Yes, Virginia, there is a world without soul-destroying alien sky gods, and it is grand. I’m talking about Pandora. It’s not a real world, but for three hours it can be yours, and you can revel in it and enjoy the seething disapproval of conservative Christians at the idea of a fulfilling religion without their god.

It is chock full of spirituality – ethnic spirituality – in other words, Paganism – religion of the place and its inhabitants are truly people of the place. The people are called the Na’vi. And you find them in James Cameron’s Avatar.

It’s exciting. A people so much a part of their environment, and a spirituality so much a part of both. We can imagine that early Paganism was like this, being a religion of the place, shaped by but also shaping the people, shaped by the environment but also shaping understanding of the environment. Organic. It belongs. It belongs in a sense an imposed alien sky religion never can.

You can probably assume that the bulk of the human mercenaries working for the exploiters of the planet are Christian – or at least monotheistic – that would be logical given the balance of the world’s religion is monotheistic. But it’s not even implied. In fact, it’s never mentioned.

The spirituality reminded me of the spirituality of Dances with Wolves. It was, perhaps, even discussed a bit more in this film. The goddess of the natives is a “she” – Eywa - and if you want you can take away from the film the explanation is that the “goddess creator” thing is a spiritual understanding of a scientific explanation mentioned in the film or you can take away the opposite understanding. It doesn’t really matter because what’s important is the spirituality so beautifully expressed.

It was very refreshing. Very beautiful. Very pure. Very much the religion of a world filled with the divine.

The spirituality is so organic to the place that you are transported. And Heathens will not walk away without images of the World Tree – Yggdrasil, in their heads.

Ross Douthat’s 12/21 column in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html exemplifies the “offended” attitude. For Douthat, pantheism can never be more than a poor replacement for a real religion with a real Jesus to lift folks out of the “mundane” world.  He felt threatened by the Force too, in Star Wars. I almost responded on the 21st to Douthat’s column, but I wanted a chance to see the film for myself first.

And now I have.

By no means did all Christian reviewers condemn the movie for its non-Christian spirituality. For example, Christian Spotlight on Entertainment gives it an morality “offensive” rating http://christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2009/avatar2009.html but this is for language and misuse of “God’s” name rather than the nature of the film’s spiritual message. Similarly, I have to give credit to Christianity Today’s review as well http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/movies/reviews/2009/avatar.html

It’s also been pointed out that though Disney’s new Princess and the Frog has voodoo but no Christianity. But why should it? The argument I’ve seen raised that because the New Orleans of the era was an in your face Christian city doesn’t mean that there weren’t parts and people in New Orleans that weren’t.

Why should every movie made have a Christian theme, or even a Christian in it, as though Christians are the only people on the planet?

One reviewer  http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/18/conservative-christians-dont-crown-princess-and-the-frog/ actually has the temerity to say, “Not so much for the 1920s New Orleans of “The Princess and the Frog.” As with most of the Potter series, there’s not even a tip of the hat toward explicit traditional religion.”

Excuse me, but “traditional religion” is Paganism. It is not Christianity

Very few movies are made today about Paganism – or that even have Pagan themes. Only one recently even portrays it in a sympathetic fashion – Gladiator – and the piety of Maximus to traditional religion was roundly condemned as dangerous – it lacked Jesus after all and so could not possibly be meaningful or fulfilling.

Most movies, regardless of what conservative Christians might say, are full of Christians. Ordinary Christians going about their ordinary lives, not preaching, not witnessing, not bothering anybody but keeping their religious beliefs to themselves. Characters wear crosses around their necks; often, the central characters, one or more of them. They don’t talk about their beliefs but do they need to?

If this is somehow anti-Christian I fail to see it. But the moment any character looks even remotely non-Christian it becomes a bit deal to some of these people. Non-Christian religions should not be portrayed in a sympathetic light, apparently – only Christianity – anything else somehow equates to a Hollywood war on Christianity.

