seminar on Paganism

I delivered a seminar today as part of Celebrating Diversity Month 2008 at the University of Bath. I think it went quite well, though I managed to confuse people on some issues. It's difficult to do justice to the topic in about 40 minutes.

Coming out of the broom closet: an introduction to contemporary Paganism

presented by Yvonne Aburrow

Paganism is a group of non-proselytising, non-creedal religions which celebrate the sacredness of all life. This talk will explore and explain the various Pagan traditions in the contemporary world, and look at where there is still discrimination against Pagans.

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fundamentalist Pagans?

You might be a fundamentalist Pagan if you believe that

• only the Pagan worldview is true
• all Christians are the enemy (and OMG/WTF/BBQ the Burning Times are coming back soon)
• nothing less than belief in many discrete gods counts as "proper" Paganism
• the "proper" way to do Paganism is to devote yourself to a specific deity
  

  Pagans on a devotional path commit themselves to one deity or to one god and one goddess. (apparently)
  

• all fluff-bunnies should be de-fluffed immediately and sent to bed without any supper
• Paganism is a fertility religion, and "The God" and "The Goddess" are heterosexual
• all ancient human remains whatsoever should be reburied
  

Of course, I sincerely hope that fundamentalist Pagans are a product of my fevered imagination, but I have come across some pretty mad stuff on mailing lists... or maybe that is because of the weird group dynamics on mailing lists.

what he actually said

As usual, what was actually said has been misreported and over-simplified - in this case the Archbishop of Canterbury's comments on Sharia law.

In his lecture, the Archbishop sought carefully to explore the limits of a unitary and secular legal system in the presence of an increasingly plural (including religiously plural) society and to see how such a unitary system might be able to accommodate religious claims. Behind this is the underlying principle that Christians cannot claim exceptions from a secular unitary system on religious grounds (for instance in situations where Christian doctors might not be compelled to perform abortions), if they are not willing to consider how a unitary system can accommodate other religious consciences.

I still disagree with what he said - in my opinion, the law should be single, unified and not make special exemptions for anyone (whether they be Christian homophobes seeking to discriminate against LGBT people, or Pagans who want to rebury ancient human remains, or the implementation of sharia for Muslims - most of whom have very sensibly asked, which sharia law are you going to implement? and in fact the Archbishop acknowledged the multiple forms of sharia) . It is OK to allow people to do stuff which doesn't hurt anyone else (e.g. there are special arrangements in place for Muslims to have mortgages without borrowing money at interest, which is usury and forbidden in Islam), and if Christian doctors don't want to do abortions they can refer women to clinics, and there are compromise options available in the ancient human remains situation. But discrimination in the provision of goods and services to LGBT people is just bang out of order.

Concomitant, however, to this unity of the law is the fact that every citizen has a right to contribute to the debate around law and the making of laws (and to bring in their unique perspective and experience, both secular and religious). For example, I am strongly opposed to ID cards and consider that introducing them is a form of oppression that I would strongly resist - and I think all people of conscience (religious or secular) have the right to resist such tyranny. But my ideas on this come from my political identity as a free citizen, not my religious identity as a Wiccan Unitarian animist (both my political and spiritual identity come from my personal values, and not the other way around). Similarly, if homosexuality was suddenly made illegal (fortunately very unlikely), I would do everything in my power to resist this, and to help my LGBT friends to hide or escape. So individual conscience should trump the law, but the law should not make special exemptions for it. Which seems like a paradox, but can be resolved by the fact that unjust laws can be campaigned against and resisted, and if the consensus is that they are unjust, they will be repealed (e.g. the death penalty, slavery, etc.)

I personally have a problem with the fact that the legal system in this country is more concerned about (and has more severe penalties for) violations of property than violations of the person; but I think this imbalance is being addressed by the introduction of human rights legislation. I also worry that many categories of difference, like being left-handed or having ginger hair, will fall between the gaps of the "six strands" of diversity (ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age).

I also wish that journalists would report these things properly.

Update: An excellent article by Simon Barrow, 'A Multifaith Muddle' in The Guardian

Pagans and Christians

Lately there have been a number of posts on the Pagan blogosphere about the relationship between Christianity and Paganism. Is it possible to be a ChristoPagan? Can a Pagan espouse "Christian" values? This has also attracted comment from my Orthodox friend, Methodius.

