This is inspired by David Armstrong’s “Why not be a Christian”. You should probably read it. It's a lovely piece. In this strange period where I can't write the more detailed posts I have planned because of responsibilities and challenges, I'll have to settle for haphazard heart pieces like this, started on my phone, on Twitter or on notepad, to be edited later.
The title is how I will describe my history with Christianity; my revisions of understanding, changing ethics, pluralism and formerly (and now modified) perennialism, my growing Neoplatonism and strengthening Polytheism, my slight anti-Protestantism, slight anti-Christianity, and (not so slight) religious anarchism; all of these have roots in the way the man from Nazareth haunts my dreams, my aspirations, my desires, my depression, and my fears. I have moved from charismatic Pentecostalism to being churchless, and am now in a seemingly unending state of limbo due to circumstances brought about as much by my laziness as by my anxiety, my doubts concerning institutional Christianity, and the unfortunate status of this unbelievably infuriating country I live in.
I will cut to that chase. In my acceptance of Polytheism, I have been granted a perspective of Christianity that is more unflattering than anything New Atheism could ever bring up. I have been seeing what Christianity looks like to those who are not Christian; perspectives I used to scorn, even in my former perennialism.
Unfortunate perhaps, but I don’t have David’s attraction to Judaism. I didn’t grow up with Jews around me. At the time of writing this, I have not met a Jew in person as far as I know. Thank Adonai for Social media and its exposure, including the many friends around the world I made there. If not for such exposure, I wouldn’t have grown away from the (subtly and not so subtly) anti-Semitic caricatures present in much of the Pentecostalism I grew up with.
Instead of an attraction to Judaism, I have been attracted to Islam. It was once a thing I played with when I took my Muslim love interests seriously. I was somewhat pluralist before I became consciously perennialist, although I had periods where I questioned this. It became a more serious Intellectual position due to Frithjof Schuon’s influence. Schuon’s way of drawing so many Islamic intellectuals and explaining their terms using Hindu and Christian philosophical and theological ideas drew me in just as much as my crush on Aisha once did. Despite the popular “illusion” theory of Jesus’ crucifixion in Islam, there are minority opinions that affirm the crucifixion, and even perhaps “resurrection” in a sense that is remarkably similar to the first century Judaic sense of the word[1]. I could convert if I had the will. However, Schuon tended to advise against jumping traditions except one absolutely has to. It is like entering another galaxy. It is often very painful. As a perennialist, why jump ship when everything you need is where you are? The “perennial tradition”, as he understood it, is just as much in Christianity as in Islam. Jumping ship might distract from “the one thing needful” if done in too much of an ephemeral manner. And so, I stayed Christian.
Even as a Polytheist of sorts, I retain this perspective. But this has been tested in recent months. I sometimes have to ask which one is more painful: to stay Christian or to leave? If it is to stay Christian, where in Christianity do I stay? If it to leave, where do I go? Above both questions stand the figure of the Jewish man crucified, an icon of the God of his ancestors, devoted to his, while I have been knowingly and unknowingly betraying mine.
I stand with Socrates that we are to conceive Gods such that “each the most beautiful and best thing possible” (Rep. 381c)[2], and I follow Proclus that “Every god is above Being, above Life, and above Intelligence” (Prop 115)[3]. They are “in the position of the Good” (Prop 151)[4], each is the Good, the True, the Beautiful. Even for those who consider the Good to be above the Gods; unless you question beg, there is no way to identify the Jewish God alone to that supposed principle above the Gods if he has historically been seen working in the same exact generic way the Gods themselves worked. Adonai and the Greek Zeus are Gods, with none superior.
All myths concerning them must be interpreted according to these. Based on this alone, to stay Christian because of the supposed inferiority of other Gods, or their “demonhood”, or the acts of their followers, is untenable. So much of Christianity is imperialism of this kind, even among the inclusive, and it grieves me. The Gods remain Good, True, and Beautiful, no matter the evil their followers erroneously do in their name, no matter their faulty conceptions, no matter their misapprehensions even of my Christian faith. Insofar as my faith has been a reactionary act against my tribe’s ancient Gods and ultimately my own history, I have been impious, to even my Christian God.
But, I cannot simply ignore history. My tribe has been radically changed by the oppression and rule of the European Christians, even as many have accepted their God. This acceptance of the Christian God is part of my material history, and it would be equally reactionary to condemn my faith because of it. Those of my lineage who first became Christian are also my ancestors, and I have to respect their decision.
