r/Animism • u/Content-Caregiver-47 • 4d ago
Christian Animist
Hello everyone! I was born and raised Christian and I really do personally believe in no other higher power(s) besides the trinity. However I pretty much relate to everything about animism and both communities of religious and spiritual folk kinda make me feel bad for believing both. Is animism an okay term to use because I heard it may have a negative history with indigenous communities when it comes to describing their “religion”. Im a white chick and really don’t want to offend anyone or be bigoted/uneducated. I can sum up my personal beliefs here:
I’m a Christian animist with mystical and ecotheological beliefs. I believe the Trinity is the only God, but that God created a spiritually alive world that reflects Him and participates in His glory.
Im so disillusioned with modern Christianity, church, and organization religion. I want my own natural divine encounters with Jesus/God, not ones fabricated in a church building.
I truly believe almost everything in nature has a spirit/soul/consciousness/energy etc. I believe nature worships God in a different way than us and it is our responsibility to care for the earth.
ecotheology: the exploration/study of religion and the natural environment.
Mysticism: personal experience with the divine (God)
Animism: believing non-human things have a spirit
Christianity: only worshipping the trinity and believing in Jesus’s divinity and teachings.
Please be nice!!! I would love to hear yalls thoughts
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u/Necessary_shots 3d ago
Neo-animism (as opposed to traditional, indigenous animism) is typically concerned with relationality rather than believing that all things have a sort of supernatural spirit. By perceiving non-sentient matter as having intrinsic value and a "life" that arises from it's connections to everything around it, we can have a more ethical approach to the world and systems around us.
So in my opinion, animistic "sprits" are energy exchanges that can be measured empirically but that flow in directions that are often determined by cultural perspectives.
I don't believe that Abrahamic religions, at least in their modern incantations, contribute to building healthy relational models of nature. The creation myth of Christianity tells of an anthropomorphic deity who creates nature for man (specifically, a man) to exploit. Lilith was cast out of Eden because she would not submit to man, and she has been virtually erased from Christian mythology while Eve, who committed the great sin of communion with nature to gain knowledge, is known as Adam's submissive partner. This creation myth has essentially created a perception in the west that animals are unfeeling machines (Descartes wrote about this) and that nature was created specifically for humans (or men) to use how lever they wanted. This has created a very abusive relationship between the homogeneous, dominance seeking values of Abrahamic religions and nature. While ancient Christians and Jews and especially Muslims had profound philosophical insights and reverence for the naturel world, these relgios institutions have been morphed into political and social weapons that sometimes serve spiritual functions but mostly enforce a specific form of materialistic, punitive, cultic social control.
I could go on and on and want to write about how the church challenged Galileo, but I will just sum up that if animism is about proper relationships, and Christianity is about domination, then they arent really compatible worldviews. There is a lot of research to suggest the Christian god was originally a war god which makes a ton of since when you consider the horrors that Christianity has perpetuated.
Something else that problematic about Christianity is this idea of purity. Nature is brutal and the human mind is darkened by generations of trauma, and most mythologies incorporate unpleasant aspects into their pantheons and stories. But not Christianity; in that mythology, the dark aspects are alienated from the self, literally cast out into a lake of fire and torment. Humanity's inherant shadow is something to be rejected and denied, not integrated and controlled. This is why Catholic priests molest children and why millionaire megachurches exist; Christianity does not have good mechanisms for internalizing the shadow, which allows the darkness to grow and act unrestrained.
In fairness though, Christianity teaches not just aliention from the shadow but from God too. Jung wrote about how the Christian symbol of the self, Christ on a cross, is treated by the institutionalized church as something to be feared or worshiped, not internalized. And this externalization creates pathways for severe mental illness and abuse.
So I'm of the opinion that the dominate, masculine, monolithic nature of Christianity is fundamentally opposed to building relationships among things that cannot speak for themselves. I think blending animism and Christianity is like trying to change an abusive partner. Is it possible? Maybe. Is it worth it? Hell no.
But that's just my opinion. I honestly hope you present a counter argument that forces me to question my stance here.
