Awakening to Healing

As we navigate the paths to reconstruction we will have to embrace a few core practices. They sound simple, but they will give us a firm foundation for the work we are facing.

We need to start with acts of compassion. Don’t start with others, but with ourselves and then to others. If the golden rule is do unto others as we would have them do to us, we have to know how we want others to act toward us. This is a how we learn the nature of grace, by offering it first to ourselves and then to others. Acts of compassion are kindness, care, concern, mindfulness, open, honest, and edifying. The more we learn to perform acts of kindness towards ourselves, the better we will become performing acts of compassion for others.

Next we need to incorporate moments of deep reflection into our practice. We have gotten better stressing the need for mindfulness in spiritual and daily practice, but a lot of that mindfulness comes at the cost of reflection. Mindfulness teaches us to stay in the moments and live in the now. Reflection is a sort of diagnostic mode of meditation where we contemplate recent and distant events examining them to learn from the positive and negative aspects of those events. The more we combine mindfulness with deep reflection, the more we will be capable of learning from our successes and failure, and moving toward a better course of action.

Follow me on this next one, because I feel like a lot of people are going to say, we already do that. We need to incorporate more shared prayer or collective presencing into our practice. I am not talking about the liturgies, rituals, and prayer circles we see now, I am talking about spontaneous, unguided, and open time for shared prayer. Time when we are not reciting the words of the tradition, but allow spirit and presence to flow through us as we meet it together on its own terms. We usually limit this kind of prayer to personal prayer, but if we make more space for this kind of spontaneous group prayer, we will become better at rooting into spirit and growing together into the new faith we desire to recreate.

These three practices will help us rid ourselves of the unclean spirits that twist the love we should share and cloud our vision so we can reconstruct the faith.

In our post Enlightenment, materialistic culture, too many close their eyes and turn away. No one can prove that spirits exist or that they don't. Belief in spirits is not required or even necessary. As with everything in life, practice and action are always more important than belief. Whether these unclean spirits are separate entities, energies, or mental formations, they manifest as deeply embedded habits of harm, fear, shame, and control. Each time we name a distortion, a harmful attitude, a learned cruelty, we loosen their grip on our hearts.

Naming is the first step in exorcising. It is a declaration that we will no longer allow broken systems and wounded thinking to define us. Healing begins the moment we see clearly, and clarity begins with honesty.

Bit by bit, we unlearn the hierarchy, manipulation, and enforced silence that the Imperial Church used to secure its dominion. We disentangle love from control, grace from gatekeeping, and truth from fear. In their place, we cultivate mutuality, liberation, and the holy fire of God’s indwelling presence.

Restoring love is soul work. It is difficult, sacred, and deeply transformative, but is the work we are called to do. It is not a sentimental task, but one that demands courage, vulnerability, and fierce gentleness. Yet with every Compassion Circle, each honest journal entry, each quiet moment of self-examination, and every shared story of struggle and redemption, we move closer to the liberating commandment of Christ: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just like I have loved you; that you also love one another (John 13:34).”

Continuing Our Shared Practices

Previously, we introduced these practices to nurture honest reflection and compassionate action to help us strengthen and examine our capacity for love. Now, we build on that foundation, using the same tools to expose and release the unclean spirits that distort our ability to love as Christ commands:

In our Compassion Circle

Gather with those who share your desire to embody Christ’s love. Create a safe space for shared reflection. Ask: How might the Imperial Church’s messages have taken root in our hearts? Which unclean spirits linger among us? Listening without condemnation invite deeper honesty and mutual support.

Journaling for Clarity

Write down instances where you see love overshadowed by control, shame, or indifference. Reflect on questions like: When have I prioritized obedience to flawed authority over compassion? Where has fear of rejection blinded me to someone’s suffering? Putting words on paper can reveal patterns of infected love.

Community Check-Ins

Extend your circle to neighbors, friends, or church groups. Ask where they perceive unclean spirits affecting communal relationships. Do they recognize the subtle influence of spiritual arrogance, racism, or hypocrisy? By speaking openly of these infections, communities begin the process of collective healing.

Language Awareness Exercises

Pay attention to the words you use in conversation, prayer, and teaching. Imperial theology often hides in language in terms that blame victims or demonize difference. Practice replacing harmful phrases with words that affirm dignity and equality. Language can either feed the infection or encourage healing.

Acts of Service and Solidarity

If greed is the unclean spirit, generosity breaks its hold. If judgment is the spirit, practical empathy dissolves its power. Volunteer at shelters, advocate for the marginalized, or stand with survivors of abuse. Each act of service can become a subtle exorcism of the Imperial Church’s infection.

Personal Integrity Check

Spend quiet moments asking, Do I say I love God while ignoring my neighbor’s pain? We all slip into complacency, but honest self-examination invites grace to transform infected areas of our hearts.

The Great Work of Reconciliation

As it is written: “But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18–19, WEB)

Here, Paul, the real Paul, names our sacred calling: the ministry of reconciliation. Not judgment. Not separation. But healing, restoration, and return. The language he uses is the language of exchange, like when one kind of currency is exchanged for a different kind of coin with an equivalent value.

Like Jesus, he tells us our ministry is about changing our perspective from one context to another.

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, "The kingdom of God doesn't come with observation; neither will they say, 'Look, here!' or, 'Look, there!' for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Luke 17:20-21

Learning to see and live in the kingdom is the ministry we are all called to.

This is the Great Work of the Oak Church: to mend the torn fabric of creation, to weave peace, and to restore balance among all things. It is the living invitation of Jesus, the Cosmic Christ, who reveals a God who does not keep score. The work is not to divide, but to gather. To reconcile is to restore sacred relationship, to join again what was never meant to be broken. We are called to provide rest for the land, release for the oppressed, and forgiveness of debts. It is a justice that restores rather than punishes, that nourishes rather than shames.

This ministry of reconciliation calls us not only to be healed, but to become healers. We are invited to become proclaimers of the Good News, not only with our lips, but with our lives: that the Kingdom of Heaven is here, that the sacred presence of God is here, now, among us, and within us.

From Kingdom to Kin-dom

The traditional language of "kingdom" carries with it echoes of empire, hierarchy, and dominion. These images distort the liberating message of the Gospel. What if, in the Oak Church, we embrace the language of Kin-dom, for it better reflects the work we are called to: the restoration of relationships, not the imposition of power.

The term Kin-dom was introduced by Ada María Isasi-Díaz, a pioneer of Mujerista theology (Hispanic feminist theology), who said she learned it from her friend Georgene Wilson, O.S.F. Isasi-Díaz used the term to describe a vision of God’s reign that emphasizes relationships over rule, mutuality over monarchy. It reimagines the divine community as one where all are welcomed as family, where justice is relational, and where the call of the Gospel is to draw near, not dominate. By shifting from the hierarchical imagery of "kingdom" to the relational depth of "kin-dom," we align ourselves more closely with the Jesus who called us friends, not subjects (John 15:15).

As a side note, the word is spelled either kin-dom or kindom. I like the spelling with the dash because it looks like we are striking the "g" from the word king to return to right relationship. That dash is a powerful symbol of the work.

Kin-dom is a realm of sacred belonging. It is not ruled over, but grown among. It is the web of connection where each life matters, where every soul is kin, and where justice flows not from decree, but from compassion. This is the kind of reign Jesus proclaimed: a divine commonwealth shaped by love, mercy, equity, and kinship.

The Dawning of New Life

Flowing from this sacred call to reconciliation, we proclaim not just healing, but the dawning of new life. Zion is at hand. Our Christ stands at the door and knocks, not in judgment, but in love and longing.

The shadows that once made us feel alone, unworthy, and irredeemable are lies born from a world too quick to condemn and too slow to forgive. We are not alone. We have never been alone. The light of Christ has never stopped shining. It is only the fog of shame and fear that keeps us from seeing it clearly. That light calls to us, even when we hide from it.

So we repent: change our mind, our habits, our assumptions, our way of seeing. The Gospel is not that God is angry with us, but that God has always been reaching for us. God loves us and has always loved us. There is nothing we can do to make God give up on us. No mistake, no failure, no wandering path can disqualify us from grace. No matter our story, Christ loves us and wants to make us whole. To heal is not to erase what has been, but to transform it, to write a new story from the fragments of the old.

Forgiveness and the Kin-dom

Forgiveness is not a ledger. It is light that shines through our brokenness, dispersing the fog of shame and fear that once kept us from grace. It is not transactional, but radiant, overflowing, a wildfire of mercy. Forgiveness removes the shadows so we can see again. We see not just the world, but ourselves, and the divine image within us. We are called not only to be forgiven, but to become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), living into the radiant peace and joy of the Kin-dom, where every soul is cherished and every wound tends toward healing.

As Meister Eckhart once said: “This, then, is salvation, when we marvel at the beauty of created things and praise the beautiful providence of their Creator or when we purchase heavenly goods by our compassion for the works of creation (Passion for Creation, loc 325)."

Salvation, then, is not an escape from the world but a deeper immersion into its sacredness. It is a return to awe, to wonder, to reverence for the earth, for one another, and for the presence of God that pulses through all things. It is not just personal transformation, but collective awakening. Salvation is the restoration of wholeness where fragmentation once reigned.

When asked the greatest commandment, Jesus answered:

1. Love God with all your heart, mind, and spirit.

2. Love your neighbor as yourself.

All else, he said, hangs on these two. But the Imperial Church has abandoned them.

For centuries, the Imperial Church enshrined slavery, declaring Black people subhuman, and its influence lingers in social structures and biases today. It founded movements on political ambition, not spiritual awakening. It silenced abuse survivors, policed bodies, and forged doctrines of obedience over liberation.

When faith aligns with empire, oppression follows, revealing how empire-driven theologies depart from Jesus’ radical call to serve, heal, uplift, and liberate. While many of its activities of open for anyone to see, it moves subtly. It changes its theology, gaslighting people that nothing has changed. It shapes its words to maintain power, through selective scripture reading and dogma that demands submission.

This betrayal of love is easy to see in the prosperity preachers ignoring the poor; churches shielding predators; doctrines stripping autonomy in the name of divine will.

Unclean Spirits: Recognizing the Infections of Empire

Jesus typically called demons "unclean spirits." For Jesus, people taken on their own were as clean as God had made Adam and Eve. If a person became unclean or impure, that was not because of contact with exterior objects. Instead, impurity was a disturbance within that person's own Spirit, the "unclean spirit" that made him or her want to be impure, and even inflict self-harm. The description of the man with a legion of demons (see Mark 5:1-20) precisely captures the sense of a person turned against himself as a result of a compulsion that took over the control that rightly should have been exercised by his own mind.

Bruce Chilton, The Way of Jesus: To Repair and Renew the World (p. 81).

This same uncleanliness happened to the soul of the church itself. The early waves of persecution left a deep wounds on the church’s soul.

It began with the first trauma of the church, the crucifixion of Jesus. This created a conflict in the heart of the early church about:

• if Jesus was God

• if Jesus had a material body

• if Jesus and/or God could suffer

• why did Jesus die

• how was Jesus resurrected

• did or could Jesus die

These debates lead to many divisions within the early church that mixed and merged with later traumas to give rise to further unclean spirits. This is where the church’s skepticism about the material world was born as well as the need to define the nature of Jesus.

Next came the persecution of the Wayist movement by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. These are remembered in the Book of Acts and the letters of Paul and include the stoning of Stephen and launched a campaign of arrests, sowing fear and distrust even among believers. Whether these persecutions were real or imagined, they add to the distrust of Jews who were not a part of the Wayist movement, and supported the anti-Semitism of the empire.

Then, under Nero around 64 CE, Christians in Rome were blamed for the Great Fire, enduring gruesome martyrdoms like those of Peter and Paul. This public violence bore trauma and shame that echoed through the community.

Finally, in Decius’s empire-wide edict of 249–251 CE, every Christian was forced to sacrifice to Roman gods or face execution; this not only fractured unity but also opened the door to apostasy, schism, and a lingering spirit of compromise and guilt.

In the wake of Decius’s persecution, the church fractured over what to do with the lapsi, those who had sacrificed to idols to save their lives. Novatian, a Roman presbyter, stood firm: if you lapsed, the Church had no right to readmit you, for idolatry was unforgivable on earth and only God could pardon such a sin . Cornelius (soon Pope) and Cyprian of Carthage took a different path: they believed lapsed believers could return, but only through sincere repentance, structured penance, and the authority of the bishop. The disagreement deepened when Novatian consecrated himself as rival bishop in 251 CE, leading to his excommunication by a synod convened in Rome in October of that year and triggering a short-lived schism that echoed for generations . This schism entrenched loyalty to the bishops and the power of the church, rather than God to forgive sins.

