Malory Nye Religion The Basics

[Kenneth]

One of the main problems I had, in writing theArthurian novel, was the fear that Christians would feel I was attacking thebasics of Christianity, rather than the enormous bigotry and anti-feminism thathave become grafted on to Christianity. I don't think they have any part inChristianity itself, or in the teachings of Christ.

I have read widely on this subject, and while Iam skeptical about the conclusions of some of the fanatically feminist orpro-matriarchal scholars as Bachofen, or Helen Diner, I found Merlin Stone's WhenGod Was a Woman very believable in its account of the historical conflictbetween Hebrews with their patriarchal culture, and their neighbors withGoddesses, holy prostitution, and validation of female sexuality. The ancientHebrews, for a variety of political and other reasons, seem to have had a holyhorror (no pun intended) of female sexuality, and that somehow got transferred,along with a lot of other cultural rubbish, into Christianity. (The politicalsituation between the super-patriarchal Romans and the Celts, who had a muchmore easy-going attitude toward women, didn't help either.) The Romans never gotover their dismay and disbelief at finding Celtic tribes ruled by women; theyinsisted on calling the war-leaders of the tribes the "Kings" andnever were comfortable with their client queens. This, I think, sheds a lot oflight on one of Arthur's titles, dux bellorum.

Well, all this is obvious to you, perhaps. Butwhen Christianity came to the Empire, with the third-century Christian Fathersand their completely neurotic insistence on the evil of woman (Jerome andAugustine went far further than the most repressive of the Old Testament writersabout women's wickedness), all the elements were present for fertile culturalconflict. This was what I saw in the Arthurian saga, with the emphasis on thosemysterious figures, the Lady of the Lake and Morgan le Fay. Malory, a trueproduct of his day, saw the whole story as a parable of conflict betweenChristianity/feudal tradition, with God, King, Nobles, and Clergy dividing upthe world, and women nowhere -- and the emerging light of Renaissance thought,which began to make it clear that this was over-simplified. For me, the whole ofMalory's dilemma lies in the awareness that the best knight -- Lancelot -- wasnot the best Christian; he was, in fact, a miserable sinner -- while the piousand blameless Arthur was getting bashed all over the place by his"inferiors." Malory's dilemma: was God slipping up somewhere? Wasthere chaos lying behind the orderliness of the medieval-feudal structure?

When I read Malory I noticed specially thatMorgan le Fay, and the Lady of the Lake (with her many "damsels") werefrequently portrayed as Arthur's friends and allies -- but equally often as hisantagonists. Yet their "evil" was never motivated, except,occasionally, to test the faith of the knights, either in God, or in "truelove" -- like the Song of Solomon, a parable in devout Christian eyes forthe love of God. ("For God and my Lady...")

Yet, I wondered: if Malory disapproved so much ofthese women, why did he not simply expunge them from the mythos, as he did withso many other elements of the ancient Celtic folk-tales that he grafted on tothe doings of his 5th-century historical hero chieftain. My theory is that he couldnot, because in the originals, now lost, Morgan and the Lady of the Lakewere absolutely integral to the whole story and it was unthinkable to tell talesof Arthur without also telling tales of the women involved. This whole thingtook place in a Celtic milieu, after all, where the women were integral to thewhole thing. Malory minimized the women; he made them into villains, nitwits,and evil sorceresses (remember Morgan attacking King Uriens with murderousintent, but when she was held back by her stepson Uwaine, she had no excuseexcept "The devil made me do it"). But Malory could not get rid ofthem entirely.

And the key to that, of course, is simply -- orso I felt -- that they were at the heart of the whole cultural and religiousshift at that time, from Goddess-oriented, female-validating religion toGod-oriented, Middle Eastern/Oriental woman-fearing religion.

For me the key to "female personalitydevelopment" in my revisionist, or better, reconstructionist version, issimply this. Modern women have been reared on myths/legends/hero tales in whichthe men do the important things and the women stand by and watch and admire butkeep their hands off. Restoring Morgan and the Lady of the Lake to real,integral movers in the drama is, I think, of supreme importance in the religiousand psychological development of women in our day.

