Religious Unity and Identity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There\u2019s a guest post on the Patheos Pagan blog titled \u201cIt is time for Pagans to stop being Pagan.\u201d It\u2019s another attempt to find a unifying principle for\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/04\/religious-unity-and-identity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Religious Unity and Identity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There\u2019s a guest post on the Patheos Pagan blog titled \u201cIt is time for Pagans to stop being Pagan.\u201d It\u2019s another attempt to find a unifying principle for\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/04\/religious-unity-and-identity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-24T17:13:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/04\/religious-unity-and-identity.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/04\/religious-unity-and-identity.html\",\"name\":\"Religious Unity and Identity\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-04-24T17:13:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-04-24T17:13:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\"},\"description\":\"There\u2019s a guest post on the Patheos Pagan blog titled \u201cIt is time for Pagans to stop being Pagan.\u201d It\u2019s another attempt to find a unifying principle for\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/04\/religious-unity-and-identity.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/04\/religious-unity-and-identity.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/04\/religious-unity-and-identity.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Religious Unity and Identity\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"description\":\"Musings of a Druid, Pagan, and Unitarian Universalist.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Beckett\"},\"description\":\"I grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside my back door. 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{"id":271,"date":"2011-04-24T17:13:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-24T17:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/04\/religious-unity-and-identity\/"},"modified":"2011-04-24T17:13:00","modified_gmt":"2011-04-24T17:13:00","slug":"religious-unity-and-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/04\/religious-unity-and-identity.html","title":{"rendered":"Religious Unity and Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

There\u2019s a guest post on the Patheos<\/a> Pagan blog titled \u201c It is time for Pagans to stop being Pagan<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s another attempt to find a unifying principle for the community that loosely uses the label \u201cPagan.\u201d The writer clearly \u2013 and understandably \u2013 has some frustration with our lack of unity of belief and practice and the occasional attempts to claim unity where none exists. He suggests we rally around \u201cthe conscious decision to defend everyone\u2019s right to practice our own weird faith\u201d \u2013 an admirable if uninspiring concept.<\/p>\n

Sometimes our desire for structure, definition and identity overwhelms our ability to see things as they are: amorphous, ambiguous and organic.<\/p>\n

This morning I sat in the overflowing sanctuary of the Denton Unitarian Universalist Fellowship<\/a>. The service was a beautiful blend of Passover, Easter and the Easter Bunny. I\u2019m generally not fond of \u201cblended\u201d services<\/a> but this one was good. In that congregation were Christians, Jews, Pagans, Buddhists, Humanists and a bunch of people who are hard to classify and damned proud of it. We came together under the banner of Unitarian Universalism. We\u2019ll come together again next Sunday, and the Sunday after that, and the occasional weeknight service or weekend meeting.<\/p>\n

Last weekend I attended a Pagan festival<\/a> with about a thousand people in attendance. I met Wiccans, Heathens, Hellenics, Kemetics, Voudouisants, and a lot of people who practice a \u201cfamily tradition\u201d (I heard there was another Druid in the camp, but I never met him). Our differing mythologies, theologies and liturgies were no barrier to spending a few days enjoying Nature and each other\u2019s company. I\u2019ll see some of them again at Pagan Pride Day<\/a>, others online or at other festivals.<\/p>\n

Modern Paganism is a product of evolution, not of intelligent design<\/a>. It began as a reaction to the environmental and commercial excesses of the Industrial Revolution that continue to this day. It\u2019s a response to our disconnection with the land and to both male-dominated misogynistic religions and soul-denying hyper-rational scientific materialism.<\/p>\n

It has taken the forms of whatever was available at the time. In the early days, that was Jewish and Christian mysticism and the Mesopagan<\/a> orders that grew out of them such as Freemasonry and the Golden Dawn. It incorporated folk magic and the cultural heritage of the Celts, Norse, Greeks, and other people whose native religions were replaced by Christianity. Today it is heavily influenced by environmentalism<\/a>. <\/p>\n

21st century America is arguably the most individualistic culture in the history of humanity. A whole marketplace of goods, services, entertainment, politics, philosophies and religions are available to cater to our ever-widening diversity. For the most part, Pagans and UUs skew toward the wider end of the diversity pool and we aren\u2019t likely to unite around anyone\u2019s idea of what our religion \u201cshould\u201d be.<\/p>\n

But that won\u2019t stop us from coming together where our interests intersect, whether those common interests are Sunday services or seasonal celebrations, supporting religious and other freedoms, or taking care of the home we share and the only planet we\u2019ve got. <\/p>\n

This, I believe, is the future of religion \u2013 not billions of people confessing the same identical creed, but small groups and individuals who delve deeply into narrowly defined interests and who come together in a series of loose confederations around broader causes, issues, and celebrations.<\/p>\n

I claim the term \u201cPagan\u201d even though it doesn\u2019t precisely define my religion<\/a> \u2013 just as I also claim the terms \u201cDruid\u201d and \u201cUnitarian Universalist.\u201d I\u2019m not really worried about who does or doesn\u2019t claim those same labels.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"