{"id":353,"date":"2010-10-01T16:34:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T16:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/10\/the-inevitability-of-scripture\/"},"modified":"2010-10-01T16:34:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T16:34:00","slug":"the-inevitability-of-scripture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/10\/the-inevitability-of-scripture.html","title":{"rendered":"The Inevitability of Scripture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Star Foster at Patheos has a new article titled \u201cThe Inevitability of Scripture: The Challenge of Authority and the Promise of Tradition<\/a>.\u201d She makes a logical case that there will be Pagan scripture someday, but ultimately I think she\u2019s wrong.<\/div>\n
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Her argument goes something like this: Pagans need the authority and consistency that only scripture gives, Pagans have already given authority to authors, eventually Pagans will select certain texts to \u201cslowly form a set of scriptures and commentary, much like Judaism.\u201d<\/div>\n
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A lot of people have compared today\u2019s Paganism to first-century Christianity, including me. But that comparison only goes so far. The volume of written works is thousands of times greater today \u2013 there is little mystery around the written word, and there is no need to slavishly copy a few books and letters. While I think all inspiration is Divine, no Pagan books are thought to be direct revelations from God\/dess (it\u2019s my amateur opinion that few if any writers of the Bible thought they were writing scripture, and many would be shocked at the way their words are used today). Essentially, the conditions necessary for canonizing certain writings as scripture don\u2019t exist in our world.<\/div>\n
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Some books will stand the test of time and will become classics \u2013 a few already are. But can you ever envision someone swearing an oath on a copy of Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner<\/i><\/a> or Drawing Down the Moon<\/i><\/a>? <\/div>\n
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Star acknowledges that Paganism is very diverse, individualistic and anti-authoritarian, and that this limits our ability to come together to form a unified, powerful Pagan community. My opinion is that while this may point toward a need for scripture, it\u2019s yet another reason why we\u2019ll never have it.<\/div>\n
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I touched on this two weeks ago in a blog post on the future of Pagan leadership<\/a>. The second generation of Pagan leaders have been authors. But the spread of Paganism and the explosion of the internet have further decentralized what was already a pretty scattered group. Our future is as a collection of individuals who form families of Wiccans, Druids, Heathens, UU Pagans and other flavors, and who occasionally work together in a loose confederation called Paganism. <\/div>\n
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As much as I like organization and structure, I think our decentralized, organic approach is better. As soon as you establish scripture, myths stop evolving and morals become frozen in time. Our world is changing too fast \u2013 our religion has to keep up with it. <\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Star Foster at Patheos has a new article titled \u201cThe Inevitability of Scripture: The Challenge of Authority and the Promise of Tradition.\u201d She makes a logical case that there will be Pagan scripture someday, but ultimately I think she\u2019s wrong. Her argument goes something like this: Pagans need the authority and consistency that only scripture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Inevitability of Scripture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Star Foster at Patheos has a new article titled \u201cThe Inevitability of Scripture: The Challenge of Authority and the Promise of Tradition.\u201d She makes a\" \/>\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\/2010\/10\/the-inevitability-of-scripture.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Inevitability of Scripture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Star Foster at Patheos has a new article titled \u201cThe Inevitability of Scripture: The Challenge of Authority and the Promise of Tradition.\u201d She makes a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/10\/the-inevitability-of-scripture.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-01T16:34:00+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=\"2 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\/2010\/10\/the-inevitability-of-scripture.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/10\/the-inevitability-of-scripture.html\",\"name\":\"The Inevitability of Scripture\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-10-01T16:34:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-10-01T16:34:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\"},\"description\":\"Star Foster at Patheos has a new article titled \u201cThe Inevitability of Scripture: The Challenge of Authority and the Promise of Tradition.\u201d She makes a\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/10\/the-inevitability-of-scripture.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/10\/the-inevitability-of-scripture.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/10\/the-inevitability-of-scripture.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Inevitability of Scripture\"}]},{\"@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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