Hermetic Library fellow Sam Webster has a new post about the “problem of authority” in the Pagan community at “Enough of Because: The Nature of Pagan Authority“:

“In my last post endeavoring to explain the project of this blog, I made the statement, “And, no, you can’t worship Jesus Christ and be a Pagan.” It provoked heated response. The content, regarding the nature of the relationship between Christianity and Pagans, will be the topic of my next post. What is more interesting and immediate is the underlying assumptions about the nature of authority projected upon me, my writing, and to generalize, within Paganism as a whole.

Let’s start with the concrete: I’m the author. As such I have complete “authority.” I wrote the words. But do they amount to anything? Well, they must, they were published in a blog! Is that enough?

Admittedly, it was a provocative assertion. It was stated as an injunction—”you can’t be”—and this rankles some in our rather oppositional community. For me, this was just a rhetorical flourish, and when I go into the content I will represent this idea with greater precision and exposition. But it clearly annoyed some. I am speaking to get your attention, and I see that you have given it to me, but truthfully, I have no desire to irritate, just to focus you. I sincerely offer my apologies.

That said, we need to deal with a bigger problem than my diction: the problem of authority.” [via]