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Possibly the most disquieting sentence that I've ever read opens Robert Graves' retelling of one of the Greek myths:

One day Mother Earth was visiting Athens.*

Say what?

Also up there on my list of theological “What-duh-f**k?” moments is Isaac Bonewits' “Invocation to the Earth Mother”:

Thou Whom the Druids call Danu,

Come unto us.

Thou Who art Erde of the Germans,

Come unto us.

Thou Whom the Slavs call Ziva,

Come unto us....*

Half a mo here. We're calling Earth to come to us?

Some would say that the pagan religions are non-theological.

If by this we mean that pagan religions tend not to have 'systematic' theologies, I would agree.

But I prefer to think that we're just differently theological.

Drawing on the word's original meaning (theos, 'a god' + logos, 'word') theologian David Miller defines theology as 'thinking and talking about the gods.' (Miller's 1974 The New Polytheism: Rebirth of the Gods and Goddesses was a pioneering work of contemporary polytheist thought.)

No system required, no seminaries involved. Thinking and talking about the gods.

That's something that pagans do all the time.

It's one of the more pressing questions of contemporary pagan theology.

What happened to the pagan gods during the centuries of the Great Interruption?

Did they fall asleep? Did they go away?

In the Baltics, the Old Ways lingered long. In Latvia, the Thunderer of the old pantheon—Perkons (= Perkunas, Perun, etc.)—came to be identified (among others) with “Saint” Martin.

“Martin carries nine Perkonses under his cloak,” was the saying.

Did the Old Gods abandon their people?

No, indeed. They've never abandoned us, and They never will.

They wrapped Themselves in other cloaks and waited.

Last minute ideas for Yuletide gifts arrive. A new Pagan community center opens in Santa Cruz. And a Polish activist is memorialized. It's Watery Wednesday, our weekly segment on news about the Pagan community from around the world! All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

Who will be the gods of future space colonists? Should we be fearful of the divine? And what's it like celebrating a Pagan fertility ritual in Russia? It's Watery Wednesday, our weekly segment on news about the Pagan community. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

"Twelve hundred years had not yet passed

When the land extended and the peoples multiplied.

One of the primary aspects of many a religion is "theology" or the practice of studying and organizing the nature of the divine and other religious ideas. How then might theology be applied to Paganism? Or, as Gus diZerega asked recently, should it be applied at all? We take a look at theology and other forms of religious studies both within and outside of Paganism today, along with other stories. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle.