2010
Paganism, in the Roman Empire, died hard. For centuries, laws and edicts punished the devout. People continued to believe, to celebrate their gods. They loved their religion; they did not want to give it up.
From the fourth century to the ninth, you can see the measures taken to crush the beliefs of the people.
The same was true in Northern Europe. “Barbarian” Christian successor states rose up from the ruins of the Christianized empire and began to impose Christianity not only on their own people, but on peoples beyond their borders. The Frisians, the Saxons, and Slavic peoples, all resisted. None of them wanted the new religion.
Further north, in Scandinavia, Heathen practices persisted for centuries. In Iceland, which was forced under threat of war to convert to Christianity in 1000, Heathenism simply went underground.
Much of the myth of Christianity centers around the idea that people flocked to become Christians, that it was a liberating experience. It was not. Christianity succeeded because it was imposed by force, including torture and death. It was maintained by the same forces throughout the centuries. In the later Roman Empire, every time Roman Christian authority waned, Paganism sprang up and the people cast off the unwanted religion. This happened in Britain, it happened in Spain, and it happened elsewhere.
Another sign of Paganism’s enduring nature comes from central Mexico – from the descendants of the Maya. This video is brief but it’s message is powerful and compelling: people love the gods, they love their religion: The Secrets of the Maya
It’s refreshing to see something like this, with no hint of disapproval in the narrator’s voice, no sign of missionaries engaged in cultural genocide (though we all know they’re out there somewhere). Leave people alone; let them worship as they wish. If it’s a syncretic form of Christianity that pays homage to the past and to ancient religion, fine. You may think of them as heretics, but let them be. If it’s something else, something closer to the beliefs of their ancestors, even better. Either way, it’s their choice.
We need to get over our strange belief that we know best, and I’m speaking of Western cultures in particular, given the age we live in and the influence of Christianity on these cultures. Never before in history has the idea been prevalent that a culture has to export its religion, and not only export it, impose it and enforce it. Bring the missionaries home. Let the people be. If you think your god wants everyone converted, he will do it in his own good time
There is a reason you don’t hear much about Prosper of Aquitaine. Why? Because he agreed with the position I stated above, that it was “for divine grace alone”to bring about conversion. Prosper wrote in 440 CE a book called “De Vocatione Omnium Gentium (On the Calling of All Nations). It has been called “the first work in Christian literature to be concerned with the salvation of infidels” (A. Hamman in the Encyclopedia of the Early Church Oxford:1992) but what sets it apart is that Prosper spoke of salvation, not evangelization.
It was an enlightened position for fifth century Christian culture; it would be an enlightened position today, in the twenty-first century, sixteen hundred years after those thoughts were put to parchment.
I am a “freya fresena”… “ein Freier Friese”..a Free Fresian… in the widest sense of the term, having been birthed to that heritage on the edge of the North Sea in Bremerhaven. Not sure it is a compliment.
I am connected to Nature in a visceral way which can, at tmes, be disconcerting. I accept and heed Her teachings.
Of the Tribes inhabiting the southern rim of the North Sea, the West Fresians in Holland and the East Fresians of today’s Germany considered themselves distinct from the North Fresians, who were more closely aligned with the Danes. All of their ancient dialects, spoken to this day, are quite different from each other, differing from the various “low country” farmers’ dialects of the region, as well as from the official
contemporay dutch, german and dansk languages. Then there is the language of the Isle of Helgoland, which is different yet again, speaking to the isolation of the tribes over many centuries. Yet overall, even the Icelandic language traditions are, in many ways, comprehesible to one familiar with the ancient anglo-saxon heritage.
I am no scholar, merely one who has grew up with the ancient traditions.. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
That said, all tribes were warriors against the implacable forces of Nature, intent upon wresting land from the Nordsee/Mordsee (North Sea/Murder Sea). Not that in today’s understandings that is a good undertaking, for so much “reclaimed” land is below far sea level and subject to inundation at any given storm.
Born to this heritage, I know the mythologies, the horrendous sacrifices made to placate Mother Nature… including those of entombment of innocents into the dikes which were to hold back the furies of storms. I shall always shudder at the thought for it seems we never learn. To this day there are “Halligen” in Schleswig-Holstein which prove that the Ancients were very successful “dominionists” of Nature. Yet, in the final analysis, we are mere motes of dusk trying to influence That Which Cannot Be Coerced… the Universe… Ing
Hraf… got carried away with my own heritage instead of addressing your post directly. So… here it is in a nutshell, as far as I am concerned:
Damn/bless the God Gene… it seems we all have this innate need to address some higher power… to sacrifice to it… to bring rituals to it…
in order to cope with both the joys and the vicissitudes of our communal (tribal) existences.
Feel free to disagree.
I agree entirely. That is the entire purpose of religion, as I see it. Z. Zevit (2001) says that “religions are the varied, symbolic expressions of, and appropriate responses to the deities and powers that groups or communities deliberately affirm as being of unrestricted value to them within their world view.” And as William G. Dever puts it, “Religion…had first of all to deal with the problem of survival, in the most brutal, elementary sense.” So in the end, it’s what gets you through the day. True Religion is religion that works…for you. The idea of a universal religion applicable to everyone is a fantasy. One we can do without.