<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"></div><div dir="ltr">Every person and culture has a story of reality that informs our active living in the world, whether or not it’s been “canonized” and/or “institutionalized.” For me the Christian story is neutered when it becomes a story of how to save oneself from an evil world rather than why and how to serve a suffering world. Maybe that perversion has contributed greatly to the demise of what Douthat calls the “Protestant establishment.” I like the thought that I first encountered in Harvey Cox’s book The Future of Faith, that faith is less about what you believe or how you worship and more about how and on behalf of what you live your life. If this is what Douthat means by “a social gospel denuded of theological content” then I am guilty as charged.</div><div dir="ltr">Randy</div><div dir="ltr"><br>On Dec 13, 2018, at 5:49 PM, James Wiegel via OE <<a href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">oe@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div class="ydp10069e72yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:16px;"><div><div><span><h1 style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:normal;vertical-align:baseline"><span class="ydp2c8e4728balancedheadline"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#121212;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in">The Return of Paganism: </span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#333333;letter-spacing:.05pt">Maybe there actually is a genuinely
post-Christian future for America.</span></h1>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-16vrk19" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><b><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;color:#121212;letter-spacing:.25pt">By <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/ross-douthat" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span class="ydp2c8e4728css-1baulvz"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">Ross Douthat</span></span></a> </span></b><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;color:#333333;letter-spacing:.1pt">Opinion
Columnist </span><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;color:#121212">Dec. 12, 2018</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">Here are
some generally agreed-upon facts about religious trends in the United States.
Institutional Christianity has weakened drastically since the 1960s. Lots of
people who once would have been lukewarm Christmas-and-Easter churchgoers now
identify as having “no religion” or being “spiritual but not religious.” The
mainline-Protestant establishment is an establishment no more. Religious belief
and practice now polarizes our politics in a way they didn’t a few generations
back.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">What kind of
general religious reality should be discerned from all these facts, though, is
much more uncertain, and there are various plausible stories about what
early-21st century Americans increasingly believe. The simplest of these is the
secularization story — in which modern societies inevitably put away religious
ideas as they advance in wealth and science and reason, and the decline of
institutional religion is just a predictable feature of a general late-modern
turn away from supernatural belief.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">But the
secularization narrative is insufficient, because even with America’s churches
in decline, the religious impulse has hardly disappeared. In the early 2000s,
over 40 percent of Americans answered with an emphatic “yes” when Gallup asked
them if “<a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/7582/religious-awakenings-bolster-americans-faith.aspx" title="" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color:#326891;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in">a profound religious experience
or awakening</span></a>” had redirected their lives; that number had doubled
since the 1960s, when institutional religion was more vigorous. A recent Pew
survey on secularization likewise found increases in the share of Americans who
have regular feelings of “spiritual peace and well-being.” And the resilience
of religious impulses and rhetoric in contemporary political movements, even
(or especially) on the officially secular left, is an <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/andrew-sullivan-americas-new-religions.html" title="" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color:#326891;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in">obvious feature</span></a> of
our politics.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">So perhaps
instead of secularization it makes sense to talk about the fragmentation and
personalization of Christianity — to describe America as a nation of Christian
heretics, if you will, in which traditional churches have been supplanted by
self-help gurus and spiritual-political entrepreneurs. These figures cobble
together pieces of the old orthodoxies, take out the inconvenient bits and
pitch them to mass audiences that want part of the old-time religion but
nothing too unsettling or challenging or ascetic. The result is a nation where
Protestant awakenings have given way to post-Protestant wokeness, where
Reinhold Niebuhr and Fulton Sheen have ceded pulpits to Joel Osteen and Oprah
Winfrey, where the prosperity gospel and Christian nationalism rule the right
and a social gospel denuded of theological content rules the left.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">I wrote
a <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Bad-Religion/Ross-Douthat/9781439178331" title="" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color:#326891;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in">whole book</span></a> on
