'Pagan religions developed to give people a sense that they had some control over their lives in the world.' Photo: SCA Deutschland / flickr CC.
Are we still pagans?
Anthony Boulton considers paganism and Christianity
I recall reading of a conversation between an anthropologist and a journalist concerning a primitive South American tribe that worshipped a stone idol as a god. ‘What does this god do?’ asked the journalist. The anthropologist shrugged and replied: ‘What does any god do – answers prayers, makes rules, lends muscle.’ It struck me that this is how many people regard God today – albeit somewhat nuanced.
As spiritual mentor Elizabeth Cronkhite writes, in The Acim Mentor Articles: ‘Traditional Christianity is very much like the pagan religions it has sought to replace. Pagan religions developed to give people a sense that they had some control over their lives in the world.
‘They believed that unseen forces controlled the physical world, and they made rituals that would help them to appease these forces. Later, these forces were called gods, and people petitioned and sought to appease these gods, through prayers, rituals, behaviours and attitudes. They had stories for how the world was made by a god or gods. They developed religious laws and rules to live by to please their gods. Abraham came along and revealed that there is only One God, but not much else about religion has changed from paganism.
‘In Christianity God is an outside creator of the world, a Power that you must pray to (petition) and Whose laws you must obey (appease) in order to have some control over your world and, eventually, to be saved from hell when you die.’
Christianity
Christianity is really a fabricated religion, which was originally invented by the apostle Paul, who never knew Jesus personally and who grew up outside Judea in a Greek-speaking city replete with classical (that is, pagan) influences. Paul was a Roman citizen and even his name is the Greek version of his original name of Saul.
Paul’s new religion was eventually high-jacked by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine, who turned it into a Romanised, politicised, militarised, state religion, taking an emblem shunned by the early Christians, the sign of the cross – which symbolized sacrifice, a concept highly valued in pagan religions – and with rituals borrowed from pagan Egypt, even down to the giving of rings in marriage.
The Eucharist (eating the flesh and drinking the blood) was the principal rite in the most ancient religions and the Resurrection, a spiritual event, was turned into a bodily one, as pagan religions have always worshipped the human body – despite it being a limited vehicle with a short shelf life!
Supernatural powers
Hierarchies of priesthoods with supposed supernatural powers also feature prominently in pagan religions, along with ancient manuscripts – often of unknown authorship and doubtful origins – which are used as punitive ‘rule books’ leading to heated dissension over ‘interpretation’, as the blood-soaked past confirms – as well as today.
This reliance was denied by Plato, who stated: ‘Anyone who leaves behind him a written manual… on the supposition that such writing will provide something reliable and permanent must be exceedingly simple-minded.
‘[Written words] seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say… they go on telling you just the same thing forever’ – which may be why Jesus never put pen to paper!
In AD 325, in order to impose conformity throughout the Roman Empire, Constantine ordered the Council of Nicea. On a rigged vote, it made Jesus into a saviour-god, like many pagan saviour gods in the past. New words were substituted for old ideas that for centuries had been used in pagan theology. In AD 527 Jesus was even ‘given’ the same ‘birthday’ as the pagan sun god Mithra.
The life of Jesus
Quite apart from contradicting his own words, turning Jesus into a saviour god born of a virgin, in effect an idol, nullifies the whole purpose of his life and teaching, which was to set an example for everyone to follow – not to set him apart from us on a pedestal as a deified being. As well-known author and speaker Marianne Williamson has said: ‘If Jesus is special and different from us, what are the rest of us – chopped liver?’
Jesus was born, lived and died a Jew. He never founded a religion or a church but his life and times have been manipulated to fit ancient myths and prophecies. The key feature of paganism is the attempt to manipulate the external world and, in this sense, nothing has changed because, just as pagan religions used rituals, sacrifices and supplications, we use modern methods such as science, politics and militarism.
This methodology must ultimately fail because it is an attempt to adjust the cinema screen of the world while ignoring the distortion in the lens of the projector – our mind, with its false values and flawed perceptions.
God within
Jesus, on the other hand, completely overturns millennia of pagan religious thinking with his dramatic statement: ‘The Kingdom of God lies within you’ (Luke 17:21). This has been echoed in more modern times by the renowned physicist Werner Heisenberg, who stated in 1946: ‘Quantum Mechanics has taken man from his knees in the cathedral and placed him at the centre of the universe.’
By emphasizing the ‘God within’ Jesus reveals our essential sameness and therefore our oneness, and that our perceived external differences are so superficial as to be inconsequential.
