I think this also contributes to the rise in alternative Christian denominations in America. America isn’t fully secular, so its liberalism is tied to modernist, minimalist Protestant and Catholic religion. For young Americans who are dissatisfied, austere old school Protestantism, traditional Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy are nearly as alien as paganism, and similarly rely on reconstructing or perpetuating ancient traditions that the mainstream culture no longer observes or practices.
It’s hard for me to agree with the “living tradition” claims on this aspect specifically for the reasons you’ve outlined here. This crop of Orthodox and Catholic converts are also searching for meaning, building something from the ground up.
There is something a bit off in some (not all) people wanting to call the Heathens LARPers as a kind of slur when they themselves are converting to Russian Orthodoxy.
The tradition is alive to some people who have kept the faith of their native country going for centuries, but few of these people are alive today and even the Church considers them somewhat exceptional. Orthodox Christianity in the western world is effectively building from the ground up, even if they are technically building on a foundation that was laid and subsequently abandoned a thousand years ago.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. I don't think pagan reconstruction is going away any time soon and I think it may be the beginning of a genuine new religion. Likewise Christianity may alter itself to be more appealing to folkish westerners, but I don't see any evidence of that.
Thank you for explaining the Christian gap between American westerners and non-American westerners. The former don't often realise just how secular the rest of the west has become.
This is excellent, Fortissax. One of your best. It’s also a topic that's been on my mind (and apparently many minds) lately. For the pagans, ancient and neo, it's always been a matter of range and vector. "You can see this far, but what if you looked further, and in multiple directions? What more might you see?"
Brilliant. I was waiting for such an essay for too long, and here it is.
I am a New Zealander, which is an incredibly liberal and unchristian country; how you describe the alienness of Christianity and Christians to the average citizen in Canada is the same in New Zealand.
I have opened myself spiritually for answers after being a degenerate atheist for many years (it destroyed my soul). Christianity, in many ways, could fill that void (my girlfriend is Catholic), but honestly, like you describe, many Christians on the ground are either ethnic (indian, chinese, korean, phillipino) and if they are white, are essentially progressive leftists with cooler clothes and buildings. I am being a bit harsh here, but it is bizarre to me how Christians in my country do not speak out powerfully against the rot that is wokeness. They never do - and it makes it hard for me to follow them, go to Church and so on. The hypocrisy, fakeness.
To Americans, Fortissax is right: Christianity is an entirely different beast outside the United States. In many cases, you won’t even recognise it.
This spoke to me personally, as a lapsed secular liberal. My apostasy from atheism started with a fumbling attempt, a grasp towards the Christian faith my swedish upbringing had given me morsels off, christmas and easter with the family, churches dotting the landscape.
But Christianity was closed. There was no path towards the sacred there, going to protestant mass, it was evident that God had left the building. Especially so in the more " progressive" and modern churches.
which lead me to Swedens other religious heritage: heathenry. At least that one was not closed on the contrary is was wide open. Instead of giving moral platitudes subservient of neoliberalism, it demanded an effort to construct famd rebuild. The saga still stood there as a riddle to be solved, as a challenge. (So what were the terms of the bet Odin made with Memory?)
Neoplatonist philosophy gave it deep intellectual footing, the saga gave it mystery and humour and cosmsos gave it greatness.
However, doing this for a few years, did open up my path towards Christ. Love does conquer All.
But this is a personally, syncretitic Christianity based on personal experience, ie gnosticism. Not doctrinal church Christianity but one celebrated at home, with family in a land surrounded by unbelievers.
Great essay and appreciated the effort to contextualize what has been happening through this meaning crisis. I wouldn't have expected this world to be what we would get, if I my Christian upbringing was any road map to a better world, but here we are and it's in part I believe because Christianty Inc. failed people on a personal level as a secular world took over. It makes sense that paganism is circulating back into people's consciousness and to me looks like a regression to the mean in terms of spiritual observant practice that makes things, events, and relationships make sense ata day to day level. Much respect for analyzing the gap and building a bridge.
People turn to paganism because it is whatever they want it to be.
The points you've made were explained a century ago by C.S.Lewis, who suggested that the repaganization of Europe was a necessary prelude to the reChristianization of the continent: but that there was nothing particularly 'pagan' about those called or calling themselves pagan.
The West is currently imploding, undergoing complete civilizational suicide. The demographic bomb as fertility rates fall through the floor; the worship of other cultures at the expense of our own (which was *mocked* in the 19thC, go look at the List song from the Mikado); the abandonment of logic. Still, these factors are destroying themselves as fast as they destroy everything around them; these memes may fall victim to the trap that controls deadly diseases such as Ebola - being so deadly that their hosts cannot survive to infect others. The Amish tipping the balance for Trump will just be the 1st example of this. Those who've ignored the defeatist propaganda and so had children anyway will inherit the earth.
People turn to paganism because it offers us a road back to sanity, through the sanctification of our blood and soil, something Christians once understood. But most Christians are busy converting Africa and Asia, so.... the White flight will continue.
