It's time to talk about the "F" word. I enjoy the "F" word. It's so expressive and evocative. People get so many different ideas about what you mean when you use it. And it seems to have different connotations depending upon your cultural background.
Right, I'm talking about faith. That mysterious little word; it seems to make some people cringe while others rejoice. In my experience, and I admit that I don't talk to a lot of other pagans, I don't hear the word faith in conjunction with paganism nearly as much as I do when talking about the other religions. In fact, "faith" is another word for "religion" in some contexts, but rarely is it used in that context to describe paganism.
Why? Probably because so many pagans are fed up with the institutionalized religions that they don't want to be lumped in with them through that context. This is probably a subconscious choice, since the conscious choice is to simply eschew religion.
I think that's a mistake. I'm a pagan and I have as much faith as anyone in an Abrahamic religion. The problem is something I mentioned before. Pagans have worked so hard to distance themselves from institutionalized religion that they've marginalized themselves. I know that with neopagans representing only 0.02% of the world population, it's pretty easy for the rest of the world to marginalize us as well. However, that less than insignificant percentage will never increase unless we stop shooting ourselves in the foot.
Alright, so there's the problem. How do we fix it? Pagans are such a fractured, intractable, bunch that I'm not sure how well this could ever be resolved. Groups like Unitarian Universalism are close to the answer, but with roots in the Abrahamic religions it doesn't suit all pagans.
Personally, I think pagans should take a page from the Hindu playbook. We need an evocative label that encompasses our faith, and isn't based on a derogatory term. We need a label that we can rally under, but doesn't limit our individual expression of faith.
I had originally intended to write about the way I experience faith. It seems as though this desire to label my faith prevailed. I'm sure this bears greater examination. I'll have to think some on it and I'll post my thoughts later.
It's interesting that you mention Hindus. I work with a Hindu guy who is from India, and one day out of simple cultural curiosity he asked me a question about Lent. I answered him as best I could, but had to confess that as a non-Christian I was probably just giving him the outsider's view, and suggested he ask a Catholic or other Christian for more info. Then of course he wanted to know about my religion. So I told him, and he listened, and he said, "So...you're basically a Hindu, but with different gods. Interesting." And that was that.
ReplyDeleteI'm very comfortable with the word "Witch," but I know lots of folks who aren't. I also know that etymologically speaking, a lot of the other words we use to describe ourselves are problematic. I'm not sure that a group as diverse as modern Pagans can ever really agree on one term.
That was a great story about Hindus. It made me smile.
ReplyDeleteAs a fledgling polytheist, I considered following some of the more popular polytheistic religions. Hinduism is attractive, but ultimately it is a monotheistic tradition in polytheistic clothing. The same can be said of the ancient Egyptian religion(s). Japanese Buddhism might be the closest to a mainstream religion that I could follow, but I'm not comfortable with the way they only seem to give lip service to the gods. I'd like to affiliate myself with Asatru, but they have a white-supremacy problem that isn't likely to go away.
ReplyDeleteSo, I continue to travel my own path and naming things the way I think is best.