this theme, but in the years since it came out I’ve wondered if it, too, was
incomplete. There has to come a point at which a heresy becomes simply
post-Christian, a moment when you should just believe people who claim they
have left the biblical world-picture behind, a context where the new
spiritualities add up to a new religion.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">Which is why
lately I’ve become interested in books and arguments that suggest that there
actually is, or might be, a genuinely post-Christian future for America — and
that the term “paganism” might be reasonably revived to describe the new
American religion, currently struggling to be born.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">A
fascinating version of this argument is put forward by Steven D. Smith, a law
professor at the University of San Diego, in his new book, “Pagans and
Christians in the City: Culture Wars From the Tiber to the Potomac.” Smith
argues that much of what we understand as the march of secularism is something
of an illusion, and that behind the scenes what’s actually happening in the
modern culture war is the return of a pagan religious conception, which was
half-buried (though never fully so) by the rise of Christianity.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">What is that
conception? Simply this: that divinity is fundamentally inside the world rather
than outside it, that God or the gods or Being are ultimately part of nature
rather than an external creator, and that meaning and morality and metaphysical
experience are to be sought in a fuller communion with the immanent world
rather than a leap toward the transcendent.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">This
paganism is not materialist or atheistic; it allows for belief in spiritual and
supernatural realities. It even accepts the possibility of an afterlife. But it
is deliberately agnostic about final things, what awaits beyond the shores of
this world, and it is skeptical of the idea that there exists some ascetic,
world-denying moral standard to which we should aspire. Instead, it sees the
purpose of religion and spirituality as more therapeutic, a means of seeking
harmony with nature and happiness in the everyday — while unlike atheism, it
insists that this everyday is divinely endowed and shaped, meaningful and not
random, a place where we can truly hope to be at home.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">In popular
religious practice there isn’t always a clean line between this “immanent”
religion and the transcendent alternative offered by Christianity and Judaism.
But clearly religious cultures can tend toward one option or the other, and you
can build a plausible case for a “pagan” (by Smith’s definition) tradition in
Western and American religion, which in his account takes two major forms.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">First, there
is a tradition of intellectual and aesthetic pantheism that includes figures
like Spinoza, Nietzsche, Emerson and Whitman, and that’s manifest in certain
highbrow spiritual-but-not-religious writers today. Smith recruits Sam Harris,
Barbara Ehrenreich and even Ronald Dworkin to this club; he notes that we even
have an explicit framing of this tradition <em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">as</span></em> paganism,
in the former Yale Law School dean <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/opinion/the-beauty-of-big-books.html?module=inline" title="" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color:#326891;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in">Anthony Kronman’s rich 2016 work</span></a> “Confessions
of a Born-Again Pagan.”</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">Second,
there is a civic religion that like the civic paganism of old makes religious
and political duties identical, and treats the city of man as the city of God
(or the gods), the place where we make heaven ourselves instead of waiting for
the next life or the apocalypse. This immanent civic religion, Smith argues, is
gradually replacing the more biblical form of civil religion that stamped
American history down to the Protestant-Catholic-Jew 1950s. Whether in the
social-justice theology of contemporary progressive politics or the trans-humanist
projects of Silicon Valley, we are watching attempts to revive a religion
of <em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">this-world</span></em>, a
new-model paganism, to “reclaim the city that Christianity wrested away from it
centuries ago.”</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">These
descriptions are debatable, but suppose Smith is right. Is the combination of
intellectual pantheism and a this-world-focused civil religion enough to
declare the rebirth of paganism as a faith unto itself, rather than just a
cultural tendency within a still-Christian order?</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">It seems to
me that the answer is <em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">not quite</span></em>, because
this new religion would lack a clear cultic aspect, a set of popular devotions,
a practice of ritual and prayer of the kind that the paganism of antiquity
offered in abundance. And that absence points to the essential weakness of a
purely intellectualized pantheism: It invites its adherents to commune with a
universe that offers suffering and misery in abundance, which means that it has
a strong appeal to the privileged but a much weaker appeal to people who need