As results from the Belief-O-Matic indicate, there is considerable overlap between the beliefs of religious liberals from many different traditions. Some values, beliefs and practices are expressed in various ways in all the traditions - though they may receive varying emphasis from the different traditions. After all, we all occupy the same planet, have similar hopes and fears, and experience similar joys and sorrows.

The differences within Christianity are almost as great as the differences between Christianity and Paganism. It's a large set of traditions, and even the meaning of some key concepts, like salvation, is disputed. The Orthodox see salvation as a process which can continue beyond death; some of them believe in apokatastasis, the eventual reconciliation of everyone with God (even though this doctrine was declared anathema in the 4th century). The goal of Orthodoxy is theosis - the process of becoming divine. Contrast this with the judgmental doctrine of Calvinism, in which only the predestined elect are saved, and you can imagine the effect this might have on the rest of their doctrines. Also the Orthodox do not believe that human nature is totally corrupted.

The Unitarians are a fascinating case. They began as people who didn't believe in the Trinity (in other words, Arians), but soon expanded to include deists, humanists, universalists, the early druid revival (Iolo Morgannwg was a Unitarian), and the modern Unitarian movement still contains all these groups, including a vibrant Earth Spirit Network and many atheists who value spirituality. Their values are broadly similar to Pagan values - they celebrate Nature as full of the divine presence, they believe that human nature is ultimately good, that transformation will happen in this world; they are non-creedal; and they have mostly embraced a pantheist or monist view of the divine. Whether Unitarians count as Christians depends on what you mean by "Christian".

The other question is, would Jesus recognise Christianity as being what he intended to found? It has been suggested that he wanted to infuse a bit of Goddess spirituality into Judaism, and didn't intend to found a new religion at all. Certainly he seems to have had a very positive attitude towards women (Mary Magdalene, for example) and nature ("The Kingdom of heaven is all around you, but you do not see it"; "Consider the lilies of the field; they toil not...")

Many of the concepts in Christianity come from classical pagan Greek philosophy (Platonic forms, for instance) or the mystery cults of late antiquity (the concept of a saviour; the virgin birth; even sin).

Where Pagans disagree vehemently with Christians is on three main headings:

• the notion of exclusivism - the idea that only Christianity is true;
  
• the notion that this world is not really important because the Divine reality is better, and anyway it'll all be swept away at the Rapture;
• the idea that sex is not holy.
  

Of course, many Christians would agree that these ideas are wrong - the idea that the world is entirely corrupt was the main source of dispute between the Orthodox and the Gnostics (the Orthodox held that physical reality is good, because it was created by God and still retains his goodness, his energies; the Gnostics said it was entirely fallen and was created by the demiurge to separate us from the Divine).

The view of most Unitarians is that values are more important than beliefs. So let's celebrate where we share values, and leave the beliefs up to individuals. I personally do not want Paganism to become a creedal religion, where you have to believe in a particular concept of the Divine (either polytheism, monism, pantheism, animism, duotheism, or monotheism), or you have to follow a particular pattern in your spiritual life (such as devotion to a specific deity). I am much more interested in shared values, which is why I am prepared to make common cause with anyone - Christian, Unitarian, Jew, Buddhist, atheist, humanist or anyone else who espouses the values of freedom (in the original sense, not the neo-conservative version), diversity, tolerance, and reason. They who are not against us are with us, as a certain rabbi once said...

So, is it possible to be a Christo-Pagan? Depends what you mean by Christian and Pagan. (If you are a Christo-Pagan, your best bet is to hang out with the Unitarians or the Liberal Quakers - they won't mind.)

Can Pagans embrace "Christian" values? It depends if the values are really Christian, or whether they are actually universal values. Of course we should read things from a Christian context with our critical faculties engaged - but we should read stuff from any context with our critical faculties engaged. With any text, one needs to ask where the ideas come from, what their connotations are, and so on.

Bilitis

Aha, so that's where it came from! So Sappho was the quiet lesbian, and Bilitis was the noisy one, so the 1950s activist lesbians (Daughters of Bilitis) named themselves after her.

