Green Priestcraft: A ChristoPagan Pastoralia

"Pastoralia" is a somewhat archaic term denoting the spiritual, pastoral, and ritual care of a community.  "ChristoPagan" is a somewhat emergent term denoting a blend of Christian and Pagan thealogy, cosmology, and spirituality.  So, put the two together, and you have the hopefully intriguing (and, to some, infuriating) description of my own journey as a greenpriest.  I trust that folks of various and sundry spiritual persuasions will find something here to pique their interest, deepen their practice, and feed their souls.  Hear the Rune of Sophia: "God is Love, and Her body is all creation.  She is a Tree of Life, who gathers Her children in Love."  This is the conviction which guides me.  Blessed be.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form

A ChristoPagan view of magic and prayer

In my recent Tapestry interview, I spent a few moments addressing the question of the relationship between magic and prayer. Since then, I've had several interesting conversations pursuing this particular question, and it reminded me of a short posting which I published years ago, in conversation with Adelina St. Clair, author of The Path of a Christian Witch. I'm re-posting that short essay here, and I'd love to hear from others about your thoughts on this topic.


One of the reasons I’m interested in this question of the relationship between magic and prayer, is that as a pastor and theologian, I often hear people talking about intercessory prayer saying something like 'well, it isn’t magic you know'. To me, it seems like that sort of statement misses the point of both magic and prayer. But it reveals that for many people (Christian and Pagan alike), intercessory prayer is about asking God to do something, and magic is making something happen praeternaturally, but without the direct assistance of God/dess.


The problem with this type of thinking is that it assumes that God is omnipotent, and that if a prayer is not answered, then it is not God’s will. And if a prayer is answered, then it is God’s will, and God causes it directly. All of this assumes that God can do whatever S/He wants in the universe … but I’m really not sure that this is a safe assumption (no matter how traditionally orthodox it sounds!) A more process-oriented theology of intercession reminds us that God, whether by nature or by choice, is at least somewhat limited in power in relation to the creation. Or another way of putting it is that God’s power IS love, and that love, even divine love, never works through coercion, but rather through persuasion. For whatever reason, God has chosen to share Her power with the rest of creation. In intercessory prayer, from this perspective, our conscious prayers, actions, and desires open up options for God’s Spirit to work in the world which would not have been available to God had we not prayed. Or in other words, God works through our prayers, as our prayers become available to Her.


For some people, this idea of God’s power being limited is simply too much to bear. Who wants to worship a God who is not all-powerful, who suffers and waits, and shares limitations in a way similar to ourselves? But if we take the teaching of the Incarnation and the mystery of the Cross seriously, we find revealed a God whose “power is made perfect in weakness”.
In this view of prayer, God is not “in control” in the way we typically think of omnipotence, but rather offers Her Spirit to us in a co-operative way, for the healing of the world.


In some ways, this view is much more compatable with certain progressive understandings of magic. It doesn’t fit with the image of the mage speaking words of power, commanding the spirit world to do his bidding (and thus taking the place of the omnipotent god). But rather it resonates with views of magic which, like Starhawk’s teachings, see magic primarily as energy and consciousness, weaving and working with the patterns of life and healing within a living, interconnected world. When the power of Love is invoked and drawn upon, this seems to me to be actually quite close to the reality of intercessory prayer just described … an intimate cooperation with the Divine Spirit for the benefit and healing of all creation.”

Last modified on
 
The Rev. Shawn Sanford Beck is an ecumenical Christian priest, and a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. He is the author of Christian Animism, and the founder of the Ecumenical Companions of Sophia, an informal online community fostering Christian-Pagan dialogue and spiritual practice.  He lives with his family on an off-the-grid farm community in north-western Saskatchewan (Treaty Six Territory), where he is chaplain to the human and more-than-human wights of the community.  When not writing sermons, chopping wood, or practising magic, Shawn can be counted on to have his nose buried in a book. He can be contacted at greenpriest@hotmail.ca
 

Comments

Additional information