Christ Pagan?

[Rook]

So, what exactly is a Christ Pagan? It makes me think of the ideological wars between Judaism and Jews for Jesus. As Her Majesty points out, all Christians are kinda Jews for Jesus in the strictest interpretation of the phrase. But Christ is out of sink with the three major sub-sets of paganism that immediately come to mind. The Celto-Brittanic Druid style pagans and the Norse-ish Viking pagans both predate Jesus, and the modern Wiccan revivalist pagan group was invented (re-discovered, re-interpreted, whatever you want to call it) in the 1950s. So...where's the connection?

[Mira O'Halloran]

It's also been called Christopaganism. It's basically all the nature spiritual, and other worldly eg fairies, spirits, crystal energy, etc (oft associated with paganism) combined with a belief in Jesus. I've met a number of christians whose beliefs mirror mine, and by the mainstream christians, they're considered heretics (never mind that the mainstream seems obsessed with selling the "jesus is my GIRLfriend" line < that is not a typo)
I don't think I could ever let go of the purity, spirit and power I've found in paganism. And I could never re-intergrate in a 'normal' church. I had to find a middleground somewhere.

Does that make sense? (it is 2:30am here and I am exhuasted, so if I've spouted gibberish, please, ask me to explain it.)

[Rook]

I still don’t understand, but I don’t think it’s because you’re spouting gibberish. I guess I just don’t see where you decide to draw the line when you merger the religions.

Do you believe in the pagan gods from any substrate of paganism, be it Celtic, Norse, Egyptian or Greco-Roman? I’m pretty sure Christianity has something very strict to say about that. Where exactly do you draw the line, and why? What is the ratio of pagan to Christian? Do you still study the bible? Do you pray to Yahweh or to the Goddess or to the Green man or the sun and the moon? The religions seem to conflict so badly that you couldn’t truly merge them, the split would have to favor one side or the other.

Maybe I’m being thick headed and prejudice…but my brain is locked in this endless loop of shouting ‘why?’ Why Jesus? What’s it about him? I get the impression that you’ve pretty much abandoned everything Christian except for Christ. I don’t get what it is about him that you need, that you can’t get from anywhere else. I don’t mean this offensively, but he he’s not unique; he doesn’t really profess anything that you don’t find in other religions (mostly pagan religions.) I mean, I believe and accept that Jesus may have existed as the foundation for the creation of the Christian religion. I also believe that, even if things have been changed and glorified over the years and retellings that the stories of Finn MacCool, Caughulain, Siegfried, Moses and Shakuni were all based off of real people and the things that they did. That doesn’t necessarily make me accept them as part of my spirituality.

As an aside, what does Jesus is my Girlfriend supposed to mean?

[Mira O'Halloran]

I'll reply to most of the above later (too tired right now) If you reply to this, i'll remember to come back to it.

"Jesus is my Girlfriend" is a term Matt (my housemate) introduced me to. It's the perfect way to explain the modern popular churches approach to Jesus and God, etc: People who attend church for the emotional high and attention, rather then for their own personal spiritual fulfilment and developement. They romanticise the idea of god, hence "jesus is my girlfriend" without actually following the harder, more unplesant, yet more fulfilling 'jobs' (it's 4:39am, I can't think of the word) that Jesus had put to the Christians that came after him - feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, helping the needy, being a listening ear where one is needed - In short, none of this segregated "Christians only club" where they won't socialise with anyone who falls outside of the christian catergory.

Basically the christian version of the fluffy bunny wiccans who are airy fairy light and love and never actually read up or act on their own beliefs.

Again, it's late, so it there was anything up there that didn't make sense, feel free to point it out.

[Rook]

Yeah, perhaps a moment when you're a bit more awake. I understand what you mean by Jesus is my Girlfriend, but I still am completely confused about your deliniation between beliefs.

So you study the teachings of Jesus, which means you study the bible. The bible has many rules regarding God (the only one) and creation and the ways to live your life. Do you just pull from the bible anything relating to Jesus and ditch the rest? When you say a Christian version of Wicca...what? How?

I'm getting hung up on the paradoxical differences. Namely:

Wicca: Believes in many gods, recognizes and respects other gods of other pantheons
Christianity: There's one god, and praying to any other is worshiping false idols, damning you to hell.
Wicca: Belief in spirits and fairies and alternative entities as the good guys (with a couple rotton eggs)
Christianity: Anything that's not god or his angels is evil and are trying to convince you to damn yourself to hell
Wicca: Magic is good and helps you enhance yourself and your spirituality
Christianity: Magic is evil and using it damns you to hell
Wicca: Very few rules designed to restrict or control social behavior (beyond the be nice or things wont be nice to you 'Rede.')
Chistianity: A laundry list of things that have to be done to attain salvation, and a longer list of things to avoid, not do or actively oppose lest you go to hell.
Wicca: Life is a process of life and death, after death there's progression and potential rebirth.
Christianity: This is your one shot, then there's heaven or hell

How can you combine these two without completely disregarding one or the other? And if you're pretty much ignoring the foundation of one or the other, then you're not really a merger between the two. If you're pagan, and follow the base pagan philosophies than you're not really a Christ Pagan, or Christian Wiccan...you're just a pagan you accepts the Christ parables as one of the many teaching hero stories of mythology. If it's the other way around, you're not really a pagan, you're just a hippy Christian. I don't mean to sound harsh.

