Overlapping Circles

When I started writing for this blog, I had some sort of idea that I would systematically wade through the various areas covered by theology – the personal, the interpersonal, our relationships with spirit, the nature of deities and spirits, interfaith dialogue within the Pagan movement, dialogue with other religions, community, society, the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, and so on.

But all  of these issues overlap with each other and are intertwined.

What has happened in reality is that my writing has focussed on issues that are important to me (gender, sexuality, Black Lives Matter, migration, consent), or responded to things that have happened – both online and in the physical world – that I felt could be addressed from a Pagan perspective.

It has become apparent that there is not really a roadmap for writing Pagan theology. I think that all the best theological writing assumes and acknowledges that it is a personal reflection on a theological issue, and runs with that assumption. I do not think that theology should be prescriptive. It is more about opening a space for dialogue on theological issues. That is why a blog is the ideal place to host a theological conversation – because people can post comments, or send in a guest post, or write a post in response on their own blog.

Sometimes my posts are just “thinking aloud“, and the comments on them significantly change my thinking about the topic being discussed, or highlight something that I hadn’t thought of.

I think that theology should always be discursive and not prescriptive. It is not up to me to tell anyone what to think – just to open up a space for discussion. I write to work out what I think, and to get feedback on it. I think the comments on a blogpost can sometimes be as illuminating as the blogpost.