Beyond the Burning Times

Philip Johnson, Gus diZerega

Description

A fascinating dialogue between a Pagan and a Christian. Gus DiZerega, an American pagan and and an academic engages in debate with Philip Johnson, an Australian Christian theologian. The two debate questions such as the nature of spirituality, who or what is deity, how humans relate to the divine, the sacred feminine, gender and sexuality, and the teachings and claims of Jesus. At the end of the book another Pagan writer comments on what Philip Johnson has argued, and another Christian comments on what Gus DiZerega has argued. Paganism is acknowledged as the fastest growing 'religion' in western Europe and this book helps readers to engage with it and with orthodox Christian belief.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Comparative religion

Informations

• Publié par: Lion Hudson
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780745959405
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

Beyond the Burning Times

Acknowledgments

I want to thank friends and colleagues who read portions of my contributions for clarity, and particularly my Christian friend, Professor Bernie Lammers, who took the time to read the entire manuscript and made many suggestions for improving it. Of course, the final content is my own responsibility.

Gus diZerega

I would like to extend my thanks to my friend John W. Morehead, who has acted as an editor and coordinator of this dialogue, particularly for his patience and understanding throughout the writing of my contributions. It was John who originally contacted Gus about creating a dialogue book. Morag Reeve and Paul Clifford at Lion Hudson deserve special mention first for accepting this text for publication, and then for their patience and understanding during a period of delays in completing the work. Lastly, I am very grateful to my wife Ruth for her support and understanding, and also to my friends Matthew Stone and Simeon Payne, who have been enthusiastic and encouraged me throughout the project.

Philip Johnson

Beyond the A Pagan and Christian in Dialogue Burning Times

Philip Johnson and Gus diZerega

Edited by John W. Morehead

Copyright © 2008 Philip Johnson and Gus diZerega

The authors assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

A Lion Book an imprint of Lion Hudson plc Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England www.lionhudson.com ISBN 978 0 7459 5272 7

First edition 2008 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

All rights reserved

This book has been printed on paper and board independently certified as having been produced from sustainable forests.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Typeset in 9.75/12 Baskerville BT Printed and bound in Wales by Creative Print and Design

C O N T E N T S

 Foreword by Don Frew  Foreword by Lainie Petersen

Introduction

1: The Nature of Spirituality

2: The Divine

3: Nature

4: Humans and the Divine

5: Jesus and Spiritual Authority

Gus diZerega Philip Johnson

Gus diZerega Philip Johnson

Gus diZerega Philip Johnson

Gus diZerega Philip Johnson

Gus diZerega Philip Johnson

Gus diZerega Philip Johnson

6: Paganism, Christianity and the Culture Wars  Gus diZerega  Philip Johnson

Responsive Thoughts

Conclusion

 Endnotes  Further Reading

Lainie Petersen Don Frew

7  9

 11  14

 17 29

 42 55

67 79

91 104

116 129

142 155

 168 176

Gus diZerega 183 Philip Johnson 186  189  205

John W. Moreheadedited this volume. He is the Director of the Western Institute for Intercultural Studies (www.wiics.org), a senior editor ofSacred Tribes Journal (www.sacredtribesjournal.org) and coeditor ofEncountering New Religious Movements(Kregel, 2004).

Gus diZeregais a Third Degree Wiccan Gardnerian Elder, who studied for six years with a Brazilian shaman and holds a PhD in Political Theory. He has published widely on political, scholarly and spiritual subjects and is a frequent conference lecturer, speaker and writer on topics such as the environment, community and society, contemporary politics, modernity and religion.

Philip Johnson is the founder of Global Apologetics and Mission, a Christian ministry concerned with new religious movements and major religions. He is visiting lecturer in Alternative Religious Movements at Morling College, Sydney, Australia. He holds a Master of Theology degree from the Australian College of Theology and has cowritten three other books on theology and new spiritualities.

Don Frew an Elder in both the Gardnerian and New Reformed is Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn (NROOGD) traditions of Wicca. He is High Priest of Coven Trismegiston in Berkeley, CA. He has attended the University of California, Berkeley, majoring first in Anthropology and then Religious Studies. He has served nine terms on the National Board of the Covenant of the Goddess (www.cog.org), the world’s largest Wiccan religious organization, and has represented Wicca in ongoing interfaith work for over twenty years. Don is an internationally recognized spokesperson for the Craft, and interviews with him have appeared on countless radio and television shows and in numerous books.

Lainie Petersena lifelong resident of Chicago who has been is interested in matters of religion and spirituality for most of her life. While she was an evangelical Christian as a teenager, she later became involved with Western Esotericism, and was eventually ordained a priest in a NeoGnostic church. Since that time, she has reverted to orthodox Christianity, and is presently ordained and active in the Independent Sacramental Movement. Lainie holds Master of Divinity and Master of Theological Studies degrees from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, Illinois.

