Lonnie Murray

While Murray is openly Pagan, describing his theological views as Animist, he is also quick to stress that he’s not a “Pagan politician” but rather a “politician who happens to be Pagan.”

“I think working on improving my own community policy is it’s own kind of magic. It is taking our best intentions and ideas and manifesting them in the world. I think the real story here is not that being pagan and running for office is an issue, but rather that it isn’t. The fact the entire campaign discussion is about policy and not my faith means we’ve made progress.”

After his win on Tuesday, Murray sent me the following statement explaining how his religious beliefs were a natural progression towards conservation work, and eventually, running for political office.

“I spent around a decade helping lead the NatureSpirit group in Charlottesville, and during those years I realized how important local community is and that if I really cared about the natural world, then I needed to get more involved in local politics. After all, every endangered species in the United States is in someone’s county, or someone’s back yard. While the Soil and Water Conservation District is a small and rather obscure elected office, how rainwater and erosion is managed can make all the difference in the livability of our neighborhoods and the health of our environment.

It has been a natural progression for me, in terms of starting as an activist, then being appointed to various task forces and advisory committees, to then running for elected office. What has amazed me the most is how much positive change on a local level is really possible. Magic to me has always been about intention, and certainly working in public policy you get the opportunity to use ideas and intention to help improve your own community. Of course, one of the great things about Charlottesville is that we have a long history of religious diversity (going back to Thomas Jefferson) and people here tend to value people on the merit of their ideas. Indeed, there have been many non-Pagans and public officials over the years that knew of my faith, and encouraged me to become more involved in politics and serving the public, because they valued my ideas and experience.

It’s my goal to repay the trust voters have placed in me, to serve my community the best I can, and help empower others wherever possible.”

Murray hopes his successful run for local office will inspire other Pagans to get involved in the daily workings of our political system, noting that democracy itself was a pagan invention, and saying he looks forward to “when our faith(s) will have conversations about climate change and cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay.” Lonnie Murray’s election may not seem earth-shattering in the current political calculus of partisan hostility and culture-war divisions, but his quiet determination to live out his Pagan values by working to preserve our natural resources on a local level is a perfect example of how our family of faiths can effect positive change in a palpable and immediate way. Here’s hoping more of us follow his path.

The be­lief that na­ture is load­ed with in­visi­ble spir­its that live in lo­cal flo­ra, fau­na, and environmental land­marks is gen­er­al­ly char­ac­ter­ized by West­ern­ers as “prim­i­tive” and high­ly irration­al. Even re­li­gious dev­o­tees of mono­the­ism in the de­vel­oped West look down their noses at an­i­mism. An­i­mism is the Rod­ney Dan­ger­field of re­li­gions. But most of the world is made up of an­i­mists. The West is naïve when it imag­ines that the ma­jor op­tions are mono­the­istic. In ac­tu­al num­bers and geo­graph­ic spread, be­lief in na­ture spir­its trounces the One-Godders. Al­most all of Af­ri­ca, South­east Asia, ru­ral Chi­na, Ti­bet, Ja­pan, ru­ral Central and South America, indig­e­nous Pa­cif­ic Islands—pret­ty much ev­ery­where ex­cept West­ern Eu­rope, the Mid­dle East, and North America—is dom­i­nat­ed by an­i­mis­tic be­liefs.

[...]

But un­like West­ern fundamentalism, animism is not locked in a zero-sum bat­tle with sci­ence (nor, for that mat­ter, are mod­er­ate Christianity, Judaism, and Is­lam). In­stead of be­ing ex­clu­sion­ary, an­i­mism is high­ly syncretic, adopt­ing any and all spir­i­tu­al be­liefs and prac­tices as com­ple­men­tary rath­er than compet­ing op­tions. The more the mer­ri­er is how we might char­ac­ter­ize animism’s pro­mis­cu­ous atti­tude toward be­liefs and rit­u­als. There’s not much con­cern for, or his­tory of, or­tho­doxy in animism, a trait that can po­ten­tial­ly ren­der it lib­er­al and tol­er­ant toward al­ter­na­tives, in­clud­ing science.

Those are just a couple key paragraphs, but really, I would simply reprint the entire essay if I could. While the thrust of Asma’s article is to call for moderation for any atheist-inspired public policy agenda, and to point out the “pro­vin­cial­ism” of many fashionable atheist arguments, it also easily doubles as a spirited defense of animism, and by extension, polytheism. In his closing, Asma argues religions “that hu­man­ize, con­sole, and in­spire should be fos­tered,” and he clearly includes animism/polytheism in this mix.

Naturally, several atheists (and some offended Christians) are having a field day ripping Asma’s essay apart in the comments, complete with some ignorant stereotypes of polytheistic and indigenous faiths usually trotted out by the conservative Christians they claim to have no truck with. Still, this essay is a welcome and friendly reminder that religion isn’t a simple matter, and that polytheism (ie animism) is worthy of respect, consideration, and preservation.

“The clash of civilizations and religions, the focus of so much debate in Europe and America, can be witnessed firsthand here in Africa. And today Maryal Bai is one of its many fronts. Islamic Fundamentalism is advancing from the west, penetrating all the way to the continent’s eastern reaches. In some regions it collides head-on with an equally aggressive brand of Christianity. The clashes are becoming increasingly bitter because the desert is expanding, bringing more poverty in its wake…Yet, as hard as the two great monotheistic faiths have struggled for supremacy, they have failed to wrest power from priests like Akoon Duong. With its nature deities, the old African mythology is often the only stabilizing force in a world full of suffering, displacement and death, where everything is in constant flux but rarely changes for the better, where – in many respects – time has stood still.”

Thielke points out that while many Africans claim to adhere to Christianity or Islam, the older religious traditions still hold sway over their lives.

“In truth, religious distinctions have long blurred, indeed evaporated, in Africa. Someone who attends church in the morning and the mosque at midday might easily invite a voodoo priest over in the evening to read the kola nuts…In Kenya, for example, the modernminded Kikuyu, flashing cell phones and Ray-Bans, happily journey to Mount Kenya and pray to Ngai, the supreme God of the animists – despite often being members of one of the numerous Christian sects, such as the Pentecostals or the gospel churches.”

The article also interviews voodoo priest Chief John Odeh (Nigeria) about his views on the religious conflicts and intermingling happening today in Africa.

“Christianity has destroyed our culture. The people have lost faith in our ancient gods and values. The pastors go to church in the morning and preach Christianity, and in the evening they come to me and speak with their forefathers. Christianity cannot compete with our ancestors. Your God is impotent against Shango, the god of thunder and lightning. That’s why the Christian pastors in Nigeria all die so young. Oh well, that’s how things are nowadays. Nothing’s free in life except death.”

It seems that despite the best efforts from the major monotheisms, traditional African religion isn’t going gently into that good night. During the colonial era, progress was an all or nothing proposition. Technological and medical advances had to come with the adoption of our religion as well. While some Western missionary groups now endeavor to be more sensitive to cultural traditions, in many ways their goals are the same. Eliminate traditional religion and replace it with the “one true” God. With all the current problems in Africa, a religious conversion experience doesn’t seem like it should be high on the list of priorities.
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