not only sense of wonder from their spiritual lives but also, well, <em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">help</span></em>.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">However,
there are forms of modern paganism that <em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">do</span></em> promise
this help, that do offer ritual and observance, augury and prayer, that do
promise that in some form gods or spirits really might exist and might offer
succor or help if appropriately invoked. I have in mind the countless New Age
practices that promise health and well-being and good fortune, the psychics and
mediums who promise communication with the spirit world, and also the world of
explicit neo-paganism, Wiccan and otherwise. Its adherents may not all be
equally convinced of the realities that they’re trying to appeal to and
manipulate (I don’t know how many of the witches who publicly <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/brett-kavanaugh-hex-new-york-witches-protest-brooklyn-supreme-court-sexual-assault-a8594581.html" title="" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color:#326891;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in">hexed Brett Kavanaugh</span></a>
really expected it to work), but their numbers are growing rapidly; there may
soon be more witches in the United States than members of the United Church of
Christ.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">What ancient
paganism did successfully was to unite this kind of popular supernaturalism
with its own forms of highbrow pantheism and civil-religiosity. Thus the elites
of ancient Rome might reject the myths about their pantheon of deities as just
crude stories, but they would join enthusiastically in public rituals that
assumed that gods or spirits could be appealed to, propitiated, honored,
worshiped.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">To get a
fully revived paganism in contemporary America, that’s what would have to
happen again — the philosophers of pantheism and civil religion would need to
build a religious bridge to the New Agers and neo-pagans, and together they
would need to create a more fully realized cult of the immanent divine, an
actual way to worship, not just to appreciate, the pantheistic order they
discern.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">It seems
like we’re some distance from that happening — from the intellectuals whom
Smith describes as pagan actually donning druidic robes, or from Jeff Bezos
playing pontifex maximus for a post-Christian civic cult. The 1970s, when a
D.C. establishment figure like Sally Quinn <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2017/08/sally-quinn-occult-hexes.html" title="" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color:#326891;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in">was hexing her enemies</span></a>,
were a high-water mark for those kinds of experiments among elites. Now,
occasional experiments in woke witchcraft and astrology notwithstanding,
there’s a more elite embarrassment about the popular side of post-Christian
spirituality.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728css-1ygdjhk" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">That
embarrassment may not last forever; perhaps a prophet of a new harmonized
paganism is waiting in the wings. Until then, those of us who still believe in
a divine that made the universe rather than just pervading it —
and who have a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/catholic-exorcisms-on-the-rise/573943/" title="" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color:#326891;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in">certain fear</span></a> of
what more immanent spirits have to offer us — should be able to recognize the
outlines of a possible successor to our world-picture, while taking comfort
that it is not yet fully formed.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;color:#333333">Ross Douthat has
been an Opinion columnist for The Times since 2009. He is the author of several
books, most recently, “To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of
Catholicism.”</span></p>
<span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;color:#333333;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA"><br clear="all">
</span>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"> </span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;color:#333333"> </span></p>
<h3 style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:normal;background:#F7F7F7;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#888888;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:.5pt">COMMENT OF THE MOMENT</span></h3>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt;line-height:normal;background:#F7F7F7;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color:black;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in">jim kunstler commented December 12</span></a>: <span class="ydp2c8e4728comment-subtitle--nzc2q"><span style="color:#888888;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in">Saratoga Springs, NY</span></span><span style="color:#888888"></span></span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728comment-commenttext--1826c" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;background:#F7F7F7;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">Andrew Sullivan got it right in
NY Magazine this week when he noted that Wokesterism is the replacement du jour
for Christianity. It has its sacred characters (identity groups) and a notion
of original sin (white privilege), and requires sinners to apologize
