Naturalistic Paganism

Category: responsibility


[The Dionysian Naturalist] “Nature Religions and Revolutionary Social Change, Part 3” by Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D.

With each action that we take, we make the world. With each action we take, we potentially make the world better or worse. Our ordinary activities count. For it is through these everyday behaviors that the social world is constituted as an orderly event.

Read More

[The Dionysian Naturalist] “Nature Religions and Revolutionary Social Change, Part 2” by Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D.

Relationships define our lives. Yet each of us is able to make a difference to the whole. We are kin with all other life forms, sharing similar compositions and made from the same stardust. We celebrate the circle of life and know that we must live in harmony with the rhythms of the natural world.

Read More

[The Dionysian Naturalist] “Nature Religions and Revolutionary Social Change, Part 1” by Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D.

This essay highlights contributions religion can bring to social movement struggles for justice and transformational politics. These are times which demand “engaged spirituality”, in which religious people actively engage with the world in order to transform it in positive ways while finding inspiration, moral support and guidance in their spiritual beliefs and practices. To those ends I advance a “practical theology of social change” focused on our intentional interventions to change the world (“praxis”), and outline some of its operating principles and spiritual practices.

Read More

Interrupted Visions: Your chance to join with the Foundation Beyond Belief to help victims of the flooding

Yes, I know we are in the middle of our 3 part series on visions, but we well know that weather systems don’t care what we humans are doing.  This week, extreme rainfall caused historic flooding in Louisiana, with people…

Read More

Will This Congressman Reflect on our Earth? By Bart Everson

This was not an angry protest. This was something gentler and more contemplative. I’m inclined to think we need more such actions. Will Scalise listen? Will he reflect? Time will tell. I’m not holding my breath, but the stakes are too high not to try everything in our power. Meanwhile, I call on our local “young faith leaders” to step up, add their voices, and stage similar actions.

Read More