A Polytheistic Theology
Jordan Paper
State University of New York Press
2005
0-7914-6388-5
Price £27.25
Review by Bobcat
This is an interesting text that I
would recommend to anyone interested in Druidry and other polytheistic and
animistic traditions, but particularly to those who would like a overview that
reaches for some rationale of polytheistic belief.
I use the word 'belief' consciously
here. Having spent many decades immersed in Native cultures of North America, exploring and experiencing both ritual
and social politics in his journey to understand and go deeper, his perspective
feels convincing. His view is broad. His seeking also took him to China, Japan and Taiwan, where he married a Chinese woman,
and has spent much of his life engaging fully within Chinese religious
traditions. Further to these two traditions, having been brought up in a
Jewish family, his view of monotheistic thought feels naturally articulate.
To some extent I found that Paper
did not provide sufficient reason for my own questing, though. He tends
to dismiss all Western philosophical and religious tradition as monotheistic.
In my own life I have found value in delving deeply into all the roots of
my European heritage, rich as it is in wit and wisdom, in thuggery and brutality,
in beauty and mysticism. From a British perspective, and that of one
whose ancestor-based religion is very British, this text, albeit in the English
language, feels distinctly foreign.
Not an academic text, Paper chose to
release this towards the end of his academic career as a sort of confessional:
a treatise that is based upon his life's experience of seeking, practice and
learning. In this respect I think it works. He is a fluent and
intelligent writer and it is good to read of deep, sincere and very personal
experience of polytheism in his words. Instead of footnotes and sources,
he provides a list of inspiring texts at the end of the book, including
mythology, history, anthropology and religious studies.
In the book he dismisses Michael York's
book, Pagan Theology : Paganism as a World Religion (2003),
saying that it 'fails to do the subject justice'. For anyone who has read
York's book, this then would be an
interesting comparative text. It is on my pile to read and I shall review
it for this site when I do.
Available from Amazon.co.uk
