Repaganizing and the Wilderness

But what if Christianity is not water? What if, instead, we understand the Christian era as a clearing in a forest? The forest is paganism: dark, wild, vigorous, and menacing, but also magical in its way. For two thousand years, Christians pushed the forest back, with burning and hacking, but also with pruning and cultivating, creating a garden in the clearing with a view upward to heaven.

-Louis Perry, "We Are Repaganizing"

Great and thought-provoking piece from a 'non-Christian.'

This particular quote connected for me to the recent Bible Project series on the wilderness, an excellent theme study of how the notion of the wilderness shows up in the Old and New Testaments, and how they are connected to the Creation narrative, Israel's ancient history, and Jesus' life.

One of the ideas surrounding the wilderness in Genesis is that the Garden of Eden itself is surrounded by the wilderness, and that is where the humans are cast out after the Fall. Throughout the Old Testament stories, the wilderness is a place where God's abundant life is not often found, outside of "little gardens" or surprise encounters. God often also uses the wilderness to teach and prepare humans for what he has for them. This particular quote brought this to mind though — the wilderness is something constantly encroaching or surrounding the fertile places. It's a harsh place. Not necessarily devoid of life, but devoid of abundance and God's generous good gifts.

In Perry's piece, she notes that the world looks like it's repaganizing, turning to "older" ways in which humans have structured society. She sees Christianity as a small area in a dark, wild forest. A place where humans have cultivated societies which actively care for the poor and weak. Given that this has not historically been the norm for human societies (quite the opposite), she views the historical period we've lived through as an anomaly, one that has had paganism encroaching on it, waiting to overtake it. Much like the wilderness in the Creation narrative.

Tagged: theology, Bible Project,