I feel strongly that it has been a genuinereligious experience. About the time I began work on the Morgan le Fay storythat later became MISTS, a religious search of many years culminated in myaccepting ordination in one of the Gnostic Catholic churches as a priest. Sincethe appearance of the novel, many women have consulted me about this, feelingthat the awareness of the Goddess has expanded their own religiousconsciousness, and ask me if it can be reconciled with Christianity.

I do feel very strongly, not only that it can,but that it must. As Morgan discovers the Goddess, exiled from Christianchurches, silently reappearing in Saints and the veneration of Mary, so I thinkthe worship of the female aspect of the deity was kept alive under that name allthese centuries, and is now surfacing again.

I think it's overwhelmingly important to rememberthat it is not an attempt to supplant "God," presumably the "realGod" fundamentalists talk about, with "a lot of pagan Goddesses andidols." What we are seeking is the female aspect of Divinity itself;Goddess as an extra dimension of God, rather than "replacing God withGoddess." The Divine is. It's very important to remember one of thetragically few public utterances of the shortest-lived of the Popes, John PaulI; he said (I paraphrase, but I think I am close to quoting exactly):

"It is important to remember that God is ourFather; but it is equally or more important to remember that God is our lovingMother." Even when we think of God as The Goddess, it is no different thanthe difference between seeing God as "Fount of Eternal Love" or"Giver of Justice" or "Provider of Daily Bread" or"King of Kings." We are not, by those names, worshipping fourdifferent Gods, but four names for the ultimate Divine. (I don't think theso-called worshippers of "Pagan Gods and Goddesses" were, either; theywere seeing the outpourings of the Divine in different lights, which they calledZeus and Apollo and Artemis and Isis and so forth.)

So when women today insist on speaking of Goddessrather than God, they are simply rejecting the old man with the white beard, whocommanded the Hebrews to commit genocide on the Philistines and required hisworshippers daily to thank God that He had not made them women, in favor of theaspect of the Divine which said, "Love one another as I have lovedyou" or "The Earth is Mine and the fullness thereof," andfocusing on that way of seeing and revering God/dess.

Well, I had no intention of preaching a sermon(though some day I hope to publish the text of my ordination sermon, which hadto do with Mary and Martha ... the chronicler of that famous episode in Bethanydid not, after all, say that Jesus refused to eat Martha's good dinner).

One of the best things that ever happened to mewas when my dear friend Madeleine L'Engle, who is not only a great writer offantasy but a notable Christian laywoman, reassured me that she understood thatI had not been attacking Christianity -- only the bigots and fanatics whopresumed to call themselves spokesmen for it. Another reader told me that partof the value of the book, if not the main virtue, was in reminding us that themoral majority types who have spoilt Christianity for decent people in the lastdecade are not a new thing, but have plagued all religions in all times ...history is full of Jerry Falwells, maybe to test true religion, which "isnot puffed up..." and knows it is nothing if it "has notcharity."

And, I suppose, a little, the purpose of the bookwas to express my dismay at the way in which religion lets itself become theslave of politics and the state. (Malory's problem ... that God may not be onthe side of the right, but that organized religion always professes itself to beon the side of the bigger guns.)

I would also like to say that I do feel, verystrongly, that Glastonbury is a sacred place. On the grounds of the Abbeythere's a stone commemorating that this has been a place or worship "sincethere were Christians in England" or something of that sort. I believe thesacredness of the site is far older than that; I can feel it. As DionFortune said in one of her books, places where mankind has been in the habit ofreaching out toward the Divine make a kind of track, making it easy to go inthat direction.

I think the neo-pagan movement offers a veryviable alternative for people, especially for women, who have been turned off bythe abuses of Judeo-Christian organized religions. I speak, of course, ofpatriarchal attitudes, hatred of women, the pervasive and insidious attitudethat mankind was made to dominate nature rather than the other way round, whichis leading us, via hubris, to destroy our very planetary environment in amass of pollution and misused technology. People who have become so sickened bythe pride, arrogance, anti-woman attitudes, hypocrisy and cruelty of what passesfor Christianity that they leap toward atheism or agnosticism, may well reachout for the gentler reign of Goddess-oriented paganism to lead them back to atrue perception of the spiritual life of the Earth. Time enough later to make itclear -- or let the Mother make it clear to them -- that Spirit is One and thatthey are, in worshipping the Goddess, worshipping the Divine by whatever name.And I can't think of a better place than Glastonbury for that realization.

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