Paganism: The Whisper in History

In the Bill of Rights, it states, in the First Amendment, that we all have freedom of religion. So why is it that anyone who isn’t a Christian gets told they’re going to hell, especially Pagans, Wiccans and Atheists? Pagans practice rituals and magic in hiding, with fear of being persecuted or mocked, while Christians can go to church and worship without even a blink of an eye. In today’s day and age, it’s easier to come out of the broom closet but it’s still a touchy subject and the voice of Christians overpower the voice of any other religion in the United States, so I believe that if we open our minds and hearts, Christians and Pagans can eventually worship peacefully, and openly, together without judgement, while using our voices together and start a new chapter in American history.

Paganism has been around since even before the Viking ages, and has been practiced for hundreds of years, but because people don’t feel comfortable talking about it, few Christians understand what paganism is and to them it isn’t normal. Today when people hear “pagan” they think hippy, spiritual, tree hugger, and many more, when in all reality there are hundreds of different types of paganism. Nordic, Celtic, Druidism, Greek, Roman, you name it they have it, and they all worship differently. We are more than a single story. Think of it like a huge umbrella. There is one big umbrella of Christianity, and under that umbrella are sects like Mormonism, Catholicism, Jehovah’s Witness, etc. because they all believe that “God” is the only god. Well Paganism is the big umbrella and under it are the various aspects such as Wicca, Druidism, Nordic, and many more, that believe there is more than just one god, or whom believe that the Christian God exists but not everything they say about him is true.

I was raised in a Southern Baptist family (A very dominate culture) where you ate, slept, and breathed God’s word, church was every Wednesday and Sunday, and your best friend was your pastor. I was born into a single story of Christianity. I remember listening to Pastor Dave talk about how there was only one true God, and if you didn’t believe that, God would send you to hell. It terrified me to think that if I made a mistake I would be thrown into a perpetual fiery pit of flames and terror, so you can see why pagans fear Christians finding out their religion. Chimamanda Adichie did a speech called “A Single Story” where she talks about how we view other cultures by only what we know. She states
"I remember walking around on my first day in Guadalajara, watching the people going to work, rolling up tortillas in the marketplace, smoking, [and] laughing. I remember first feeling slight surprise. And then, I was overwhelmed with shame. I realized that I had been so immersed in the media coverage of Mexicans that they had become one thing in my mind, the abject immigrant. I had bought into the single story of Mexicans and I could not have been more ashamed of myself."

The pure heartache I feel when I read this is unreal, because it is so true. We think how the media and other people want us to think. CNN says muslims are terrorists so we think oh every single one of them must be a terrorist. So inevitably we will be influenced by how others view us, but it’s in our own choice on how we change that within ourselves.

When I was little I did believe God was the only god in the universe. I was too young to have my own voice, until I was about 16 and I read Psalms 82: 1-2 “ESV” where it states, “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: ‘How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?’” So if every pastor in the world has read the bible especially the ESV version, how can they come to us as “Gods sheep”, and bold face lie to us when it states in God’s word that there are other gods? The answer is in that last sentence, “. . . coming to us as ‘Gods Sheep’”. We are sheep, and we follow social control. We are not worthy of having a voice. Individualism is what we as “Americans” see as freedom when in all reality, we walk the path others want us to walk. We see it everyday, whether it be girls trying to be popular, or choosing the right clothes to wear depending on how we view ourselves and wonder how others will view us as well.

Kate Simonds said in her speech “I’m Seventeen”
"We [students] are asked ‘What do you know? How could you know this? You're only a teenager.’ when we talk about politics or education, even with what we want to do with our lives, [but] we are too young to understand. Just because we have vertical driver's licenses and you all have horizontal driver's licenses, apparently, we don't know what love is. We can't know what we shouldn't believe. We don't get to talk about education or politics, because we don't live in the quote unquote real world. We actually do not get to speak for ourselves."
So how are we as a society supposed to encourage individualism, while trying to conform our country into doing specific things at specific times? We can’t, we can only change the things we have control over, our own voice.

Now we all understand the reason these two religions are different but if we combine our voices we can see just how alike our religions are, like how Pagans and Christians both believe in the Trinity. For Christians it’s The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit while to some pagans it’s The Maiden, The Mother, and The Crone or to the Celtics it represented the three domains Earth, Sea and Air, and the three stages of life. Christians and Pagans also have the same holidays, although they have different meanings, they are still the same. Christmas to Christians is to worship the birth of Christ, while for Pagans we call it Yule. Yule is the beginning of the Winter Solstice, where we pray for safety and await the birth of the sun. Easter to Christians is when Jesus arose from the grave, while to Pagans it’s called Ostara and we worship fertility and spring. Halloween to Christians is just a fun holiday for children, while to us pagans it’s known as Samhain. It’s the only day of the year when the veil between the dead and the living is the thinnest and we can celebrate with our friends and families that have passed on. So as you can see with these examples our religions are not that different and the majority of Christian holidays stem from the Pagan faith.

Everyone remembers the lack of voices in the United States on September 11th 2001, and when John F Kennedy was assassinated. It hit us like wrecking ball to the stomach, and all we could do was cry and work together. But the one thing they both have in common is they both brought us as a country closer. We as a country now are more divided than ever, and it takes a National Disaster to bring us together and to me that is so sad. We need to light the fire within ourselves again.
We need to be like Rupi Kaur after years of being broken inside because of not using her voice. in “How I Reclaimed My Body After A Trama”.
"I'm opening all the windows, airing it out, putting roses in a vase in the middle of that kitchen table, lighting a candle, loading the dishwasher with my thoughts until they're spotless. And then, I plan to step into that bathtub, wash yesterday out of my hair, decorate my body in gold, put music on, sit back, put my feet up, and enjoy this typical Thursday."
It is time for us Pagans to raise our voices up to the gods and be proud, it is time for Christians to finally hear our voices and acknowledge our beliefs, and it is time for us to come together as a country and let our voices be heard! We are more than just some students in a class room, we are more than people who worship differently, we are “One Nation” and it’s time we start acting like it.

Rupi Kaur also said
"And that's when my voice jumped over the edge of my throat, landed at the bottom of my belly and hid for months. All the different parts in me turned the lights off, shut the blinds, locked the doors. I hid at the back of some upstairs closet of my mind, while [someone] came and broke the windows."

I shut my voice out for so long because I feared going to hell. I was told even questioning God’s existence would be a sure way of going to hell, and my soul felt bare. Once I told my mother that I was Pagan she laughed and said “Oh yeah, You’ll always be a Christian Angel.” Once she took the time to listen to me and understand my views, she finally came around. If my stubborn mother could except it, it think the rest of the world could too.

Please leave comments :D I would love to hear your opinions!