Clergy Ethics for the Troth The purpose of this outline is to give a general guide as to the character of ethical conduct expected of Troth clergypersons, both within the organization and in dealing with representatives (official or not) of other religions. I. Troth clergyfolk shall conduct themselves in such a way as to give an impression of the Germanic religion, and the Troth, which is both good and honest. We must first note that different religions have different standards for the behavior of their clergyfolk: for instance, a Catholic priest can drink, but not get married, while many fundamentalist sects hold precisely opposite requirements, and most forms of Abrahamic religion frown on sex outside of marriage. As a Heathen religion, our standards are necessarily somewhat different: drinking alcohol, even to excess in some ritual circumstances, can be a holy act, as can various forms of conjugal and non-conjugal sex. These are things which we must handle carefully in order not to give the wrong impression to outsiders. Thus, in public (open to all folk of any religion who wish to attend) and semi-public (any group larger and more diverse than a basic core of folk who always work closely and regularly together) rituals, these guidelines may follow. A. For Troth clergy who are not usually teetotallers and do not have to drive after an event, refraining from ceremonial or social drinking in public would be pointless and perhaps somewhat hypocritical. However, we obviously do not want to give folk the impression that we are a religion of drunks. Troth clergy are, therefore, urged to moderate their drinking at events according to circumstances. At rituals open to the general public, drinking should be limited to the traditional three rounds of a symbel. Feasting and partying can always be done in private, later. At ecumenical gatherings where one is expected to make an impression on the general public, one should drink lightly, if at all. At all-Germanic gatherings, one may feel freer to relax and accept the hospitality offered one, but should retain a reasonable degree of sobriety (as if one were at a dinner party among friends). If the gathering is an all-night one at which the general character is that of deep drinking and celebration, it is acceptable to take part more enthusiastically after one has performed all the major ritual work that one is scheduled to perform, though usual rules of responsible conduct in regards to alcohol obviously apply (consideration for other peoples' property, sleep, and so forth). In fully private gatherings (that is to say, close friends only, when one is not acting as a representative of the Troth), or in specific, pre-planned ritual circumstances where other folk have been designated or volunteered to remain as sober moderators (for instance: the Wild Hunt/Wod-Host processions at Yule), obviously one may become as inebriated as the situation indicates. If one is at a longer public event where a lot of partying takes place over a weekend, or if one is sometimes inclined to get caught up too enthusiastically in the swing of good fellowship, it may be useful to have a companion keeping a watch on one's condition and able to tap one's arm to slow one down if needed. When serving alcohol at any event, public or private, normal responsible conduct is always required: making sure no one drives drunk (which means pre-planning for designated drivers and/or crash space), and being very careful in regards to local laws about serving alcohol to minors, which could land both you personally and the Troth in a lot of trouble (note: it may be useful to check the laws locally operant in regards to serving symbolic sips of alcohol for a religious purpose, such as is done, for instance, by many Christian churches, where minors are regularly served Communion wine). B. Neither chastity nor monogamy are required by our religion. However, responsibility and honesty in one's personal arrangements, as in the rest of one's life, are. Shortly stated: Troth clergy should stick to the promises they make their significant others, if they have them, and not attempt to convince others to break their own promises. This is not only moral, but practical: a sexual indiscretion now and again doesn't mean that the world is going to crash down on the head of the one who slipped, nor does it necessarily mean that the marriage is over. But the offended partner is well within his/her rights in making a few pointed remarks regarding how s/he feels and the possible consequences if the behaviour is not cleaned up. Further, if other relationships are involved, it should be remembered that alienation of affections is still a cause for civil suit in many jurisdictions, albeit seldom invoked. Your conduct is always required to be generally socially acceptable: that is, due care should be taken to make sure that possible partners are of age, in a condition to be responsible for their own choices, and never, ever, put in a position where they may feel harassed and/or coerced in any way. At events where nakedness is common, as with many pan-Pagan gatherings, appropriate decorum should be observed. This means, it is all right to take off your own clothes and appreciate, for instance, erotic dancing, but outright leering and making rude comments are highly discouraged, as is forcing your attentions on anyone, under any circumstances. Also, if you have a partner, it is only common sense not to do anything that s/he will not appreciate hearing about when you get home! C. Those who follow the Germanic religion are often inclined to speak their minds plainly and bluntly, with the use of such expressions as are needed to get their points across. This is not a bad thing; however, when one is an official representative of a religion, care in one's language and expressions is generally desirable. When writing official