I have pagan friends who, from a strict Christian point of view, most everything’s wrong with them, except themselves. They aren’t professed agnostics or atheists, but they don’t exactly fit the description of a practicing Christian either. They rarely go to church, mostly disregard the church’s teaching on sex, pray only when in crisis, and are basically too immersed in life here and now to think much about God, church, and eternity.
But, even so, they radiate life, sometimes in ways that shame me. There’s something about them that’s very right, inspiring, even life-giving. They may be practical agnostics and ecclesial atheists, but their presence mostly brings positive energy, goodness, love, intelligence, humor, and sunshine into a room.
Don’t get this wrong: this is not to imply (as does the oversimplistic, rationalizing notion that’s so popular today) that those who do go to church and try to follow the church’s rules are hypocrites and immature, while those who don’t go to church and make their own rules are the real Christians. No. There’s nothing enlightened about people drifting away from the church, thinking they are beyond church, living outside its rules, or believing that a passionate focus on this life justifies a neglect of the other world. That’s a fault in religiosity, and also a fault in wisdom and maturity.
The wonderful energy that we see, and should bless, in the many good persons we know who no longer go to church with us is precisely that, wonderful energy, not depth.
It’s a wonderful thing to make people dance, to bring sunshine into a room, to lift human hearts so that they can love a little more, but it’s not the full menu, the deepest part of the menu, or something that suggests that the other part of the menu is all wrong. It is what it is, and it is only what it is. But it’s on the right side of things, on the side of life. It’s wonderful, it helps bring God into a room, and it should be blessed.
God also made their sunshine and their warmth. They don’t go to church, and that isn’t good, but they’re on the side of life, and that implicit faith is a challenge for me to in remaining on the right side of things.
As Christians, we need to both bless our good pagan friends and let ourselves be blessed by them. God is the ultimate author of all that’s good, whether that goodness, sunlight, energy, color, and warmth is seen inside a church building or outside of it. [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “Being Blessed by Pagan Friends” October 2023]