abjectly... but is absolutely unforgiving. That’s how crazy we have become.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:black"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html#commentsContainer" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Comments </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: normal;">1280</span></a></span></b></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">LES commented
December 12</span></a> As Epictetus, the
grand old man of Greco-Roman philosophy pointed out two thousand years ago it
is one thing to talk about philosophy/region and it is another thing to live
the teaching and seek truth.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in">Middleman</span></b><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"> </span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Eagle WI USA<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">Dec. 12</span></a></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"> One of the principle drivers of a
post-Christian future is people's need to experience their sexuality without
the horrible schism imposed on it by the Christian religion. I once visited an
exhibit of sexuality in art in Hamburg, Germany and what struck me the most
about it was the sad evidence of how Christianity had literally driven a line
through the center of the body, and above the navel was 'for God,' and below,
the devil. People who chose their sexuality over church-sanctioned piety
literally danced with the devil. Such demonization continues today, in subtler,
but still life-destroying forms. This and Christianity's own hypocrisies about
sexual behavior within their institutions have left many of us to walk away
from the faith of our upbringing to find compassion and spirituality in other
ways and other communities and fellowships. </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">North Carolina
commented December 12</span></a> The
country is moving away from organized Christianity because people are
disillusioned, defeated, and dismayed by the total corruption of our religious
leaders whether from the Catholic Church or the Protestant churches, see the
Fort Worth Star Telegram's investigation into sexual misconduct at nearly 1,000
churches and organizations affiliated with the independent fundamental Baptist
movement across 40 states and Canada, in which 168 church leaders have been “accused
or convicted of committing sexual crimes against children.” You simply can't be
a part of organized religion without encountering human corruption on a massive
scale. And it is this corruption, this hypocrisy that ultimately drives people
from churches and organized religion. That is not going to change. Instead,
people are going to find other places to connect to the universe, their planet,
their family and friends, and themselves to the greater and find God or Goddess
out there away from men who are completely corrupt. </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Kjensen commented
December 12</span></a></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Burley Idaho</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"> Another pathetic attempt
by Mr. Douthat to lament the decline of organized religion. For me it can't
come fast enough. As for the resurgence of so-called paganism, with its new
ageism, self-help gurus, revival of ancient religions, it's really the same old
thing that is embodied in the popes, prophets, and the priests that Mr. Douthat
wishes were still absolutely preeminent in our society. Yes, in my opinion,
these new age religious movements are the same old charlatans just cut from a
different bolt of cloth.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Ron commented
December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Florida<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">Dec. 12</span></a></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"> Douthat uses the term “paganism” to describe
various New Age and Wicca movements, but he says almost nothing about the
paganism of the Religious Right. Was Nazism, with its symbolism, mass gatherings,
and return to a “greater” Teutonic past, pagan? Undoubtedly. And why was it
essentially pagan and anti-Christian? Because it exalted the nation state and
its leader above all moral considerations. Does that sound familiar? Do we see
that today? Donald Trump and his millions of faux Christian, evangelical
followers are the real pagans of our time. (Note that Trump even refused—or was
unable—to recite the Apostles' Creed at G. H. W. Bush’s funeral.)</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">doughboy commented
December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Wilkes-Barre,
PA </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">Douthat’s continued use of pagan hides the origin of that term.
When Christianity received the official backing of the Roman emperors, it
turned on all other religions. Their attacks on Roman, Greek, Egyptian, etc
religion introduced the term pagan to undercut these practices. Catherine
Nixey’s The Darkening Age and Charles Freeman’s The Closing of the Western Mind
details the harm that this zealotry did. The murder and dismemberment of
Hypatia in Alexandria in 415 and the closing of Athens’ Academy in 532 are but
two illustrations. The Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli wrote, “The
anti-intellectual violence of the Christianized Roman Empire managed to suffocate
almost every development of rational thought for many centuries.” This trend
did not end in the early centuries. The execution of Giordano Bruno in 1600 and
the Inquisition continued the suppression. Blaise Pascal wrote, “Men never do
evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious
conviction.” This animus remains today whenever atheists protest religious
symbols on public land. How many members of Congress are declared atheists?