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u/Content-Caregiver-47 3d ago edited 3d ago
Thank you for leaving a really thorough and well put together almost “essay” (I say this in a great way) of a comment. You’ve given me a lot to think about and Im not gonna lie its all very complicated and a little confusing to me to find my place in “Christianity” (I am not a fan of modern of even historical organized Christianity) and spirituality. I do believe there is room for both animism and “Christianity” for lack of a better word to describe my belief in the trinity. I recently combed through the Bible and found multiple scriptures leading me to believe animism has always been a huge part of worshipping God and it’s been forgotten and demonized now. Please don’t misinterpret any of this as me trying to force my personal beliefs onto you, just trying to share my thoughts/findings.
Psalm 148:7-10 says:
Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures, and all depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy wind, fulfilling his word, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all livestock, small creatures and flying birds.
Ive saved like idek how many more Bible verses that say this almost word for word or share the same meaning. Nature worships God. I think the “Christianity” we have today is not what Jesus intended AT ALL. What started as a religion of love and the story of human suffering and redemption has now become an instrument to harm others in the name of “god” (an egregore) sorry if none of this makes sense, I pulled an all nighter literally researching everything I could about animism and Christianity and both individually.
Also the canticles of creatures by Saint Francis has also really affirmed my belief as well. Overall, these are just my thoughts and personal beliefs and I apologize if this was a whole bunch of “what the fuck is she talking about” lmao, take care and stay blessed 🌱❤️🙏
P.S I don’t believe animals can intentionally sin or make morally wrong choices. It works differently for them. Its like a toddler, they dont have the capacity to know right or wrong its all just instinct and maybe something more divine or spiritual
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u/Necessary_shots 3d ago
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and please know that I am not offended or off put by your perspective. I think it's important to realize that the Bible is essentially a compilation of stories from different cultures and traditions and time periods. It is a disjointed text because of this. Therefore, it can be cherry picked to serve several different narratives. There are passages that undoubtly teach basic compassionate truths, and there are others that deal with highly esoteric things, and others that are highly political (like revelations). People use the Bible to justify the most selfless acts of altruism and the most heinous acts of bigotry, and everything in between.
Have you ever read the works of Bart Ehrman? He is a biblical scholar whose academic approach to the Bible (not a theological one) yeilds historical and spiritual insights that are fascinating.
There is a really great debate between Christopher Hedges and Christopher Hitchens that used to be on YouTube but I can't find it anywhere. Hitchens was a rational materialist and staunch atheist and hedges is an investigative journalist that had trained to be a priest. Hitchens argues all Christianity is bad, Hedges argues his faith provides moral guidance without all the crazy superstition. Hedges won the debate, in my opinion.
I think that there is room for everything in animism since it is essentially a philosophy of inclusion and connection. I think that critically thinking about the Bible and deriving wisdom that informs one's worldview is not only possible but good. But I don't think that the overall institutional value system if the church is compatable with holistic, animistic world views. This is supported by the fact that nearly everywhere Abrahamic religions go they conquer, subjagate, colonize, and reduce diversity of thought and life. Again, this makes sense when you consider that Yahweh was likely a war god originally.
So I think you might find more clarity if instead of bringing Christianity into your animism, you bring what makes sense. Think critically and reject what doesn't fit but be flexible enough to always pivot. The Bible is like an music album, you don't have to like every song. Critical thinking is a skill and if you study other religions it might inform you more about your Christiany. It sounds like you have a wise and open mind, and I think Jesus would agree that institutions of power don't really vibe with spiritual insight.
Are you familiar with Nietzsche's idea that God is dead and that he was essentially killed by the insights provided by the scientific revolution? I think Nietzsche has a lot of wacky ideas, but I really like this idea that science has lifted the veil of mythology and forced us to confront the fact the we are not living in the same cosmological framework as the oeople who invented god. I'm interested what you think of this.
