Is Modern Paganism True?

Abstract

I agree with so much in Steven Smith's splendid new book' that it seems ungenerous to focus, as I shall, on the principal disagreement between us. But the disagreement is an important one. It goes to the heart of the question Smith raises in the final pages of his book: which has more "religious truth," Christianity or modem paganism? Before I examine our theological differences, it is important to note a few of the political, legal, and constitutional points on which Smith and I agree. In practical terms these are surely more important than the theological subtleties that distinguish his understanding of God from mine. So far as worldly matters are concerned, Smith and I are comrades-in-arms and I hope he will accept me as his pagan ally.

First, Smith is right to describe our ongoing culture wars as a religious "contest" between two parties that are both driven by ideas of sacrality and ultimate meaning and, hence, as a conflict that cannot be reduced to one of mere interests alone, as we normally understand that term. Something more important is at stake. Smith is correct to say that those who defend what he calls the "Christian (or better perhaps, Abrahamic) position" in this contest are opposed on the other side not just, or most intently, by secularists who scoff at religion but by a not-yet-well-defined party whose zeal cannot be understood or explained except in religious terms, even though its advocates do not describe their values in the explicitly theological vocabulary their adversaries often employ.4 It is only when we view the conflict in this light that its magnitude and implications become visible. Because its roots lie in our deepest yearnings and most abiding convictions, we shall not be done with it anytime soon. To suggest, as Mark Tushnet does, that "[t]he culture wars are over," and that the losing side should now retire in defeat, can most generously be characterized as a childish observation. Smith's view is more realistic and mature.

Second, I agree with Smith that in the crucial area of religious liberty and expression, the establishment and free exercise clauses have been hijacked for partisan purposes. 6 Instead of standing above the theological quarrel that lies at the heart of our ongoing culture wars, these constitutional rights have been made instruments for the advancement-sometimes aggressive, sometimes not-of a program of reforms. These reforms are inspired by an ideal of personal and social life that itself is conditioned by a set of values which in their defenders' eyes are sacred, transcendent, independent of all material conditions and beyond the power of time to corrupt. Like Smith, I regret the partisan capture of the Constitution by those on one side in these wars and favor the restoration of the religion clauses to a position of greater neutrality. I am appalled-Smith is too kind to use the word-by the zealotry of those who today press what he calls the pagan cause." I believe that same sex couples have a constitutionally protected right to marry, but I am on the side of the evangelical baker who wishes not to be forcibly drafted into their union. Only the kind of puritanical fervor that religion alone arouses can explain why those who are refused this baker's services find it so disturbing to think that, in the baker's eyes, their constitutionally protected marriage is a sin.