Chopping Away at Paganism

by Audrey Stallsmith

I used the story of Boniface in our recent Christmas missionary service. An 8th-century bishop sent from England to Germania, he hewed down an oak of Thor there at the time of the winter solstice, to prevent any more pagan rites from occurring beneath it. 

Accounts of this incident vary and may have gotten exaggerated over time. In some, the pagans intended to sacrifice a child and Boniface prevented that. Also, a few versions have the oak miraculously toppled by a great wind after the priest took a single swing at it, while others suggest that the center of the large tree was rotten, which is why it came down so quickly. 

I like that latter version, since I’ve always believed that paganism is hollow at the core even though many people romanticize it (i.e., “make it seem better or more appealing than it really is”) nowadays. That is nothing new, since the Israelites always hankered after the obviously lifeless gods of the people whom they had defeated rather than the God who had done the defeating. However, they eventually would become disillusioned enough with those inert figures to come running back to the only Deity who really could deliver them. 

As you may recall, Old Testament Gideon chopped down a wooden idol owned by his father Joash: probably—according to the commentary in my Bible—the image of a female goddess associated with Baal. Although you would have expected the father to be angry about that, when the local men demanded that he turn over his son for punishment, Joash spat out something to the effect of “Let Baal defend himself!” 

Probably impressed by the spunk that Jehovah had somehow implanted in what previously had been the least impressive of his sons, the proud father couldn’t help but notice that Baal had done absolutely zip about the desecration of the shrine. So, Gideon had proved what many of them must have suspected by that time. Baal really was nothing more than wood. 

Jehovah, on the other hand, could defeat an army of thousands via 300 men armed with torches and trumpets. Of course, even those 300 men were optional. But God often acts like a proud Father himself, allowing us to help with what He probably could do much easier Himself because it is necessary that we learn to both trust and act on that trust. 

Paganism, on the other hand, seems to have been more about fear. An online dictionary defines it as “a religion other than one of the main world religions, specifically a non-Christian or pre-Christian religion” or as “a modern religious movement incorporating beliefs or practices from outside the main world religions, especially nature worship.”

Nature worship does seem to be the most popular type of paganism nowadays and probably actually always has been, though it used to be called animism—i. e. the attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena.” 

But nature, although created by God, doesn’t contain God’s spirit as we humans can. In us, the spirit is the animating nonphysical force that occupies the body and activates it. Nature, on the other hand, is entirely physical, which is why it can seem so cruel at times. It follows the laws that God originally implanted in it but doesn’t think for itself, so it cannot be blamed for the havoc it sometimes creates. 

Unlike plants, animals do appear capable of primitive reasoning, but that seems to center around their survival and reproduction. They don’t question why they are here or where they are going, nor do they rebel against the God who made them the way that they are. So, although in a sense carnal, they also are innocent. 

They do seem capable of affection, and that may be where they transcend the rest of nature. But they can’t deliberately choose between good and evil. As has been frequently pointed out, our pets don’t understand the difference, which interprets to them as what the master wants and what makes him/her extremely annoyed. 

So, nature has no evil spirits within itself. Those have to be introduced into it from people, as when Christ sent such expelled demons into a herd of innocent swine. 

Many of the original pagans apparently believed that nature did contain either various deities or demons, which had to be constantly placated with offerings to prevent them from picking on man. So those pagans lived in a state of constant fear. Boniface, prior to his chopping down of the tree, pointed out to them that both their fear and their sacrifices were unnecessary because the ultimate sacrifice already had been made. 

I doubt that most educated types who brag of being pagans nowadays are actually afraid of nature spirits. They just prefer a religion that requires little from them. So, they consider nature, whose beauties can inspire vaguely uplifting feelings, as preferable to her Creator Who demands complete commitment. 

But commitment is what makes love, as Guinevere tried to point out to Arthur in a movie we recently watched. In this version, she hadn’t been unfaithful to him, despite her attraction to Lancelot. She just happened to be in love with two men at the same time, which is quite possible and not a sin in itself. It was what she did—or didn’t—do about her feelings that mattered. 

Those who have made romantic love a god of sorts insist that each person has a one and only partner. So, if a woman begins to have romantic feelings for somebody else after she is married, she may conclude that she was mistaken about who her one and only was and wreck her marriage to be with the second person. Only to have to ditch him once she falls for yet a third guy! 

Falling in love is as easy as, well, falling. It means little until caused to mean much by two people who make a lifetime commitment to each other. So, if a committed Christian falls for somebody else after marriage, he or she simply ignores that feeling and avoids that person, knowing that the feeling eventually will go away if not fed. 

In the same way, our supposed love for God means nothing unless we actually make a commitment to him. Unless we see all our other gods, such as money, prestige, self-fulfillment, etc. for the hollow shells that they are despite their towering height. Of course, we may have to stop feeding our feelings for them, which is what we do when we give such things too much of our attention. 

Speaking of chopping away at false gods, Boniface probably is the reason that so many of us were undecorating evergreens this month. During the aforementioned incident with the oak, he didn’t just tell Thor’s worshippers that they needed a less empty god. He also is reported to have preached them a sermon about the Christ Child. And, pointing to a little pine tree, he suggested that, if his hearers must have a natural symbol of the Child, they should choose that one. It, after all, was small and humble and pointed to heaven. Also, its evergreen state suggested eternal life rather than death. 

Actually, all trees—and all of nature—point to heaven if we are clear-eyed enough to see that. Boniface himself would be killed by robbers when his missionary travels took him deeper into pagan territory, into Frisia or what now would be northern Germany and the Netherlands. But we can assume that he still was pointing to heaven, just as all of God’s creatures should.