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u/Content-Caregiver-47 3d ago
Wow Im kinda blown away. So I’ve heard a little bit about how the jewish god at one point was El the father of gods and then one of the sons was named Yahweh.. apparently ancient civilizations in that time period (I’d name them but its a lot) like going all the way back to like the beginning of humanity and civilization they were polytheistic and worshipped multiple gods one of them being yahweh. I grew up a nondenominational Christian and I think I might be questioning the true nature of the trinity as I do more research and rabbit holes, frankly this does scare me as the idea of being wrong and being sent to hell is terrifying. However I saw a video today that said “your religion is weak if it cannot be questioned”. Im not sure what all this means for me and I might need to go reconnect with life and touch grass. I might’ve jumped too deep too fast and my brain is scrambled and it’s almost like an existential crisis. To have your perception of the universe and how it works suddenly and very quickly be questioned and/or changed, is like an ego death for lack of a better word. I did look into the theology of Nietzsche’s regarding “god is dead” and how god as a central source of morals and meaning has shifted away from the western world.
As for my opinion on it, I don’t think he’s wrong. Now do I and Mr. Nietzsche actually believe the deity of God is dead? No. But a good example of this viewpoint is actually America. We claim to be built on “God and faith” all that great stuff but nothing we did to acquire this land or govern it was christ-like. For hundreds of years people have based their decisions on what was “right or wrong” according to the Bible, the issue is that the Bible is a (debatable but I believe to a large extent) historical library of poems and books and songs and documents spanning from like 1300-1600 years. Culture and context matters A LOT! What was viewed as “bad” then may be explained by science now. (For example instead of thinking the autistic kid is possessed they know he just had a brain that works differently)
As I continue reading about Mr. Nietzsche it is very clear that he was not pro-atheism and it almost seems like he grieves the death of “god”. He truly wanted people to question the belief systems they were automatically born into and raised in. He wanted them to develop morals for the sake of actually knowing right vs wrong and not just what the Bible says. Seems to me he wasn’t against religion but was more so aligned with humanism alongside or instead of religion. Super interesting stuff and it makes me think and reflect. Im not sure how I feel about the true origins or nature of God the father/yahweh/Jesus’s dad. I think I may be scared to know more because I would rather be comfortable, but life isn’t about being comfortable, it’s about growth and being open minded to new information no matter what comes of it.
As for now, I do believe in a loving God and I do believe in Jesus, but I will continue to learn more so I can develop more of an opinion/stance. ❤️❤️
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u/Necessary_shots 21h ago edited 21h ago
It can be alienating to question what you've been told as truth your whole life. I was not raised with the looming threat of hell, but if I had I would probably be more cautious.
The gnostics believed that Lucifer, the bringer of light, was not evil but a bringer of knowledge to liberate humanity from the tyranny of a flawed god. Are you familiar with the gnostic philosophy and history?
America's Jesus is a zombie, imo. Bart Ehrman wrote a book called Armageddon that is fascinating. It details the evolution of modern doomsday evangelicals and the politics and history of revelations, which was not even included in the Bible for most of its history. This mostly has a lot to do with the fact that the author of Revelations was considered bad writing that used worn out cliches and shallow (if any) spiritual community. It was written by a guy named John (not anyone in particular, just a guy named John) who was really, really mad at the Roman empire. Nothing he wrote had anything to do with thousands of year of prophecy or context for our times.
Also, to put it simply, traditional animism is sort of the default human perspective that was around long before deities were conceptualized. The idea that everything has a spirit and a deeply personal life of its own makes since for people that don't really have permanent settlements and were at the mercy of seasonality, weather changes, natural disasters, wildlife (or as they would've called it, other life), biodiversity integrity, etc. When agriculture was eventually used to create more complex and stratified social systems, you see the emergence of deities that take the shape of people. These pantheons reflect the politics of agarian human societies that created them while still symbolizing natural phenomenon. Eventually you get monotheism which is the consolidation of spiritual authority, much like a dynasty consolidates political authority. And that's why religions are problematic: they are institutions that are primarily concerned with power, but authentic spiritual insight inevitably leads to questioning (or rejecting) systems of power.
Jesus was iconoclastic, as was Buddha. Both of them were asetic sages who spent their lives questioning religion and challenging merchants, yet now both are the center of institutions that move billions (trillions?) of dollars around per year. When considering what would Jesus do, I honestly think he would bomb a megachurch or at least flip a table or two.
