PANTHEON
Yeah, you read right. Patheos is an interfaith site and I think it’s important to create a dialogue with other faith traditions. It’s true that Pagan religions don’t proselytize for the most part but that doesn’t mean we don’t have things worth sharing, or new things to learn, in a setting of mutual respect.
Being raised Southern Baptist, I’d like to start with Protestant Christians. Supposedly if you put all the religions at a table the Pagans and Protestant Christians would be sitting the farthest from each other. Our faiths are to some degree mutually repellent and diametrically opposite. However, we still can learn from each other and influence each other.
So here are things I like that are from Protestant Christianity.
13. The Tudors on Showtime
If Henry VIII hadn’t joined the Reformation I wouldn’t get to watch Jonathan Rhys-Meyers romp around with buxom ladies. Historically accurate? No. Fun? Oh Gods, yes!
12. Tim Hawkins
He is hilarious and I do seem to jones for a chicken sandwich and waffle fries on Sundays.
11. Melodic Rock
Like Ozzy Osborne I like a good melody. I actually liked Creed until they denied being a Christian band. Christian rock is good stuff and occasionally they produce something I’ll toss into one of my playlists.
10. Tithing
This impresses the heck out of me, whether or not I agree with it. 10%? Really? Do you have any idea how many double-bacon cheeseburgers that is? That’s hardcore commitment to a faith community.
9. Anabaptists: Amish and Mennonites
As a teenager dissatisfied with the Southern Baptist churches I’d been raised in I found the Amish and Mennonites fascinating. I love to work with my hands: cooking, planting, building. Some kids wanted to run away and join the circus. I wanted to run away and join the Amish.
8. Sunrise Easter Service
Froze my tookus off standing on a windy mountaintop many a time but it was such a magical thing, to watch for the sunrise while singing hymns. Now I freeze my tookus off waiting for the sun to rise at Yule, sleepy and full of rich food.
7. Dinner On The Grounds
Pagans are the best cooks in the world. I have two drawers of jeans too small for me to prove it. However Baptists and Methodists are a close second. I see a church having a fried chicken or BBQ pork box lunch sale and I’m there. In fact, I’m hungry just thinking about it.
6. White Wooden Country Churches
There is nothing lovelier, nothing that exudes holiness more than an old wooden country church. I didn’t grow up surrounded by the white, sacred ruins of holy temples and the clapboard church became my image of spiritual purity.
5. C.S. Lewis
Greatest Christian apologist ever. The Four Loves, Mere Christianity and Screwtape Letters are simply phenomenal books. His portrayal of the afterlife in The Last Battle actually set me on the road of heresy as a child. I wonder what he would think of that.
4. Friendliness
Protestants are generally very pleasant people who are happy to chat away an hour or two. Part of this may be because it’s the best way to proselytize, but part of it is because they are generally interested in other people. It’s that Protestant idea that everyone has a valid opinion.
3. Baptism
I been double-dunked: once by Baptists and once by Pentecostals. Sacrilegious as this may sound, it was awesome enough to do it again. While I practice ritual baths on a regular basis there’s nothing like the shock of a good dunking. I don’t get folks who sprinkle. From a ritual standpoint full-on sudden immersion is the best way to get the feeling of being reborn, renewed and refreshed. I want to go to the ocean this summer and baptize myself real good in Mama Ocean.
2. Old Time Gospel
I grew up on it. It’s in my blood. Makes my toes tap and I can’t resist singing along. This love of old time gospel has spurred interest in creating old time and bluegrass Pagan music. That’s right, Pagans got banjos and they’re not afraid to use them!
1. The King James Bible
Face it, some of the loveliest phrases and poetry in the English language took root in the good ol’ KJV. The Song of Solomon alone would earn the KJV this spot.
A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.
My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi.
Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes.
Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green.
The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir.
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