[Mira O'Halloran]

My house mate put it this way in regards to Christianity and it's rules. It all boils down to two and they are:
1- Love people
2- love God
There isn't much else to add to that. However, if you're referring to all the extra rules that have been written in as means of control, I don't consider them.

Wicca is a pretty organised form of Paganism. I don't see Wicca and Christianity melding too well together. Generalised Paganism and Christianity are a different kettle of fish, because paganism is so broad spectrum.

1 - As for belief in gods, I always believed that each god was an aspect of divine energy simply called The All. So I believe in all gods, and they're all a part of the same universal energy. God and Jesus are a part of it too, and I choose to talk to Jesus.

2- As for fairies, spirits, angels and evil, I still talk to trees. My christian housemate puts a shot glass of whiskey out for the fae folk to encourage them into the house. He's always been a christian. We've had a malevolent spirit hanging around and Matt's christian friends (about 5 of them) came over and had a massive prayer session to discourage it from returning. It's been back once since then, which is amazing. Mainstream, it's seem as an evil, but in the back pockets, there's a christian movement where all that "evil pagan stuff" is seen in a positive light, as a necessary thing. I'll come back to hell in a moment.

3- Magic was only ever evil AFTER the bible was rewritten as "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" It was used to further the churches political agenda. Originally the verse meant don't play with dark magick, demons or any other funny stuff that could get you in deep trouble.

4- On salvation, if you want to get down to the bares bones of christianity, When you accept Jesus, you are saved. Salvation and heaven are separate things, just to clarify. As for the long list of things not to do, refer back to my first paragraph, but if you look at the ten commandments, don't just take them at face value. Note that their writer has limited space to write them, so he had to keep it short and sharp. Look in to the meaning behind them. For example, I'll use "Do not murder" the expanded version of that is that life is precious, and is sacred and should be protected. (Imagine how many stone tablets they would have needed if all the commandments were that long?)

5- I'm not sure where I stand on this because I do believe in past lives. I'm still working out what I believe at the moment.

Now, As for hell: It was explained to me this way: Hell is being wrapped up in God's arms when you really don't want to be. It sure beats the whole hellfire and brimstone that gets preached.

I'm not on speaking terms with God at the moment. So, I suppose that's how I merge them. I don't think i'm ignoring any foundations, but I don't know. I believe that faith and personal beliefs are between a person and their deity of choice.

Feel free to ask any more questions, or point out any conflicting sentences. Or if I missed anything.

[Rook]

So you don’t actually use any of Christianity except for the hero mythology. I don’t think there’s a Christian around that could agree that you’re still Christian if you believe in other gods. Christ Pagan’s a good term for it then. It’s like Celtic Paganism, or Norse Paganism, or Egyptian Paganism. You define your paganism through the stories about Jesus instead of using the stories about Thor or Rah or the Sidhe. I guess that makes sense. I’m sure it would ruffle the feathers of more Christians than it would pagans, though most pagans would probably come to the same confused conclusions I did.

I don’t have any more questions really, as far as I can tell there’s almost nothing Christian (though plenty Jesusy) about what you believe. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, and the term ‘Christ Pagan’ is a much more accurate than “Christian Pagan” which is what my brain immediately translated it to.

[Mira O'Halloran]

I don't call it mythology, but that's me. I know a handful of christians who do believe there are others out there, but they're a minority. If I tried to bring it up at my uni (Its a small, private, pentecostal institute) they'd pitch a fit, and try to get me to leave.

Well... It depends on how you look at it. The Jews believed god, then when Jesus Christ came along, the new term 'Christian' was coined for anyone who followed his teachings, and believed in the old testament too. No, I'm not a 'traditional' christian, with precise right and wrong and rules that Catholisism created before the modern types of churches branched out from the catholic church, but I believe in the foundations of the teachings of Jesus.

[Rook]

Jews only believe in only one god though, and are as against paganism, by doctrine, as Christians are if you look at the text book.

[Mira O'Halloran]

If you're referring to the "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" passage, that was added to the bible in support of witch hunting. There was reference to black magic and not to fool around with it.

[Rook]

Mostly I was referring to the first and second commandments about not having other gods. Paganism is not synonomous with witchcraft, and I've never actually brought it up except once in reference to magic, and magic can take many more forms than witchcraft. I'm talking about a clash of pantheons.

[Mira O'Halloran]

Ah, that one. It depends on your interpretation. I believe others exist. So do most of my close christian friends.

Over here pagan is synonomous with witch which is synonomous with magic, which is evil, and must avoided, blah blah. It's a pretty sad state of affairs.