These are only some of the unclean spirits that arose in the early church and dominated it to this day. This new Legion became the god of the Imperial Church. They bowed before the Unholy Trinity: the Father of Lies, the Christ of the Powerful, and the Unholy Spirit of Empire. Around them gather hierarchies of fallen angels, each dedicated to a vice of empire: slavery, oppression, greed, racism, sexism, queerphobia, and violence. At the root of it all is a love withdrawn and replaced with fear.

The heart of the Jesus Movement was love, compassion, or empathy as expressed through the Greek concept of Agape. If the empire was going to co-opt the Jesus Movement, it had to destroy their empathy.

In my work with the defendants I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.

Captain G. M. Gilbert. Nuremberg Miniseries1

Though often attributed to Captain Gilbert, this line is not a direct quote from his published works but a dramatized synthesis of his psychological conclusions, especially from The Psychology of Dictatorship. It captures a vital truth: the root of evil is the inability, or refusal, to feel with another. Through his interviews with the Nazis leading up to the Nuremberg trials chronicled in his Nuremberg Diary and professional writing in The Psychology of Dictatorship, Gilbert found this lack of empathy in all of them.

Empires have to eradicate empathy if they are going to successfully conquer, steal, and kill to grow and continue their existence.

In the same way the empire crushed empathy in the provinces, the Imperial Church asphyxiated empathy in itself as it persecuted "heretics," pagans, and Jews.

So if love is so foundational, why do we struggle to practice it?

Jesus taught that harmful influences, these “unclean spirits,” can lodge themselves in the soul, disrupting our capacity to love both God and neighbor. These spirits manifest not as monstrous intrusions but as quiet infections: shame that silences, pride that blinds, fear that severs our empathy.

How did they accomplish this?

The corruption begins with the letters of Pseudo-Paul. First Timothy introduces misogyny and strict gender roles to ensure male power and drive the female apostles and deacons out of the movement (2:9–15). Pseudo-Paul institutes a new and novel structure on the church to create a priesthood (3:1–13). It even restricts which widows count as real widows and which ones should be forced to remarry (5:3–16). It reinforces the institution of slavery (6:1–2).

Second Timothy starts the false doctrine of bibilcal inerrancy when it proclaims that all scripture is inspired (2 Timothy 3:16–17). A bold statement for someone writing in the same of someone else.

Titus doubles down on the new structure of the Imperial Church (1:5-16). It continues changing the gender roles within the church (2:4-8).

Tertullian crafted anti-Semitism into the heart of the Imperial Church in his book, Adversus Iudaeos. He attacked women in De virginibus velandis. He prefigured Augustine when he said all women are responsible for the sins of Eve (De Cultu Feminarum).

Augustine of Hippo introduced the idea of Original Sin into the church to conform it the Manichaean Dualism he believed in. He denigrated the creation that, according to Scripture (Job 12:7-9, Psalm 19, 104), is good and teaches us the nature and glory of God. Through this doctrine, he also tied faith to misogyny, since he blamed Eve for this corruption of the world that he himself brought into the Church.

Jerome helped the demon of misogyny grow when he said that women are not saved through Christ, but through having children (Against Jovinianus, Book 1, §27).

John Chrysostom crystalized anti-Semitism into the Imperial Church with his book, Adversus Judaeos. In his fourth homily on Romans, he turned up the volume on homophobia in the Imperial Church when he said same-sex relations were worse than murder. He planted the seeds of idolatry in his Homily on Matthew 1.6, where he denied the obvious disagreements within the scriptures. This is one of the first steps toward turning the Bible into an idol in the place of God.

Skipping forward, Martin Luther and John Calvin reinforced all of these lies into their new branches of the Imperial Church.

The Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law in 1667 that denied recognition of conversion to Christianity to enslaved Africans, and the Imperial Church supported the move. They condoned the legalization of murdering enslaved Africans in 1669. By 1680, they did nothing when laws were passed to prevent enslaved Africans from owning weapons or raising hands against "Christians."

In the 1850s and 1860s, the Presbyterian and Baptist churches cleaved into northern and southern churches over slavery. Not over doctrine. Not over spirit. Over the right to buy, sell, and brutalize other human beings. The Body of Christ was sundered so that empire could preserve its blood-soaked economy. That alone should have been enough to send every pulpit into mourning. Instead, it revealed what had long been true: many churches had already bent the knee to Caesar.

And yet the disease deepened. In the early 20th century, the same imperial spirits that once baptized chains in the name of Christ began to root themselves even more deeply in American Protestantism. This time, the battlefield was not only moral but epistemological. How do we know what is true? Who decides?

The Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy was born of this question. On the surface, it appeared to be a theological debate, but in truth it was a campaign for control. On one side stood the Modernists, who dared to imagine a living faith. A faith that could walk hand-in-hand with scientific discovery, historical inquiry, and the growing cries for justice. They saw metaphor and myth as holy things, and held space for uncertainty, paradox, and grace.

On the other side, the Fundamentalists sought to entomb truth inside doctrine. They crafted a rigid creed built around five so-called “Fundamentals,” declaring these to be the immovable pillars of the faith: the inerrancy of scripture, the virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, and the reality of miracles. This was not a return to Christ, but a retreat into fear. It was a declaration of theological martial law.

It was in this spirit that J. Gresham Machen, a conservative theologian at Princeton, launched a counterattack against the Modernist wing of the Presbyterian Church. His book, Christianity and Liberalism, claimed the two were not merely different interpretations but entirely different religions. The path forward, for Machen, was separation: purity through division.

This “purity” birthed new seminaries, new denominations, and a new flavor of zealotry. The Presbyterian Church fragmented. So did the Baptists, the Methodists, and many others. The Empire, like Rome before it, did not collapse, it metastasized.

The 1920s saw charismatic preachers fill the airwaves with anti-intellectual fire. , who dared to suggest that tolerance and humility might be spiritual virtues, was driven from his pulpit. He asked, “Shall the Fundamentalists win?”and in many ways, they did.

The spirit of idolatry took the form of the Bible in 1978 in The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. There, the imperial impulse revealed its truest form. Scripture was not seen as sacred because it bore witness to the Living Word. It was declared sacred in itself, untouchable, unchallengeable, unmovable. It became a golden calf of paper and ink, enthroned above the Living Christ.

This statement was not about defending faith, but protecting power. It rejected nuance, dismissed mystery, and enshrined a version of Christianity that could be weaponized to control bodies, deny science, erase queer lives, and uphold the status quo. It sanctified the Empire in the name of Jesus.

And so, the Imperial Church marched forward.

It marched into schools, demanding creationism be taught as science.

It marched into politics, forging unholy alliances with white supremacy and corporate greed.

It marched into the bedrooms of strangers, dictating love and identity in the name of “morality.”

It marched into seminaries, silencing liberation theologians, feminists, mystics, and seekers.

It marched into pulpits, turning the gospel of love into a gospel of dominion.

Today, these unclean spirits linger in the breath of the Imperial Church. They quote scripture without understanding. They build megachurches while the poor starve. They scream about sin while ignoring the cry of the earth. They still wear the cross, but they no longer carry it.

But the Spirit of God has never been confined to their sanctuaries.

It moves in the groves. It dances in protest. It burns in the hearts of the wounded and the wandering. It calls us still to remember, to rise, and to root ourselves again in love, justice, and holy wildness.

A spirit of elitism convinces us to judge others’ faith. A spirit of greed tempts us to ignore the poor. A spirit of control calls us to silence the abused rather than seek justice. Each of these is a symptom of infected love, disfigured by power.

But Jesus was not afraid of these spirits. He cast them out.

In Jesus' perspective, uncleanness arrived not from material contagion at all, but from the disturbed desire people conceive to pollute and do harm to themselves. Uncleanness had to be dealt with in the inward, spiritual personality of those afflicted. Jesus believed that God's Spirit was a far more vital force than the unclean spirits that disturbed humanity. Against demonic infection a greater counter-contagion could prevail, the positive energy of God's purity.

Bruce Chilton, The Way of Jesus: To Repair and Renew the World (p. 81).

We are not powerless. The Spirit of God is stronger than the infection of empire. The purity of God is not sterile; it is wild and healing. It doesn't demand separation or purity codes. It invites reconciliation, restoration, and wholeness.

Love is the antidote. We are not talking about the saccharine love of slogans and platitudes. The love of Christ is a fierce, liberating love that casts out fear and burns away the lies of empire. It is a love that shares grace, seeks justice, offers mercy, and builds communion. The love that dares to heal.

We don't have to live with these unclean spirits and we don't have to accept them in our churches and homes. We can start with exorcising these unclean spirits from out hearts, minds, and spirits.

A Self-Exorcism of the Unclean Spirits

In the presence of the One Life, in the Name of Jesus Christ, and in the Power of the Holy Spirit, I name the seven unclean spirits born from the Imperial Church that cling to the hearts of too many believers: not as shame, but as wounds ready to be healed.

The First is Darkness.

I name the void within, the shadow that hides truth. I bring it into the Light flowing from the Living Word of God. May the Radiance of Holy One scatter the shadow that clouds our souls, because the Darkness cannot overcome the Light.

The Second is Desire.

Not sacred longing, but the hunger that consumes. The desire for power, glory, control, and dominion. I name the craving that chokes compassion. May holy love satisfy the ache that empire stirs and drive it from the soul.

The Third is Ignorance.

The refusal to know, to see, to change. I name the blindness we have worn like armor. May wisdom open our eyes and soften our hearts.

The Fourth is the Excitement of Death.

The morbid fascination with power over life. I name the thrill that clings to destruction and spectacle. May awe in the Living God restore our reverence for life.

The Fifth is the Kingdom of the Flesh.

Not the holy body, but the empire’s idol of dominance, consumption, and hierarchy. I name the systems that seduce through flesh but leaves only chains. May we return to the sacred body as temple, not throne.

The Sixth is the Foolish Wisdom of the Flesh.

The lie that power equals truth, that strength is always right. I name the clever-sounding cruelty we once called insight. May true wisdom uproot the cleverness of empire.

The Seventh is the Wrathful Wisdom.

That which justifies hatred in the name of righteousness. I name the fury that disguises itself as justice but only sows ruin. May mercy and discernment temper our fire and turn it toward healing.

May Christ cast these spirits out: not into others, but into the fire of the Spirit who purifies.

I reclaim the temple of my soul.

I breathe in the Spirit of Love, the Spirit of Liberation.

I am made whole again. Amen.

Recognizing the Chains

The call for liberation from the Imperial Church is not new. Many have walked this path before, and I doubt this will be that last call for reformation. Once we learn to recognize the chains the institution binds us in that serves empire rather than the divine, we can free ourselves from their grasp. This journey often begins with whispers of doubt or quiet questions about teachings that demand obedience to power rather than love. For example, a local congregation might discover its leadership prioritizing institutional reputation over protecting the vulnerable. When questioned of challenged, they respond with something like: "Don't touch my anointed ones. Do my prophets no harm (Psalms 105:15, cf 1 Chronicles 16:22-24)." How this passage about violence against prophets has become an appeal to authority is beyond me. All it does is leave ordinary worshippers feeling voiceless under an authority they cannot challenge.

For centuries, resistance has taken many forms. It was found in the dissent of the Desert Fathers, who not only withdrew to the wilderness to escape a faith entangled in political ambition, but also openly resisted bishops and councils that dismissed their ascetic ideals as subversive. Their conflict with church officials highlighted a deeper tension between institutional authority and those who sought divine communion apart from imperial interference. It echoed in the mystics, whose divine encounters defied rigid orthodoxy.

In 367 CE, Athanasius of Alexandria issued his Festal Letter, forcefully denouncing what he judged as heretical or "unlawful" writings. Backed by imperial favor, his decrees ushered in a climate of fear and suppression among monastic communities. Groups that embraced or merely studied the so-called “gnostic texts” often faced severe penalties if they were caught. To protect certain sacred and alternative writings from forced destruction, believers hid them in sealed jars and buried them near Nag Hammadi. This act of concealment ensured the survival of ancient “gnostic scriptures” even as the Church consolidated its authority, ultimately revealing how imperial power and doctrinal uniformity combined to shape the religious landscape of the time.

