Polytheism and Christianity

[ecosophia]

Last week I posted an announcement here about Beyond the Narratives, the latest anthology of my essays to see print. It so happened that several of the people who responded had read one of the essays in it already -- "The God from the House of Bread"  -- and that launched a conversation that I, at least, found fascinating. 

The basic theme of the article was an interpretation of Jesus from within the worldview of traditional polytheism -- the way of thinking about gods I discussed at some length in my book A World Full of Gods.  I gather it came as a welcome surprise to some of my readers that as a polytheist, I firmly believe that Jesus is a god and the son of a god, and cheerfully affirm that those who choose to enter into a covenant with him ought to follow his commandments and participate wholeheartedly in his traditional forms of worship.  From a polytheist standpoint, after all, are many gods, and they have different expectations for those who enter into covenants with them; Jesus is not a god I worship, but it's just as reasonable for those who do worship him to do these things as it is for me to follow the teachings and practice the ceremonies of the smaller and decidedly more eccentric Druid faith to which I belong. 

Apparently this is something that intrigued a number of my Christian readers, and it started a lively conversation. Since that conversation was tucked away in a book announcement, I decided that it made more sense to move things to a post specifically on that subject -- and here we are. Does the idea of a polytheist view of Jesus and Christianity puzzle you, interest you, leave you cold? Let's talk. 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Everyone must find God in his own way.

It’s only decent to find God in a way that does not involve burning people alive or flying kamikaze into skyscrapers. All the religions have the Golden Rule. If we all followed it, everyone would be happier and better off.

—Lady Cutekitten

Questioning Universality of Golden Rule

[deborah_bender]

I've often seen it asserted that all religions have the Golden Rule. Where is the evidence of that?

There are a lot of religions. There are also different kinds of religions. From talking to my friends who are active in interfaith work, when people are getting started, they often seek areas of commonality between their own religion and other religions, in order to have a basis for understanding and agreement. It's unfortunately rather easy to slide from this to saying, "All religions fundamentally teach the same thing, and what they teach is a version of what I think is important in my religion."

This is much better than condemning other religions or sects for minor differences from one's own religion, but it is not real respect for diversity of human belief and practice. The implicit assumption is that there is some universal set of basic religious truths, that the closer a religion hews to those basic truths the more valid it is. This is not tolerance (not that tolerance is always called for). This is hegemony.

Real respect for other religions means recognizing their differences and appreciating the differences as well as the similarities. We don't value and respect all four legged mammals according to how much they resemble dogs.

It is fair to say that all religions give some guidance on how people should behave. It's a big jump from there to an assertion that they all have essentially similar teachings on behavior, or that they express those teachings in a similar way. You can pull something that looks like the Golden Rule out of many religions that have some sort of written record, but it's not necessarily intended to have the general or fundamental application that it does in Judaism or Christianity, which after all have a connected origin.

There are several different approaches to codes of behavior. In a given situation, a code based on the cultivation of virtues is not necessarily going to guide a person to the same course of action as following the Golden Rule would. A code of behavior based on personal or group honor will very often point the way to committing acts that the Golden Rule condemns. Most military codes of behavior are either honor based or virtue based, which is one reason why people coming out of a long period of military service sometimes have trouble adjusting to civilian society.

[(Anonymous)]

I've had a number of profound experiences with Jesus, but have never joined a church since the monotheism thing never worked for me. But if there was a polytheist group which met to worship I would join it in a heartbeat! So the polytheistic read on Jesus makes me smile.

The thing I find absolutely amusing in a warped, twisted way though is how many polytheists are open to all gods except this one.....

[ecosophia]

That's one of the reasons I wrote the essay. When I was head of AODA, one of the things we did that sent shockwaves through the Neopagan community is follow our own traditions and welcome Christian Druids, so long as they didn't try to push their version of Druidry on everyone else (and of course we imposed the same rule on everyone else, too). I fielded some touching diatribes about that!