It’s madness I know, but those are the cards we have been dealt as a religious minority – listening to the majority whine because 99.99% isn’t enough – they want 100%. What these critics really want is a return to the days of Ben Hur and Spartacus, where Christianity not only gets mention, but Paganism gets denigrated in the same breath.

It isn’t a question of equal representation for them – it’s a privileging of their viewpoint they demand and a concomitant rejection of all others.

And the suggestion that the release of Avatar at this time of year could be a slap in the face to “believers”? These people need to remember this is our time of the year – a holy time for Pagan peoples across the board, and that even non-Christians are entitled to entertainment on December 25.

New York Times has a good review of the movie here looking at it from yet another perspective:  Editorial Observer

By now most people are probably aware of recent attacks made by the Right-wing media on Department of Education Official Kevin Jennings, who is accused of promoting a “homosexual agenda” in our public schools, whatever that is supposed to mean. Apparently anyone wishing to be left alone to live their life as they choose is guilty of promoting some sort of agenda – though as we all know, the only real agenda being pressed here is by the forces of bigotry and intolerance. As MediaMatters for America relates the case:

Right-wing media outlets have relied on false or misleading claims by MassResistance, a Massachusetts-based anti-gay group, in advancing several recent attacks on Department of Education official Kevin Jennings. The founder of MassResistance — a group the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a “hate group” — reportedly denied that gays and lesbians were a target of the Holocaust and has compared the gay rights movement to the Nazis. The organization has also called on parents to keep their children home from school during an event promoting awareness of, and opposition to, anti-gay bullying and has stated that suicide prevention programs for gay and lesbian youth have no “legitimate medical or psychological basis.

To reiterate, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) calls MassResistance a “hate group.” They deny that gays and lesbians were targets of discrimination in the Third Reich and even make the bizarre comparison of the the gay rights movement to the Nazis.

I hereby name MassResistance nithings. Let them stand shamed and condemned before all for their vile and reprehensible behavior.

Calling all blogs: I am looking to restore my blogroll. As I noted earlier in a post, I lost most of my blogroll during template change. I’ve begun reconstructing it but it’s far from complete. Please give me your blog’s name, url and if possible post rss so that I can plug all this information into the plugin. Feel free to email me the information if you wish at alheithinn.vinlander@gmail.com

I look forward to hearing from you!

Thanks,

Hrafnkell

I have been having a conversation with a Christian named DJ on my thread about contradictions in the Bible. As the conversation has outgrown the comments box, I propose to give full answer to his objections here. I have previously provided him with a short list of things you will NOT find in the Epistle of James. Here I will elaborate and apologies for once again including that list:

The Epistle of James

We can look to the Epistle of James for clues as to what the original Christians believed beyond the importance of Works over Faith. We can do this with some degree of confidence, despite its inclusion in the New Testament, for it seems to be not a product of “orthodoxy” or of Gentile Christianity at all but of Judaism. Samuel Sandmel points out that “specifically Christian touches number only two, the first verses of the first and of the second chapter,” and his judgment is that “it is quite likely that we have here a ‘Jewish’ book adapted for Christian use.”[1] Matt Jackson-McCabe points to its uniquely features:

The Letter of James evidences a variant early Christian myth that while different from the death-and-resurrection one that is reflected in much of the extant Christian literature, is consistent in significant respects with other Jewish messianic thinking in the early Roman period. The central metaphor that informs James’s interest in the figure of Jesus Christ is not, as in the Johannine or Pauline literature new creation or rebirth, but national restoration: the reestablishment of a twelve-tribe kingdom by the hand of an avenger messiah.[2]

In fact, by way of an examination of the so-called Epistle of James, which Julie Galambush calls “one of the New Testament’s best glimpses into the beliefs of a fully Jewish sect of Jesus-followers”[3] we find confirmation of our findings noted above. We can infer a few things from James both by what is and what is not spoken of. That there are differences is readily apparent when compared with Paul’s rhetoric. We find in James:

* No reference to Paul’s view of Jesus as the Divine Son of God.
* James’ assertion that “God is one” (2.19) leaves little room for Jesus as the Divine Son of God.
* No mention of the Holy Spirit.
* No mention of Jesus’ atoning death (compare 2 Cor. 5.5.14-15, 18-21)
* No mention of Jesus’ resurrection.
* No condemnation of the Law. Law and works are as important as Grace or Faith.
* That ethical discussions draw on the Old Testament, not on examples from Jesus.

