Thread by @dynamicsymmetry

Okay, HERE WE GO: somewhat annoyed thread about being a Christian Druid and hearing “you can’t do that” from both sides.

I want to preface it by issuing a couple of caveats.

First, I know that “you can’t do that” is not by any means a uniform attitude on the part of Druids/Druidry. The Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids in the UK is especially open to this sort of braiding of traditions.

Any religious/faith/spiritual community is going to be way more diverse than might seem at first glance, and Druidry in particular can be all over the place, in part because there are so many solitary practitioners and in part because there is basically no dogma.

So I’m not remotely talking about all Druids here. I’m just talking about a general attitude that I see a fair amount, not just from Druids but from Pagans generally.

Which leads me to my next caveat.

I do not want in any way to minimize the very real and legitimate discomfort that some Pagans feel regarding the braiding of Pagan and Christian tradition and practice, given the history of persecution and colonialism there.

There are parts of the country where it’s not physically safe to openly be a Pagan, and American Christianity is part of that.

But note that I specified “American” Christianity there, which is part of the point I’ll be making here.

NOW.

I think it probably goes without saying that the majority of Christians here in America and probably in a lot of the world in general would regard mixing Paganism and Christianity as, at best, bizarre and wrong. Many would equate it to devil worship.

So I want to leave that position for a second and start with the pushback from the Pagan end.

Here’s a classic example of the sort of thing I see, from the Druid Network. druidnetwork.org/what-is-druidr…

If you don’t want to click, here are the pertinent bits:

“the Druid does not acknowledge deity to be existent outside of Nature, for nothing is beyond Nature: the Druidic understanding is of Nature as All, in a process of perpetual self-creating.  This is not Christianity.”

“the Christian god is supernatural, ie. transcendant of Nature.  This is not Druidry.”

I. Okay.

Okay. So let’s dig into this.

I should note that this is a highly specific objection made by this specific website; many Pagan objections to this sort of tradition braiding do not explicitly take this approach. But it’s going to get me where I intend to go.

Let me start by saying that the *tone* of that thing pisses me the fuck off. Maybe I’m misreading it, but it strikes me as arrogant and a bit condescending.

Also ignorant, and here’s why.

Whoever wrote that thing just. Does not know anything about contemporary and historical Christianity at all. At all. Whatsoever.

Look into the history of Christianity and what you discover is wildly diverse and it is also BONKERS.

That FAQ answer seems to believe that Christianity is a singular thing with a singular doctrine and a singular understanding of the nature of God (in particular they seem to be unaware of Creation Spirituality and Christian panentheism about which more in a second).

Christianity has made a number of attempts over the course of the last couple thousand years to nail down What We Believe.

It never goes great.

Because no one actually agrees.

Let’s take a basic idea that I think a lot of people would consider a core and totally agreed-upon Christian doctrine: Jesus was God.

We all agree on that, right?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

WE DO NOT. WE NEVER HAVE.

It *is*fair to say that there are one or two broadly mainstream positions. But those haven’t always been mainstream. The nature of the divinity of Jesus as the Christ has been a constantly evolving argument since the beginning.

Is Jesus wholly separate from the Godhead? Is he equally human and divine or is it more lopsided? Is he of one substance with the Father or is it more complicated? Trinity? No Trinity?

WE DON’T ALL AGREE.

Okay, let’s take another one: Original Sin. Surely we must all agree about that, it comes up all the time.

NOPE

The doctrine of Original Sin dates from about the 3rd century and was popularized by Augustine of Hippo in the 4th. Original Sin ain’t original.

And what’s more, lots of sects have accepted the doctrine in its most basic form but haven’t agreed on exactly what it is and how it works, and haven’t agreed on what to do about it.

I assume you’re starting to get the picture. It’s a complicated one.

Christianity is solidified in doctrine and creed, but there are multiple versions of doctrines and creeds.

It’s not this fossil religion. It’s diverse and complex, and most importantly it is *alive and changing all the time*.

We don’t even all agree on the literal nature of God. “Omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent” is probably the one area where we’re all (mostly) on the same page at this point, but yes.

So it’s a little irritating to read this blanket declaration about what we think God Is.

If you talk to the more mystical parts of Christianity—and the mystical, contemplative tradition is where I locate myself—we’ll often tell you that *we don’t know what God is*, that the nature of God is fundamentally incomprehensible by the human mind.

We’ll tell you that God for us is experience. In meditation and contemplation and prayer, in going about our daily lives. That we get the closest we can get when we simply *exist* and open ourselves up to the presence of the divine everywhere and in everything.

That trying to guess the precise nature of Jesus Christ is just that: a guess. And also rather beside the point, because the point is not to understand the fine details of something like that but instead to engage in relationship with Christ himself.