This places me firmly in the minority of my Christian tradition, and this is the reason for new complications. To return to the question of staying or leaving, if I wanted to leave, there is nowhere to go except to my tribe’s ancient Gods. I don’t know why it would be wise to go anywhere else. My name is not Greek, or Latin. I only have one non-Yoruba name, and it’s anglicised Hebrew, and it’s not even on my birth certificate. I cannot go to Islam anymore. I cannot burden them with my polytheism, even if I can justify it in Islamic terms. It is not mainstream, it’s barely even a minority position. It’s not wise. I cannot be a Jew, for similar reasons. But I also don’t want to deny the God I grew up with, who has kept me till now and has promised to keep me forever.
And so, I remain (at least nominally) Christian. This has the effect of keeping me in this limbo of indecision. However, this is slowly fading, at least in some respects. For example, Proclus has given me a more intense Mariology. I consider the Theotokos a full Goddess, the icon of a Henad, just like her Son. She is the icon of the Asherah, the maligned Goddess who will not die, who will appear in the myths the theological descendants of the early Israelites tell[5], who brings other Goddesses with her, the multitude of mothers, the “Ladies”. She is the “Lady of the Sun”, clothed in Glory as she births the God-Man central to the Christian faith. In short, mine is now a “Polytheist” Christianity, a sort of personal revival of the polytheist spirit of a period in Judaic history that I think is misunderstood as a period of special decadence from a “pure” monotheism rather than the flourishing of a revealed tradition. It will suffice for me, for now. My religious future is uncertain. My only hope is the centre where the Virgin and her Son beckon me to communion with them the multitude of others they unite in their person, all in each[6]. However, my concrete practices include prayers to the Virgin and her Son, in the practice of the Hail Mary and the Jesus prayer. I don’t know how this will jive with joining any liturgical tradition, Catholic, Orthodox, or otherwise, but I guess that just means I cannot predict the future. As nerve wracking as it is at times, I leave it to the Gods’ providence. As for my tribe’s ancient tradition, the Ifá tradition, I will no longer begrudge them. I will take steps to visit a Babalawo in the future. I want to put my philosophy into words. At least, if I never become a full participant in the tradition, I can at least pay my respects and honour those who are the major Gods in my lineage’s history. It is a way to atone for my impiety.
All in All, I seek communion, which I may never get on this side of eternity. My original goal remains to see the God-Man, the Icon of Adonai, who is Adonai Himself, cry at his feet, in happy sadness, and ask, “Why?!”.
[1] For example, Nasr et al. say that “The present verse (4: 158), along with 3:55, represents the source of the Islamic belief that Jesus, as in the Christian tradition, ascended directly to God. Raised up here translates rafaʿa, which literally means “to raise,” rather than baʿatha, which is used elsewhere to mean “to resurrect” after death. The verse is thus understood as referring to Jesus’ direct ascension from the earthly realm to the Presence of God without the intervening event of death.” This would be congruent with Barker who says that “the baptism had been remembered, perhaps only by the inner group of initiates, as the moment when Jesus ascended to heaven”, an event that happens more than once, including at the crucifixion, if the theology is to hold. Nasr et al. insist though, that “The Quran is clear elsewhere, however, that Jesus is not Divine (5:116)” although even this can be qualified with questions as to what it means to be “divine” in Islam, as Cutsinger does when he implies that, for Islam, only that which is unbegotten is unqualifiedly Divine. See Nasr et al., The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary; Barker, The Revelation of Jesus Christ: Which God Gave to Him to Show to His Servants What Must Soon Take Place (Revelation 1.1); Cutsinger, “Disagreeing to Agree: A Christian Response to ‘A Common Word.’”
[2] As translated by Edward Butler, “Polytheism and the Euthyphro.”
[3] Proclus and Dodds, The Elements of Theology.
[4] Proclus and Dodds.
[5] Armstrong, “The Goddess Wisdom: Sophia, Shakti, and the Virgin”; Barker, “Wisdom: The Queen of Heaven.”
[6] As Butler explains Henadic unity, in Edward Butler, “Polytheism and Individuality in the Henadic Manifold.”
Thank you for sharing. I felt your aches and longings. The sign, I think, of good writing.