It’s Easter and someone asked me yesterday how I reconcile my Christianity with my Paganism, having grown up in both traditions. I've not been well lately so this has been on my mind - especially since the recent visit of my cousin Mike Jones and family. He is a Pastor in Canada and I loved touring churches with him - and I also found that in tour-guiding them around Cornwall, my Paganism was also on display. So I decided to write this blog to try to articulate an answer, as I get asked this question about reconciliation every now and then. In doing so, I’m afraid that I’ll meander between my own emotions and my family history, and I'll probably go on too long - but that’s just the truth of my reconciliation journey, so thank you for reading.
I believe that Jesus was a real person, that he was a great spiritual leader, a talented healer, and a community activist, and that the prophets Muhammed & Abraham were equally important.
A huge part of who I am involves connecting with & humbling myself before God/spirit/source/the Holy Spirit/Gaia/the universe/quantum energy/Allah etc. To me, it’s all the same. I’m pretty sure that God doesn’t care whether we refer to God as he or a she, nor what name we use.
Christianity is important to me as a framework for community and communion, for praise and healing and for unification with others through art, architecture, song and music. My home Church (where I was baptised) is St. James Episcopal Church, Austin, TX, and my paternal Grandmother Nancy Belle Johnson (nee Lawrence) was one of the original members when it was founded. St. James’s connection with music can be best understood through the annual Jazz at St. James event. My Father and Grandfather have both taken turns as the Church’s musical director and I know more than one soul whose life and/or sanity was saved by that church.
The other important churches in my life have all been Cornish: St. Cleer Parish Church (many harvest festivals and much singing); St. Germans Priory Church (my maternal Grandmother was confirmed there and my Dad’s funeral was there) and St. Clement Parish Church (my Grandmother was married and laid to rest there with her husband, and I was married there).
My Cornish family (the Tregonings) also have a long Church of England tradition, and through their mining heritage, work for the unions and later through their tinplate/metals/shipbrokerage fortune they funded and drove a lot of Cornish Church of England activity. Consequently they also funded and led health, education, fair wage (the 1874 list) & charity work through the Guardians of the Poor, the Working Lads society etc. in 19th Century Cornwall (mainly Launceston, Lezant & Tregadillett) and South Wales. The Dolcoath window in Truro Cathedral was donated by the Tregonings (and the Edes) as a memorial to the miners lost. My ancestor John Simmons Tregoning (JST) was devout in his faith and his work in building houses, schoolhouses, libraries & reading rooms for workers and their families was a great example (paternalistic as it was) of how Christianity, applied with love, can result in charity, activism and progress for oppressed communities. I’ll blog about all this properly sometime but if you're family or an interested Cornish history buff you can google his name for more info.
Both JST’s example and that of my Grandmother in Texas have played a part in my belief that Christianity, and organised religion in general has a purpose and positive role in shaping modern society and in positively influencing the actions of humans - despite the many violent examples throughout history of religion’s negative effects.
All of that said, it's a fact that much of Christianity is based on ancient Pagan rituals and festivals - even the date of Easter is still dependent on the date of the full moon. Other examples of this are abundant, including the sites of our holy wells in Cornwall, many of which were built on Pagan ritual sites.
Paganism is also an important spiritual framework for me, especially when it relates to my relationship to the natural world, the seasons, the collective, and for answering day-to-day emotional questions/my own introspection. I’d describe my musician mother as a pagan, though I’m not sure she would describe herself at all. Labels aren’t really her thing.
Growing up, we celebrated the solstices, we spent a lot of time at stone circles, went to spiritual events and festivals all summer and many of my childhood games where concocted using medicine cards, quoits, streams, or the art of Carolyn Hillyer. Most confusions were explained by the moon’s phase or by someone’s planetary birth chart. I feel Paganism on a more instinctive level day-to-day, but actually my most transcendent spiritual experiences have been in Church. I tend to cry when singing in Church, but then at home tend to meditate over tarot cards rather than pray to God for wishes to be granted. But also, attendance at midnight mass on my birthday (Christmas Eve) very often happened growing up.
I dislike individualism in both Christianity and Paganism. Witchcraft is very much still alive in Cornwall and though it’s not my thing, I know some very wonderful witchy women. Wicca, the occult, spell-casting and all that goes with it feels to me way too much like worship of one’s own will. I find that the worshiping of one’s own will (as opposed to trusting in something higher) is counterproductive at best, as a worldview. At its worst I have seen it become very self-serving and destructive. I put praying to God for “wishes to be granted” in that same category.
Asking a higher power for strength, grace or guidance, and practicing gratitude for all we receive (whether we wanted it or not) makes much more sense to me. We have to trust in God’s plan (aka The universe’s power to balance) in order to commune with it/him/her and in order to commune with each other. I find this helpful when answering the question “how can God let this awful thing happen?!” When we view God as the ultimate balancing power, and believe that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, then actually, the injustice of some of God’s “actions” suddenly makes sense. This balancing force could also be interpreted as quantum physics or as karma - depending on whether your belief system is science, Buddhism or a mixture of many. Or just “The Force” if you’re a Jedi 
I also dislike some of the rules and martyrdom in Christian teaching. Parts of the Bible read like a manual for a codependent relationship with an abusive spouse. There is humbling yourself, and then there is martyring yourself (or even punishing yourself) and I don’t think that the latter is healthy.
As an aside, Buddhist teaching is useful in finding balance between attachment to outcomes and giving of ourselves to others.
We also have some Judaism in my family a few generations back. I don’t know enough about Judaism, but like Islam, (which I know a bit more about), I respect it as another framework for spirituality. Also while we’re here - did you know that Muslims also believe in Jesus? They don’t believe in the resurrection, but they believe that he ascended to heaven after being raised there by God/Allah. To each their own and peace be with each.
As a mixed race woman, I identify as black AND as white, but not if one excludes the other. I feel the same about my Christianity and my Paganism. I will not be one if it means I can’t be the other, because I am both. I can’t deny my Paganism any more than I can deny my whiteness, and I can’t deny my Christianity any more than I can deny my blackness. And neither would I want to. So I claim all of it as part of who I am. Along with being Cornish and Texan, too.
Happy Easter, Happy Spring Equinox, Happy Passover, Happy sunshine...
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