Personnage fictif, contemporaine et rivale de Sappho, Bilitis, jeune grecque de Turquie vivant sur l'île de Lesbos au VI^e siècle av. J.-C., Pierre Louÿs lui attribua des poèmes sulfureux et passionnés.

Les Chansons de Bilitis furent publiés en 1894 : il s'agit prétendument d'une traduction due à Pierre Louÿs de l'œuvre de cette poétesse antique. L'ouvrage est précédé d'une Vie de Bilitis, retracée par le traducteur et suivi de plusieurs pages de notes... En fait, Pierre Louÿs est l'auteur de ce recueil de poèmes en prose ; il y déploie toute son érudition et sa connaissance des textes poétiques grecs. C'est l’amour pour la langue, un style simple et le plus juste possible, qui permet de dégager une grande force au service de la sensualité et de l’amour sapphique. Pour l'anecdote, Louÿs poussa même le vice de la mystification jusqu'à insérer dans son recueil des pièces poétiques estampillées de la mention : "non traduites"... et par donner des références bibliographiques, entre autres les articles de l'archéologue allemand le Pr. Heim (Heim signifie "mystère" en allemand). Dans un premier temps, une partie de la critique se laissa abuser par cette magistrale supercherie littéraire.

Comme pour la plupart de ses œuvres, Pierre Louÿs doubla les Chansons de Bilitis de poèmes en prose de la même eau mais accentuant l'aspect érotique. Ces Chansons secrètes de Bilitis n'ont été publiées qu'après sa mort.

L'un des premiers groupes activistes de lesbiennes aux États-Unis, les Daughters of Bilitis (filles de Bilitis), devaient leur nom à cette oeuvre.

Holy Bunny!

How do they know it's a God-Bunny and not a Goddess-Bunny? Because it's in da sky an not on da urfz?


moar funny pictures

Anyway, it is clearly El-Ahrairah, who is a trickster, not an authority figure...

LGBT heritage

It's interesting to see how the existence of LGBT heritage is increasingly being highlighted - mainly by the LGBT community:

Gay History - A Trail Exploring LGBT Heritage In London
The elegantly titled House of Homosexual Culture is another new project allowing Londoners to discover, discuss and enjoy gay cultural heritage.

Intercom: LGBT Heritage Project & LGBT History Month
LGBT Heritage Project. Heritage project across the South West Peninsula.

Manchester Pride LGBT Heritage Trail

LGBT Black History (alas, still suppressed)

Artifacts & Disclosures: Michigan's LGBT Heritage

Ellen Galford on Edinubrgh's LGBT heritage

“The Scottish capital, once a byword for a particularly narrow and hard-hearted Puritanism--has undergone an incredible transformation into a vibrant, diverse and cosmopolitan city.

“Edinburgh's LGBT communities have played a significant part in making this happen. This project is a unique historic record of our lives, our political struggles, and our cultural contributions not just to the city, but to society as a whole.”

The Rainbow Project – Blackpool’s LGBT heritage
Collecting Blackpool’s LGBT Heritage – the Rainbow Project seeks to preserve and safeguard the experiences of Blackpool’s LGBT community

LGBT History Month (February 2008) celebrates the lives and achievements of the LGBT community.

Queer History Links - a comprehensive listing of links to sites about LGBT history.

LGBT Religious Archives Network
Coordinates identification, collection and preservation of personal papers and organizational records from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender religious archives.

Stonewall LGBT history

• Holocaust
• Holocaust Memorial Day
• Nazi Persecution of Gay Men and Lesbians
• Organisations
• Resources
• Timeline of lesbian and gay history

BSA study day:

British Sociological Association
Sociology of Religion Study Group

November Study Day 2007
Religion, Spirituality and Gay Sexuality
Saturday 17 November 2007, 10:30am - 4:30pm
University of the West of England
Organiser: Dr Stephen Hunt.