“Pagans” are neither ignorant nor stupid. Symmachus, in the face of the
Christian onslaught, challenged the new faith when he said, “We see the same
stars, the sky is shared by all, the same world surrounds us. What does it
matter what wisdom a person uses to seek for the truth?” </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888"></span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Kaye commented
December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Connecticut<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>
</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">I grew up second-gen in a Neopagan religion. Like most
second-gen individuals in new religious movements, I tend to be more
conservative (religiously, not politically) than people who are converts
because I was raised in an environment where there were correct and incorrect
ways of doing worship. This article assumes that "paganism" is a
mercurial thing that is just "not Christianity." The term paganism is
still sometimes used as a religious slur in opinion pieces describing a
person's lack of morality, and the term is adapted to fit ideas ranging from
atheistic pan(en)theism to the New Age movement. I rarely ever use the term — I
call myself a polytheist. While like a Roman elite I don't believe in the
literal truth of myths, I believe in gods. Almost all of my worship is
conducted in the home. Another correction: "explicit neo-paganism"
offers help and sense-making practices. Wicca has a moral code based on
non-harming. Polytheist revivalist religions like Hellenism, Asatru, Religio
Romana, and Kemetism draw from the wealth of philosophical and moral writings
in antiquity to offer grounding and solutions to devotees regardless of the
issues they are confronting in their lives. We have a resurgence of people in
both Pagan Studies (ex: Chas Clifton) and philosophy (ex: Edward P. Butler, who
does polytheologies and engages in dialogue with ancient writers like Proclus
and Iamblichus). Neopagan movements are not bereft of 201- and 301-level sense-making
practices at all.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">dogma vat
commented December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Washington,
DC<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">Dec. 12</span></a>
</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">Interesting
commentary, but a bit over my head. However, I'll say this- modern life is
making us weak, lonely people. Too many choices, too much freedom and
opportunity, along with the eradication of our Judeo-Christian identity has
decimated families and enabled our culture to be filled by grunting, flatulent
creatures like our current president on the right and woke religious zealots on
the left. These folks are turning the established order of decency upside down
and turning this country into the idiocracy many have feared. We need religion
because the alternative seems to be Donald Trump or wokeness or something else
that is totally incoherent.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Walter L. Maroney
commented December 12</span></a><b> </b></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Manchester NH </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">A couple of fundamental misunderstandings here, Ross. First, we
are not supposed to be a Christian Nation. Our founders conceived of our polity
as determinedly secular. It was not until the Great Awakenings of the early to
mid 1800s that Christianity assumed the character of a shibboleth in our public
discourse. And the "Under God" and "In God We Trust" memes
are Twentieth Century inventions, which have only been part of our national
fabric for about 70 of our nearly 250 year history. Second, for all your talk
of heresy, you miss the obvious fact that American Evangelical Protestantism,
with its Prosperity Gospel doctrine and its perverse twisting of the doctrine
of election into an us vs. them political/social context (we are the elect on
Earth, all others are hellbound) is itself the foremost Christian heresy of our
time. </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Jocelyn commented
December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Vista, CA </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">There are many troubling aspects to this essay, but perhaps the
most troubling is the author’s assertion that what paganism (and this term, as
applied to the wide range of practices and beliefs referred to here, is not
unproblematic) may appeal to the wealthy and well-off, but what those who are
impoverised and suffering need is help. I was nodding along until it became
clear that what he meant by “help” is belief in divine intervention and/or an
afterlife. This completely misses the point that an understanding of the world
as infused with divinity calls - in fact, obligates - us to take better care of
it and one another. Christianity has not historically done a good job of this,
and has, unfortunately, used promises of heaven and threats of hell to keep
people from seeking a more harmonious relationship with one another and the
planet as a whole in this lifetime. To judge what he calls paganism through the
lens of Christianity both misses the point, and attempts to colonize the term
and practices associated with it, turning them into just another Christian
sect. </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Emma commented
December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Indiana<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>
</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">There is this
interesting notion at the end of the article -- that there is comfort that the
"old way" dictated by the Bible and its interpretation have not been
eclipsed by paganism. I find the opposite comforting. The old way, which served
a specific societal master and has been used in every era as a cudgel against racial,
religious (ironically), and sexual minorities, was not wholly positive. It