It is a simple matter to test these assertions. Open your New Testament and contrast this with what you find in Paul’s Epistles. His letters are fairly loaded with comments regarding the four points above. Indeed, as we will see, the most important things to Paul were Jesus’ death and resurrection. For Paul, Jesus is God and he says this often, just as he often condemns the Law and belittles those who follow it in favor of Faith in Jesus’ atoning death and resurrection. If the author of James felt that these things were important, it is passing strange that he mentions them not at all.

The letter of James can be seen then to attach no importance at all to the things Paul held to be of utmost importance, and it contrasts even more strongly with the advanced theology of John’s Gospel. In essence, the letter of James has a far more Jewish tone than Christian, though Vermes remarks on the absence of “some allusion to the compulsory observance of the Mosaic Law by Jewish Christians in the letter.”[4] The authorship of James continues to be debated in scholarly circles, but if James did not write the Epistle in his name (and most scholars accept that he did not) it still seems to have been written with a refutation of Paul’s theology in mind[5] though Sandmel argues that “James is not contending against Paul” but “a perverter of Paul’s message.”[6] Whatever the target of the message, the “epistle” stands out as a starkly Jewish document in an otherwise Gentile New Testament. In Julie Galambush’s words, the letter of James is no longer seen as “’Judaizing,’ but as simply Jewish.”[7] It is easy to see, As Geza Vermes remarks, why this letter “has given many a headache to Christian interpreters from the time of the Reformation to the present day.”[8]

In his epistles Paul has quite a bit to say about people he calls “Judaizers” – obviously agents of the Jerusalem leadership who are busily introducing Paul’s Gentile converts to the importance of adherence to the strictures of the Law. These complaints of Paul’s offer us an opportunity to learn something about the theology of the Jerusalem Community. Geza Vermes points out certain facts about the James’ Epistle that further demonstrate the differences between Paul and those he calls “Judaizers”:

It should be underlined that James’s message is entirely God-centered. Jesus stands very much in the background. The prayers are directed to God the Father; it is he who is blessed, and to whom the believer submits himself. The God of James bears the “honorable name” of the God of Judaism (Jas. 2:7; cf. IQS 6:27); he is the God of Judaism. His pure and undefiled worship is defined throughout the letter in ethical terms: visiting orphans and widows in their affliction, and living a good life in the meekness of wisdom (Jas. 1:27; 3:13). All this is performed in the framework of ‘the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory’ and intensified by the lively prospect of his impending return (5:7-9).[9]

Robert Eisenman says of the Epistle of James,

Despite its relatively polished Greek style, the antiquity of its materials can also now be confirmed by reference to its many parallels to doctrines in the Dead Sea Scrolls, not available previously…Given its manifest parallels with the documents from Qumran, with which it makes an almost perfect fit, and doctrines attributable to the person of James from other sources it has to be considered a fairly good reflection at least of the ‘Jamesian’ point of view…it is one of the most homogeneous, authentic, and possibly even earliest pieces in the New Testament corpus.”[10]

Except for the brief references to Jesus as Christ, there is nothing in James that is not Jewish, whereas Paul’s epistles offer very little that is Jewish. Christians will contort themselves in an effort to jump through the requisite hoops in hopes of reconciling James with Paul, but it cannot be done. They are not the product of the same religion. And they cannot be, for James, like his brother was a Jew, and remained a Jew, while Paul was an apostate from his ancestral faith, preaching a Gentile creed to a Gentile audience. Just as Jesus’ mode of death (i.e. crucifixion) is evidence of who killed him and why (the Romans, for sedition) so is Paul’s arrest in Acts 21 provide proof of the proof of who stood against Paul (the Jerusalem Community) and why (apostasy). As Gerd Ludemann asserts, “The charges here invoked against Paul are undoubtedly historical, since they accurately reflect the objections of the Jerusalem Christians to his teaching and practice.”[11] It was likely too well known to be denied. Those charges being that “you teach all the Jews among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs” (Acts 21.21) we can safely conclude that James and his community held both these things in high regard, making them not Christians, but Jews.