If you tell me in a single sentence what God is, I’m going to laugh at you and be like well that’s just like your opinion man

And among Christians I am not remotely alone in that position.

I’m also a bit annoyed by that FAQ answer because it seems to be nailing down *Druidry* in a sense I find distasteful, by the way. Part of what attracted me to Druidry in the first place was the lack of dogma and the flexibility and freedom to decide what it means for you.

“Nothing is beyond nature”. Says who?

Seriously, says who? Who says that? Why should I consider them authoritative?

What even is “Nature”? How do we define that? Are we restricting it to the material world? How are we defining “material”?

And even if we can define those things, why should *our* definitions be authoritative?

Please understand that I’m not engaging in a blurry gauzy notion of “what even IS Truth, man?” Some things are knowable. It is vitally important to operate within a broad consensus about a factual universe.

But strict definitions here do not serve us.

(And believe me, I’m someone who likes precision in my language. I always squirm a little when I use “energy” apart from a scientific context; I use it anyway because I don’t feel like there’s a better word for precisely what I mean to say.)

But anyway. My point is that if your argument for Christian Druidry being illegitimate is that Christians believe that God is X and Druids don’t, your argument is rather undercut by history itself.

(Some Druids DON’T BELIEVE IN A DEITY OF ANY KIND FFS, get outta here)

It’s also worth mentioning that what currently goes by the name of “Druidry” is extremely new. We basically don’t know anything for sure to speak of about Druids and who they were. We can’t even be 100% certain that they *existed,* although they probably did.

And the “Druids” who started up doing their thing in the 1700s? Yeah, many if not most of them would have identified as Christian. So they certainly didn’t seem to see much of a conflict there.

If you think Christians can’t also be Druids, and Druids can’t also be Christians, take it up with Iolo Morganwg. If you can get him out of his laudanum stupor.

(Guy lived on bread and wine and laudanum, he was probably a BLAST to hang with)

Just as Christianity is a living and evolving tradition—really a collection of associated traditions with a common origin—Druidry is too, and Druidry isn’t restricted by dogma and is therefore far more open to rapid change.

You can’t nail it down. Don’t try.

FURTHERMORE

Saying that Christianity and Paganism can’t mesh completely ignores a lot of how religious folk traditions work.

Listen, Christianity has been heavily a colonizer religion. But in many places, it’s been slower and weirder and more fragmented than that.

Take a look at folk traditions in Eastern Europe, for example. They’re a fabulously interesting blend of Paganism and Christianity. Because in many areas Christianity didn’t come down like a hammer and convert everyone instantly, it crept in and was gradually adopted.

Look at the actual geographic seat of Druidry, for God’s sake, at where Celtic Christianity developed. Oh my lord it is WILD, Wales had like a hundred thousand saints, miracles and magic were often indistinguishable, Brigid is a goddess and also a saint

SACRED WELLS

Traditions move around with cultural contact, with conquest and trade, with people just traveling like people do, and stuff changes all the time and then it changes again, and rarely are those changes neat and clean and abrupt.

(DO WHATEVER YOU FUCKING WANT, IT’S ALL JUST HUMANS DOING HUMAN THINGS)

(EXCEPT ALSO DON’T APPROPRIATE NATIVE TRADITIONS IF YOU’RE A SETTLER)

I think one could offer a number of arguments against Christian Druidry—I probably wouldn’t find them compelling but one could try—but one thing you cannot reasonably do is argue that the Christian metaphysical understanding of God means it won’t work.

There is no conflict.

There’s only a conflict if you make there be one.

Okay, let’s talk about panentheism.

Panentheism should not be confused with pantheism; they are related but distinct.

Pantheists (broadly) hold that God IS everything. Panentheists (broadly) hold that God is IN everything.

A subtle difference but an important one.

A panentheist view of God is of an entity simultaneously transcendent and immediately present. Think of the idea that if a being creates everything out of nothing, some aspect of that being will be in every single part of the creation.

(Druids aren’t Creationists)

Panentheism is central to what is currently called Creation Spirituality within Christianity. God in every part of Nature, every encounter with Nature also an encounter with God.

Sounds pretty. well. Sounds pretty Druidy to me.

And for that reason a lot of Christians will reject it.

Philip Carr-Gomm, former Chief of OBOD, gave a talk a while back wherein he talked about the book THE FOREST CHURCH by Bruce Stanley, and in particular a review of it. druidry.org/druid-way/othe…

A review which called panentheism a “cop out” and suggested it stood in direct opposition to Christian Orthodoxy.

And like... That’s just wrong. Because again, you can’t nail us down like that, and because many elements of Christianity are panentheist.

What IS “Orthodoxy”?

Julian of Norwich was writing about her ecstatic experiences of God-in-Everything in the fourteenth fucking century. Don’t you tell me it’s not a thing.