Until mainstream Christianity in the west takes some sort of identarian stand this will continue. The christian institutions in the west supported and aided the mass migrations and liberalizations of all sorts. Id show up to mass tomorrow and bring all my frens if they preached blood and soil with Jesus.
Tom Holland is not on our side, but he does make a good case in Dominion that the West is running on an Christian OS - even today. There really is not escaping Christianity.
IMO the way to help other to break the securalist heresy's spell is to uncover what has been hidden: the fact the Incarnation isn't only a fulfillment of the prophecies in the Torah, but also the actualizatiom of Greek/IndoEuropean myths.
Dies iræ, dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla
Quantus tremor est futurus
Quando iudex est venturus
Cuncta stricte discussurus
When you go the Sagrada Familia and look up, you see Christ among vines and grapes. Christ actualized Dionysius, from his original birthday feast (Jan 6) to his first miracle (turning water into wine). Mary/Christ Isis/Horus. Abraham's sacrifice is an echo of an older Indo-euro myth.
All the myths since the beginning of this age converge on the Incarnation.
The Perenialists are wrong when they say all roads lead to the top of the mountain. All roads converge into one.
Practically speaking, Beowulf LOTR are good introductions to Christianity for men having grown up completely secular.
Unless the miracles return, hard to see a Christian resurgence in the West. You can run on tradition for a long time, especially when a religion is associated with and promoted by upper class factions as Christianity was for so long, but once the continuity breaks it’s impossible to recover. History is filled with defunct faiths.
And fwiw, Christian leaders sound like global liberalists b/c the creed of the progressive - uplifting the worst, perdition to the best - is essentially a Christian doctrine, albeit shorn of the supernatural. Old Freddy Nietzsche didn’t call it “slave morality” for nothin’.
“medieval man was all of a piece, facing the world, unlike the pagans, ‘from a vantage point which depended neither upon intellectual superiority nor cultural attainment,’ in which ‘each present moment of existence became an historic center, for each was given the burden of choice in that crucial and irreducible drama that is one with existence itself.’” - from a piece of mine on Undset and Guardini in the St. Austin Review last year. If paganism seems to offer that drama, who wouldn’t want it?
I think this also contributes to the rise in alternative Christian denominations in America. America isn’t fully secular, so its liberalism is tied to modernist, minimalist Protestant and Catholic religion. For young Americans who are dissatisfied, austere old school Protestantism, traditional Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy are nearly as alien as paganism, and similarly rely on reconstructing or perpetuating ancient traditions that the mainstream culture no longer observes or practices.
It’s hard for me to agree with the “living tradition” claims on this aspect specifically for the reasons you’ve outlined here. This crop of Orthodox and Catholic converts are also searching for meaning, building something from the ground up.
There is something a bit off in some (not all) people wanting to call the Heathens LARPers as a kind of slur when they themselves are converting to Russian Orthodoxy.
The tradition is alive to some people who have kept the faith of their native country going for centuries, but few of these people are alive today and even the Church considers them somewhat exceptional. Orthodox Christianity in the western world is effectively building from the ground up, even if they are technically building on a foundation that was laid and subsequently abandoned a thousand years ago.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. I don't think pagan reconstruction is going away any time soon and I think it may be the beginning of a genuine new religion. Likewise Christianity may alter itself to be more appealing to folkish westerners, but I don't see any evidence of that.
Thank you for explaining the Christian gap between American westerners and non-American westerners. The former don't often realise just how secular the rest of the west has become.
This is excellent, Fortissax. One of your best. It’s also a topic that's been on my mind (and apparently many minds) lately. For the pagans, ancient and neo, it's always been a matter of range and vector. "You can see this far, but what if you looked further, and in multiple directions? What more might you see?"
Brilliant. I was waiting for such an essay for too long, and here it is.
I am a New Zealander, which is an incredibly liberal and unchristian country; how you describe the alienness of Christianity and Christians to the average citizen in Canada is the same in New Zealand.
I have opened myself spiritually for answers after being a degenerate atheist for many years (it destroyed my soul). Christianity, in many ways, could fill that void (my girlfriend is Catholic), but honestly, like you describe, many Christians on the ground are either ethnic (indian, chinese, korean, phillipino) and if they are white, are essentially progressive leftists with cooler clothes and buildings. I am being a bit harsh here, but it is bizarre to me how Christians in my country do not speak out powerfully against the rot that is wokeness. They never do - and it makes it hard for me to follow them, go to Church and so on. The hypocrisy, fakeness.
To Americans, Fortissax is right: Christianity is an entirely different beast outside the United States. In many cases, you won’t even recognise it.
This spoke to me personally, as a lapsed secular liberal. My apostasy from atheism started with a fumbling attempt, a grasp towards the Christian faith my swedish upbringing had given me morsels off, christmas and easter with the family, churches dotting the landscape.