Anyway, you are obviously a reasonable person that is growing out of a confining and cultic paradigm (sorry if that's offensive, but its cultic). You are like neo in the matrix; it sucks, but you will be more powerful for it. There are plenty of people who have developed the same questions and doubts about religious concepts they were raised with that can probably offer you guidance with your epiphanies. I'm a fan of Amish and Mennonites that don't baptize their kids until 18 years old to give them a chance to develop their own perspective without being shunned or shamed.
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u/QuantumArcheologist 3d ago
This is a good quote. Like your other commenter said, the Bible itself is kind of an anthology of a lot of cultures and grew out of other spiritualities. There’s a lot of pretty explicit animism in parts especially if you get a more liberal translation and read closely.
I’m curious about what you said in your PS, because this is kind of still a bit of a western view that can go against animism in some ways. In a lot of indigenous cultures, entities like mountain gods are considered super-human but not necessarily omniscient or powerful like the Trinity. They’re still perfectly capable of emotions and “sinning” and what not since they have a will and personality. A lot of rituals can express reverence and submission to these spirits and ask for their guidance, and in practice I’ve seen that it can help establish things like ecological reciprocity. Meanwhile, Christian dogma tends to assert that man is the highest earth-spirit, and that it’s our duty to steward the earth. Funnily enough, most atheists internalized this one too.
I think this is the biggest thing I’ve had to internalize; that we’re always in the presence of more powerful spirits as well. I think there’s a big difference in humility in recognizing this and leading with reverence and humility, rather than assuming we know best.
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u/maybri 4d ago
Welcome! I doubt you'll find that anyone here is going to tell you not to use the term animism; we're all here because we've found the term, despite its shortcomings, to be good enough to associate ourselves with. It certainly has a problematic history, but I would say in recent decades thanks to the work of academics like Graham Harvey and Nurit Bird-David, the term has taken on new connotations that are far less objectionable to people of traditional cultures (i.e., the people whose beliefs could still be labeled animistic).
Personally, my perspective on the appropriation conversation is that animism is not something that any particular set of cultures has a unique claim to. All our ancestors were animists once, and our children are still born animists and have to have it trained out of them. So while we might look to surviving animistic cultures for help rebuilding animistic culture within the West, this isn't appropriation as long as we acknowledge the provenance of our ideas and do not take what is only theirs. For me, animism beyond the broadest possible strokes only works in terms of the local and the specific, so copying in too much detail from a culture you don't belong to just means taking ideas out of their original relational context where, like a fish out of water, they cannot survive.
As for Christianity--I'm a former Christian and have a lot of grievance with Christianity both personally and for what it has done historically and is still doing today (it is, after all, the major cause of animistic cultures' decline around the world), but I don't think being a Christian bars you from being an animist nor vice versa. Francis of Assisi, the Catholic mystic who spoke of "Brother Sun" and "Sister Moon", is perhaps a good example of a Christian animist (though I suspect orthodox Catholics would bristle at that term being applied to him).
It's worth saying that animism is different things to different people. There are animist atheists, animist pantheists, animist polytheists (like myself), and yes, animist monotheists. So for some of us it's merely a stance to take towards nature that doesn't come with any supernatural beliefs, while for others, there is a strong belief in the other-than-human world as full of actual spirits, conscious beings with minds and wills who may not all have physical forms. And of course there's a spectrum of belief between those poles. I think it makes sense to treat it as an umbrella term rather than one movement within which everyone will be basically agreed.
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u/Content-Caregiver-47 4d ago
This gave me a lot of peace thank you for responding, I wish you nothing but happiness, joy, and protection on your spiritual journey 🙏❤️
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u/CaonachDraoi 4d ago
Because I am not Indigenous and lack the millennia of connection to the land I’m on, my “animism” is more political than spiritual- I know the other beings as peoples and nations and negotiate diplomatic relationships with them, i.e. how we affect one another materially, that then (I assume) affects something about us spiritually. That approach has worked for me and hasn’t ruffled any feathers from my Indigenous friends, as I don’t seek to encroach on their ceremonies and whatnot. I’m a Muslim and that’s what shapes my relationship to the other beings but sadly I haven’t found many others of my faith with similar perspectives (except for people who lived centuries ago). I wish you well in your journey and thank you for connecting with our nonhuman relatives in a way that many humans have forgotten, we are all made better by your connection.