Okay, so what about the gods vs. God?

I mean... this part is definitely trickier, and it’s something I’m still figuring out and do not yet have very clear in my mind.

But what even are “gods”? Literal beings? Archetypes? Human belief made real?

Pagans don’t agree about that.

What I will say is that I don’t personally feel any totally irreconcilable conflict between the notion of a literally real and profoundly personal Deity and many other small-g gods.

Which is actually in the Bible, by the way.

In the early books, it’s implied that YHWH is not the one real god but at first the God specifically of one people, and then the biggest baddest god on the block, and THEN much later the only real one.

Look, I personally think the truth—if there is any kind of deity, which I do not pretend to be sure of—is probably much more complicated and endlessly stranger than anything we have ever come up with. I think we’re fumbling at something totally beyond us.

And that fumbling is worthwhile! I think God wants us to fumble. I think that’s part of why we’re here, if we’re here for anything. Or that’s what I prefer to believe.

We’re here to find something that works, that makes us better people.

Which is why, when someone has found something that works for them and does no harm to anyone, I think it’s fabulously misguided to say “you can’t do that”.

It’s also empirically incorrect?

I am literally right here doing it. I am doing it right now. That thing you said I can’t do. I don’t know what you want me to tell you, buddy. Here I stand, I can do no other.

No one Christian or group of Christians has a corner on the definition of the whole thing. That’s not a moral statement, it’s a factual one. We don’t all agree. For that reason, none of them can reasonably say that Christianity and Druidry are mutually exclusive.

No one Pagan or group of Pagans has a corner on it either. No group in Druidry has the authority, moral or factual, to lay out what Druidry must be. For that reason, none of them can reasonably say that Christianity and Druidry are mutually exclusive.

I should note, again, that I’m setting aside things like cultural appropriation and colonialism. When an indigenous group says “these are our traditions”, that’s it. You don’t argue, settler. And you keep your hands off unless explicitly invited to do otherwise.

But my final and perhaps most important point here is that there is a cultural and a theological heritage that makes Druidry a *perfect fucking fit*.

The sacredness of Nature and the imminent presence of God within it, and the sense of spiritual power and awe.

That’s not in all of Christianity, but there are ancient strains of Christianity that view the world in precisely that way—as enchanted, as practically animist. Not originally sinful but originally and biblically Good.

I grew up with The Chronicles of Narnia, and setting aside the ways in which those books have some PROBLEMS, I invite you to remember, if you’ve read them, that there are gods in Narnia. There are naiads and dryads. There’s sorcery and magic. And there’s Aslan.

This is, in many ways, the Christianity I was raised with, and I believe that was very intentional on the part of my parents, although I’m not sure they knew exactly where it would lead me. I was raised with an enchanted Christianity that felt very real and natural to me.

And then what happens to most of us happened to me: I grew up and lost that sense of enchantment, and a lot of that is due to the Christianity I tended to see more often than not. So I started to drift away.

Paganism is what drew me back. Wild, huh?

I believe that God led me to Paganism and to Druidry, I really do.

I mean, you can argue with God about that for me if you want to. I think I’ll pass.

Can you mix American Evangelical Christianity with Paganism? Uh, I would say no. Really no.

Can you mix *Christianity* with Paganism? Ah, now you’re asking the right question.

My own personal answer is yes, and I’ve yet to receive compelling evidence to the contrary.

Again, I respect Pagans who are made uncomfortable by it, I truly do. That’s 100% valid. There’s a lot of real pain there.

But this is, incidentally, part of why I’m not remotely interested in finding a meatspace community to practice in.

I feel like I just wouldn’t *mesh* super well with others right now.

To clarify: I have yet to receive any *personal direct* pushback about this. I’m talking more about an attitude I’ve encountered in my wanderings.

I suspect that if I moved more in Pagan circles in a social sense, I might encounter more of it, but perhaps not.

Christians? Yeah hahahaha I don’t expect 90% of them to ever get it

But I think some would, because again, the *heritage is there*. People like Richard Rohr and Matthew Fox and Rob Bell do get it. People who are into Celtic Christianity and other mystical approaches are more likely to. It’s out there. That’s comforting.

I wish it was more common, because I feel like a reenchanted Christianity would be really good for a lot of people. Sometimes we just feel like we need permission to go there and the permission isn’t forthcoming.

(You do not need permission to go there.)

I’m not sure how to close this out. If you read this far, thank you; this stuff is tough and a little intimidating to talk about and I’m still sorting it all out. It’s a journey, not a destination.

I think we should all have a little more humility.

And we should recognize religion and spirituality as the wildly diverse and constantly evolving bonkers mcwackypants phenomena that they are. They’re a lot more fun when you do.