[tamanous2020]

Your essay alongside A World Full of Gods, that Jesus is a son of a god, in the same vein that mythological demigods humans like Hercules fall into was the linchpin that allowed me to come to terms with my Catholic Christian heritage! The church teachings were not satisfactory when I investigated as a teenager (and led me to atheism) and perrenialism was bland and unsatisfying as an adult (not to mention just plain wrong if you actually go in depth on any 2 traditions). Your polytheism was the sweet spot, and if anything, seems to align well with biblical research that shows Yahweh was originally considered one of many Elohim.

Having Christ be one of many gods, and not the omnipotent and only one his piscean age followers made him out to be, has been incredibly freeing. Now, I have no issue with incorporating the rosary, jesus prayer and Christian prayers into my devotional life.

[ecosophia]

I'm delighted to hear this.

From a Catholic Henotheist

[brenainn]

Just as a quick introduction to those who didn’t follow the discussion in the book announcement: I’m a practicing Roman Catholic who, after studying some of JMG’s books (especially “A World Full of Gods”) and then some other works that defended polytheism, made a decision that many might find unusual for a practicing Christian: I decided that polytheism is correct and have remained a practicing Roman Catholic (specifically, as a henotheist). I briefly toyed with the idea of monolatry but decided there was nothing to commend the idea that only a single Deity is worthy of worship for all people.

Perhaps this process really began a number of years ago, when I met some Hindus who had visions of Krishna. These visions struck me as very similar to visions of Christ and the Virgin Mary, except it was obviously Krishna and not some watered-down, amorphous “Sacred” presence underneath all three beings. I never did find a satisfactory answer among monotheist thinkers about that but mostly pushed it to the side until I began studying theology at university a few years ago. The exposure to more advanced levels of theological study brought up lots of questions, polytheism being merely one of them.

JMG,

I think your position closely approximates to my own. Christianity emerged, mostly, from Judaism. Whatever the exact relationship between the Holy Trinity and the God of the Jewish Covenant, the relationship between the Holy Trinity and Christians is roughly the same: a covenant between this Triune God and His people. I converted to Catholicism as a young adult and made an eternal covenant with my God. Having now accepted a polytheistic point of view, I can say that, at first, it was an extremely odd feeling: retaining my devotion to the Holy Trinity while realizing other Deities were out there. The strange feeling passed quickly enough. I did briefly attempt to incorporate some “Christopagan” practices into my life but it felt too odd every time I tried any of the rituals I found online. So, I reverted to a traditional Catholic practice and haven’t had any odd or strange feelings since.

However, I’ve been developing an interest in exploring the possibility of incorporating some Druidry into my Catholic practice. The discussion last week provided some very helpful insights on how to do that within the parameters of Catholic practice and thought. At least part of my interest in doing so has to do with my own love of nature and the feeling of spiritual presences there. I am encouraged in this interest by Pope Francis’s encyclical on care for creation, as well as the Vatican purportedly working on a list of specifically ecological sins. I see Pope Francis as opening up new possibilities for nature veneration by Catholics. The so-called Pachamama controversy from 2019 is a good example of what I mean.

Re: From a Catholic Henotheist

[ecosophia]

There have been plenty of Christian Druids since the dawn of the Druid Revival, so you won't be doing anything particularly out of the ordinary. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids used to invoke archangels and saints in the four quarters in their rituals, and nobody thought anything of it -- that kind of interchange was standard before the rise of modern Neopaganism in the early 1980s. (I wonder how many Neopagans know that Gerald Gardner himself was ordained to the Christian priesthood in a schismatic Celtic church...)

[(Anonymous)]

It doesn't look so weird as it once did. C S Lewis had a kind of quasi-polytheist tendencies, since the pagan gods often come across as angels, and vice versa. You are not officialy supposed to worship then, but presumably a certain numinous awe or reverence is in order if Jupiter or Pan turn out to be really real!

Also, there's the entire idea about Jesii in the plural, which would explain a thing or two...

Tidlösa

[(Anonymous)]

Just my personal take, but would not worship Gods as angels, or vice versa, lest one risk incurring unpleasant effects. Gods are Gods, angels are angels, daimons are daimons, and the rest of us jabronis are your various mortal beings...