It rang out in the voice of Pelagius, condemned for proclaiming that divine grace is freely given, not rationed by ecclesiastical decree. He was condemned for not accepting Augustine’s novel doctrine of original sin and human corruption. He taught like James that faith without works is dead (James 2:14–26). Despite the fact that Pelagius taught that grace comes to us in three forms, Augustine condemn him as an enemy of grace. Pelagius first type of grace is the grace of creation itself: the natural gift of life and free will, which lets us choose between good and evil. Then there’s the grace of revelation, which is the guidance we receive through sacred law, teachings, and the example set by Christ. Finally, there’s the grace of pardon, which is the forgiveness offered when we turn away from our mistakes and seek to do better. For Pelagius, grace was the help and encouragement we receive from God, setting us on the path, showing us the way, and offering forgiveness, while leaving the responsibility and possibility for transformation in our own hands. But that was not enough to satisfy Austine who continually fought for Pelagius’ excommunication.

After being acquitted of heresy at the Synod of Diospolis (415), Augustine continued to press for Pelagius to be condemned of heresy. In 418, the Councils of Carthage condemned Pelagianism as heresy, making it clear that denying original sin and downplaying the need for grace went against church teaching. Around the same time, Pope Innocent I excommunicated Pelagius, and his successor, Pope Zosimus, upheld that decision when pressed by church leaders. Finally, in 431, the Council of Ephesus officially declared Pelagius and his follower Caelestius to be heretics, settling the matter once and for all in the eyes of the Imperial Church. All of this was to consecrate the new and novel doctrine of original sin and human corruption.

The empire has tried to silence, erase, or assimilate every challenge to its authority. Yet those sacred sparks endure. The struggle for a faith unchained from empire lives on in secret prayers, in sacred groves, in the hearts of those who still dare to dream of something better.

Faith in Service to Empire

Empire thrives on division, submission, and fear. It seizes faith, reshaping it into a tool of control. Fundamentalism and dominionism become its agents, ensuring people remain divided, distracted, and disempowered.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the modern Fundamentalist movement took shape. It started as a reaction to emerging biblical criticism, the theory of evolution, and what it perceived as theological liberalism. This wave of strict literalism and moral absolutism soon tied itself to broader political agendas, reinforcing the imperial tendency to control thought and stifle dissent. Through mass media, revival campaigns, and coalition-building, Fundamentalism wielded significant cultural power, shaping political discourse and intensifying religious divisions.

By the mid-20th century, Dominionist Theology emerged as an even more direct attempt to merge religious law with civil authority. Figures like R.J. Rushdoony and Francis Schaeffer advocated for Christian-based governance, seeking to impose what they saw as biblical mandates on every aspect of society. This approach often fused evangelical zeal with partisan politics, reinforcing empire-like structures that used faith to justify social hierarchies and suppress dissent.

During the same era, another movement took root that stood in stark contrast: Liberation Theology. Originating in Latin America, it called for a preferential option for the poor and directly challenged oppressive systems by viewing social justice as central to the gospel. Proponents such as Gustavo Gutiérrez and Oscar Romero integrated faith with active political engagement on behalf of the marginalized, offering a sharp counter-narrative to dominionist and fundamentalist ideologies.

Around this same time, Creation Spirituality also began to gain momentum under theologians like Matthew Fox. Emphasizing original blessing instead of original sin, it sought to reconcile science, art, and faith by recognizing the sacredness of all creation. By centering cosmic awe, ecological stewardship, and a more inclusive vision of the Divine, Creation Spirituality championed a spirituality of interconnection and liberation, challenging frameworks that reduced faith to rigid doctrines or purely human-centered concerns.

Meanwhile, mid-20th-century Europe also saw the rise or revival of various Pagan movements like Wicca (developed by Gerald Gardner) and modern Druidry, each emphasizing a reconnection to ancestral and earth-based traditions. These communities grew alongside new Pagan-inspired paths, exploring ritual, seasonal festivals, and a more animistic worldview.

This imperial impulse isn’t limited to Christianity. It can and does seep into all traditions, including modern paganism and druidry. Whenever exclusivistic beliefs, ethnocetric, patriarchal meet and mingle, authoritarian instincts arise.

Throughout history, this pattern repeats. The Holy Roman Empire sanctified its conquests. The British Empire used missionaries as agents of cultural erasure. Today, authoritarianism rises under the banner of faith, enforcing conformity and preserving privilege.

Reclaiming Spirituality

Essentially, to reject imperial spirituality is to return to faith’s deepest roots. It is a turning away from hierarchical structures and a rediscovery of mystics, wanderers, and visionaries who thrived outside the halls of power. This is not about destruction for its own sake; rather, it is the forging of something both new and ancient.

Experiment with the following ideas, testing what resonates for you as you seek the call of Spirit, reconnect with God in the Earth, and nurture a living, community-based spirituality. They can help you anchor spiritual ideals in everyday practice, bridging belief and action:

Form a Compassion Circle: Gather a small group of friends, family, or neighbors for regular meetings. Spend a portion of the time reflecting on teachings of love and justice. Pick short readings, then brainstorm practical ways to carry those insights into everyday actions, encouraging everyone to share these ideas at the end so participants leave with clear next steps (for example, the parable of the Good Samaritan or a poem by Maya Angelou), discuss them openly, and share personal insights. Talk about how they resonate with everyday experiences, then record any key insights or questions as a group. This practice creates accountability and transforms abstract ideals into day-to-day habits.

Journaling for Clarity: Dedicate ten minutes each morning (or evening) to explore how you might embody these ideals in practical ways. Write about specific behaviors such as offering direct help to someone in need, choosing generosity over fear, or speaking kindly in tense situations. Revisit your entries weekly to track growth and challenges.

Community Check-Ins: In everyday interactions, whether virtual or in-person, initiate conversations about compassion and empathy. Ask a coworker or friend how they’re really doing. Gently offer a listening ear or a supportive word. Even brief, heartfelt exchanges serve as acts of resistance against the apathy and aggression of empire.

Language Awareness Exercises: Pay attention to words that trigger negative connotations like “Christian” or “religion.” When using these terms, reclaim their essence by emphasizing love, humility, and service. For instance, if you mention your faith, add a quick explanation that highlights empathy or justice (e.g., “I see my faith as an invitation to serve others”), reshaping the conversation toward healing rather than harm.

Acts of Service and Solidarity: Volunteer with local organizations that align with values of liberation and justice (food banks, community gardens, mutual aid networks). This grounds faith in tangible service. Instead of reinforcing hierarchy, aim to create reciprocal relationships. Learn from the people you support, invite them to share their stories, and incorporate their wisdom.

Personal Integrity Check: End each day by reflecting on how your actions did or did not reflect compassion and courage. This can be as simple as thinking back on one positive interaction and one you might handle differently next time. Practice offering yourself grace (meaning the unconditional, empowering kindness that fosters transformation, such as pausing to breathe during a heated moment and choosing a calmer, more empathetic response) while staying committed to growth, being honest about mistakes, focusing on what can be learned, and taking small steps toward positive change. In that spirit, you might seek out three distinct kinds of grace: the Original Grace found in nature, which reminds us of our deep interconnection with creation; the Grace of Forgiveness that liberates us from the burden of guilt; and the Grace of Illumination, guiding us toward deeper wisdom and renewed vision.

Remember: true faith does not lie in domination but in service and compassion.

As you weave love and justice into daily life, you help nurture a spirituality that heals and liberates. Reclaiming spirituality means actively choosing love and justice, even in small, everyday decisions, and refusing to rebuild the walls of empire in any new form.

Now that we have answered: What is the Imperial Church? and What is Christopaganism?, it’s time for something ancient to rise from the ashes of institutional faith: a return to the wild, living root of spirituality that empire could never tame. If we are going to call ourselves Christopagan, we need a vision for what this path might look like.

We need to walk to the edge of inherited tradition, listening for a voice that calls from beyond the boundaries drawn by empire. This is a path for anyone who feels there must be more to Christian faith than creeds, who long to reconstruct something deep, something that offers a path toward belonging and authentic transformation.

Root and Vine: Christopaganism as a Living Faith

I am a Christopagan Druid. That phrase, by itself, feels like a Zen koan; something at once strange, provocative, and oddly familiar to anyone who has ever stood at the crossroads of traditions. But I did not come to it lightly, nor do I claim it as a badge of superiority or courage. It’s simply the best name I’ve found for a path that runs deeper than Christian orthodoxy and wider than any one Pagan tradition, rooted in Jesus as the living vine, yet branching out into the wild groves and mysteries of the world.

What is Christopaganism? It is a living spirituality that refuses the false choice between Jesus and the call of Spirit, between mysticism and pagan reverence for nature, between orthodoxy and openness. It is a faith that drinks deeply from many wells while remaining rooted in the living Christ; the Vine whose roots reach deeper than empire, whose branches shelter more than one kind of bird. This isn’t syncretism for its own sake, nor is it an attempt to cobble together a faith from whatever is trendy or convenient. For many of us, it is simply honesty about where our hearts and histories meet.

1. The Hidden Anti-Imperial Church

Within every church, every sect, every denomination; no matter how rigid the creed, there have always been those who hear the voice of Christ but refuse the gospel of empire. These hidden ones might never call themselves Christopagans, but by their fruit you will know them. They embody the core teachings of Jesus: love, peacemaking, humility, wisdom, without bowing to the self-proclaimed princes of the church. They are the quiet resisters, the healers, the ones who cannot stomach the hate, exclusion, and fear-mongering that have too often passed for “orthodoxy.”

Often, these are the mystics and prophets who stayed within the church, sometimes at great personal cost, refusing to let institutional corruption drive them away from the root of their faith. Think of Julian of Norwich, tending her visions in a dark time, or Meister Eckhart, speaking of the birthing of God in the soul, or the Beguines who lived lives of service and contemplation outside the reach of bishops and popes. Their resistance was rarely loud or violent; it was the quiet, stubborn insistence that love, not power, is the heart of the gospel.

Throughout history, many of these hidden anti-imperialists tried to reform the church from within. New movements rose; rooted in justice, equality, and mystical devotion, only to be co-opted or crushed by empire’s endless need for control. The Anabaptists, the Quakers, the early Methodists, and even the first Franciscans all began as anti-imperial movements, only to be tamed or absorbed over time.

Yet even as institutions ossified, these anti-imperial roots persisted, keeping the flame of the gospel alive in secret, in small acts of kindness, whispered prayers, defiant gatherings beneath the surface. Even today, we will find them wherever Christians defy violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and exclusion, and quietly practice what Jesus preached.

Why does this matter? Because it’s all too easy, when building something new, to cast aspersions on whole groups of people or churches, as if every member is complicit in empire. The truth is: the empire has always been resisted. There are Christ-lovers in every tradition who refuse to play the games of power.

In the widest sense, Christopaganism is simply living according to the teachings of Jesus; rooted in love and wisdom, without capitulating to the colonizing, power-hungry ambitions of the Imperial Church. It is a tradition of resistance and renewal, more widespread than we often recognize.

These hidden ones remind us: wherever people are living in the spirit of Jesus, embodying compassion and justice, the roots of Christopaganism are alive. We find them in Catholic parishes, Protestant fellowships, Orthodox monasteries, and even outside the walls of any formal church. They are not waiting for permission from authority; their authority comes from the call of love.

2. The Open and Accepting Church

If the first branch is hidden, the second is visible. Here you find communities that openly reject the empire’s divisions, dogmas, and exclusions, and strive to build churches where all are welcome and all are honored. I see this spirit most clearly in Celtic Christianity, in the Pelagian tradition that refuses to die, in the communitarian churches that will not condemn on the basis of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or social status. These are the inheritors of Eriugena, Eckhart, the Beguines, those mystics and rebels who reminded the church that God is found as much in the green world and in loving community as in any creedal formula.

Such churches are, in every sense, radical. They refuse the tired binaries of sacred and secular, church and world, chosen and damned. They preach a gospel of universal belonging, grounded in the experience of the Divine both within and beyond their walls. Many are deeply engaged in the work of social justice, ecological renewal, and healing the wounds inflicted by empire and exclusion. Their spirituality is sacramental and earthy, woven through with ritual and celebration, rooted in the land and in the cycles of the year.