Foreword by Don Frew In 2002 I attended the Global Assembly of the United Religions Initiative (URI) in Rio de Janeiro. At its conclusion, 300 or so religious representatives engaged in a Peace March the length of Copacabana Beach. Several of us were then asked to address the city of Rio. Two Pagan representatives were included, Rowan Fairgrove and I. I said:

Sometimes, people in my faith tradition ask me, ‘Why do interfaith work?’ And I tell them, ‘We all want to see change in the world. We want to see peace, justice and healing for the Earth. Well, the only true change comes through changing people’s minds. And nothing has the power over minds and souls that religion has. So any group like the URI, that is working to create understanding and cooperation between religions, to work for the betterment of all, has the potential to be the most powerful force for change on the planet. As a person of faith, called by my Gods to care for and protect the Earth, how can I not be involved?’ And then they understand.

If anyone had told me a few years ago that Wiccans would be asked to bless Rio de Janeiro, I wouldn’t have believed it. We’ve come a long way, and our interfaith efforts have been the reason. Witches were involved in the creation of the URI almost from the beginning. Its Charter opens with words reflecting our views and beliefs:

We, people of diverse religions, spiritual expressions and indigenous traditions throughout the world, hereby establish the United Religions Initiative to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence and to create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings. [www.uri.org]

The URI now includes almost 400 local and multiregional interfaith groups in over 70 countries around the world. At one of the Charterwriting conferences, in Stanford in 1998, representatives of many Earthbased religions, who had previously participated as odd groups on the edges of the core of ‘world’ religions, got together for lunch. There were practitioners of Wicca, Shinto, North/Central/South American indigenous traditions, Candomble,

7

FOREWORD

Don Frew

Taoism and Hinduism. To our surprise, the environmental scientists also joined in, saying they felt most at home with us. Looking around our circle, we suddenly realized that the Earthreligions comprised 13 per cent of the delegates! We had established an identity in common as a ‘way’ of being religious – a Pagan identity, broader than the concept of NeoPagan. That ‘Pagan lunch’ led to the formation of theSpirituality & the Earth Cooperation Circle, a multiregional group networking Earth religionists around the world. Don F rew For me, the bottom line is what I expressed that day in Rio: a movement to bring the world’s religions together to work for the betterment of all is, potentially, the most powerful force for positive change in existence. As a person of faith, called by my Gods to care FOREWORD for and protect the Earth, how can I not be involved? Interfaith work is, in my opinion, the best hope for the future of the Earth. NeoPagans are active at the heart of the global interfaith movement. This is our opportunity to be part of the change we wish to see. Here in the United States, we are a small, but growing, religion living under the huge shadow of Christianity. Unlike relations between other faiths, the relationship between Paganism and Christianity has been mythologized into an epic struggle between good and evil, leading on both sides to a continuing demonization of the ‘other’. Dialogue between Pagans and Christians is the first, necessary step to building the community of ‘peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings’ that is the dream of all of us involved in interfaith work. This small volume is a good beginning from which to extend this dialogue to a wider Pagan and Christian audience.

8

Foreword by Lainie Petersen While discussion of religion may seldom be appropriate in polite company, dialogue between religious people is fundamentally necessaryin a civil society. Without dialogue, what we know about religions other than our own will be filtered through a detached (and often ignorant) media, projections of outsider ‘experts’, and noisy ideologues whose views and experiences may not accurately represent those of their coreligionists. These distortions mean that we will possess false assumptions and fears about what our neighbours, friends, coworkers and even family members value, practise and believe. This reluctance to engage in dialogue (as opposed to debate) about our religious beliefs could be attributed to social convention (i.e., never discuss religion or politics), but I suspect that there are other, deeper reasons for it. For those of us who have friendships with people of a religion different from our own, a mutual exploration of these differences might be frightening. We may fear the pain of encountering our friend’s rejection – or so it may seem to us – of what we believe. We may worry that the pain will be so great that we may lose our friendship. Alternatively, we may (secretly) fear that if someone we love and respect believes differently from us, there ‘might be something’ to their religion: if we learn more about it, we risk having to consider our own faith more deeply. So we avoid the topic, and thus the opportunity to develop greater intimacy with (and empathy for) someone whom we are supposed to care about very deeply. Similarly, religious leaders/scholars (particularly evangelicals) might be reluctant to publicly ‘dialogue’ with someone of another religion for fear that they may be seen as ‘legitimizing’ that ‘other’ religion. Even private dialogue between religious leaders/scholars becomes complicated and suspect because of what is perceived as a risk to professional integrity: if a ‘professional’ participant in the dialogue feels challenged by the faith of the other, she may wonder if she is doing her job correctly. The irony in all this, of course, is that most religious people acknowledge that there is a cosmic/sacred agenda that is of higher importance than their own feelings, desires, fears and concerns. If religious misunderstandings result in social discord, then people of faith have aresponsibility to prevent misunderstandings before they

9

FOREWORD

Lainie Petersen