Axé e amor on this day of Venus,
Fra' Lupo

[(Anonymous)]

Polytheism and Christianity work together pretty well as far as I'm concerned. From the perspective of having been baptized Catholic, Episcopal, and Baptist, Christianity itself seems pretty polytheistic to me. Good Lord, just participating in charismatic and traditional Catholic services, I'm connecting with different Gods. Likewise worshiping at black Baptist and white Baptist churches. Our God is many.

Should I mention the diversity of Gods within Indonesia's various forms of Christianity? Animism is a bit of a through line connecting all religious practice in Indonesia, whether discreetly or openly. In Toraja, I sang and danced to good, old-fashioned Protestant hymns, led by a priest, in order to help ensure that a friend's mummified ancestor would become properly deified when her remains were ensconced up in the cliffside. In Bali, I made offerings to a Pentecostal friend's great-grandfather's shrine, as a pre-intercourse ritual (nothing like a dead guy's bone chips to get you in the mood.) In Yogyakarta, I was surprised to hear the wailing of professional mourners (a Chinese tradition) hired to ensure that my Catholic teacher would not linger around as a ghost. He didn't... as far as I know!

So, yeah, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the company of heaven have a place in our pantheon. With saints, demons, and holy ghosts, what part of polytheism are we supposedly missing?

– Christophe

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this -- I was unaware of the lively nature of Indonesian Christianity! It strikes me that the Indonesians have the right idea...

[(Anonymous)]

To continue a bit, the idea that Jesus had several different messages to different audiences (known as the 4 gospels) already implies (if Jesus is seen as supernatural) the Gnostic idea that he showed himself to people according to their ability to grasp him and his message. "Sometimes I saw him as an old man, sometimes as a little child". There is a kind of proto-polytheism in this, I think.

[brenainn]

I've been putting together my own personal list of gnostic "apocrypha" that I (paraphrasing early Protestant reformers) find helpful for reading and studying. The Gospel of Thomas is of particular interest to me, though many of these gnostic texts are too anti-material for my tastes. I find the Valentinian school of Christian gnostics to be very interesting. They weren't as different from the proto-orthodox school as was once thought.

[(Anonymous)]

One more. :-)

C S Lewis said that Jesus was the *real* mystery god. But what if they are *all* real (whatever that little word means). Hah, gotcha, Jack!

Tidlösa

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG and the commentariat!

Have you ever asked Jesus what he thinks about some of his followers' intolerance towards other faiths - especially polytheism?

[ecosophia]

I've had certain encounters with Jesus (or one of the Jesii) in meditative states. The sense I get is that he's much more accepting and loving than his intolerant followers like to think.

[(Anonymous)]

What about others, who many would see as "not God, not devil, but Man!"? Is Julius Caesar also a god? What about Haile Selassie I? Do they compare to the almighty Rabbi Josh, son of Joe?

[ecosophia]

Well, in traditional polytheisms, deification is something that can happen to certain human beings after they die. It's not common, but it happens. The usual process is that when someone dies and their family and friends make the ordinary memorial offerings, good things start to happen. Then someone else tries it and gets the same results. Word spreads, more people start praying to the recently departed, and if the results continue to be good, the offerings fund a shrine, then a temple, then multiple temples. In imperial China this was quite a structured process, and ghosts who turned out to be an effective source of blessings got promoted up through the celestial hierarchy, sometimes to very exalted positions. In most societies it's less organized, but things still work roughly the same way. Think of it as a free-market system of theology... ;-)

[fox_mactavish]

Billy Graham, famous American evangelist released a video called "My Hope, America". My boss at work gave me this DVD as a gift. In this presentation, I can remember Mr. Graham saying that we were all horribly sinful creatures in the eyes of God. When we accept the light of Christ into ourselves, we can stand before God and he will not see our sin, he will see Christ, his perfect child. This made me realize that in a mythic/ symbolic context, Jesus is the higher self. The ideal self that connects us to the divine. Jesus even tells us this when he says that the only way to the father is through the son. This realization is why I believe Jesus can be effectively incorporated into polytheistic forms of worship. However, I am not a Christian and personally believe that anything "good" that comes from the Bible comes in spite of it, not because of it. So I can see how Christian belief can form a valid system, but I do not believe it is a complete and healthy system. Literal interpretation of the stories of Jesus causes people to embrace blind faith instead of understanding. The new testament should be seen as mythic narrative instead of literal historic events.