Notes:

[1] Samuel Sandmel, A Jewish Understanding of the New Testament, 219. Sandmel typically is hesitant to issue firm judgment for he adds the proviso that nothing precludes it having been written “about the year 100 by a Gentile Christian.”

[2] Matt Jackson-McCabe, “The Messiah Jesus in the Mythic World of James,” JBL 122 (2003), 730.

[3] Julie Galambush, The Reluctant Parting, 233.

[4] Geza Vermes, Who’s Who in the Age of Jesus (London: Penguin Books, 2005), 129. Vermes notes that the overall tone of the work is more “theocentric” than “christocentric” and that”while James is unlikely to be responsible for the Greek style of the letter, the ideas contained in it may at least in part have come from him.”

[5] James 2.14-22 clearly suggests that the epistle was written after Paul’s activities and in response to his teachings. N.T. Wright (The Resurrection of the Son of God, 561) argues that James did write the epistle and asserts that it “is now much more widely recognized as a distinct possibility.” It is difficult to see how this could be so, given that the letter is written in Greek, a language James likely did not speak. Jerome, himself writing in the fourth century, believed that authorship belonged to another James, the son of Alphaeus, who was one of Jesus’ Twelve (Mk 3.16-19; Matt. 10.2-4; Lk 6.14-16; Acts 1.12-14), a attribution that makes no more sense than assigning it to James.

[6] Samuel Sandmel, A Jewish Understanding of the New Testament, 220. He finds evidence of this same reaction in Matthew 5.37 (cf. James 5.12).

[7] Galambush, The Reluctant Parting, 234.

[8] Geza Vermes, The Changing Faces of Jesus, 122, S.G.F. Brandon (Jesus and the Zealots, 125, n. 1) observes that “Although the so-called Epistle of James is not, by the general consensus of expert opinion, to be regarded as written by James, the brother of Jesus, it is significant that a document showing such social consciousness should be ascribed to him.” Though it is now seen by many scholars to be something called a “wisdom writing,” rather than a letter, it has been suggested by Martin Dibelius that James as we have it derives from a sayings collection which was later put in the form of an epistle, since it lacks certain features characteristic of letters. According to this theory, a prescript was added to give it the appearance of a letter. See Martin Dibelius, James: A Commentary on the Epistle of James (11th ed., rev. Heinrich Greeven; trans. Michael A. Williams; (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 1-10. See also S.R. Llwelyn, “The Prescript of James,” Novum Testamentum 39 (1997), 385-393. Note that this solution would account for mentions of Jesus as “the Christ” – a view not likely held by the Jerusalem Community.

[9] Geza Vermes, The Changing Faces of Jesus, 123. Vermes calls the letter “a bridge linking the Johannine-Pauline religion devised for Gentile believers to the Judaeo-Christianity of Acts and the Synoptic Gospels.”

[10] Robert Eisenman, James the Brother of Jesus, 10-11. Eisenman rates the Letter of Jude “probably on the same order of authenticity and its tone echoes the letter of James. Geza Vermes dates the letters of James and Jude both to the end of the first century/beginning of the second. See The Changes Faces of Jesus, 290.

[11] Gerd Ludemann, The Acts of the Apostles, 282-283.

I didn’t want my 1,000th post to be about Catholicism so we’ll say instead that it is about dysfunction in religion.

Here is our starting point, a question from the Catholic Answers Forums: “How do I save my daughter from Fundamentalism?”

This may not sound like much of a problem to Pagans. From our perspective, there is little to choose between conservative Catholicism and conservative Protestantism. They are two sides of the same coin.

It’s an old tale, dating from the so-called Reformation and the subsequent “Counter” Reformation. Christianity tore Europe apart for hundreds of years with its competing doctrines. It still tears families apart. It isn’t enough to find the White Christ; you have to find the RIGHT White Christ. It isn’t enough that he lived, died, was reborn and what-not. It isn’t enough that you believed it all happened. Crazy, huh?