These open and accepting churches are “other” in the eyes of empire. They are the ones who fit the dictionary’s old sense of “pagan, ” those whose religion is “other than the main or recognized sects.”

I understand why some call themselves Celtic Christians, and I respect that. For myself, I found the label too limiting, too easy for empire to twist into a story of blood and soil, race and heritage. I needed something wider, something that would honor my ancestors but not confine me to their boundaries.

But the core is clear: these are communities dedicated to making the world better; not just for themselves, but for everyone. They refuse to divide or conquer in Christ’s name. In a sense, they embody the open tent that Christopaganism ought to be. They welcome people of all backgrounds and paths, honoring diversity not as a threat but as a gift. They find the Divine not only in scripture and sacrament, but in trees and rivers, in art and music, in the honest struggles of daily life. Their table is long and their doors are wide open.

Such communities are not content to simply offer an alternative liturgy or theology; they seek to reweave the very fabric of what it means to be church. They are deeply ecumenical, often interfaith, and committed to weaving together insights from many traditions. Here, you might find a Celtic cross on the altar, but you will also find labyrinth walks, seasonal festivals, prayers to the four directions, and a sense of reverence for all creation. The “open and accepting” church is a living laboratory for what the Spirit might yet create, beyond the tired divisions of the past.

3. The Road Where Many Paths Converge

The third branch is where the word “Christopagan” is usually claimed out loud. Here walk the Christian Witches, Christian Druids, Christian Pagans; those of us who have learned to pray with Jesus and with Brigid, to walk with both saints and ancestors, to honor the Divine as a chorus of many voices and faces. For many of us, our spiritual lives are woven from rituals, tarot cards, runes, meditation, and the daily work of honoring land and lineage. We are not interested in building a new orthodoxy. We know the full truth is beyond any human’s reach.

My own path has been shaped by a lifetime in esoteric circles: praying to the Egyptian gods in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, receiving visions from my ancestors, finding inspiration from Brigid. I do not say this to suggest I have it figured out. Quite the opposite: I am still learning, still listening, still wrestling with the koan that is “Christopagan.” I use the term for two reasons:

First, both Christ and the gods and heroes of my Irish ancestors shaped my faith.

Second, I need a name that stands in opposition to the imperial Christianity that has served empire, not liberation.

Practicing Druidry, Wicca, or Paganism is not at odds with anti-imperial Christianity. In fact, the ancient scriptures speak of the Divine Council; a great assembly of gods and spirits whose voices and presences shaped the world (see 1 Kings 22:19-23, Job 1:6; 2:1; 15:8; Psalm 82; Isaiah 6:1-9; Jeremiah 23:16-22). I have no trouble seeing the Tuatha Dé Danann as members of this Divine Council, or honoring the ancestors as participants in the work of the Spirit.

Jews and Christians have always called on other spirits for aid, whether saints, angels, or gods. Israelite religion was henotheistic, worshiping one supreme deity alongside many others; strict monotheism is a later development, and even now, is not universal among those who seek the sacred. Our tradition is far more pluralistic and open than empire wants us to believe.

If Christopaganism is to survive and thrive, it must be a decolonizing project; a living practice that does not cannibalize other mythologies or traditions to keep Christianity on life support. It must be rooted, above all, in love, humility, and justice. For me, that means drawing from the Christian mystics; Eriugena, Pelagius, Eckhart, and rebuilding faith from the ground up. It means living in the tension of apparent contradiction, trusting that truth is larger than any formula.

This path is not without its struggles. Many in the wider Pagan community view Jesus with suspicion or outright hostility, seeing his name as a symbol of oppression or erasure. I understand that pain.

I have seen forms of Christopaganism that felt appropriative or hollow. I pray my own practice does not echo those. What I offer here is not the final word, but a living path, shaped by Druidry, by Creation Spirituality, and by a heart seeking justice and awe. None of us will know the full truth about the nature of reality until we enter death. Until then, all we can do is work out our own understanding to the best of our ability, with humility and courage.

The Courage to Be: Living in Contradiction, Living in Truth

Let’s address the charge often made against paths like ours: that we are “cringe,” awkward, or simply trying too hard. Maybe. If embracing the Divine in all its forms, if seeking Christ alongside the old gods and the spirits of land and ancestor, is awkward, so be it. Maybe the world needs a bit more awkwardness; if it means being honest, inclusive, and open-hearted.

I believe in the One Life that flows through all things, the sacred presence that we name in many ways: gods, angels, saints, spirits. I do not claim to know for certain. None of us do. But I know what I have experienced, and I try to live in fidelity to the light I’ve been given. For me, Jesus is my ishta devata; my heart’s beloved. Alongside him, I honor Brigid, Lugh, Aengus, Caer Ibormeith, the Dagda, the Morrigan. None are diminished by this; all are revealed in their richness.

For those of us who walk this road, there is a deep courage required: the courage to claim a path that does not fit into easy categories, to remain true to the movements of Spirit in our lives, even when they lead us beyond the comfort of tribe or tradition. There is a risk of isolation, misunderstanding, or even rejection from both Christian and Pagan communities. But there is also a gift; a freedom to grow, to question, to bless and be blessed by a multitude of ancestors and allies.

This path is not about demanding conformity. It is a living path, a longing for justice and awe. It is about standing in the liminal spaces, finding God in the threshold, and refusing to abandon either love or wonder for the sake of belonging. I do not intend disrespect to the gods, nor to those who walk other ways. The only disrespect would be to claim certainty where only mystery can dwell.

Whatever Rises Must Be Free

I’m not here to dictate a new orthodoxy. The Imperial Church must fall. But what rises in its place is not for me to decide. That is for the people to discern together, in love and truth. The path forward is not about resurrecting a lost faith or founding a new religion. It is about weaving together decades of exploration, practice, and study, and sharing the path I’ve found for myself. I offer it to those who resonate with it; at the very least, I hope these reflections inspire you to begin or deepen your own journey.

We are not here to preserve a museum or canonize a single vision. The work is not to build a new empire, but to cultivate a garden where many faiths can flourish side by side. What rises from the ashes of empire must be rooted in freedom, justice, and love;never control, conquest, or fear. I hope to see more communities dedicated to exploration, mutual aid, creative ritual, and real-world transformation.

Christopaganism, as I see it, is not a destination but a process; a way of becoming. It calls us to continually unlearn, to notice where empire creeps in, to find new language, and to let go of certainty in favor of deeper listening. This journey is open-ended, and its fruits will be known by the healing, beauty, and liberation it brings to the world.

Christopaganism in Practice: Roots for the Journey

If you are drawn to this path, here are some guiding lights:

• Practice compassion and justice. The empire judges; Christ forgives. Serve the poor, the brokenhearted, the marginalized; not as a means to salvation, but as the heart of the gospel. Practice radical hospitality, seeing the Divine in every guest and stranger.

• Honor both tradition and experience. We are not the first to walk this way. Learn from mystics, saints, and druids, but also listen to your own soul and the world around you. Let your practices be shaped by both wisdom and direct encounter.

• Live in right relationship. With the land, with your ancestors, with the Divine in all things. Let your spirituality be embodied, animistic, creative, and relational. Participate in rituals that honor the cycles of the year, the spirits of place, and the deeper flow of life.

• Resist the call of empire. Whether it comes dressed as dogma, hierarchy, nationalism, or spiritual appropriation. Faith should set you free, not make you a pawn in someone else’s power game. Notice where old patterns of control and exclusion creep in, and gently uproot them.

• Let theology be poetry. Don’t worry about being right. Seek the poetry that best explains your moment in history, your experience, your longing. Let your understanding evolve as you grow. Use story, song, and ritual as languages of soul.

• Nurture community. Find or create small circles of belonging, whether in person or online. Share your journey with others who are likewise seeking. Celebrate together, grieve together, dream together. No one walks this path alone.

• Embrace creativity and play. Let your practices be shaped by joy as much as by reverence. Make art, write prayers, invent rituals. The Divine is not afraid of our creativity; in fact, it is one of the oldest prayers.

Final Blessing

May we all have the courage to root ourselves in love, to reach out in compassion, and to grow beyond the boundaries empire would set for us. May we listen to the call of the living vine, and in every moment, remember: the Divine is wider, deeper, and wilder than any church, creed, or empire. The oak grows as it will. The grove welcomes all. The Spirit is still speaking.

May your path be blessed by mystery, your heart strengthened by community, your practice deepened by justice and wonder. If you are walking this path, or simply curious, I invite you to share your reflections, questions, or stories in the comments. The king-dom is not built alone; we are many branches, rooted in the same mysterious, life-giving soil.

Christopaganism sounds like a contradiction in terms. The Imperial Church coined the word pagan to contrast themselves from those they wanted to name as enemies who needed to be subjugated.

When I debated whether I wanted to include a definition of pagan in this manifesto, I saw this one and deleted the almost identical words I wrote and chose to quote it instead.

Pagan
noun

(especially in historical contexts) a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized religions.

Definitions from Oxford Languages for [Google English Dictionary] (Feb 8, 2024)

They call us heretics and apostates, but I chose to use the word Christopagan.

Why Christopagan and not simply Pagan?

The Imperial Church has oppressed the Pagan community for centuries. They have fought hard to reclaim that word, and I don’t want to take anything away from their work.

Why still include the word? Pagan comes from the word paganus which means villager. The other options have more difficult origins:

Heretic, apostate, dissident, dissenter, and renegade define people as against something, and I don’t want to define myself by what I am against, but either what I am for or who I am.

For years, I did the dance saying, “I am a Christian, but not that kind of Christian.” That was not only tiresome, but became increasing untenable as the word Christian was defamed even further by the Imperial Church.

As this imperial church wrapped itself in White Christian Nationalism, it has sullied the name of Christian and Christ further. Now, statements like, “Christ is king,” is often used as an antisemitic dog whistle. The very notion that they have turned the invocation of a Jewish man who we believe was the Messiah, a Jewish idea, is used to signal others of the hatred of Jews is horrifying and repugnant.

I don’t know how else we can reject this horrific and damnable hate than to distance ourselves as far as we can from this demonic and foul movement. We need to build a new home and then fight to retake all they have taken from us.

As a devotee of Jesus Christ who lives in the Kingdom of God, the word, Christopagan takes on the meaning Villager of Christ. To use the definition cited above:

Christopagan
noun

a person devoted to the person and/or teachings of Jesus Christ who holds religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized sects.

This definition covers so many of us. We might want to add “earth centered” or “nature centered” to this, since many, if not most of us, feel the need to protect our environment, listen to the earth, and respect our animal and plant neighbors.

As Jesus said:

I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.

John 10:16

Christopaganism should be a big tent, welcoming any who hear the call of Christ without pressing any of them into one particular mold or fold. As Jesus taught us and the disciples:

John said to him, "Teacher, we saw someone who doesn't follow us casting out demons in your name; and we forbade him, because he doesn't follow us."

But Jesus said, "Don't forbid him, for there is no one who will do a mighty work in my name, and be able quickly to speak evil of me. For whoever is not against us is on our side.

Mark 9:38-40

Most reform movements fail because they focus too much on what they want to fix rather than the changes they are making. The desire to control the beliefs and actions of others is an insidious worm seeking to create new problems for the future.

While we must defeat antisemitism, racism, sexism, ableism, nationalism, homomisia/homophobia, transmisia/transphobia, and all manner of queermisia/queerphobia in the world; we have to focus on building something better.

Christopaganism is…

… A path of liberation and freedom from bondage.

… hearing the call of Christ.

… of many ways.

… living in right relationship honoring the earth and our material existence.

… connecting us with Spirit in a visceral, tangible way.

… honoring the old ways and the new.

… panentheistic seeing God in all things, and all things in God.

… hearing God speaking through everything.

… the Village of Christ living in right relationship.

… standing with our pagan and heathen siblings who, like the mystics and prophets of our tradition, have been persecuted by the Imperial Church to ensure the power of an elite few.

The Way of the Living Flame

There is One Life, divine and undivided,

flowing through all that was, is, and shall be.

Christ is the Light in all lights,

the Word in all words,

the Breath in all breathing.

We walk the path of Jesus, not to possess the truth,

but to be possessed by compassion, justice, and joy.

We honor the Divine wherever it flames—

in oak and ocean, in altar and hearth,

in ancestors, angels, and unseen spirits of place.

We are rooted in the sacred earth,

branches reaching skyward,

bearing fruit of healing, resistance, and love.

We reject all creeds that confine,

and embrace the wild wisdom that liberates.