[ecosophia]

I'm not a Christian either, but that seems like an unhelpfully narrow and negative view of a very complex faith.

[(Anonymous)]

It makes enough sense to me, and certainly there's historical precedent for it. The viking Helgi the Lean prayed to both Thor and Jesus, for example:

http://www.hurstwic.org/library/heroes/text/helgi.htm

I myself am kind of the opposite of Helgi, being raised Christian before "converting" to polytheism. I really don't feel a connection to Christianity any longer, but every so often, I'll catch myself invoking or praying to "God." I generally stop myself after doing so, because it feels more like an automatic habit (going to the default god of my upbringing) than a deliberate decision -- and I suppose there is a silly sense of incompatibility between two different religions as well -- but perhaps I should actually embrace a mixed faith? I suppose I'll have to meditate more on this subject.

[ecosophia]

The Roman emperor Alexander Severus had a statue of Jesus among those of other gods on his personal altar, too!

[(Anonymous)]

I believe you have said before, in fact, that there are in fact _multiple_ Jesi? Which, speaking as another polytheist, makes sense to me, given how varied they seem to be.

[grandswamperman]

Multiple Jesuses makes the most sense to me (a non-Christian polytheist). The Jesus of warmongering neoconservatives is, in my view, obviously not same same person as the Jesus of the canonical Gospels, at least.

[(Anonymous)]

There's a pretty established history of how the polytheist Romans viewed Christianity and Jesus; and although there is some revisionist contention regarding Christian exaggeration of their plight as well as the "history written by the victors" dynamic, for the most part the attitudes seem to be mostly fearful and hostile. There was definitely something threatening that the Romans found in monotheism (they didn't treat Jews very nicely either) and Christianity in particular.

[ecosophia]

The Roman hostility toward Christians was political, not religious. Burning incense to the genius (guardian spirit) of the emperor had the same role in those days that the Pledge of Allegiance had in America a few decades back, and refusing to do so was considered a sign of political disloyalty -- no small thing in an age when civil war was a common event. (Jews came in for the same treatment after the Jewish revolt of 66-70 CE, for the same reason.) You could profess monotheism in other contexts without getting the same reaction -- philosophical monotheism, for example, was quite common in Platonic and Stoic circles.

Christian polytheism

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG

Casey here. I comment once in a while over on the blog but generally prefer lurking. The question of a polytheistic context in which Christianity can fruitfully and joyously happen is a fascinating one for me. I commented once about a year ago (?) over on the blog about how discovering the books of Margaret Barker had changed my life. For anyone who is interested, I recommend her very short book Temple Mysticism. Her hypothesis is that early Israelite (and one would therefore assume proto-Israelite) religion was a lot more polytheistic than a cursory reading of the Bible would lead one to believe.

If Barker is correct, said early Israelite religion had features that are directly derived (sensibly enough) from the Israelites' place in geography and history. That is: they were more or less not the exterminators of the Canaanites but a particular coalescence of those very people. Barker's reading of the Old Testament indicates that there very good reasons for why early Christianity looked there way it did, why Jesus said what he said, and why 'Gnosticism' and post-exilic Judaism look like they did.

One of the key sets of thrilling insights (if she's right): the religion of the patriarchs was not monotheistic in our sense of the word: it was much more Canaanite than most Christians or Jews would feel comfortable with. We're looking at what amounts to a kind of polytheism: a 'most-high' god; a Queen of Heaven; and a redeeming divine son who functions as a sort of national deity and priest who atones for the nation's shortcomings and downfalls (that would be Yahweh), and a certain number of angels. And this arrangement was mirrored in the physical world with the Queen Mother and the Davidic king in the appropriate roles, with an order of priests serving in various capacities. And something I guess you'll appreciate. The Queen of Heaven's key symbolic representation was a Tree. And hilltop worship was a thing they originally did: not a relapse into paganism, but an acceptable way of communing with the divine. Sacred groves, essentially.

