No, We Are Not Repaganizing

Say it with me now: not pagan, but post-Christian

So, the neoconservative journal First Things has just published an essay by Louise Perry entitled “We Are Repaganizing.” Perry is one of the new cadre of “post-feminist” writers, mostly British, who have taken a second look at feminism and found it wanting. Her essay is a reflection about abortion, and how contemporary Western societies have abandoned the Christian belief that abortion is wrong for the view of classical Greece and Rome, which did not. Hence, Perry concludes, we are “repaganizing.”

The essay is making the round on Twitter among social cons and some Catholic types, who are generally favorable to it. I certainly sympathize with her unease about abortion, especially since she identifies as an agnostic who finds Christianity attractive but can’t quite manage belief as yet. Having been an atheist before my baptism, I certainly find her position sympathetic. If you do not know the history of abortion or its relation historically to infanticide, it is very much worth your time to read.

I assume FT ran this piece because it might have more play with a non-Christian audience, a sympathetic agnostic perhaps being more plausible to non-believers than that of a Christian activist. However, I have to register one strong disagreement with the essay, namely the charge that we are “repaganizing.”

Certainly one of the great differences between classical antiquity and the Christian world was its attitude toward abortion, and the value of human life in general. No one disputes this. But I don’t think our society’s embrace of abortion and wholesale euthanasia makes us “pagan.” While they may share similar attitudes about the value of human life, they were otherwise very different in important respects.

For classical Greeks and Romans, theirs was a world of scarcity which necessitated (or made them feel as if this necessitated) things like exposure of infants. By contrast, our society is one of abundance, made possible by technological advances that provide us with a (relative) technical mastery over the natural, material world, our ancestors could scarcely dream of. Our war on the unborn and the elderly is much more of a war of choice than that of the ancients.

Speaking of war, another difference between classical antiquity and our times is that martial virtues, such as honor and physical bravery, were prized even in the late stages of the Western Empire, in a way they are not today. Yes, our liberal elites have grown fond of war lately but this is the result again of technological advance rather than love of combat. It is hard to imagine a greater contrast between say Diocletian and Barack Obama when it comes to making war. No, our elites prize “intelligence,” or “expertise” defined largely as that technical mastery which allows us to bomb our enemies from afar, amongst other enormities.

However decadent the ancient world became, its barbarism was always more a “barbarism of sense” rather than a “barbarism of reflection.” Christian moralists condemn contemporary society as “materialist” but I think they miss the mark. Again, most contemporaries do not, in my experience, relish enjoyment of material things, but rather the control of it that our modern technology gives us. It is more accurate to say that postmoderns or whatever you want to call us value the triumph of the “spirit” over matter (though it is definitely NOT the Holy Spirit we are talking about here), or perhaps more accurately, the will over matter.

Perry cites the work of popular historian Tom Holland in her essay, and though I have not read his work, it sounds like she is taking this rhetorical line that we are “repaganizing” from him. The thrust of it, I suppose, is to suggest that support for abortion is not progress but regression. This allows someone who opposes abortion or has qualms with it like Perry to turn the accusation usually made against opponents back on its supporters. “See, you are even more backward than us—you’re pagans!” I understand why this might sound like a good rhetorical strategy to get people to rethink their views on abortion, but I don’t think it is very effective.

The reason is that people who support abortion and euthanasia are not pagans, and are quite aware they are not. (Yes, I know there are some who proclaim themselves to be “pagans,” but they are a tiny minority and cranks besides.) Support for those things was only one part of the worldview we call “pagan,” and our contemporaries share little else in common with ancient “pagans” beside belief in the moral rightness of abortion, important though it is. You can make the argument that a Christian society actually shares more in common with classical antiquity than a modern society does. Conversely, we live in a civilization that was Christian for a thousand years or more, but has now consciously rejected Christian faith. Our contemporary post-Christians have the memory of this history as well as two centuries of Enlightenment propaganda in their heads. They are as a result something very different than “pagans,” and the best label I can think of for them is “post-Christian,” for that is what they are.

Christian apologists and moralists have a bad habit of trying to fit new challenges to the faith into old models, and I fear this is what is going on here as well. (Even someone as brilliant as Joseph Ratzinger fell prey to this temptation.) It is not that I deny that there is this continuity with ancient paganism, only that it is not the essential thing about the current state of our civilization, which is its discontinuity with both the ancient world and the Christian centuries. Using old categories can be helpful but it can also obscure what is truly new about these types of challenges.

In any case, I recommend the essay to you, especially if you are a supporter of abortion rights. You will definitely learn some things. But that you are a pagan is not one of them.