What if saints don't belong just to Christians?

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The vast majority of recorded Western culture of the last thousand years has been filtered through a Christian lens. The effect of this influence is incalculably huge, and not necessarily always a problem. However, when we consider the fact that everything written in the context of Christianity was written with a cautious eye towards avoiding accusations of heresy – which could result in excision from family and community and even death – the record appears partial indeed.

The fact that our vernacular heroes, especially when they are women, are often only accessible as role models, ancestral mentors and spiritual guides through the distorting lens of religious orthodoxy means the majority of these figures can feel alien to anyone who finds themselves at odds with mainstream Christianity’s manifestations.

Julian of Norwich. Joan of Arc. The Virgin Mary. Mary Magdalene. St. Patrick. St. Christopher. St. John the Baptist. St. George.

But what if institutional Christianity doesn’t own saints? What if sacred history belongs to all of us equally to interpret as our hearts guide us to?

A few months ago I read a passage from the intro to the 2024 book Saints by British author Amy Jeffs that struck me like an arrow. Here’s what she said:

“When we speak of folklore, fairy-tale and myth, we should be speaking of saints' legends. They are not the property of a single creed. They are ours, whatever our beliefs.”

When taken in the fullness of its meaning, this passage has some radical implications, especially, from my perspective, for spiritual practice. Why should we not give ourselves permission to connect personally with figures from the Christian tradition, when that tradition was the primary record-keeper of the past thousand years and more? I mean, how many sacred figures are westerners likely to find outside the Christian tradition in the last thousand years? Not many.

One good reason some of us haven’t given ourselves permission is the harms that institution has enacted, and continues to enact.

But as a pagan, I find it helpful to remember that it was Christian leaders who defined paganism and other indigenous worldviews as mutually exclusive with its own beliefs, creeds, and practices. With the exception of imperial Rome (from whom the church learned many of its oppressive ways), and a few fringe internet bros, pagans had, and have, no such creeds.

Indeed, almost by definition, modern paganism could include any spiritual or religious practice within its capacious embrace without fear of heresy, because paganism, or animism, or secularism for that matter, does what it wants. It’s organized religions that restrict imaginative, expressive, and inclusive possibilities. I wish they didn’t, so we could all wander in and out of the world’s beautiful churches, chapels, and cathedrals with confidence in our safety and with the expectation of respect for our innate dignity. But this isn’t so. And that sucks.

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner

But what if outside of those buildings we set the terms of engagement ourselves? Thanks to Christianity’s love of The Word, there is no shortage of materials on the Christian saints we can access.

If we sincerely do wish to engage with them, all we lack is self-permission, a safer space, and perhaps some structured guidance.

We can be fascinated by the historical record, we can respect it for all of the love and devotion it carries to us from past generations, and we don’t have to let its limitations stop us from connecting mystically and creatively with the rich, rich loam that is the massive, expansive, glorious, ecstatic, bursting-with-life historic dreamtime of our species. If we want to, non-Christians can indeed engage with saints. In fact, it’s a little surprising that we don’t do it more often, and more visibly.

As someone who was raised Catholic and a feminist, and who wrote my master’s thesis on Catholic antisemitism in medieval England, I genuinely struggle to engage with Christian material. I’ve created a whole course tracing the roots of cultural imperialism in the Christian Middle Ages as an attempt to exorcise my discomfort. It didn’t work. I’m more aware than most people, perhaps, of the subtle poison threaded through the liturgy in the form of misogyny, imperialism, racism, body-negativity, and rigid monotheism. It’s always “Lord” this and “kingdom” that and “mortifying the flesh” and so on.

I was talking to one of besties not long ago, and expressing my frustration with the continued lack of change in the Catholic church, and my sadness that so much spiritual richness is hidden behind the paywall of toxic masculinity masquerading as “tradition,” when she cut through my whining and said,

“What they think doesn’t matter. These things belong to everybody. You need to take them by force. What’s stopping you? You need to just start doing things. Be a heretic. The gatekeepers don’t matter. They’re busy drowning in their own irrelevance. Just do it.”

It was inspiring to hear. (Thanks, Laura.)

I am leading a brand-new offering from March 17th to early June (revised dates) that feels somewhat edgy but really exciting. It’s called Wonder Club and it’s a course about saints for the non-Christian and the Christian-ambivalent.

This course is for anyone who feels inspired to approach the saints from a new yet reverent perspective, and especially those who have feel alienated or excluded by conventional and institutional Christianity. This course will be led from a feminist, anti-imperialist, polytheistic/pantheistic and animistic perspective. It will almost certainly be heretical. If that is a realm you are interested to dwell in, you’re welcome!

I’ll share about eight saints over three months, whose feast days fall in the spring and summer. Would you join me in reclaiming the wonder of the saints?

Love,

Danica

To get 10% off of Wonder Club, use the code EARLYBIRDIES10 before February 26th.