But Christianity was closed. There was no path towards the sacred there, going to protestant mass, it was evident that God had left the building. Especially so in the more " progressive" and modern churches.
which lead me to Swedens other religious heritage: heathenry. At least that one was not closed on the contrary is was wide open. Instead of giving moral platitudes subservient of neoliberalism, it demanded an effort to construct famd rebuild. The saga still stood there as a riddle to be solved, as a challenge. (So what were the terms of the bet Odin made with Memory?)
Neoplatonist philosophy gave it deep intellectual footing, the saga gave it mystery and humour and cosmsos gave it greatness.
However, doing this for a few years, did open up my path towards Christ. Love does conquer All.
But this is a personally, syncretitic Christianity based on personal experience, ie gnosticism. Not doctrinal church Christianity but one celebrated at home, with family in a land surrounded by unbelievers.
I just read this through for a second time. Phenomenal piece, well done.
Thank you!
Great essay and appreciated the effort to contextualize what has been happening through this meaning crisis. I wouldn't have expected this world to be what we would get, if I my Christian upbringing was any road map to a better world, but here we are and it's in part I believe because Christianty Inc. failed people on a personal level as a secular world took over. It makes sense that paganism is circulating back into people's consciousness and to me looks like a regression to the mean in terms of spiritual observant practice that makes things, events, and relationships make sense ata day to day level. Much respect for analyzing the gap and building a bridge.
People turn to paganism because it is whatever they want it to be.
The points you've made were explained a century ago by C.S.Lewis, who suggested that the repaganization of Europe was a necessary prelude to the reChristianization of the continent: but that there was nothing particularly 'pagan' about those called or calling themselves pagan.
The West is currently imploding, undergoing complete civilizational suicide. The demographic bomb as fertility rates fall through the floor; the worship of other cultures at the expense of our own (which was *mocked* in the 19thC, go look at the List song from the Mikado); the abandonment of logic. Still, these factors are destroying themselves as fast as they destroy everything around them; these memes may fall victim to the trap that controls deadly diseases such as Ebola - being so deadly that their hosts cannot survive to infect others. The Amish tipping the balance for Trump will just be the 1st example of this. Those who've ignored the defeatist propaganda and so had children anyway will inherit the earth.
People turn to paganism because it offers us a road back to sanity, through the sanctification of our blood and soil, something Christians once understood. But most Christians are busy converting Africa and Asia, so.... the White flight will continue.
Until mainstream Christianity in the west takes some sort of identarian stand this will continue. The christian institutions in the west supported and aided the mass migrations and liberalizations of all sorts. Id show up to mass tomorrow and bring all my frens if they preached blood and soil with Jesus.
I think that's the problem inherent in Christianity that it won't make such a stand.
I did not come from the secular world. I came from a heavily Christian world. Just pointing out that many pagans understand the church perfectly well.
Tom Holland is not on our side, but he does make a good case in Dominion that the West is running on an Christian OS - even today. There really is not escaping Christianity.
IMO the way to help other to break the securalist heresy's spell is to uncover what has been hidden: the fact the Incarnation isn't only a fulfillment of the prophecies in the Torah, but also the actualizatiom of Greek/IndoEuropean myths.
Dies iræ, dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla
Quantus tremor est futurus
Quando iudex est venturus
Cuncta stricte discussurus
When you go the Sagrada Familia and look up, you see Christ among vines and grapes. Christ actualized Dionysius, from his original birthday feast (Jan 6) to his first miracle (turning water into wine). Mary/Christ Isis/Horus. Abraham's sacrifice is an echo of an older Indo-euro myth.
All the myths since the beginning of this age converge on the Incarnation.
The Perenialists are wrong when they say all roads lead to the top of the mountain. All roads converge into one.
Practically speaking, Beowulf LOTR are good introductions to Christianity for men having grown up completely secular.
I choose eternal damnation rather than convert to a sick, perverse, decaying, pedophile infested, corpse pope in a coffin full of vomit.
Nietzsche said Christianity was an "ongoing suicide of reason." Traditionalism goes back 5000 years before Christ.
I understand your sentiment, but I don’t find this rhetoric is helpful.
Unless the miracles return, hard to see a Christian resurgence in the West. You can run on tradition for a long time, especially when a religion is associated with and promoted by upper class factions as Christianity was for so long, but once the continuity breaks it’s impossible to recover. History is filled with defunct faiths.
And fwiw, Christian leaders sound like global liberalists b/c the creed of the progressive - uplifting the worst, perdition to the best - is essentially a Christian doctrine, albeit shorn of the supernatural. Old Freddy Nietzsche didn’t call it “slave morality” for nothin’.
Because it has become more and more and more obvious that “WWJD?” never deserved to be treated as the apex of morality.
“medieval man was all of a piece, facing the world, unlike the pagans, ‘from a vantage point which depended neither upon intellectual superiority nor cultural attainment,’ in which ‘each present moment of existence became an historic center, for each was given the burden of choice in that crucial and irreducible drama that is one with existence itself.’” - from a piece of mine on Undset and Guardini in the St. Austin Review last year. If paganism seems to offer that drama, who wouldn’t want it?
This is me.