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Who Is My Co-Religionist?

Who Is My Co-Religionist?

Last updated on: October 16, 2016 at 4:53 pm by John Beckett

Who Is My Co-Religionist? 2016-10-16T16:53:59-06:00 John Beckett

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I’ve been somewhat critical of #mypolytheism (though not as critical as some have claimed), but there is some good work coming out of it. One of the best essays I’ve seen under this hashtag is this one by Kemetic reconstructionist, UU Pagan, and Agora columnist Kiya Nicoll titled “What is a co-religionist?” Kiya looks at several possible definitions of co-religionist and different places where she might properly belong, then comes to the conclusion “The whole question, it’s just f*ing weird. I have no answers.”

That post is a follow-up to another very good #mypolytheism essay, this one from the Jack of Many Trades blog titled “Is There Community in #mypolytheism?” Jack says

I have never found … coreligionists. I have friends who have aspects of their practice that align with mine in many ways, but I have no group I can go to where their offerings, their powers, and their metaphors will be the same as mine.

These posts are good and I find myself in near-total agreement with both of them. But I’ve used the term “co-religionists” for years and I feel like I have many of them. Am I all that different, or am I just using the term differently?

I don’t think I’m all that different.

For me, a co-religionist is simply a person I do religion with. And “doing religion” means different things in different contexts.

Unitarian Universalists are my co-religionists. We share the values of the inherent worth and dignity of every person, a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and a respect for the natural world. We put those values into action with our support for social and environmental justice.

Even within CUUPS (much less outside of it) I don’t share much theology and metaphysics with my fellow UUs. An old joke says that Unitarianism is the belief in one God, at most. I believe in many Gods. That’s OK – we come together around common this-world values, not around Otherworldly beliefs.

UU worship follows the style of the New England Congregationalists, sometimes called “the frozen chosen.” This very intellectual approach provides food for thought, but it doesn’t feed my soul. So I couldn’t be only a Unitarian Universalist, but Unitarian Universalism is one of my religious homes, and UUs are my co-religionists.

I’m a co-religionist with other devotional polytheists. With the exception of my local group (a number of whom are not devotional polytheists – more on that later), I rarely work or worship with these co-religionists. My interaction with them is almost entirely online, except for the occasional Pagan gathering. Our commonality lies in our beliefs about the Gods and our approach to interacting with Them.

My devotional polytheist co-religionists believe the Gods are real individual beings with Their own sovereignty, agency, and will. We don’t agree on exactly what this looks like in practice. We share our thoughts, experiences, and revelations, in an attempt to get closer to the truth about the Gods, both individually and collectively. We understand that none of us has the whole truth nor likely will we ever, but some ideas are more likely and more helpful than others.

We agree that the Gods are worthy of our religious regard, but we don’t agree on what forms that religious regard should take: prayer, offerings, sacrifice, devotion, worship, service… What is required, what is beneficial, what works for some but not others, and what is patently unhelpful? Most of us are still figuring this out, and our devotional polytheist co-religionists help us get there faster and with more certainty than if we worked alone.

The members of Denton CUUPS are my co-religionists. Denton CUUPS is not a typical CUUPS chapter, but at our core we are a UU covenant group, open to all who come in good will. We share a love of Nature, an affinity for the beliefs and practices of our ancestors, and a view of divinity as female as well as male (and anything else divinity chooses to be). Some of our members are polytheists, some are not. Some of our rituals honor one or more of the many Gods, some don’t.

We are co-religionists because we practice together. We celebrate the seasons and the sabbats together. We eat together, pick up roadside trash together, and go camping together. Here, more than with any of my other groups and groupings, we are doing religion. We don’t all believe the same things, and that’s OK. We do the same things.

I have other groups of co-religionists, but I think you get the point – co-religionists are people we do religion with, even though we don’t agree with them about everything.

Context matters! A person who is a co-religionist in one context is an other-religionist in another context. A Christian who sits beside me at the UU Sunday service is my co-religionist while we’re lighting the chalice, singing “Spirit of Life,” and discussing the state of the creek behind the church at coffee hour. When I’m pouring offerings to Cernunnos, we’re other-religionists – I’m doing something that is antithetical to their religious identity as a Christian.

We can – and should – be polite and friendly with other-religionists. When Christians come to our CUUPS circles (as they do on a semi-regular basis) they are welcome to participate as fully as they like. If they see Cernunnos as an aspect of one almighty God who they honor as Jesus in some sort of panentheistic soft polytheism, I wouldn’t dream of stopping them. If we discuss our beliefs during the social hour, I’m going to say “I’m glad you found it meaningful and I hope you come back next time.” But I’m not going to say “deep down it’s all the same” – because our religious diversity matters.

Those are public rituals. There are other, private rituals to which I would never invite a Christian or an atheist. Doing those rituals well requires me to be open and vulnerable, which I can’t do if I’m concerned about what an other-religionist may think about it, or about the spiritual implications of their presence. Purity may be overrated, but it’s still an important part of good religious practice.

When people (not just the two I quoted in this post) say they have no co-religionists, I wonder what they’re looking for. Are they saying there’s no polytheist group of any kind near them? Nothing in their particular flavor of polytheism? Or are they looking for a group where everyone believes and practices just like they do? While I’d love to be part of a group “where their offerings, their powers, and their metaphors will be the same as mine” I’m happy to be part of several communities of convenience.

I think Jack might agree, at one level or another. In the post I linked to above, he also says:

Unitarian Universalism offers me people to have a conversation with. Maybe none of these people believe the exact same things as me, or work with the same powers and spirits. Who cares? Not me, not them. Neither did most of the the druids or the heathens or any of the explicitly pagan groups I’ve attended. Having my own beliefs, interacting with #mypolytheism, doesn’t stop my from interacting with communities both online and face to face.

We can have our own beliefs and refine them in conversation with others. We can practice parts of our religion with some people and other parts with other people. We can gather with anyone and everyone who shares our values, whether they express those values in the same way or not.

Our co-religionists are those we do religion with, whatever “doing religion” means in that religious context.

Unitarian Universalism

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