The life of Jesus exemplifies his teaching. He pays scant regard to the external world of social conventions and politics and eschews the trappings of ‘religion’. He walks the highways and byways, encountering people where he finds them, often in the open air, and speaks to them in a language they can understand. In doing so he thereby debunks that bulwark against God so beloved of both Christianity and paganism – the idea of ‘mystery’!
Jesus is our ‘Redeemer’ in that he liberates us from the enslavement of a paganism that would imprison us in an endless ego-driving cycle of futility and illusion. Instead, Jesus points us to an inner world where we can discover our God-created True Self.
After two thousand years, perhaps we ought to give the teachings of Jesus a try. They might just work!
Comments
Anthony has shot my fox! I have been reading and thinking along parallel lines, partly the books on St Paul by Karen Armstrong recently and by A N Wilson some years ago.(He is not academic enough for her to acknowledge him.) There is also Barrie Wilson, How Jesus became Christian. Even closer to Anthony is A N Wilson’s latest, The Book of the People – How to Read the Bible. This echoes Romans in insisting that you should not treat the Bible as a rule book. I’ll wait for dust to settle and offer my glosses to The Friend in due course.
By Richard Seebohm on 31st December 2015 - 10:57
In the 31st of December edition of the Friend Anthony Boulton gave us a perceptive insight into the history of Christianity. I feel in total agreement with all that he had to say. It was though only a historical survey. He concluded by stating that we need to give the teachings of Jesus a try. Again, I could not agree more. Therefore here is my attempt to put those teachings in a way that is relevant for today
My Christianity is one based on original blessing rather than sin. One where God (however you define your God, as it is only a word that points to what is beyond words or thoughts) offers love, not power or control. One where God both loves us and forgives us unconditionally for who we are and never for anything that we do: it is pure gift. One found in us at the core of our being, rather than out there. One based on humility rather than power. One where what I do God does through me. One based on transformation, not judgements about moral transgressions, or based on reward-punishment models. One based on contemplation and experience, rather than outdated belief. One that exists in the present moment as God only exists in the present moment, rather than the past or the future. One that is both-and, rather than either-or. One where being does come before doing justice, even if both are essential.
One that sees our purpose in life as transformation into (or opening ourselves up to) the True Self we always are at the core of our being. What we Quakers refer to as the Light, or the Truth. One that holds Jesus as the archetypal human being, the pattern for what it is to be human and transformed. That transformation happens from the bottom, from failing, and very rarely from being successful or rich, or even just okay and comfortable. One that can hold the paradox that Jesus is both fully human and a son of God, without cancelling either out. One that accepts and can hold the paradox that I am imperfect as well as a child of God. Which then implies the transformation of our Quaker communities as well as the transformation of society as a whole, as we continue to develop the breadth and depth of our spiritual consciousness and awareness.
In the same edition of the Friend Don Atkinson writes about how marvellous Will Hutton’s book is, ‘How Good Can we Be’, but then wonders how this can be achieved. For me, the above is the only way to develop a Christianity committed to peace, equality, mutual love and charity. A Christianity that totally opposes injustice, discrimination, oppression and hunger.
The result a society that truly reflects God’s image, one that is indeed imbued with the fruit of the spirit. What purpose do we need more than that?
Richard Eddleston
By Richard on 2nd January 2016 - 15:06
Amthony Boulton has just brought Quakerism rght up to date. We no longer need to fret about being deists, atheists, etc. The deity of monotheistic religion and the gods of the polytheistic and pagan religions are anachronisms. We just need to tweak a Quaker phrase, That of God in every person to now read: The sacred IS every human being. No human beings, no religion. We have moved on. There is nothing to be appeased. As Goethe perceptively put it – Look within, if there thou findest not infinity, no help for thee. It’s not that there is a bit of God in each person. It is that every encounter with another human being is a meeting with every kind of deity. It isn’t that God is dead, but that we have been looking for Him in the wrong places.
By PETERHANCOCK on 2nd January 2016 - 15:06
What amazes me is that, despite the overlay of religious ‘believism’ millions of Christians have a very real experience of whatever it is we refer to as ‘God’. I spent an hour with our new local vicar recently and after a rich conversation we stood to depart and instead of shaking hands, felt compelled to embrace one another. The wonderful thing is that ‘God’ is no respecter of beliefs and it doesn’t matter what religious medium we use, it is still possible to experience deep and ongoing transformation. It is so simple. As George Fox said, “Be still in your own mind and feel the principle of God.” That’s the finishing point for some religious practices. For Quakers it’s the starting point. Let’s share it with all - religious or not.
By BrianH on 3rd January 2016 - 10:50
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