The Inevitability of Scripture

September 30, 2010 by Star Foster

Continued from Page 2

Pagans cannot prevent their descendants from creating a body of scripture. As the past is shaped by the ancestors and beyond the reach of contemporary Pagans, so is the future in the hands of generations to come. All contemporary Pagans have is what they can create in the present. As played out by the history of other religious traditions, Pagans have to anticipate that scripture is inevitable and that it will affect the way traditions form and how future Pagans derive authority for those traditions.

Unlike the ancients, Pagans cannot depend on oral tradition to preserve their teachings, nor can they survive as a kaleidoscope of highly-personalized religions. Religion scholar Jonathan Z. Smith said in a 2008 interview: “I would estimate that a thousand religions die each year. We're very limited in our sense of how many religions there are. And I'd say that a thousand come into being each year. A religion that survives its founder's death is doing well.” The poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote that “Not people die but worlds die in them.”

As a movement Pagans are stepping out of their spiritual puberty, even though individual Pagans are still at various stations of their personal spiritual journey. Unlike the Hebrews and the early Christians, Pagans are aware of how religious movements mature and can learn from the past. What is being written now is forming the scripture and scriptural commentary for generations to follow. While the choice of which texts become canonical texts is beyond modern control, the ability to put forth a wide-ranging body of work for the future to choose from is possible.

History suggests that ideas of worth are preserved. Reason suggests only that which is written has a chance at survival. Pagans must redefine their relationship to the written word. What values they hold will survive in written form. If that value is diversity, then their writing must be wildly diverse. If they oppose a written viewpoint then they must oppose it with a text similar, if not superior, in quality and format. Pagans must make a great effort to discuss the issues of their communities exhaustively.

The act of writing must be removed from its pedestal and the question of authority must be resolved actively by Pagans rather than submitted to passively. Like the Founding Fathers of America, Pagans must know that a new religious aeon is coming and new structures of organization and authority will have to be erected. If this is not done consciously in keeping with pluralistic values, then it risks following the old patterns that Pagans, by coming into being, rejected. Every religious movement begins as a revolution against the status quo only to embrace and embody it as the movement matures.

Pagans should leave a greater written legacy behind than their ancient forerunners, actively encourage and preserve diverse perspectives, and give the future their best efforts at tackling the issues of authority, doctrine, pluralism, morality, and autonomy. Regardless of how Pagans may feel about scripture today, what they write now in the great rebellion of modern Paganism's youth will be tomorrow's scripture: the authoritative, definitive sacred text of the future.

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9/30/2010 4:00:00 AM

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About Star Foster

A hopeless movie junkie, Star Foster believes that good movies are the mythic narratives of our times.

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