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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Not a Thought: Today goes syncretist
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I woke partway through this item, just before the sport at about 7:25. Apparently the CofE is too intent on thinking about God, when modern people want to feel things, so mission groups go out and reach out in Druidic ceremonies (presumably that is why it was on Today today) and the Tarot. I was fully awake by the end, but I won't be able to use IPlayer to get the full effect until later. (Or to post a link.)
Did anyone else hear it? And what do they think about its message? Thinking being something I don't intend to drop any time soon.
(TFTD was about appropriate treatment for the mentally ill, and the healing of communities which ia not enabled by locking people up in police cells. Thinking was involved.)
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Poppy
Ship's dancing cat
# 2000
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Posted
This is fairly old news. Groups of Christians have been going out to Mind, Body and Spirit (MBS) fairs for years using tools such as the Jesus Deck to connect with people who class themselves as spiritual but not religious.
This is good old fashioned inculturation of the gospel.
The MBS approach is not a one size fits all as there are lots of people who have no truck with all this woo stuff and want faith explained in terms of evidence and truth and all that modern language. Different groups, different language, same gospel.
[ 21. June 2013, 07:35: Message edited by: Poppy ]
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At the still point of the turning world - there the dance is...
Posts: 1406 | From: mostly on the edge | Registered: Dec 2001
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I woke partway through this item, just before the sport at about 7:25. Apparently the CofE is too intent on thinking about God, when modern people want to feel things, so mission groups go out and reach out in Druidic ceremonies (presumably that is why it was on Today today) and the Tarot. I was fully awake by the end, but I won't be able to use IPlayer to get the full effect until later. (Or to post a link.)
Did anyone else hear it? And what do they think about its message? Thinking being something I don't intend to drop any time soon.
(TFTD was about appropriate treatment for the mentally ill, and the healing of communities which ia not enabled by locking people up in police cells. Thinking was involved.)
I felt very uncomfortable listening to that piece. I had an instinctive gut reaction that Christianity and some of the pagan practices being discussed just don't mix. In particular I didn't like the idea of Christians hailing the midsummer sunrise alongside pagan worshippers. Even if the Christians were quite clear in their own consciences about there being no worship involved, I think it gives a bad impression.
It's not that I've got anything against pagans. They can worship what they like, how they like, at whatever stones they like (as long as they don't disturb the archaeology). But there are some pagan practices I don't think can be reconciled with Christianity no matter how far you stretch things.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
... But there are some pagan practices I don't think can be reconciled with Christianity no matter how far you stretch things.
Did they sacrifice a virgin, or even the odd sheep or two?
More seriously, I think one has to understand the fundamentals of the faith, and how both the prophets of Israel and Paul and the other first evangelists to the classical world, dealt with this, to be safe doing it.
Obviously no Christian may do anything that is or might be construed as either worshipping a pagan deity or engaging with a pagan spirit.
One has to prepared simply to say politely 'my God forbids me from doing this'. If one has not got the confidence to do so, one should not go there.
[ 21. June 2013, 09:21: Message edited by: Enoch ]
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Bob Two-Owls
Shipmate
# 9680
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Posted
Being a Christian and a Druid myself I have to say that there is nothing new about this at all. Druidry* has always had a long association with the Church of England as well as fringe Celtic Christian groups. Christians also made up a large number of members of the Golden Dawn, a victorian ceremonial magic order which used Kabbalistic symbolism and Jewish mysticism as a vehicle for spiritual exploration - the modern use of the tarot is very heavily influenced by Golden Dawn teaching.
*There are many forms of Druidry - cultural (Welsh, Cornish literary tradition), mutual (similar to freemasonry), spiritual (allowing members to explore natural symbolism within their own religious traditions) and pagan. Most large orders are spiritual (OBOD, AODA) or pagan (ADF, BDO) these days.
Posts: 1262 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Apart from the Welsh ones, which seems to be no more than a mutual admiration society for poets, wouldn't much of that sort of Druidry, Golden Dawn and Kabbalism ring all the usual sorts of alarm bells about Gnosticism, the sort of thing that caused St John to leap out of his bath .
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Bob Two-Owls
Shipmate
# 9680
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Posted
I can't say that I have seen much evidence of Gnosticism in spiritual Druidry. Most Christian Druids I know are fairly orthodox in belief but with a particular fondness for trinitarian principles (Druids like threes in almost everything), the stewardship of the natural world, equality and symbolism.
Dressing up and drinking mead are pretty high on the agenda as well...
Posts: 1262 | Registered: Jul 2005
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