A Struggle of Faith

Christianity has been going head to head with Paganism for more than 2000 years. The essence of this battle has always been billed as good vs. evil. The righteous God fearing Christians vs. the Devil worshiping Pagans. Not so surprisingly this is misleading at best. In reality Paganism has nothing to with devil worship, in fact the Christian Devil doesn’t enter into the Pagan belief system at all.

The Pagan faith is by definition a people or community observing a polytheistic religion, as in the ancient Romans and Greeks, or more simply, those who worships more than one God. There aren’t a lot Zeus and Aries worshipers out there anymore but Paganism is still around. Many modern Asian cultures for example are still vastly polytheistic.

Christianity, Judaism and Muslim faiths have been battling over whose faith is the original religion since they where started up a couple millennia ago. The debate that the one that’s been around longest should hold the title is an appropriately adolescent argument. Pagan faiths have been around since… well since humans, to be true.

Ancient humans were worshiping aspects of Nature as Gods long before the Bible was imagined. This is understandable being that religion at its core is a worship of a greater power and nothing is as powerful and awe inspiring as Nature. Also God is portrayed as the creator of all life and nature in a very literal since is the source of all life. Fed by this concept human society started off very much matriarchal. At the center of these early faiths was the Earth Mother and women, honored as the vessels of life, were at the head of mankind’s march into the future.

As time moved on and we struggled with our fear of the unknown Gods took on more familiar form and evolved from ambiguous natural forces to more human form. First in abstract representations of the Earth as mother and later in the Greek and Roman Gods who were very much human in appearance.  And still the feminine power remained highly revered. Female Gods such as Hera and Aphrodite shared the Heavens with their male counterparts in an epic soap opera.

This polytheistic system of faith served mankind well and was the foundation of the greatest civilizations in our history. Eventually as monotheistic beliefs gained popularity in them the role of women changed dramatically. These new belief systems were completely patriarchal. The Christian God is referred to as our Father in Heaven and his son is our savior. Also where Pagan beliefs, being rooted in nature, openly embraced and celebrated sexuality the new Christian faiths saw sexuality as a vice and women the tools of the Devil.

In the lessons of this new faith women are held as weak and corruptible and it is their place not to be respected but to be dominated by man. In Christianity, Eve is tempted by the Devil and is to blame for all the suffering of mankind. In Judaism women are kept in check with restrictions and special rules of behavior and the Muslim faith often takes subjugation of women to the extreme and in many version to outright oppression. Modern Religions’ have stripped women of their feminine power.

The Pagan beliefs that have survived into our time are those that worship Nature, Mother Earth and feminine power. Thanks to the Christian propaganda machine however most people wrongfully associate this to witchcraft and the dark arts.

For Christianity the worry is not that Paganism could lead people to abandon God and return to the worship of thunder and lightning. Science has removed the unknown from nature and though still awe inspiring it no longer evokes blind worship. The Christian faith itself is not as vulnerable as are its politics. Unopposed Paganism could open the door to a change in the views of women in our society and if women were to regain their former ancient status it would undermine the Christian teachings and threaten its control over the global political structure.

Christianities persecution of Paganism is not good vs. evil; it is the Father vs. the Mother.