Our sacraments are breath, bread, and beauty.

Our gospel is alive.

Our faith is the fire that dances between stars and soil.

Since then, the Dream of an Oak Church project has invited me to dig deeper. This revised manifesto keeps the original fire, but tempers it with soil and stone: theological sources, lived stories, and a mystagogy sturdy enough to stand scrutiny. My aim is simple: show that Christopagan Druidry is more than a flight of New Age fancy; it is a grounded, evolving path toward wholeness in a world aching for sacred imagination.

What follows is not a rigid creed. It is a trail marker, one way our community is learning to walk the Way of Christ through the wildwood of Pagan wisdom.

It is the Church that forsook God and the Kingdom

Jesus sat down, and called the twelve; and he said to them, "If any man wants to be first, he will be last of all, and servant of all."

Mark 9:35

The Imperial Church comes in many flavors and colors, but the easiest way to see and recognize it is in how it rejects Jesus’ teachings on power. Arising from the Jewish Wisdom Tradition, the early Jesus movement rejected power in this world and lived as best as they could in the Kingdom of God, which is not of this world.

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus answered them, "The kingdom of God doesn't come with observation; neither will they say, 'Look, here!' or, 'Look, there!' for behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

Luke 17:20-21

They rejected marriage1, refused to serve in the military2, and did not offer incense to the emperor. These early Christians shared communal meals, were often led by women, and formed communal societies inspired by the Jewish Therapeutae.

While Constantine catches the blame for the imperial takeover of Christianity, he was more of a symptom than a cause.

The pseudepigraphical writer who forged the pastoral letters of First and Second Timothy and Titus transformed the early Christian movement into the mold of the Roman mystery cults so it would resemble the state-sanctioned religions of Rome. These fake epistles created the hierarchy still alive in the church today.

Paul’s authentic letters read like dispatches from the front lines of a Spirit-driven movement. House-churches gather in living rooms, prophets and teachers speak as the Spirit gives utterance, and everyone waits for Christ to return at any moment. Authority is charismatic rather than official: Paul lists gifts, not offices, and when he greets fellow workers he includes women such as Phoebe, Prisca, and Junia right alongside the men. Justification rests on trust in Christ, and ethics flow from the freedom of the Spirit, not from a code meant to impress outsiders.

The so-called Pastoral letters (First and Second Timothy and Titus) paint a very different picture. By the time these documents appear, the churches have settled in for a long stay. Overseers, elders, and deacons are appointed, each with a résumé of domestic respectability. Right teaching is no longer a living conversation but a fixed deposit that must be guarded against upstart ideas. Women are told to learn quietly and stay out of the pulpit. Good works, social order, and public reputation dominate the moral horizon.

Paul gives thanks to many women. Phoebe is a deacon and minister in the church (Rom 16:1–2). Priscilla is a co-laborer and an apostle (Rom 16:3–5; Acts 18:2–3, 18–20, 24–26).

Pseudo-Paul in 1st and 2nd Timothy forbids women from these roles, promoting patriarchal hierarchy common to Roman religion. He also centralizes control in a new structure we don't see elsewhere in the Scripture.

Where Paul leans into imminent expectation, the Pastorals assume Christ may delay; they pivot from urgency to maintenance. As a result, they trade the thrill of missionary improvisation for the caution of institutional self-protection. The energy that once rushed toward the ends of the earth now circles the wagons to defend “sound doctrine” and proper household roles.

I trust the fire in Paul’s genuine letters more than the tidy fireplaces of the Pastorals. One set crackles with risky faith and Spirit-led equality; the other tidies the ashes, files the paperwork, and calls it orthodoxy. Recognizing this contrast helps us decide which Paul we follow: the restless apostle planting freedom wherever he goes, or the later editor who smooths the radical edges to fit the church’s new place in respectable society.

The charismatic (spirit led) church is subjugated to this new structured church which is invested with authority previously unseen. They enforced a patriarchal hierarchy onto the previously egalitarian movement. This is one of the many reasons their adoption came from the top down and not from the popular acceptance of the community.

They also changed the nature of salvation from a relationship with Jesus and God to a new orthodoxy rooted in sound teaching, good works, and correct doctrine. 

Pseudo-Paul fixes authority in the Hebrew Scriptures and those who are entitled to interpret them. This betrayal of Paul's creative and allegorical approach further denied the guidance of the Spirit and Christ.

Weak and fearful souls cling to the powerful for protection, and the most frightened long to claim that power for themselves. Constantine saw this in the artificial priestly class born from the fake pastoral letters and exploited it. Priests flattered the empire, and the empire indulged the priests. In time, orthopraxy became orthodoxy, and the priest sought out and suppressed every threat they could find to imperial power.

This isn’t a weakness exclusive to the Roman Catholic Church. After the great schism, many of the Orthodox Patriarchs joined with the new imperial forces rising around them.

Martin Luther bowed the knee and bolstered the theological standing of Prince Frederick III, Elector of Saxony and the other German princes, while most of the other ‘reformers’ did the same for the powerful in their regions. The Anglican Church broke away as a statement of the Imperial Power of the British Crown.

Preachers of death carried the empire into the colonies in the Americas, subjugating the people while calling their cruelty ‘Christian Love.’ They extolled both sides in the American Revolution and the Civil War, always clinging to power to mask their fear and sense of inferiority. They flocked to the radio to proclaim hatred and division, then to television to fleece their new flocks and to entrench their connections with power.

The Imperial Church has projected its image and power so well over the centuries, they are synonymous with Christianity for most people. They even try to co-opt those who are not among their numbers like Martin Luther King, Jr.

They have rejected the faith of Jesus. As Mary said about God:

He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart.
He has put down princes from their thrones. And has exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things. He has sent the rich away empty.

Luke 1:51-53

It is the Church that forgot its mission

It is the church that forgot the mission of Christ.

The book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He opened the book, and found the place where it was written,

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, Because he anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim release to the captives, Recovering of sight to the blind, To deliver those who are crushed,
And to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him.

He began to tell them, "Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

Luke 4:17-21

The Imperial Church, in its quest for power, fame, and wealth, has forgotten the work of Christ that we are called to continue. It is a ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:11-21) and healing we are called to perform in this world, not one of judgement. The empire judges; Christ forgives.

We, like Christ are called “to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim release to the captives, Recovering of sight to the blind, To deliver those who are crushed,

And to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

What is the acceptable year of the Lord? It is the Sabbatical or Shmita Year.3 This is the year when the land is left to its own to heal and recover, because the land does not belong to us. All debts are forgiven. Slaves were to be set free.

Our calling is one of liberation, spreading freedom, wellness, and life to all we are able to. This calling is a curse to the Imperial Church, which hoards its wealth, sows division to maintain its power, and ignores the needs of the poor, the ill, and the brokenhearted so they don’t risk their own power, position, and property. Worse, they do all of this in the name of Christ Jesus, who saw their kind coming, and addressed them:

Then will he say also to them on the left hand, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels;
for I was hungry, and you didn't give me food to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink;
I was a stranger, and you didn't take me in; naked, and you didn't clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn't visit me.'
Then will they also answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not help you?'
Then will he answer them, saying, 'Most assuredly I tell you, inasmuch as you didn't do it to one of these least, you didn't do it to me.'

Matthew 25:41-45

It is the Church that breaks the Two Commandments.

But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him. "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?"

Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'
This is the first and great commandment.
A second likewise is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

Matthew 22:34-40

Jesus proclaimed a law of love, not of control, domination, and exclusion. It was the Imperial Church seeking to divide the people and maintain its power that instilled the fear of hell into the populace so they could sell themselves as the only path to salvation.

As individualism grew in Europe, the Imperial Church became a general and the congregation the frontline troops. They demanded their ‘Christians’ to convert, condemn, and shun the impure. To the contrary, Christ taught us not to judge (Matt 7:1-3), to not cast stones (John 8:7), and to forgive, letting go of anger (Matt 5:21-24).

For this reason, they ignore the teachings of Jesus and only quote him when they can twist his words out of their context. They only reference the greatest commandment when they argue for obedience and conformity, which is not what the commandment means.

The heart, soul, and mind are a reference to the three parts of the soul:

• the nefesh (heart), which is connected to the body, the lifeforce

• the ruach (soul), which is connected to the emotions

• the neshamah (mind), which is connected to the intellect

So we are told to love God with our body/lifeforce, emotions, and intellect. This leaves us no room for a human intermediary to control us. Kings are against the will of God (1 Sam 8:16-20), so the Imperial Church has worked hard to dam this stream of devotion to redirect it towards themselves.

This is why Jesus said the second is like the first, because when we love our neighbor like ourselves, we remember the Kingdom of God is within all of us. Loving our neighbor is loving God with all of our heart, mind, and soul.

In order to entrench their power, the Imperial Church created the idea of the godless heathen who are excluded from the Kingdom of God so they could lie to their followers and enforce division among them.

Since their false idol hates who they hate, he also demands sacrifice to assuage his anger. They demand offerings of time, money, and effort to achieve their own selfish aims.

According to the prophet Hosea, God said:

For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

Hosea 6:6

The sacrifices the Imperial Church demands do not go to God, but to their own pockets and pet causes.

Throughout history, the Imperial Church has always fought against those who rejected their false authority and selfish doctrines. They have taken many forms over the centuries. The path I have chosen, and that I encourage others who hear the call of Christ but not the Imperial Church is called Christopaganism.

Our Faith is an oak. Once planted in the fertile soil of a humble heart, its roots grow deep to drink from the underground river of spirit. The tree starts small, fragile, and hungry. In time, it lifts its branches into the heavens, tall and strong.

It does not ask for permission to stretch toward the sun, nor does it submit to the constraints of those who would shape it into something more palatable. It takes root in unexpected places, whispering its wisdom through wind-stirred leaves and the deep silence of the earth.

This project is a witness to that growth, the long, twisting journey of faith beyond the boundaries of institutional religion, into the wild, blessed woods where Christ walks beside the old gods beneath the boughs of sacred groves.

Not a Creed, but a Path

This is not a project for those seeking a new orthodoxy. It is a journey to reclaim what was lost and revive what was nearly forgotten. We are seeking to reconnect with the original Way of Jesus and the apostles, a path where we never severed our Jewish roots, and where the Wisdom Tradition still flourishes. This is a world in which we followed the insights of Pelagius instead of the doctrine of Augustine, embracing a faith rooted in experience, mysticism, and liberation rather than dogma and control. It is an animistic spirituality grounded in the One Life, alive in every leaf and stone, and growing in the shared wisdom of Druidry and the teachings of Christ.

It is an invitation to return to the ancient wisdom that has never truly been lost, only hidden beneath the weight of empire and the silence of forgotten groves.

A Church Without Walls

In the Dream of an Oak Church project, we are working to build a church without walls, a community rooted in the rhythms of the land and guided by the Spirit rather than institutions. Our sacred spaces are groves and gardens, hearths and hillsides. We gather beneath branches older than any creed to share prayers that rise with the morning mist and offer rites by firelight, untethered from the sanction of imperial thrones.

We remember: before churches were built of stone, they were shaped from trees and sky, and formed in the sacred hush of wind-blown invocations. Our work is to reclaim that simplicity and sanctity, and to cultivate a faith that grows freely.

Beyond the Shadow of Empire

Here, we step beyond the shadow of the Imperial Church, whose wealth and power have choked the roots of the Gospel, twisting a message of liberation into a tool of dominion. Even moments of reform like the Great Schism of 1054 and the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century were swiftly co-opted by those in power to build new empires.

The Eastern and Western Churches fractured, not to decentralize authority, but to establish competing hierarchies.

Martin Luther’s protest against indulgences soon birthed state churches aligned with princes and kings, as in the case of the Lutheran Church in Germany and the Church of England under Henry VIII. What began as movements of conscience were redirected toward the consolidation of regional power.

We return to the teachings of Christ unburdened by empire, remembering that he walked among fishermen and tax collectors, speaking of a Kingdom not built of gold but of justice, mercy, and love. We return to the wisdom of the Druids, who knew that the land speaks, that every tree holds a story, and that holiness is not found in dominion, but in relationship.

A Reckoning and a Restoration

This project is both a reckoning and a restoration, but it is not an attempt to resurrect a lost religion or to found a new one. Rather, it is the fruit of decades of exploration, practice, and study. We offer the path we have found, not as the path, but as our path. One grown from our lived experience, our sacred encounters, and our commitment to a faith rooted in presence, not prescription.