And then something happened.

But I've taken up more than my fair share of space. Barker has lots of books. There are a couple of videos featuring her hypotheses on the Apostolic Johannite Church's YouTube channel for anyone who's interested.

Just saying: it's possible that Druidry and Christianity have a lot more in common then I would ever have guessed.

Thanks for your work.

Re: Christian polytheism

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. Barker's been on my get-to list for a while now.

Mormons and the god Christ

[(Anonymous)]

I certainly find the polytheistic view of Christianity to be interesting.

Question: doesn’t the Mormon Church take a somewhat polytheistic approach toward Christianity? Their approach to Creation theory seems quite in line with the perspective of esoteric tradition, and they posit that humans eventually become gods, solar logos, in fact.

Also: JMG, whereas you do acknowledge Christ as a god among gods, I recall that you once speculated that the god Christ may have, at this point in history, lost considerable power/influence. I believe you cited the number of people who you had encountered who had prayed to Christ and the Christian God, sometimes for years, and who had received nothing in terms of a response. I’m open to this as being a possible reality, despite the fact that many Christians obviously still find great spiritual nourishment in their religion. Still, I’m thinking, if Christ is a god on the wane, it would make a general sense to seek out a god or gods whose influence and power is now on the rise.

I’m wondering if any Christians here have been perceiving or intuiting any lessening of “contact” with the god Christ, or has the contact maintained steady, or even increased? I myself have seemed to gravitated more toward a Marian perspective over the years.

Thanks.

Re: Mormons and the god Christ

[ecosophia]

1) You'd have to ask a Mormon about that -- it's not a religion I've studied closely.

2) Back when I was running a Druid order, I met a lot of people who left Christianity because they had never felt any response to their prayers -- it was like talking into a void. They took up Druidry because when they prayed they got a response. In the discussion that followed that post, quite a number of Christians indicated that they still felt the presence of their god, while other people noted that they had the same experience as the people I'd talked to. So it's a complex phenomenon.

Looking at it now through the hypothesis of multiple Jesii, I wonder if what's happened is that some Jesii have faded out, while others remain active...

Interests me

[(Anonymous)]

This has always interested me. In fact, I think if Christianity is going to survive as a viable religious tradition into the future, at least here in North America, it is going to have to come to terms with sharing the religious space with the growing number of pagan/polytheist movements currently taking shape. In fact, it may well have to make room for those who specifically follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, but who also recognize the existence of other Gods.

On the flip side, I do see a fair number of polytheists who throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, when it comes to Christianity. They reject the premise of monotheism generally, and Christianity specifically, and thus reject the claim that Jesus is a God and the son of God. That never made sense to me.

-Dan Mollo

Re: Interests me

[ecosophia]

Me neither!

My developing henotheism

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG! The Accidental Mystic here. I was really looking forward to this post, so I’m sad that it seems to be languishing. I suppose I’ll have to try to get something started, though I generally find that I have many more questions than answers.

I have to say, with ironic gratitude, that your advice has been much more instrumental in the renewal of my Christian faith than any Christian priest or spiritual writer has been. Like others, I was also powerfully influenced by “The God from the House of Bread” as well as your essay on Neoplatonism in Ascendant.

I’ll admit that I struggled with the idea that the One, the godhead, is impersonal and utterly unreachable, and not at all the same thing as God the Father, despite Christian theology’s thoroughgoing attempts to conflate the two. But my own intuition and experiences insist that the Trinity, as a god of Creative Love, is a sort of personal reflection of this impersonal reality… and even worse, that it’s not the only such reflection! I have no idea how to square that bit of truth with logic - how can many such creative powers coexist? - but there it is.

Currently, the best label that I have for my spirituality is “henotheistic Anglican Druidry,” and I’m trying to work out how best to express the ethos of Druidry through the Anglican tradition. Practically speaking, most of my worship is directed at Christ as the tree or web of life - the Logos which shapes and sustains created existence - and also as the Lord of Karma (for I believe that through the divine self-sacrifice of the incarnation, Christ as Jesus willingly accepted the burden of his worshippers’ karma, and his gift is the ability to help them direct their karmic unfoldment in the gentlest and most fruitful direction… if they genuinely strive to follow his commandments!).