I have trouble understanding a religion like this, but of course, it’s not a religion at all; it’s a superstition, so perhaps my expectations are too high.

Religion is about showing proper forms of devotion. It is not about what you think about Zeus or Odin or any other god, or whether you think Zeus or Odin are the same god with different names. What is required of a functional religion is that the proper rituals are performed. It is about cultic acts, not about belief. It is not about doing or believing things out of fear of divine retribution.

I happen to think my gods are individuals and not the same as other gods. But it does not matter to me if you think Zeus is also Odin is also Juppiter Optimus Maximus or if you think Thor is Teshub. It’s not for me to say. I certainly can’t prove it one way or another so it would be rather silly to argue about it, wouldn’t it? Two people arguing about something that neither one of them can possibly know.

So how does a proper Catholic respond to the threat of protestant fundamentalism?

Coercion and punitive measures, of course.

Come on, did you think the answer would be different? We have 2,000 years of evidence and you think it’s going to be something else?

Here we go. Hold on to your hats:

1. If she is entirely independent, you are limited to prayer, sacrifice, and talking to her about religious issues when opportunities arise. If she is in any way dependent upon you, you can explain to her that, while she may be a legal adult, her dependence means that she is still subject to your authority.

2. If that is the case, you could tell her that attendance at Mass is a family responsibility and you expect her to go, even though she should not receive Communion right now. If she refuses, then draw up an “exit plan” to transition her as quickly as possible away from being financially supported by you. If she agrees to accept your authority as a condition of accepting your financial support, you should assure her that you will not force her to talk to a priest or go to religious education classes (as you would do if she were a minor instead of a legal adult). You may though point out to her that doing so on her own could make going to Mass easier to deal with because she will have a forum for asking her questions and expressing her concerns about religion.

Assuming your definition of religion is not the same as mine, does this sound like a functional religion to you?

I was forced to go to church when I was a teenager too, even though by then it was clear to me that Christianity did more harm than good, and not to put too fine a point on it, that it was a farce.

For the record, I am the father of two grown children. My daughter is at least nominally a Christian. My son is a scientist. He believes in science. Of course I would like them to both be Heathens like me. But it is their choice, not mine, what they wish to believe or not believe. I would never have dreamed of coercing them. Why would I not wish to grant my children the same freedom of thought I embraced for myself?

The amusing thing about all this is that even early Church Fathers recognized that you cannot force belief on anyone. Yet that is exactly what is being prescribed here.

I imagine being coerced to “keep the faith” will make this poor girl a loving daughter of the church, full of passion for Catholicism. Not.

If there can be any clearer argument for polytheism, I don’t know what it is. Since by definition all gods exist. it doesn’t matter which one you choose to show devotion to. It doesn’t matter what you believe about any one of them. All that matters is a proper show of devotion.

From a polytheistic perspective, imagine the question reformulated as follows:

Our daughter, age 19, has recently turned away from her Norwegian Heathen religion. refusing to attend our rituals and looking elsewhere for answers (she’s interested in Danish ideas). She is stubborn and will not speak to a priest. What do we do?

As you can see clearly now, this is no question at all, let alone a problem. The gods are still there. Thor, Odin, Freyja, Freyr and so on. But Norse Heathenism was not uniform in belief and practice in the pre-Christian world. It’s not even as if the gods in question are changing here. In the Catholic complaint it is still Jesus. I’ve never heard of a Fundamentalist who denied Jesus.

No, folks, there lies madness. Why anyone would embrace it is beyond me. We should be happy in our multiplicity of belief, in our diversity and in our embracing of the divine. When you can see the forest for the trees, you won’t nitpick about a single tree out of thousands.

In the end, it is questions like this that caused me to make my first post here one thousand entries ago. Such questions still drive me, and that is why I am still here one thousand entries later. I don’t suppose the day will ever come when that will change, however many days off I may take in between.