We hope it resonates with those who, like us, have long wandered in search of something that feels like home. And even for those who do not walk this path with us, we hope our stories, prayers, and theology might serve as inspiration for the path they must forge for themselves.

For us, theology is not about being right, it is the poetry that best expresses the moment we live in: our history, our spirituality, our hope. From the ruins of empire, we are not building a new dominion, but planting a grove.

Not another hierarchy, but a living faith, shaped by those who walk it.

It is an act of remembrance and an act of creation, a weaving of the old and the new into something resilient, something sacred, something free.

The Call of the Oak

If you are reading this, then you have already heard the call. The wind through the trees. The whisper of something more.

Perhaps you have long sought a faith that feels like home. Perhaps you have been told there is no place for you in Christianity because you refuse to bow to its emperors. Perhaps you have been wandering, carrying pieces of different traditions, unsure of how they fit together.

Here, in the Oak Church, they do not need to fit neatly. They only need to grow.

This is a project for the seekers, the heretics, the mystics, the poets. For those who have heard the Gospel in the song of the wren and felt the presence of Christ in the turning of the year.

For those who know that faith is not submission, but the courage to walk a path that is uncertain, ever-changing, yet deeply, undeniably true.

The acorn is planted.

The roots are stretching deep.

The Oak Church is rising.

What is the Imperial Church?

It is the Church that forsook God and the Kingdom

[Jesus] sat down, and called the twelve; and he said to them, "If any man wants to be first, he will be last of all, and servant of all."

Mark 9:35

The Imperial Church comes in many flavors and colors, but the easiest way to see and recognize it is in how it rejects Jesus’ teachings on power. Arising from the Jewish Wisdom Tradition, the early Jesus movement rejected power in this world and lived as best as they could in the Kingdom of God, which is not of this world.

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, [Jesus] answered them, "The kingdom of God doesn't come with observation; neither will they say, 'Look, here!' or, 'Look, there!' for behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

Luke 17:20-21

They rejected marriage, refused to serve in the military, and did not offer incense to the emperor. These early Christians shared communal meals, were often led by women, and formed communal societies inspired by the Jewish Therapeutae.

While Constantine catches the blame for the imperial takeover of Christianity, he was more of a symptom than a cause. The pseudepigraphical writer who forged the pastoral letters of First and Second Timothy and Titus transformed the early Christian movement into the mold of the Roman mystery cults so it would resemble the state-sanctioned religions of Rome. They enforced a patriarchal hierarchy onto the previously egalitarian movement. This is one of the many reasons their adoption came from the top down and not from the popular acceptance of the community.

Weak and fearful souls cling to the powerful for protection, and the most frightened long to claim that power for themselves. Constantine saw this in the artificial priestly class born from the fake pastoral letters and exploited it. Priests flattered the empire, and the empire indulged the priests. In time, orthopraxy became orthodoxy, and the priest sought out and suppressed every threat they could find to imperial power.

This isn’t a weakness exclusive to the Roman Catholic Church. After the great schism, many of the Orthodox Patriarchs joined with the new imperial forces rising around them.

Martin Luther bowed the knee and bolstered the theological standing of Prince Frederick III, Elector of Saxony and the other German princes, while most of the other ‘reformers’ did the same for the powerful in their regions. The Anglican Church broke away as a statement of the Imperial Power of the British Crown.

Preachers of death carried the empire into the colonies in the Americas, subjugating the people while calling their cruelty ‘Christian Love.’ They extolled both sides in the American Revolution and the Civil War, always clinging to power to mask their fear and sense of inferiority. They flocked to the radio to proclaim hatred and division, then to television to fleece their new flocks and to entrench their connections with power.

The Imperial Church has projected its image and power so well over the centuries, they are synonymous with Christianity for most people. They even try to co-opt those who are not among their numbers like Martin Luther King, Jr.

They have rejected the faith of Jesus. As Mary said about God:

He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart.
He has put down princes from their thrones. And has exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things. He has sent the rich away empty.

Luke 1:51-53

It is the Church that forgot its mission

It is the church that forgot the mission of Christ.

The book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He opened the book, and found the place where it was written,

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, Because he anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim release to the captives, Recovering of sight to the blind, To deliver those who are crushed,
And to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him.
He began to tell them, "Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

-Luke 4:17-21

The Imperial Church, in its quest for power, fame, and wealth, has forgotten the work of Christ that we are called to continue. It is a ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:11-21) and healing we are called to perform in this world, not one of judgement. The empire judges; Christ forgives.

We, like Christ are called “to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim release to the captives, Recovering of sight to the blind, To deliver those who are crushed,
And to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

What is the acceptable year of the Lord? It is the Sabbatical or Shmita Year.1 This is the year when the land is left to its own to heal and recover, because the land does not belong to us. All debts are forgiven. Slaves were to be set free.

Our calling is one of liberation, spreading freedom, wellness, and life to all we are able to. This calling is a curse to the Imperial Church, which hoards its wealth, sows division to maintain its power, and ignores the needs of the poor, the ill, and the brokenhearted so they don’t risk their own power, position, and property. Worse, they do all of this in the name of Christ Jesus, who saw their kind coming, and addressed them:

Then will he say also to them on the left hand, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels;
for I was hungry, and you didn't give me food to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink;
I was a stranger, and you didn't take me in; naked, and you didn't clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn't visit me.'
Then will they also answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not help you?'
Then will he answer them, saying, 'Most assuredly I tell you, inasmuch as you didn't do it to one of these least, you didn't do it to me.'

Matthew 25:41-45

It is the Church that breaks the Two Commandments.

But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him. "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?"

Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'
This is the first and great commandment.

A second likewise is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

Matthew 22:34-40

Jesus proclaimed a law of love, not of control, domination, and exclusion. It was the Imperial Church seeking to divide the people and maintain its power that instilled the fear of hell into the populace so they could sell themselves as the only path to salvation.

As individualism grew in Europe, the Imperial Church became a general and the congregation the frontline troops. They demanded their ‘Christians’ to convert, condemn, and shun the impure. To the contrary, Christ taught us not to judge (Matt 7:1-3), to not cast stones (John 8:7), and to forgive, letting go of anger (Matt 5:21-24).

For this reason, they ignore the teachings of Jesus and only quote him when they can twist his words out of their context. They only reference the greatest commandment when they argue for obedience and conformity, which is not what the commandment means.

The heart, soul, and mind are a reference to the three parts of the soul:

• the nefesh (heart), which is connected to the body, the lifeforce

• the ruach (soul), which is connected to the emotions

• the neshamah (mind), which is connected to the intellect

So we are told to love God with our body/lifeforce, emotions, and intellect. This leaves us no room for a human intermediary to control us. Kings are against the will of God (1 Sam 8:16-20), so the Imperial Church has worked hard to dam this stream of devotion to redirect it towards themselves.

This is why Jesus said the second is like the first, because when we love our neighbor like ourselves, we remember the Kingdom of God is within all of us. Loving our neighbor is loving God with all of our heart, mind, and soul.

In order to entrench their power, the Imperial Church created the idea of the godless heathen who are excluded from the Kingdom of God so they could lie to their followers and enforce division among them.

Since their false idol hates who they hate, he also demands sacrifice to assuage his anger. They demand offerings of time, money, and effort to achieve their own selfish aims.

According to the prophet Hosea, God said:

For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

Hosea 6:6

The sacrifices the Imperial Church demands do not go to God, but to their own pockets and pet causes.

Throughout history, the Imperial Church has always fought against those who rejected their false authority and selfish doctrines. They have taken many forms over the centuries. The path I have chosen, and that I encourage others who hear the call of Christ but not the Imperial Church is called Christopaganism.

What is Christopaganism?

Christopaganism sounds like a contradiction in terms. The Imperial Church coined the word pagan to contrast themselves from those they wanted to name as enemies who needed to be subjugated.

When I debated whether I wanted to include a definition of pagan in this manifesto, I saw this one and deleted the almost identical words I wrote and chose to quote it instead.

Pagan
noun

(especially in historical contexts) a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized religions.

Definitions from Oxford Languages for Google English Dictionary (Feb 8, 2024)

They call us heretics and apostates, but I chose to use the word Christopagan.

Why Christopagan and not simply Pagan?

The Imperial Church has oppressed the Pagan community for centuries and they have fought hard to reclaim that word, and I don’t want to take anything away from their work.

Why still include the word? Pagan comes from the word paganus which means villager. The other options have more difficult origins:

Heretic, apostate, dissident, dissenter, and renegade define people as against something, and I don’t want to define myself by what I am against, but either what I am for or who I am.

For years, I did the dance saying, “I am a Christian, but not that kind of Christian.” That was not only tiresome, but became increasing untenable as the word Christian was defamed even further by the Imperial Church.

As a devotee of Jesus Christ who lives in the Kingdom of God, the word, Christopagan takes on the meaning Villager of Christ. To use the definition cited above:

As Jesus said:

I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.

John 10:16

Christopaganism should be a big tent, welcoming any who hear the call of Christ without pressing any of them into one particular mold or fold. As Jesus taught us and the disciples:

John said to him, "Teacher, we saw someone who doesn't follow us casting out demons in your name; and we forbade him, because he doesn't follow us."

But Jesus said, "Don't forbid him, for there is no one who will do a mighty work in my name, and be able quickly to speak evil of me. For whoever is not against us is on our side.

Mark 9:38-40

Christopaganism in Three Branches

As Jesus is the root and vine, there are three main branches it would be right and proper to call Christopagan.

The Hidden Anti-imperial Church

Within every sect and denomination since their have been such things, there have been those who hear the call of Christ but don’t accept the hate, division, and lies of the Imperial Church. Quite a few denominations where founded by such people only to have the movement succumb to the whims of power over time. It is hard for any institution to resist the call of empire.

Few, if any, of these hidden ones would accept the title, but they don’t have to. The most important thing is for us to know they are there so we do not act like the Imperial Church and cast aspersions on entire groups of people as if members of any group don’t differ among themselves.

At its widest points, Christopaganism is living according to the call and teachings of Jesus, embodying love, peacemaking, and wisdom to the best of our ability without bending the knee to the self-proclaimed princes of the church and bolstering their controlling, colonizing, wealth and power hungry schemes.

The Open and Accepting Church

This is easiest to see in the Celtic Christianity movement. It is the Pelagian Church that will not die despite the efforts of the Imperial Church to kill it over the centuries. It often cites Eriugena, Eckhart, and the Beguines.

They are the communitarian churches that do not condemn and divide people on ethnic, social, sexual, or gender lines, who are out there trying to make the world a better place, and lives of their communities better.

These are the churches that fit the “religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized sects” aspect of the definition I have proposed.

I chose not to call myself a Celtic Christian because I don’t want to racialize my faith. I don’t begrudge those who find meaning in this name, but I found it too limiting for me.

The Road where many paths converge

The main branch of Christopaganism and the only one I expect will use the term are the Christian Witches, Christian Druids, and Christian Pagans.

I am a Christian Druid. For most of my life, I have been involved in various esoteric societies. I have prayed to the Egyptian gods in my training in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Runes, tarot cards, rituals, and meditation play a central role in my faith and practice. My ancestors visited me since I was a child. Brigid inspires my art and poetry, even the poem at the beginning of this manifesto came from my Imbolc meditation this year.

I am not here to say that I am right and others are wrong, or proclaim a new, infallible doctrine or dogma. None of us will know the full truth about the nature of reality until we enter death. Until then, all we can do is work out our own understanding to the best of our ability.

Practicing Druidry, Wicca, or Paganism is not at odds with Anti-imperial Christianity. The Divine Council2 in scripture is a great mystery that most ignore. I have no problem seeing the Tuatha Dé Danann as members of this Divine Council, but I don’t want to get too bogged down in theology at this point.

Jews and Christians have always had a tradition of calling on other spirits for aid, whether saints, angels, or gods. Israelite religion was henotheistic, worshiping one supreme deity, and many others. Strict monotheism is a later development, and one that is not universal over time.

I struggled against the term Christopagan for years. It is a strange word and almost a Zen koan in its apparent internal contradiction. I decided to use the term for two reasons:

1. My faith is drawn from my Christian faith and my devotion to the gods. heros, and legends of my Irish ancestors.

2. It is a valid alternative to Imperial Christianity that crafted a dominionist theology in service first of the Roman Empire, then the many empires and colonial projects that followed.

