Separation of church and paganism

I am amazed how a simple question is reverted to a history debate.
Let us change the question to match your answer?
Kingdom A (Government) has told Kingdom B (Church) that they could have trade with the subjects of its realm. The condition is that they must trade with all equally to include both peasant and nobleman alike. To increase the chance for trade, Kingdom A has allowed for no taxes on these trades. But Kingdom B only wishes to trade with the nobility of the land and refuses to trade with the peasants. For in Kingdom B’s eyes peasants are unworthy of their product. When Kingdom A discovers this they revoke Kingdom B’s trade rights.
Kingdom A is telling Kingdom B how things are run in Kingdom A. It is not telling Kingdom B how to runs its affairs within its own realm.
But surely having taught New Testament studies for 20 years at Cambridge you realize it is stated: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”

""In ancient paganism, 'religion' was simply a department of state, and the 'priests' were usually social and political leaders and vice versa.""

By the way, Bishop... (?!)

Not.

I think you're thinking of *Rome* in particular, when you make such blanket statements, but the actual state of affairs was not so simple. Certainly, *certain* facets of government were religious, (though this didn't mean personal religion or the people's beliefs were dictated or enforced by the state,) but this was far from an attempt at theocracy: rather, there were certain 'checks and balances' that involved certain religious institutions, (such as treasuries and records being, quite often placed in the charge of various temples: often cause they were the safest places with people who were not classed or political running them. Pontificates would be placed over some in state matters, of course, and others, but it wasn't 'state religion' in the sense of a 'theocracy' or in terms of what some Christians believe is the appropriate state of affairs. )

Basically, 'Paganism' and the rituals of the Roman state weren't quite what you try and claim. Not to say everything was great there, but if you wonder why the Christianist narrative paints ancient people as doing things that make even less sense than the churches or even that kind of internal logic, ...it's cause that's really not how it was.

One of the reasons Christianity and Empire co-opted each other and became what we now call 'Church' isn't cause there was A Pagan Church, State Religion, And Dogma, With Control, ....but because authoritarian Christianity became such an instrument of control, both over people's spiritual lives, and the doings of state.

It was just different. To say it briefly.

Also, take care: most people, even modern Pagans couldn't *name* most of the 'state Gods' of Rome, never mind merit being accused of what Christians have done with government.

athena4,

Same sex marriage is not recognized in the UK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_Kingdom.

If you get something this simple to verify so completely wrong, it stands to reason that the veracity of all your statements & opinions is, at best, questionable. Sort of like Dan Brown’s claims that his books are based on facts. Try reading the good Bishop’s lecture titled “Decoding the Da Vinci Code.” http://www.spu.edu/depts/uc/response/summer2k5/features/davincicode.asp. To quote:

“But fantasies they are. Brown claims, in a note at the start of his book, first that the architectural details of the places mentioned are correct and second that there really is a secret society called “The Priory of Sion” to which people like Da Vinci himself, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and others belonged. Both of these claims can be shown very easily to be false. On the first: I only know well one of the buildings which features in the book, namely Westminster Abbey. All right, Brown knows where the Isaac Newton monument is. But he still makes gaffe after gaffe which could have been corrected by 10 minutes of walking around with his eyes open. The Abbey has towers, not spires. You cannot see Parliament from St James’s Park. College Garden is an extremely private place, not “a very public place” outside the Abbey’s walls (527). You cannot look out into it from the Chapter House; nor is there a “long hallway” leading to the latter, with a “heavy wooden door” at the end (529 ff.). Ten minutes’ observation by a junior research assistant could have put all this right. If Brown is so careless, and carelessly inventive, in details as easy to check as those, why should we trust him in anything else? And when it comes, second, to the Priory of Sion, the documents which Brown, following Baigent and Leigh, cite as evidence were forgeries cooked up by three zany Frenchmen in the 1950s. They cheerfully confessed to this in a devastating television program shown on British television in February this year.”

FYI- Bishop Wright is widely considered to be one of the foremost NT Biblical scholars in the world today & his degree happens to be Classics- liturature, history & Philosophy.

I would also strongly urge you to think about how you say things. If you want your arguments to carry any weight, using the phrase that you closed with is hardly the mark of someone who knows how to present themselves & their arguments articulately.

Catholics pay their taxes.It is not unreasonable for the Government to give grants to Catholic institutions if they find their contribution to the community of value but it is totally unreasonable for any government to expect such organisations to cease representing their Catholic identity in return for any such subsidy.
No taxation without representation.

TO athena4,

Nice - STFU, you know the original was an acronym too. If you are going to address a Bishop, and do it w/ the air of superiority that you have, at least have the courage to use actual words - or are you trying not to be offensive.

In ancient times Christianity was considered a pagan religion; Romans had other gods to worship like Apollo and Jupiter and many many more. They were superstitious times. It is now accepted that the Roman gods did not actually exist, ditto the Greek gods, the Aztec gods, the India gods, etc, etc. Allah and the white-mans God are equally mythical, and it's time we acknowledged this. There are no actual gods, and never were.

Sir, you may be a learned man, but you know squat about "ancient Paganism". I find it ironic that an Anglican is lecturing to us Americans about the State telling the Church what to do. Unless I misread my history, isn't that how the Anglican Church got started in the first place - Henry VIII wanting a divorce so he could marry Anne Boleyn?

Besides, England has gay marriage, does it not? Does the C of E recognize same-sex unions? Can gays get married in the Church? If so, then STFU.

I gather that England still lives under the rules of the "ancient" paganism you decry; you get your pay from the Church of England, do you not? So it seems inappropriate for you to offer moralistic comments on a system that explicitly forbids an alliance between any church and the government. (For the fundies out there, that's all the first amendment says and means: we can't have a state religion, no matter what you want. But we could tax your church if we want to.) Your colleague here got it right: you take the government (i.e. my) dime, you follow the government rules.

With all due respect, I am sure that as a bishop you are well aware that there is no such thing as "ancient paganism". There were many forms of paganism in ancient times, as there are today. In some cases - such as in ancient Rome - religion was indeed part of the state, because the emperor was considered to be divine. In modern Rome religion continues to be part of the state because the various Popes have never been overly interested in following what their own boss said (on this or other topics).
BUT, to get to my point, since there are a lot of people nowadays who are not Christian but would call themselves pagans, since they believe in other forms of divinity/ies, and since these same people are very much in favor of the separation of any creed from the workings of the state, I would request that you refrain from artfully calling "paganism" any commingling of state and religion.