The subject of gay sexuality and religion has become one of the most contentious issues for the contemporary Christian Church. It has also developed as a concern for many of the other major world religions, as well as a number of new expressions of religiosity and spirituality. This study day, to be held at the University of the West of England (UK), seeks to explore a number of themes related to religion, spirituality and non-heterosexuality

Yvonne Aburrow (Bath Spa University)
Is there a distinct queer spirituality? An examination of queer imagery and themes in contemporary Paganism and Christianity

Happy National Coming Out Day

Apparently today is National Coming-Out Day in the USA. So happy coming-out day to everyone in the world, whatever your sexual orientation!

To celebrate, Kittredge Cherry has made a coming-out day video.

A heretic and proud of it

Are you a heretic? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Pelagianism You are a Pelagian. You reject ideas about man's fallen human nature and believe that as a result we are able to fully obey God. You are the first Briton to contribute significantly to Christian thought, but you're still excommunicated in 417. Pelagianism 83% Socinianism 75% Monarchianism 58% Nestorianism 58% Arianism 50% Chalcedon compliant 42% Monophysitism 42% Modalism 33% Apollanarian 33% Adoptionist 33% Docetism 25% Albigensianism 17% Gnosticism 17% Donatism 0%

As a person who doesn't believe in the Trinity, and believes that all human beings are the children of the Divine (which is both one and many) and that we all carry the divine spark within (though I don't reject matter as the Gnostics did), it was very difficult to answer most of the questions.

a victory for good sense

I am delighted to see that this employment tribunal made the correct decision in upholding the rights of LGBT people against someone distributing hate literature (mistranslated and taken out of context from the Bible) against them:

Sexual orientation and religion or belief cases
A significant Employment Tribunal case on the overlap between religion or belief and sexual orientation discrimination law is Mr T Apelogun-Gabriels v London Borough of Lambeth (2301976/05 (5016/62) Feb 2006): The complainant, a Christian, was dismissed for distributing ‘Biblical extracts’ to members of work-based prayer group and ‘interested parties’. He used a search mechanism on a CD of the Bible to locate, download and printout a range of quotes which his employers, the London Borough of Lambeth, considered homophobic, and distributed the literature across the workplace. The Tribunal said that the “material … on any view was totally hostile to those of a homosexual sexual orientation” and the fact that the employer provided a prayer room showed that it did not seek to discriminate on grounds of religion or belief.

The tribunal concluded that a non-Christian who distributed similar literature would have been treated in a similar fashion and that it was the complainant’s conduct in distributing homophobic literature which was the reason for his dismissal, not his religious beliefs.

This is an important case on the dividing line between religion or belief and sexual orientation discrimination. It makes clear that tribunals will be reluctant to give latitude to homophobic actions apparently based on the religious beliefs of the perpetrators. It is an example of the delicate balancing act between religion or belief and sexual orientation discrimination. Equal opportunities policies should take account of both. However, clashes between the two will cause difficulties. Many trade union representatives and employers will be inclined to treat any homophobic behaviour with the utmost seriousness and will examine with scepticism claims that it is protected by the religion or belief Regulations. The outcome of Apelogun-Gabriels should encourage them that that is the right approach, but situations may arise in which the finding the right balance between the two is more difficult.

The full report is available at http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/SORBreport.pdf

~ from UCU Equality and Employment Rights newsletter

Kitt's on the radio

Rev. Kittredge Cherry will be interviewed LIVE ON NATIONAL RADIO tonight about the Senator Larry Craig gay sex scandal!

The Alan Colmes Show: 8 p.m. Pacific (11 p.m. Eastern) Thurs., Aug. 30

You can call in with questions at 1-877-FOR-ALAN (1-877-367-2526).

Colmes contacted Kitt today about her offer to send Senators a free copy of her book "Hide and Speak: A Coming Out Guide."

You can hear "The Alan Colmes Show" on 80 radio stations nationwide and online at:
AlanColmesRadio.com

Colmes is best known as the moderate liberal half of the Fox News Channel's political debate program "Hannity and Colmes."

For more info, visit Kitt's new blog:
http://jesusinlove.blogspot.com/

Rev. Kittredge Cherry is a lesbian Christian author who was at the forefront of the international debate on sexuality and spirituality as National Ecumenical Officer for Metropolitan Community Churches. She offers gay-friendly spiritual resources at JesusInLove.org.

Her books include "Equal Rites," "Jesus in Love" and "Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More."