This Christopaganism has to be a decolonizing project for it to work and have a future and not become a new colonization of other mythologies to keep the faith on life support.

I believe in the Christian god of Eriugena, Pelagius, and Eckhart, just to name a few. We have to rebuild our faith from the ground up.

Christopaganism is cringe

One of the most common pushbacks I see and hear is that Christopaganism is cringe. I agree that a lot of Christopagans are cringe, and I probably am too. I believe in the One Life flowing through all things and that we name aspects of it with the names of the spirits and gods. That is my experience of the Divine, but that does not mean I am right.

All we can do in this world is live as best we can in the light of our understanding of what is and how reality works. I respect the feelings of those Pagans who don’t feel Jesus or Yahweh has a place in Paganism. I’ve wrestled with similar feelings in myself for some time. All I can say is Jesus is my ishta devata, my cherished deity, but I also work with Lugh, Brigid, Aengus, Caer Ibormeith, the Dagda, and the Morrigan.

I do not mean to insult anyone, least of all the gods. I have seen insulting versions of Christopaganism, and only hope my practice is not one of them. The work we are going to do here is to talk about Druidry and Christopaganism in general and my specific practice of them as mitigated through Creation Spirituality.

One thing I hope we can all agree on is that the Imperial Church must fall. Only the people can decide what, if anything will take its place.

The original title for this work was Creation Spirituality for the Solitary Practitioner. Yes, that is a wink and a nod to Scott Cunningham’s book, Wicca: a guide for the solitary practitioner. My goal was not to recreate or co-opt Wicca into my own Creation Spirituality practice. As I collected my notes and journals to put this work together, I noticed a resemblance between my practice and the way Wicca has developed and is taught. 

The difference between my practice and Wicca involves more than just the words used or the pantheon invoked. While I am not interested in spending a lot of time focusing on the differences, I do want to highlight a few of the similarities in order to foster a kinship between these two spiritual paths.

Magic and Faith

Celtic Spirituality heavily influenced my spirituality, so I have a deep connection to the holidays, the moon, and the many saints and spirits associated with my heritage. This was also one of the major streams of influence for early and some modern Wicca.

I have also practiced Magic since I was a teenager. As much as I disagree with both Aleister Crowley and Peter Carroll on a great many things, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge their influence on all esoteric theory and practice. The connection between Gerald Gardner and Crowley is well known and documented. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to remove their influence from modern magic, and it brings a certain level of similarity into all esoteric practices. 

I have mentioned esoterism and magic and will go into more detail in future chapters, but for now, I need to give you a basic definition for these terms. 

Esotericism

Esotericism is the collected insight and wisdom of a select in-group that is not historically shared with the general populous. 

Magic

Magic is the participation with and manipulation of the subtle energies of a system to achieve, support, or prevent a predetermined outcome.

There is a lot more to be said on these topics, but those are good working definitions for now. 

I suppose I should explain a bit about myself and how we got to this point. 

My Life

Hi. My name is Charlie, and I am a non binary speculative fiction writer and a member of the board for Creation Spirituality Communities, but the path which led me here had a lot of twists and turns over the years. 

I was raised in a Baptist family. My paternal grandfather was a Missionary Baptist preacher and my great grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher. I came to Jesus and was baptized when I was in second grade. After we moved to Maryland the summer between fourth and fifth grade, we started attended a nondenominational church and there I was exposed to American Evangelicalism for the first time. This was also when I first started noticing that I was different.

The more I recognized what at the time appeared to be sane gender attraction and my gender nonconformity, the more I rooted myself in the conservative movement. I also started living a triple life: 

• I was a cisgender, heterosexual Evangelical Christian. 

• I was a gender no conforming homosexual 

• I was an esoteric seeker, desperate for answers. 

That last one led me to buy, read, and adopt the practices I found in DJ Conway’s book, Celtic Magic, which I bought while I was in middle school.

This caused me to develop a strange set of friends who were conservative evangelical Christians, liberal pagans, and other queer youth who were just as confused as I was about life, the universe, and everything.

My life spiraled out of controlled as I code switched constantly between the three worlds. 

Through this period, I read the work of Dion Fortune, Gareth Knight, and Israel Regardie. More of my person philosophy and practice arose from these esoteric sources. 

I will not go into a lot of detail about this period, but in a moment of existential crisis, I started praying the rosary and which led to my eventual conversion to Roman Catholicism. This freedom from American Evangelicalism relieved more of my inner turmoil, but not all of it. 

As everything came to a head, a friend of mine introduced me to his Rabbi, and my conversations with him saved and changed my life. 

Skipping ahead a bit, eventually I fell in love and was hand-fasted in a pagan ceremony with the man I am still with to this day. He is also an esotericist. Through a series of misadventures, we moved to California, and this is where everything changed for me and where the path I am talking abut here took shape. 

Creation Spirituality and Minyan

In the summer of 2001, I read Prayer by Matthew Fox and Minyan by Rabbi Rami Shapiro. Both of these books changed my practice and pointed me down the path I walk to this day. 

At the time, I rooted my daily practice in Buddhism, heavily influenced by the work of Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama, Sylvia Boorstein, Lama Surya Das, and so many others I want to mention, but I don’t want this preface to just be a list of names. 

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, my hodgepodged faith and practice did not help me navigate the world I lived in and struggled to understand.

So I wrote to Rabbi Shapiro to ask if it was appropriate for a gentile Christian like me to adopt and adapt the practices and ideas I found in Minyan into my practice. He gave me a green light to proceed. 

I also devoured the works of Matthew Fox, whose writing forms the basis of everything that followed. 

The biggest problem I had over the years was that I lacked the funds to go to college and study these ideas in a more academic environment, so I read a lot and tested these ideas through trial and error. Authors like Gershom Scholem, Aryeh Kaplan, Rabbi David A Cooper, and The Classics of Western Spirituality became my study and practice guides.

A Practical Spirituality

My focus was on finding practical ways to explore these spiritual, mystical, and magical ideas and practices. If it didn’t improve our lives, we tossed it to the side and tried something new. 

For decades, we incubated these ideas and practices, only sharing them with a few people over the years. In fact, the idea of sharing these ideas with others is terrifying. 

Recently, I have become more involved with the Creation Spirituality Communities and l’ve realized that all these years of isolated incubation have caused our understanding and practice of Creation Spirituality to differ from so many others. Not better, or worse, but very different from how other people in the movement understand and practice. 

So, this is why l’ve chosen to call my variant of Creation Spirituality, Creation’s Paths. The tradition, as put forward by Matthew Fox, is a generalized philosophy that like essential Buddhism can be adopted as a part of or as an adjunct to the faith and practice one already is a part of. 

My husband and I needed something different. We desired a faith and practice that was Creation Spirituality all the way down. 

What we ended up doing was root our faith and practice in Creation Spirituality. We also created and adapted several core practices in order to connect with and experience these themes first hand. 

I am not saying what we did was better than anything anyone else has done, but it is different. 

I wanted a systematic theology and practice that synthesized my many streams of influence into a cohesive whole. Its mysticism and spirituality needed to be practical, making a significant improvement to my life and that of my husband. Most of all, it needed to incorporate the enchanted world I knew. 

I am not a materialist, and I see no evidence at all that we live in a world constructed from nothing but dead matter and blind mechanistic processes. I understand how people conclude this, but I don’t believe the evidence is there. 

The world I live in is vibrant and alive.

Anthropocentrism

Granted, so much religion and spirituality is born from such an anthropocentric perspective the sheer scale of the cosmos makes them laughable, I would argue the same problem exists for many atheist systems that root themselves in the problem of evil. 

Good and evil are moral and ethical notions that highly depend on context. They are far too often applied to things that have no moral or ethical agency, Floods, for example, are dangerous and traumatizing events to live through, but neither the cloud nor the water can act out of malice. 

I understand the desire for justice which motivates us to mitigate or end the suffering of others. It is a terrible thing when a being suffers because of a natural process. The problem is that I have never seen an argument for a world free of these events that does not have dire consequences for nature or free will, and we do have free will. Just because we cannot imagine a better world, does not mean that our world is good, but it shows an issue with applying a moral lens to this practice.

Natural and Supernatural

There is also an issue with the false dichotomy between the natural and what is termed supernatural. This distinction is born out of an erroneous notion that spirit is higher than matter. If there is a God who created nature, that God is natural whether or not they rule over that world. Angels, spirits, souls, and all other objects of spiritual speculation would also be natural since they are entities and energies that exist in nature.

It does not follow that anything that science cannot measure or that it does not know about does not exist. Gravity, dark matter, and dark energy existed before science existed and discovered then. 

I know what I am about to say may sound more controversial than it actually is. I am not a science denier, simply a realist. 

Science does not and cannot describe reality. It can only describe and interpret the data gathered through measurement. If it cannot be measured, it cannot be described by science. This is why dark matter and dark energy are called dark. Their existence can be inferred from certain measurements, but they cannot as I am writing this be directly detected 

This understanding can be misused by charlatans to sell a lot of woo. The truth is, science is probabilistic knowledge we should trust. Medical science gives us the best understanding we have to survive the many perils of this world. Ignoring science is dangerous and how we brought ourself to the current state of climate crisis. So, yes, listen to science, but science cannot help us learn how to live.

What I am trying to say is if something can be measured by science, we should listen to and follow the science, but we acknowledge that there are some things science cannot measure, and for those things we should listen to the Apostle Paul and, “Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good (I Thes 5:21).”

Experience is not the best way to measure reality because it can be mistaken or misunderstood, but sometimes it is the best we have to go on.

We shouldn’t substitute our beliefs for verified science, but as long as we are safe and honest about it, we can improve our lives through spiritual practice and community.

Spirituality

Spirituality, like all traditions, exists to improve our lives, and like all things must change and develop over time or they will die. Tradition should connect us to our past and our community and must never be allowed to control, dominate, or harm our lives. 

This work will offer the insights and practices we have developed over the last two decades and is not intended to tell anyone what they are doing or believing is wrong. I hope it brings more light and love into your life. 

I am sure you can see my trepidation in sharing these thoughts. As someone who grew up in several authoritarian religious movements, I don’t want to even appear to be imposing my ideas on others. 

Enter Judaism without Tribalism

The biggest change in my life and spirituality has been my initiation into Druidry and Rabbi Rami Shapiro's Judaism without Tribalism. Druidry has not changed much of my life since my faith and practice incorporated these ideas a long time ago, but Judaism without Tribalism has caused me to rethink a lot of beliefs and practices.

My daily practice has been rooted in Minyan by Rabbi Rami Shapiro. In many ways, Judaism without Tribalism is an evolution of those ideas. It has made me not only question, but confront so many questions about my identity.

In Chapter 4 of Judaism without Tribalism, Shapiro asks the question, who is a Jew?

A Jew is a person who claims to be a Jew.

This is not the official definition of who is a Jew—indeed, there is no one official definition, only definitions held by different groups of Jews—but it is the only definition that is free of tribalism and crazymaking.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro. Judaism Without Tribalism (p. 40)

I have practiced a Jewish life for decades through the ten practices of Minyan. Most of my fundamental ideas of faith, spirituality, and life originate from Judaism. As you will see, most of the root words underpinning my faith are in Hebrew. Am I Jewish?

For decades, friends have called me a chasidic quaker, a phrase that always makes me laugh. I do not call myself a jew because I believe Jesus is the Messiah and I am not a member of a congregation. I don't want anyone to believe that I am claiming to be something I am not.

Christianity originated as a Jewish Sect, and I believe a lot of its issues were born from its separation from and hostility towards its roots. My initial project in the early 2000s was to reconstruct my version of the early Wayist movement from which Christianity was born. That required this deep dive into Judaism.

There is no word for “religion” in Judaism. The term we use is da’at, which means knowledge. A religious person is called a da’ati, “one who knows.” What one knows is YHVH manifesting all Reality.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro. Judaism Without Tribalism (p. 68).

By that definition, I gladly call myself da'ati. Judaism is one of the wells of faith I draw from, and is the most fundamental one, but I do not speak for Jews or Judaism. Judaism without Tribalism has augmented my practice of Minyan and has become foundational to my faith and practice, or da'at. It also provides the basic outline for this work. I have adopted its revolution, iconoclasm, pedagogy, and tools.