should be comforting that the essence of spirituality in the global north is
being reworked in a more equitable fashion. You will probably find that today's
spiritual adherents are unwittingly closer to the teachings of Jesus than the
religious zealots that claim to be so godly in their actions. </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">LJ commented
December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">MA </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">Overlooked in your essay is the individualizing of spiritual
practices—so Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus may attend a meditation or
“satsang” group together, for example. Or non-Jews adopt Kabbalah traditions,
etc. People are cobbling together practices from various religions and
activities to express and develop their spiritual sides (even Non-believers can
appreciate a walk on the beach....) The commonality all the “great” religions
share is that the foundation is Love, and that all we are here to “get,”
whether Christian, Atheist, Agnostic, Muslim, Humanist, Capitalist, Marxist,
etc., is to love one another. That is the sum total of the Game of Life. </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">jim kunstler
commented December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Saratoga
Springs, NY<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">Andrew Sullivan got it right in NY Magazine this week when he
noted that Wokesterism is the replacement du jour for Christianity. It has its
sacred characters (identity groups) and a notion of original sin (white
privilege), and requires sinners to apologize abjectly... but is absolutely
unforgiving. That’s how crazy we have become.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Androculus
commented December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Far Left<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">Don't worry, Ross, Catholicism and paganism can exist side by
side, as they have for centuries in New Orleans. Good Catholics here, without
conflict or contradiction, can also practice Voodoo, because the two religions
compliment each other. In fact, they are so interrelated that the saints of one
(Virgin Mary, St. Patrick ) are seen as the gods and goddesses of the other
(Maitress Erzuli, Dambala Wedo). Just let people be, Ross; they can figure out
what makes them happy or gives them comfort. </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Joseph Huben
commented December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Upstate NY<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">Pagan? Witches? Neither existed as concepts before Christianity
and the “demonization” of all beliefs or ways of life that was not “Christian”
as defined by “Christians”. Is Douthat condemning or demonizing or belittling
all non-Christians? Are all Hindus or Buddhists or Taoists pagans? They all
pre-dated Christianity and were designated pagan by early “Church Fathers”.
“modern societies inevitably put away religious ideas as they advance in wealth
and science and reason, and the decline of institutional religion is just a
predictable feature of a general late-modern turn away from supernatural
belief.” Supernatural belief is protected by the First Amendment. So is
“putting away religious ideas” in favor of science and reason. Could the
clinging to “religious ideas” be the real problem? In the world today we all
recognize that religious fervor is the source of global terror. And where
denial of science and reason are incited to prevent remedies to global warming,
poverty, hunger and disease they have the “unintended” consequences we live
with? Marx said religion is the opiate of the people. He was wrong. Religion is
the enemy of reason and science and the exploited wedge that justifies savage
cruelty. </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Dave commented
December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Boston<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">As a scholar of Religious Studies, I’m sorry to report that it’s
my opinion that Mr. Douthat’s propositions are rather uninformed. He is
captivated by a picture of religions as a set of discrete beliefs about the
nature of the divine or supernatural. This way of thinking about religion is a
product of 19th century taxonomies, a mode that still has a lot of popular pull
today but that is generally discredited in scholarship. More troublingly, he
seems to think that it makes sense to speak about what “we Americans” believe,
relying upon an uncritical assessment of vaguely worded polls. The United
States is and always has been composed of an incredible diversity of beliefs,
making such generalizations about allegedly epochal shifts extremely difficult
to make with any accuracy. More often than not, these kind of generalizations
reflect the preoccupations of the one making them, rather than anything about
the actual state of affairs. </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">David Patin
commented December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Bloomington,
IN<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">To the list of religious trends in the United States in
Douthat’s first paragraph I would have added a political party that teams up
with a religious denomination to force the tenets of that faith on everyone
else. Yet it isn’t just forcing the tenets of their faith on everyone else,
it’s also declaring that anyone who doesn’t agree with their dogma is somehow
less American than they are. And from some of the more extreme members of this
Republican/Religious Party, those who don’t believe just like them are bringing
about the decline of the United States. That this forcing of faith on others
might possibly be contributing to the secularization of the United States
somehow Ross Douthat can’t imagine. </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">esp commented
