Lara Hoke authors a Blog which has a link to a Unitarian Universalist Pagan website. This pagan website explains that, "Some Pagans believe in the Goddesses and Gods of the old religions and others do not. Many Pagans understand deity as immanent, in everything, and believe revelation is found in nature instead of written in scriptures. Some believe in an afterlife and that their actions in this life will determine their place in the next. Others believe only in this life and that their actions here are all that matters. Still others believe in reincarnation. Some Pagans believe in an active Spirit World while others do not. BECAUSE PAGANISM IS A NON-CREEDAL RELIGION SUCH DIVERGENT BELIEFS CAN EXIST TOGETHER UNDER ONE RELIGIOUS NAME - JUST LIKE IN UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISM! MANY MODERN PAGANS FIND THEIR BELIEFS ARE VERY MUCH IN HARMONY WITH UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST PRINCIPLE..." I'll bet. See here for full text.
Pope Benedict XVI has warned that, "There is.."a consciously antirationalist response" to the experience that 'everything is relative,' a complex reality that is lumped together under the title of New Age. The way out of the dilemma of relativism is now sought, not in a new encounter of the 'I' with the 'Thou' or the 'We,' but in overcoming subjective consciousness, in a re-entry into the dance of the cosmos through ecstasy. As in the case of Gnosis in the ancient world, this way believes itself to be fully in tune with all the teachings and the claims of science, making use of scientific knowledge of every kind (biology, psychology, sociology, physics). At the same time, however, it offers against this background a a completely antirationalist pattern of religion, a modern 'mysticism': the absolute is, not something to be believed in, but something to be experienced. God is not a person distinct from the world; rather, he is the spiritual energy that is at work throughout the universe. Religion means bringing my self into tune with the cosmic whole, the transcending of all divisions...Objectifying reason, New Age thinking tells us, closes our way to the mystery of reality; existing as the self shuts us out from the fullness of cosmic reality; it destroys the harmony of the whole and is the real reason for our being unredeemed. Redemption lies in breaking down the limits of the self, in plunging into the fullness of life and all that is living, in going back home to the universe....THE GODS ARE RETURNING. THEY HAVE BECOME MORE CREDIBLE THAN GOD. ABORIGINAL RITES MUST BE RENEWED IN WHICH THE SELF IS INITIATED INTO THE MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE AND FREED FROM ITS OWN SELF. THERE ARE MANY REASONS FOR THE RENEWAL OF PRE-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS AND CULTS THAT IS BEING WIDELY UNDERTAKEN TODAY. IF THERE IS NO TRUTH SHARED BY EVERYONE, A TRUTH THAT IS VALID SIMPLY BECAUSE IT IS TRUE, THEN CHRISTIANITY IS MERELY A FOREIGN IMPORT, A FORM OF SPIRITUAL IMPERIALISM, WHICH NEEDS TO BE SHAKEN OFF JUST AS MUCH AS POLITICAL IMPERIALISM. IF WHAT TAKES PLACE IN THE SACRAMENTS IS NOT THE ENCOUNTER WITH THE ONE LIVING GOD OF ALL MEN, THEN THEY ARE EMPTY RITUALS THAT MEAN NOTHING AND GIVE US NOTHING AND, AT BEST, ALLOW US TO SENSE THE NUMINOUS ELEMENT THAT IS ACTIVELY PRESENT IN ALL RELIGIONS. IT THEN SEEMS TO MAKE BETTER SENSE TO SEEK AFTER WHAT WAS ORIGINALLY OUR OWN THAN TO PERMIT ALIEN AND ANTIQUATED THINGS TO BE IMPOSED ON US. BUT ABOVE ALL, IF THE 'RATIONAL INTOXICATION' OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY CANNOT MAKE US INTOXICATED WITH GOD, THEN WE JUST HAVE TO CONJURE UP THE REAL, CONCRETE INTOXICATION OF EFFECTIVE ECSTASIES, THE PASSIONATE POWER OF WHICH CATCHES US UP AND TURNS US, AT LEAST FOR A MOMENT, INTO GODS..." (Truth and Tolerance, pp. 126-128).
What is a Catholic Deacon from Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol doing at an "Interfaith Service" held by Unitarian Universalists who identify with paganism? This is not ecumenism. It is syncretism: the misguided notion that religious unity can be achieved by ignoring the differences between faiths on the assumption that all creeds are essentially one and the same.