The Fear

I am sure by now my fear in sharing all this is clear to see. I don't want to talk over anyone or appropriate anything. The purpose of this work is to share the life my husband and I have built for ourselves over the last two decades.

Peace and blessings in the Light,

Charlie

Answers are not simple

The hardest thing for me to do is talk about my spirituality.

Am I a Christian?

Yes. I believe in Jesus and pray to Jesus, Mary, and God every day. I am a panentheist, Pelagian, preterist, universal, Trinitarian, Celtic Christian with a strong devotion to the Black Madonna. If I had to state that as a creed would go something like this:

I believe that God is in all things and all things are in God, both immanent within the universe and transcendent beyond it. Grace is found in nature, illumination, and forgiveness, and I seek the sacred in spiritual practice, the depths of my soul, wisdom, nature, and compassion. The apocalypse of the Book of Revelation took place in the first century and continues to happen metaphorically in each generation since. Christ redeemed all and teaches us to return to our true self as an image of God, without judging others and working all goodness through compassion.

I believe God is understood and approached through the riddle of the Trinity of the Creator, Liberator, and the Sustainer, traditionally said as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I believe we connect to God through nature, art, and spiritual practice, fostering a deep connection with the spiritual world.

I believe Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, who creates, sustains, and holds the cosmos together.

By the way, that is the long form for that one sentence at the start and it only captures a whisper of a hint at what each of those words means.

What is my spiritual practice?

I've been practicing Rabbi Rami Shapiro's Ten Vows and Ten Practices of Minyan for 20 years, using a mix of spiritual practices:

• Creation Spirituality

• Shambhala Warriorhood

• Tibetan Buddhism

• Druidry/Celtic Spirituality

• Hermetic Qabala.

After reading Shapiro’s Judaism without Tribalism, my heart sang. The book is an evolution of Minyan into a fully developed reform of Judaism.

This book has challenged my understanding of my faith and practice and has become a foundation for practice and beliefs in the same way Minyan once was.

But aren’t you a practicing Druid?

Yes, but modern Druidry is a philosophy and practice that connects us with nature, our own spiritual path. We practice the holidays. We meditate and practice in the Sacred Grove. Awen, inspiration and illumination, is our guide and goal.

How does all that work?

Ben Markus provides a good model to understand what a religion is. It is called the 3 Bs Framework. The Three Bs are: Belief, Behavior, and Belonging.

Belief

Belief is theology, mystagogy, and sacred readings. It guides our ideas, values, and principles. My beliefs come from various sources such as Matthew Fox's Creation Spirituality, Mystical Judaism, Celtic Christianity, and modern Druidry. All of these sources meld together as they discuss the same topics from different perspectives.

Behavior

Behavior is rituals, habits, ceremonies, and practices. Creation Spirituality lacks a behavioral tradition except for Art as Meditation and the Techno Cosmic Mass. It is a very philosophical and academic tradition that longs to be rooted in the earth. The meditations and rituals of the Sacred Grove and Holidays of Druidry provide the skeletal structure of my practice. These give form and substance to a lot of Creation Spirituality and Celtic Christian ideas. Add to this the 8 mitzvot of Judaism with Tribalism.

I can express my core practice easily in the words of Rabbi Shapiro from Judaism without Tribalism: The core of religion is Teshuvah and Tikkun, Returning and Restoration. We have to return constantly to seeing our nature as images of God and restoring the world to leave it better off for future generations.

Belonging

Belonging is the community we build, maintain, and live within. I find community with Creation Spirituality Communities where I sit on the board, and the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. These two places call to different side of me and what I long for is a place where the two come together as one.

That is the dream for Creation’s Paths. Hopefully, this will become a place where those who are like-minded come together to share and make meaning.

Creation Spirituality for the Solitary Practitioner

When I started this project, it was called Creation’s Paths: Creation Spirituality for the Solitary Practitioner. Yes, that title is a wink and a nod to Scott Cunningham’s book, Wicca: a guide for the solitary practitioner. My goal is not to recreate or co-opt Wicca into my practice. As I collected my notes and journals to put this work together, I noticed a resemblance between my practice and the way Wicca has developed and is taught. 

The difference between my practice and Wicca involves more than just the words used or the pantheon invoked. While I am not interested in spending a lot of time focusing on the differences, I do want to highlight a few of the similarities in order to foster a kinship between these two spiritual paths.

Celtic Spirituality heavily influenced my spirituality, so I have a deep connection to the holidays, the moon, and the many saints and spirits associated with my heritage. This was also one of the major streams of influence for early and some modern Wicca. I have also practiced Magic since I was a teenager. Although I disagree with them, I can't ignore the impact of Aleister Crowley and Peter Carroll on esoteric theory and practice. Gerald Gardner, the founder of Wicca, and Crowley have a well-known and documented connection. Their influence is deeply ingrained in modern magic, making all esoteric practices somewhat similar. 

Ross Nichols the founder of my Druid Order was friends with Gardner and the two shared ideas between them. These connections run deep.

Esotericism and Magic

I have mentioned esotericism and magic and will go into more detail in future, but for now, I need to give you a basic definition of these terms. 

• Esotericism is the collected insight and wisdom of a select in-group that is not historically shared with the general populous. 

• Magic is the participation with and manipulation of the subtle energies of a system to achieve, support, or prevent a predetermined outcome.

There is a lot more to be said on these topics, but those are good working definitions for now. 

I suppose I should explain a bit about myself and how we got to this point. 

Reintroducing myself

Hi. My name is Charlie, and I am a non binary speculative fiction writer and a member of the board for Creation Spirituality Communities, but the path which led me here had a lot of twists and turns over the years. 

I was raised in a Baptist family. My paternal grandfather was a Missionary Baptist preacher and my great grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher. I came to Jesus and was baptized when I was in second grade. After we moved to Maryland the summer between fourth and fifth grade, we started attended a nondenominational church and there I was exposed to American Evangelicalism for the first time. This was also when I first started noticing that I was different.

The more I recognized what at the time appeared to be sane gender attraction and my gender nonconformity, the more I rooted myself in the conservative movement. I also started living a triple life: 

• I was a cisgender, heterosexual Evangelical Christian. 

• I was a gender no conforming homosexual 

• I was an esoteric seeker, desperate for answers. 

That last one led me to buy, read, and adopt the practices I found in DJ Conway’s book, Celtic Magic, which I bought while I was in middle school.

This caused me to develop a strange set of friends who were conservative evangelical Christians, liberal pagans, and other queer youth who were just as confused as I was about life, the universe, and everything.

My life spiraled out of controlled as I code switched constantly between the three worlds. 

Through this period, I read the work of Dion Fortune, Gareth Knight, and Israel Regardie. More of my person philosophy and practice arose from these esoteric sources. 

I will not go into a lot of detail about this period, but in a moment of existential crisis, I started praying the rosary and that led to my eventual conversion to Roman Catholicism. This freedom from American Evangelicalism relieved more of my inner turmoil, but not all of it. 

As everything came to a head, a friend of mine introduced me to his Rabbi, and my conversations with him saved and changed my life. 

Skipping ahead a bit, eventually I fell in love and was hand-fasted in a pagan ceremony with the man I am still with to this day. He is also an esotericist. Through a series of misadventures, we moved to California, and this is where everything changed for me and where the path I am talking about here took shape. 

In the summer of 2001, I read Prayer by Matthew Fox and Minyan by Rabbi Rami Shapiro. Both of these books changed my practice and pointed me down the path I walk to this day. 

At the time, I rooted my daily practice in Buddhism, heavily influenced by the work of Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama, and so many others I want to mention, but I don’t want this to just be a list of names. 

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, my hodgepodged faith and practice did not help me navigate the world I lived in and struggled to understand.

So I wrote to Rabbi Shapiro to ask if it was appropriate for a gentile like me to adopt and adapt the practices and ideas I found in Minyan into my practice. He gave me a green light to proceed. 

I also devoured the works of Matthew Fox, whose writing forms the basis of everything that followed. I created a folder called, The Abbey, on my hard drive, and started writing and rewriting my thoughts and practices as my understanding grew.

The biggest problem I had over the years was that I lacked the funds to go to college and study these ideas in a more academic environment, so I read a lot and tested these ideas through trial and error. 

My focus was on finding practical ways to explore these spiritual, mystical, and magical ideas and practices. If it didn’t improve our lives, we tossed it to the side and tried something new. 

For decades, we incubated these ideas and practices, only sharing them with a few people over the years. In fact, the idea of sharing these ideas with others is terrifying. 

Recently, I have become more involved with the Creation Spirituality Communities and l’ve realized that all these years of isolated incubation have caused our understanding and practice of Creation Spirituality to differ from so many others. Not better, or worse, but very different from how other people in the movement understand and practice. 

So, this is why l’ve chosen to call my variant of Creation Spirituality, Creation’s Paths. The tradition, as put forward by Matthew Fox, is a generalized philosophy that like essential Buddhism can be adopted as a part of or as an adjunct to the faith and practice one already is a part of. 

My husband and I needed something different. We desired a faith and practice that was Creation Spirituality all the way down. 

What we ended up doing was root our faith and practice in Creation Spirituality. We also created and adapted several core practices in order to connect with and experience these themes first hand. 

I am not saying what we did was better than anything anyone else has done, but it is different. 

I wanted a systematic theology and practice that synthesized my many streams of influence into a cohesive whole. Its mysticism and spirituality needed to be practical, making a significant improvement to my life and that of my husband. Most of all, it needed to incorporate the enchanted world I knew. 

I am not a materialist, and I see no evidence at all that we live in a world constructed from nothing but dead matter and blind mechanistic processes. I understand how people conclude this, but I don’t believe the evidence is there. 

The world I live in is vibrant and alive. Granted, so much religion and spirituality is born from such an anthropocentric perspective the sheer scale of the cosmos makes them laughable, I would argue the same problem exists for many atheist systems that root themselves in the problem of evil. 

Good and evil are moral and ethical notions that highly depend on context. They are far too often applied to things that have no moral or ethical agency, floods, for example, are dangerous and traumatizing events to live through, but neither the cloud nor the water can act out of malice. 

I understand the desire for justice which motivates us to mitigate or end the suffering of others. It is a terrible thing when a being suffers because of a natural process. The problem is that I have never seen an argument for a world free of these events that does not have dire consequences for nature or free will, and we do have free will. Just because we cannot imagine a better world, does not mean that our world is good, but it shows an issue with applying a moral lens to this practice.

There is also an issue with the false dichotomy between the natural and what is termed supernatural. This distinction is born of of an erroneous notion that spirit is higher than matter. If there is a God who created nature, that God is natural whether or not they rule over that world. Angels, spirits, souls, and all other objects of spiritual speculation would also be natural since they are entities and energies that exist in nature,

It does not follow that anything that science cannot measure or that it does not know about does not exist. Gravity, dark matter, and dark energy existed before science existed and discovered then. 

I know what I am about to say may sound more controversial than it actually is. I am not a science denier, simply a realist. 

Science does not and cannot describe reality. It can only describe and interpret the data gathered through measurement. If it cannot be measured, it cannot be described by science. This is why dark matter and dark energy are called dark. Their existence can be inferred from certain measurements, but they cannot as I am writing this be directly detected 

This understanding can be misused by charlatans to sell a lot of woo. The truth is, science is probabilistic knowledge we should trust. Medical science gives us the best understanding we have to survive the many perils of this world. Ignoring science is dangerous and how we brought ourself to the current state of climate crisis. So, yes, listen to science, but science cannot help us learn how to live.

What I am trying to say is if something can be measured by science, we should listen to and follow the science, but we acknowledge that there are some things science cannot measure, and for those things we should listen to the Apostle Paul and, “Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good (I Thes 5:21).”

Experience is not the best way to measure reality because it can be mistaken or misunderstood, but sometimes it is the best we have to go on.

We shouldn’t substitute our beliefs for verified science, but as long as we are safe and honest about it, we can improve our lives through spiritual practice and community.

Spirituality, like all traditions, exists to improve our lives, and like all things must change and develop over time or they will die. Tradition should connect us to our past and our community and must never be allowed to control, dominate, or harm our lives. 

This series will offer the insights and practices we have developed over the last two decades and is not intended to tell anyone what they are doing or believing is wrong. I hope it brings more light and love into your life. 

I am sure you can see my trepidation in sharing these thoughts. As someone who grew up in several authoritarian religious movements, I don’t want to even appear to be imposing my ideas on others. 

May the Light and Love of God be with you always.