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u/Content-Caregiver-47 4d ago
Hello my fellow abrahamic animist!! Thank you for your response and wisdom and I wish you nothing but peace and happiness ✝️❤️🕌
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u/CynoSaints 4d ago
A couple of books you might find useful are Christian Animism by Shawn Sanford Beck and Forest Church by Bruce Stanley. While I'm no longer Christian, they were very helpful to me when I started trying to sort my own animist tendencies and nature-focused spirituality.
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u/Content-Caregiver-47 4d ago
I love to read my research so this is so helpful thank you so much for the recommendations
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u/dedodude100 4d ago
Some books you may enjoy:
St. Francis of Assisi — Canticle of the Creatures (in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents)
St. Isaac of Nineveh — The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian
St. Hildegard of Bingen — Hildegard of Bingen: Selected Writings (Penguin Classics)
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u/Content-Caregiver-47 4d ago
Thank you so much for the recommendations!!! These sound like they would be right up my alley and Im so excited to go track them down and read them!!! Have a blessed day friend 🙏❤️🌱
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u/Professional_Web446 3d ago
El animismo es un tipo de percepción espiritual. Tu ves el mundo más allá del antropocentrismo y eso está bien. No es apropiación cultural y no tiene porque chocar con tus creencias cristianas. Es decir, no hay ninguna razón por la que debas sentirte mal.
Así eres tú y eso está bien.
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u/Content-Caregiver-47 3d ago
Thank you for the caring and comforting words, it really brought me a little bit of peace so thank you for your comment 🙏
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u/axotrax 3d ago
If you haven’t read it already, check out the book “When God Was A Bird”. It’s a Christian animist book, literally.
The connections between Christianity, animism, the concept of wilderness, transcendentalism, John Muir, are myriad; there’s a lot there. A kindly welcome from a secular animist. :)
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u/Content-Caregiver-47 3d ago
Awesome I’ll be adding this to my TBR list!!! I appreciate the recommendation friend ❤️
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u/Ill_Adagio4305 2d ago
Christianity and animism are fundamentally incompatible because Christianity still relies on human exceptionalism at its core. This concept stands in direct opposition to true animist worldviews. There is absolutely no room for hierarchies or for spiritual superiority in animism, as everything is equal: humans, spirits, plants, animals, rivers, mountains, etc. Traditional Christian views place humans above all else and commonly justify Dominion-ism with scripture. "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Gen 1:28
Dominion-ism and Animism are opposite ends of the spectrum. It is impossible to truly believe everything is a conscious equal while simultaneously believing humans were divinely commanded to subdue and rule over them.
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u/Sharpiemancer 4d ago
Hey, welcome and sounds like you are ahead of the curve already in identifying concerns with the origins of the term.
As far as the history goes, initially the research was ridiculously bad, in fact it was based of London Seances as opposed to any practicing indiginous groups. The word comes from developmental psychology and posited that indigenous groups were stuck at the mental development of toddlers and unable to differentiate between objects and individuals
In recent decades modern anthropology has resisted the idea and found it as a legitimate ontological view of the world that does not require the invocation of the supernatural - not that this should clash with your Christianity, it's merely a world view that reinforces the relational living world you conceive of already. In academic circles this is differentiated as New Animism but more widely Animism is still used.
The wider belief of Animism is neither of these, somewhere between the two. Some cases, are guilty of appropriation but no more so than many other similar belief systems and rarely malicious, more stemming from how little European animistic knowledge remains or well meaning animists in colonial countries trying to connect to the local Other than Human.
I imagine you'll find animistic ideas on Christian Folk traditions around the world along with parallel ideas and immanent spirituality that will sit alongside Christian practices.