thought a lot about this verse over the years (as I have thought a lot about much that is in the Havamal, which I regard with reverence). The reason this verse has resonated so much with me is because I came to this understanding in relation to the Roman Gods years ago. The short version of that story is that from 2009 to 2017 I enthusiastically worshipped Roman Gods in my home (and this enthusiasm was why I started writing this blog in the first place). Then in 2017 my husband died. Everything about this was a tragedy. I accepted it was fate almost immediately but nonetheless the impact on my son was especially cruel (sons should not be raised without fathers). For years I had honoured the Roman Gods and I still believed in them, I even believed they were fundamentally, or mostly, benevolent, but they did not protect my family from this horrendous event. I came to the conclusion they did not want my offerings, but I could not understand exactly why this should be so, given that I still believed in them and I did not feel they were hostile or indifferent.
What if the benevolent Gods accepted offerings (as a demonstration of piety) before people became aware of the new covenant that is Christianity, but were not desirous of them after this point? What if the Gods are real (I retain that position) and they are akin to Angels, Seraphim or Cherubim? We need not strangle ourselves with semantics here – what I mean is that “the Gods” are above humans but below “God”. Some Pagan Gods may in fact be complicated demons but others are agents of the highest “God” and they want us to offer worship to “God”, not to them.
The Post-Christian Nietzschean Mind Virus
Before I leave off I want to address one final key point, and that relates to a key spiritual principle: courage. A leading thinker of our forlorn age is Nietzsche, who cast Christianity in a hideous light in his On the Genealogy of Morals:
“… [in Christianity] craven baseness is turned into ‘meekness’; submission to those whom one hates is turned into ‘obedience’ (namely, obedience to one who, they say, demands such submission – they call him God). The inoffensive character of the weak, the very cowardice which he [the hypothetical Christian] possesses in such abundance … are here given such fine names, such as ‘patience’ … not being able to avenge oneself is called not wishing to avenge oneself, perhaps even forgiveness … These weaklings! [at pp 35-36]”
The first and most obvious retort to this is the life of Nietzsche himself – he died miserable and insane.
A second retort is that Nietzsche is here totally failing to remember the example of not only Jesus himself but also his Apostles (they all died unbelievably grisly deaths) and the many martyrs who have died incredibly bravely and very often voluntarily so. In the early 2nd century Pliny the Younger described the willingness of Christians to die as martyrs in what is now Turkey:
“… among those who were brought to me as Christians, I have used the following method. I asked them if they were Christians. If they admitted it, I asked them a second and even a third time, threatening them with punishment. I ordered those who persisted to be led away for execution … I believed it was necessary to search out the truth [as to whether Christians were assembling in the manner of “secret societies”, which were forbidden] … by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. However, I found nothing other than depraved, excessive superstition … The contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities, but also to the villages and even the farms [Shelton, As the Romans Did, at 410-411]”.
In the late 2nd century CE Galen (a Greco-Roman physician and philosopher who was sympathetic to monotheism, though not a Christian) wrote:
“Thus we now see the people called Christians … their lack of fear of death … is something we can see every day … they include people who, in self-discipline and self-control in all matters of food and drink … have attained a pitch not inferior to that of true philosophers [Beard, North and Price, Religions of Rome: Vol 2, at 338]”.
The stabbing of Bishop Emmanuel of Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Sydney (which derives from the Church of the East) was the closest experience I have had to witnessing the bravery of a true Christian. I saw videos of the incident within an hour or so of it occurring on social media; fearless Christian men wrestled the attacker away and prevented further harm. The Bishop forgave the attacker immediately – an incredible act, given that he was blinded in one eye by the blade. I went to a service at Christ the Good Shepherd Church around 6 weeks after the attack. With a dressing over one eye and wearing a hooded robe the Bishop had a curious resemblance to Odin. He delivered a long sermon (more than an hour) with moving eloquence – I admit I was enthralled by all his talk of love. For love is the thing I believe in the most. It is, in my experience, what gives life the most beauty and meaning.
A third retort relates to Nietzsche’s comments around Christian submission. The way I interpret the call to submission is not to become a spiritual slave, a flagellant or a “knight of infinite resignation” to God’s will, but rather to accept that hierarchy is an implicit component of reality and thus “submission” essentially just means accepting the cosmos as it really is (for God is perhaps an expression of the highest reality). In the secular West we submit to all kinds of things, including our employers and the will of government (obeying laws and paying taxes), in return for the protection of government (roads, police, hospitals, etc), so we are all submissive in any case. Some say they are happy to obey the law and pay taxes – I call those people fools for taxes are far too high, and it is obvious we are being milked like serfs for the enrichment of corporations and their shareholders (many of whom are politicians). Submission and hierarchy are unavoidable features of life, but some forms of submission are more ennobling than others.
Conclusion
So am I a Christian? No, but I am interested now in a way I haven’t been throughout the entirety of my adult life. This religion is too big and too important to ignore, and if I have misunderstood it then it surely behoves me to become enlightened.
*Of course the Biblical OT has the additional purpose of testifying to the coming of Christ (via the numerous prophecies found in those books), which in turn implies the special status of the prophets themselves, as well as their teachings, except where those teachings are contradicted by Jesus or the Apostles (which they often are, as the NT is a new covenant). Some would say the OT gives a special status to Jews, however, the NT makes it clear that Jews have no special status in relation to Gentiles once the new covenant came into effect.
Sources
St Athanasius Academy, The Orthodox Study Bible, Thomas Nelson
M Beard, J North and S Price, Religions of Rome: Vol 2, Cambridge
Encyclopedia Britannica (online)
J Crawford, The Wanderer's Havamal, Hackett Publishing
F Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, Penguin Classics
A Orchard, The Elder Edda, Penguin Books
The Rest is History (podcast)
J Shelton, As the Romans Did, Oxford University Press
V Warrior, Roman Religion: A Sourcebook, Focus Publishing
Appendix
A recovering Protestant's guide to exploring Christianity (be open-minded to the following):
- Know that God is cosmic and beyond our ability to comprehend.
- Christ was made manifest because God loves humanity; even though we make mistakes (sin) it does not make us vile in the eyes of the loving God (eg, the prodigal son).
- God gave humanity the choice of whether or not to embrace goodness (free will). As all people have free will, no-one is damned. We can each experience deification (Theosis) if we choose.
- Venerate Mary (Mother of God), the Saints, icons, relics and the Gospels (but worship God).
- Value the contributions of Christian teachers throughout time (not just the Biblical ones, keeping in mind that in the first few centuries AD there was no Bible as we understand it to be, so the call to sola scriptura is somewhat ahistorical).
- Practice virtue (love, honesty, courage, generosity, self-control, patience, forgiveness, etc).
- Pray facing east (do not merely list all the things you want) and give thanks.
- Fast on Wednesdays and / or Fridays (as an exercise of self-control).
- Be humble and don't engage in vulgar displays (eg, of wealth).
- Notice when you err (sin) and resolve to correct yourself.
Written by M' Sentia Figula (aka Freki), find me at neo polytheist
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