December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">ILL<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">Confusing. Does one have to choose between "religion"
or paganism? Can't one just "be". Be spiritual, yet not have a tag,
like "religious" or pagan? Can't people exist spiritually without
reading "self-help" books, or reading a religious text like the Bible
or worshiping nature. Or perhaps people could find some things helpful in
"self-help" books, a religious text, and/or a walk in nature. Wisdom
can be found in all of these without having to be "religious" or
"pagan"? Do we need to worship something? </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Ellen commented
December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Williamburg<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">One of the benefits of paganism is that most forms of it are
nature and earth centered in belief. In a time of climate change provoked by
neglect and abuse of our shared environment, we could use more religion that
offers respect for Mother Earth and the natural processes that have allowed
living forms to largely thrive until our time. </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">candideinnc
commented December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">spring hope,
n.c.<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">I chuckled at the characterization of the burgeoning secularists
in America as being the gullible victims of "self-help gurus and
spiritual-political entrepreneurs." Oh my goodness, no, Mr. Douthat! We do
not need shamans and priests to encourage us to be skeptics. We are actually
capable of rational thought, all under our own power. We are not little
children who are indoctrinated with the superstition that if we are good little
boys and girls, we will go up in the sky back in the arms of Mommy and Daddy,
all under the benevolent supervision of the great, long bearded patriarch sky
daddy. We are fully capable of distinguishing between fables and reality under
our own power.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">PJ commented
December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Salt Lake
City<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">Thank you Mr. Douthat for another challenging and interesting
read. I too think about the decline of Christianity in the United States, but
have not come across a lot of anecdotal evidence suggesting the rise of
paganism. No doubt you are better versed in theological studies than I am, but
I would bet I interact with far more individuals than you do as I work as an ER
clinical social worker. I rarely meet individuals who claim to be Pagan, though
I have met 1 or 2 Wiccans over the course of many years. I meet many
individuals who express spirituality and also disdain for organized religion of
any sort. The fact that they search for God in nature, the universe, and not
inside a church, does not mean they are Pagan - which would be traditionally
defined as believing in many Gods. I rarely meet individuals who believe in
many Gods... The more likely hypothesis, I believe, is that people are being
pushed out of Protestant, Mormon, Catholic, and other Christian churches
because those religions continue to line up more with the political right,
their values and prejudices, than the values and teachings of Jesus Christ. I
long for the fellowship of religion, the ceremonies and rituals, but I will not
pay tithes to any church that excludes people because of their identity, and is
loyal to the political right. A kind man once told me: "if there were a
true church of Christ in our midst, there wouldn't be people dying in our
streets from the cold". There are...</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">reaylward
commented December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">st simons
island, ga<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">Douthat misidentifies what's happening to religious, in
particular Christian, institutions: it isn't a rise in secularization but
sectarianism, the sectarianism practiced by the growing movement of independent
evangelical churches. One is either a member and believer, or one isn't really
a Christian. These churches are usually led by a highly charismatic minister, a
cultish figure who determines the beliefs and practices to be followed and who
has unquestioned authority, both as the result of his or her charisma and the
absence of any hierarchy above him or her to which to answer. The only
authority above the minister is God, and the minister is the mediator between
the minister and his followers. These are by far the fastest growing Christian
churches, and their increasing numbers come at the expense of mainline
protestant churches (Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.). It's not a big leap from
such cultish churches to a political cult, which helps explain Trump's
overwhelming popularity and support among the members. </span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Didier commented
December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Charleston,
WV<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">Perform this experiment. Over the next few months, visit several
mainline Protestant churches where you live. Don't worry; they will welcome
you. But, what you will generally see are older congregations, empty pews, and
large structures in need of repair. The membership of mainline Protestant
churches and particularly regular church attendance is cratering. I read an
article recently that said, demographically, there are only about 23 Easters
left for mainline Protestant churches. But, as I've sat in many of those
churches for the last few years and looked around, and heard the few left
decrying their decline, something has occurred to me. What if this isn't what
God wants? What if hierarchical organizations and large buildings were a
mistake? Something that satisfied human aspirations, but not spiritual ones.