Though these interpretations have provided my faith with a stability and strength that it has never before achieved, my conviction still wavers with depressing regularity in the face of my unwanted and persistent fear of judgment and rejection. Not by God - I’ve honestly never had the impression that he cares much how I rationalize him, as long as I’m faithful to him and committed to the love of God and neighbor. (Actually, I sometimes get the feeling that he’d appreciate a bit less rationalization and a bit more loving obedience, lol.)

But too often the theologies (and, sadly, prejudices) of his other followers don’t seem to leave any room for mine. It can be hard to stand firm in the face of 2,000 years of strident shouting that calls you a literally damned heretic. Whispers of love, support, and encouragement do murmur down the centuries, if you have the patience to seek and to listen. But I still wish that I didn’t feel so frequently and thoroughly alone in my views - not truly welcome in either pagan or Christian circles. This is the only place that I've so far felt safe to express myself honestly. So thank you for that!

Re: My developing henotheism

[(Anonymous)]

Neoplatonism may be helpful here...The One is not the Godhead. It is the principle of supreme individuation, per Edward Butler's reading of Proclus, that separates each God from all the others. The One is not to be hypostasized, and doing so may actually impede your worship.

In this reading, the Gods are all supreme individuals, each containing all of each, and on a certain level unknowable, however we may apprehend them at the intellectual level, which is where the various myths of each God come into play.

For those interested in this theology I would check out Butler on Proclus.

Axé,
Fra' Lupo

[(Anonymous)]

Polytheist here who, in addition to the henads of the Hellenic pantheon (and some of the Yoruba), also affirm Christ and the Triune God of Christianity. You can see echoes of this in Renaissance art: the Chigi chapel in Rome, which (via Raphael), depicts the planetary divinities alongside YHVH/the Christian God, likewise Tempio Malatestiano. Dante invoked both Fortuna and Apollo in his poem. And, let's not forget, the throne of St. Peter depicts...the labors of Hercules.

In my view: not here to denigrate the Gods, but to respect them.

Axé!
Fra' Lupo

[(Anonymous)]

Side note: Per a previous discussion, I still have no idea why apparent "cross-pantheon" invocations seem to work in {theurgic?} settings as disparate as Picatrix and Golden Dawn rituals. If you have any theological observations or suggestions on further reading on this front, I'd be most obliged.

Axé,
Fra' Lupo

[(Anonymous)]

I learned a new word: henotheism! Thanks, everybody! After reading English for 58 years, I rarely have the fun of learning a new word anymore.

[1wanderer]

Coming from a Low Church (Evangelical but since this was England very polite) background, I grew up with a concept of Christianity which had little actual religion in it to begin with, and was steadily drained of what meaning it did have in the 1960s. In the end, it wasn't a vision of religion at all, but just a sort of organised niceness and bloodless humanism. Because Protestantism had pretty much banished the supernatural and any collective elements from Christianity anyway (no angels, saints, no real role for the Evangelists) it was a very easy religion to give up.
So I find this discussion fascinating, and I will read Margaret Barker's books. They may confirm something I have always suspected: that assertions of monotheism actually presuppose polytheism. The original God was the God of Israel only, and it is clear from the Bible that there are assumed to be others. But even in the Christian Era, the Church was always warning against devils, evil spirits, false religions, false prophets and so forth, which is another way of saying that it's pretty much impossible to banish pluralism (not necessarily polytheism as such) from the human mind. If you follow non-dual teachings of course, as I try to do, then the problem goes away by definition.

[ecosophia]

"Organized niceness and bloodless humanism" -- oof. Yes, I've been to those churches, too. We have a lot of them here in the US, especially but not only in the liberal end of Protestantism.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, this isn't about Jesus specifically, but just out of curiosity -

Am I the only person who, as a child, upon hearing the Old Testament commandment "Though shalt have no other gods before me" immediately took that to mean that obviously, there must be other gods - I mean, how else could you have "other gods before me" if there weren't, you know, other gods? And who was then very confused by the whole Judeo-Christian idea of monotheism and insistence that only the one existed, since the Bible itself said there were "other gods"....and who could never understand why adult followers of Christianity got so bent out of shape when I asked why they though people should follow *this* god instead of one of the others, since this whole scripture thing was obviously just one god's opinion? Etc. Did anyone else jump to that place as soon as they heard the commandments, and ask those (unwelcome) questions while still very young?

