#i might delete this later. idk. im feeling saucy tonight.
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hereâs my hot take of the night:
the e-temples that have been cropping up lately are cool, and im glad to see people making specific spaces to come together to worship. thatâs awesome! iâm very here for that as a concept. i love nothing more than to see the theoi get the praise they deserve.
that being said, i am very wary about the amount of people i have seen calling themselves priests/priestesses lately. not even just in the e-temples! ive seen multiple people in the tags who have in their bio âpriest(ess) of [deity].â i realize most people probably donât mean harm by it, but it gets under my skin. to call yourself clergy implies a specific level of knowledge and experience with a religion (which isnât my business to get involved in your praxis like that, thatâs personal unless you wanna share it), but more importantly, official recognition by an established institution. there are not that many of these (that i am aware of) for hellenic polytheism. calling yourself clergy is simply that â calling yourself that. thereâs no backing for it, and it genuinely concerns me.
we as the polytheist community talk a lot about harmful practices in spirituality, things like spiritual psychosis or cultural appropriation, which are important topics to discuss. itâs been said before and iâll say again â people claiming to be spiritual authorities of some kind without any kind of proof can be very dangerous. i donât assume anyone has bad intentions. i give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that everyone is just trying to help other people worship. but it doesnât change the fact that calling yourself a priest(ess) will make impressionable or unsure people look up to you, and that is a hell of a lot of responsibility. i am concerned that there are minors running these kinds of blogs. thatâs a lot of pressure on someoneâs shoulders, especially to put on someone who is still growing up and developing their research and critical thinking skills. i donât want to gatekeep or anything like that. im very glad to see minors having really good experiences with their faith, that theyâre excited to share it with others. but it just concerns me.
im certainly not as experienced as other practitioners on this site, having had about two years of experience at this point, but i am very wary of anyone who claims to be any kind of authority on anything unless you can back it up. regardless of if your blog says that youâre not an authority, calling yourself clergy of any kind implies that. people will take it that way. it inherently implies a level of authority, knowledge, and experience on a particular subject, which is usually backed up by having an official institution that recognizes you.
perhaps this is a little callous of me, but in the same way that when someone makes a claim about the theoi academically, i expect them to have sources to prove it, i expect clergy to have some kind of proof of their authority. otherwise, what are you doing thatâs different than any other tumblr blog?
to be clear, i donât have an issue with these devotional spaces. i simply take an issue with people referring to themselves as clergy when that is a particular term with a particular context and a particular implication. words have power. i earnestly think if people just called themselves something like âstewardsâ of a particular temple, i wouldnât be so bothered by it. or just call yourself a devotee of a particular god. ultimately, at the end of the day, the words we use have power and implications, and that has to be acknowledged and respected. send tweet
#helpol#hellenic polytheism#my posts#i might delete this later. idk. im feeling saucy tonight.#i think i need to be more on the hard recon side of helpol tumblr but most of those blogs post pretty infrequently unfortunately#which im guilty of too because i dont make original content often#but whateva#im just kvetching at this point#i should make a tag for that#kvetching tag
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