There will always be those, like me, whose lives are, in part, a search for the
divine, but it is time to look and listen and reevaluate what it means to be a
searcher. I will still go to church because it is there I find something --
even if it is one I have never attended before -- that I cannot personally find
elsewhere. But, I do not begrudge those who choose a different path. I
celebrate the journey, the search for the divine.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Norwester
commented December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Seattle<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">Douthat suggests that Judeo-Christian religions offer
"help" where paganism does not, in a "universe that offers
suffering and misery in abundance." Christianity may offer opium to
sufferers, but it does nothing to allay suffering and misery in any permanent
way. No religion does. As Harris says, only when we recognize that there is no
supernatural solution and we humans are accountable for solving our own
problems will we actually band together and solve them. In the mean time, we'll
throw bones at the poor, fight over magic books, fail in stewardship of our
planet and waste time, money and resources on superstition, incense and prayer,
none of which have any real benefit whatsoever.</span></p>
<p class="ydp2c8e4728MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Paul commented
December 12</span></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#888888">Richmond VA<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/christianity-paganism-america.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;color:#333333">Call me a pagan, but the idea of a divine that pervades the
universe strikes me as much more meaningful and profound than the notion that
this is all the result of the snap some celestial magician’s fingers. If we
don’t seek the divine within us and all things, we’ll never find the divine
without. Relying on an external divinity, though, leads inevitably to the
widespread practice of what Niebuhr called “bad religion” — religion that
reserves the ultimate sanction for itself. That road starts with the Crusades
and leads remorselessly to 9/11.</span></p></span><br></div><div><br></div><div class="ydp10069e72signature"><a href="http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=123" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jim Wiegel</a> <br><p class="ydp10069e72MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family:HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;line-height:18.3999996185303px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);">“That which consumes me is not man, nor the earth, nor the heavens, but the flame which consumes man, earth, and sky." Nikos Kazantzakis</span></p><br><span style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:12pt;background-color:white;">401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, Arizona 85353</span><p class="ydp10069e72MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background:white;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">623-363-3277</span><span style="font-size:14.5pt;font-family:'Segoe UI', sans-serif;"></span></p><p class="ydp10069e72MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background:white;"><span style="font-size:14.5pt;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="mailto:marilyn.oyler@gmail.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue;">jfwiegel@yahoo.com</span></a></span><span style="font-size:14.5pt;font-family:'Segoe UI', sans-serif;"></span></p><p class="ydp10069e72MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background:white;"><span style="font-size:14.5pt;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:blue;"><a href="http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.partnersinparticipation.com</a></span></span></p></div></div></div><div id="ydp8f1a82bbyahoo_quoted_5293466706" class="ydp8f1a82bbyahoo_quoted"><div style="font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;color:#26282a;"><div><div id="ydp8f1a82bbyiv6541008907"><div><div class="ydp8f1a82bbyiv6541008907yqt0142188723" id="ydp8f1a82bbyiv6541008907yqt67538"><div class="ydp8f1a82bbyiv6541008907gmail_quote"><blockquote class="ydp8f1a82bbyiv6541008907gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex;">
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