[brenainn]

I had a similar experience when reading the First Commandment as a kid in junior high. A friend and I even discussed it. However, being an atheist at the time, I didn't have a strong interest it.

[(Anonymous)]

It is a view I had encountered before. Some of my Buddhist friends enjoy going to mass at their local Catholic church now and then. They love Jesus and Mary, and have no trouble slotting them onto the open-ended mental shelf of gods they offer prayers to. In addition, my Catholic friends from the same town have been known to offer incense at Buddhist shrines and temples, apparently without inner conflict.

I have heard similar tales from places where Orthodoxy and Islam have lived shoulder to shoulder for a long time: Christians and Muslims visit the shrine of St. Nicholas in Myra. And St. Nicholas seems to answer their prayers without regard to their religion.

This tends not to sit well with Americans generally, and Protestants in particular. But it's pretty normal in other parts of the world, AFAICT.

[ecosophia]

It always struck me as the sensible thing to do. I've made offerings at Shinto shrines and Hindu temples, and participated in blots and sumbels to the Norse gods; I've also, twice, partaken of Communion in churches involved in the independent sacramental movement, after being assured by the clergy thereof that the table of Christ welcomes even the unbaptized. I see no contradiction between this and my own eccentric faith.

[(Anonymous)]

What a delight to have a forum to discuss such a heterodox subject!

On occasion, I end up having deep conversations about Christianity with people who don’t know that I am a Hindu. At some point they’ll ask me, “Are you Christian?” And I answer, “No, I’m a Hindu, but if I were a Christian, I’d be a Catholic.” Usually I get raised eyebrows in response, to which I add, “Because Catholics are polytheists; they just don’t realize it!”

Let me explain.

In my late teens I sang in a Roman Catholic choir. By that time, I was already a polytheist. But I loved to sing the hymns and prayers (during high mass). My only substitution was one prayer in which “Only Son of the Father” became in my mouth “Holy Son of the Father.” I delighted in the fact that a Catholic is free to pray to one or many Saints within the Church’s approved “pantheon” (many of whom I realized were Pagan gods with a Christian veneer) and to the Blessed Virgin (whom I still adore).

I hope that no Catholics are offended by my comments; they certainly are not meant to be. I contrast the sect to the bleak Protestant denominations in which only the Holy Trinity exists. Blah. And when I tell my Muslim friends about the vast choices of whom one can pray to as a Catholic, they just shake their head and blanch in horror. Their problem – not mine!

Ron M

[brenainn]

I don't take any offense but I have been more accepting of the polytheistic aspects of my Catholic Faith. I sometimes wonder if the low church, evangelical Protestants could attempt such a thing. I don't know a whole lot about their theology or other beliefs but it seems rather minimalist. I remember how shocked a friend of mine was when I mentioned my relationship with my patron saint, Joan of Arc, and how deeply enriching it was. Apparently, to his Baptist mind, that kind of thing is restricted to God alone.

[youngelephant]

I have not read your essay yet, but I like the idea of Jesus fitting into a polytheistic model. I don't choose to worships him though, despite being raised Catholic and growing up in Catholic institutions, as I find the covenant associated with Jesus too restrictive. And find the institutions made in his name, especially schools, quite frankly, oppressive. In my experience, these school churn out undesirable personalities. I imitated the personality I have in mind for a couple years.

I think Jesus himself was a pretty cool dude though.

I am also okay with working with YHWH in the model of "him" being a process, or state of consciousness. So YHWY as a process and all the beings created under that process are gods, angels, etc. etc.

[ecosophia]

And that's also a way to do it! The process model saw a lot of development in the occult scene; I'm currently reading some of the Sâr Péladan's work, and he comes very close to this on occasion.