letters (that is to say, either letters meant to be read by more than one person, letters written on stationery with one's title on it, or letters to which one has signed oneself by title), profanity should in general be avoided, as it conveys the impression of someone who is either uneducated or too wrought up to express themselves clearly by means other than dumping a raw bludgeon of emotion. At most, profanity should be used sparingly: while the occasional "bullshit" may work effectively to highlight a statement or demonstrate what a down-to-earth, folksy person you are, the effectiveness of such words diminishes in direct proportion to their frequency. Personal attacks are also strongly discouraged; complaints about another's conduct should be stated clearly and specificially, with the offending act or acts spelled out. Writing, "I think you should dump such-and-such because he's a lying son-of-a-bitch, everyone hates him, and everything he said about me last month is a load of bullshit", neither informs nor enlightens, and tends to reflect more badly on the writer than on the subject. The same guidelines should be followed for all official personal presentations. An official personal presentation is any circumstance in which you are acting as a representative of the religion to followers of another religion, as a representative of the Troth in a mixed Germanic gathering, or as a recognised clergyperson at a Troth gathering. In all of these circumstances, however provoked you may be, it is vital that you retain your calm and your dignity, and remember that, even should you say that you are speaking for yourself alone, the Troth, and, to non-Heathens, our religion as a whole, will be judged by your conduct. This will, to some degree, be dependent on your capability to evaluate your situation; however, most of the time, calm and restraint will serve better than belligerence and shouting. D. Racist, sexist, homophobic, and other offensive language should not be used by Troth clergy, nor should Troth clergy make remarks which might be easily construed as fitting into the above categories. This means that you should only talk about bitches if you are a dog breeder, dykes if you are a Dutch ecologist, fags if you are a Briton who wants a cigarette, and jungle bunnies if you are in the habit of hunting rabbits in the Congo. Troth clergy are supposed to be able to provide a reasonable degree of basic counselling and spiritual guidance to all Troth members; not only do abusive statements convince the targets that you are not someone they want to talk to about their spiritual concerns, but they are also likely to convince a lot of other people of the same thing. In other words, making it clear by every word and action that we treat all our members like human beings is not being "PC": it is being good clergy. E. Troth clergy should at all times strive to maintain good relationships with other religions and their representatives. Whenever possible, unpleasant fundamentalists should be walked away from, not encouraged by argument; reasoned and calm discussion with educated religious leaders of other paths, however, is likely to be mutually beneficial, and lead to better understanding and tolerance all around. While contrasting our religion, methods, and views with those of other current pathways is not only acceptable, but often necessary, the impression given should generally be, "The difference between us and Christianity/ Wicca/Buddhism is that...", rather than "What is wrong with Christianity/Wicca/Buddhism is..." It may also, for instance, be observed that the belief held by some in the ancient origins of modern Wicca is probably erroneous, and that many aspects of it have no place in the Germanic tradition; but not that the religion itself is therefore illegitimate or inferior. In fact, particular care must be taken in dealing with other polytheistic recreations or modern creations, since we are all pretty much in the same boat in regards to our relationship with dominant Western culture, except that there are more Wiccans and neo-Pagans out there than there are Germanic religionists, and their social and legal resources are concurrently greater. Considerably more leeway for criticism may be given when discussing historical activities such as the conversion, since it is hard to find an educated Christian nowadays who would be willing to defend the tactics of Charlemagne or Óláfr Tryggvason, and a case can indeed be made for suggesting that the branches of Christianity now apologizing for their religion's bad conduct towards various groups in the past owe us an apology as well. F. While the Troth recognises that the Pagan/Heathen world often involves nasty political and personal struggles, and it is very easy for good folk to become unwillingly involved in such things, participation in "witch wars" within either the local or the larger community obviously does not reflect well on the Troth. Although sometimes conflicts are unavoidable, and may even at times be healthy for the community of the group, actively stirring them up on a regular basis or continuously participating in them is another matter. Earning a reputation as a troublemaker, Ratatosk, or leader of a vocal and vicious faction may, upon the receipt of three or more complaints, lead to official questions about your role and activities and, in extreme cases, to removal from office and/or expulsion from the Troth. If the conflict is an intra-Troth one in which it is by no means clear who the chief offender is, especially if the problem is spilling over into the general community, excessive attempts on the parts of each party to get the other defrocked and/or expelled may lead to the defrocking and/or expulsion of both. G. Troth clergy shall conduct themselves in a way which makes it clear that they are honest and trustworthy. The deliberate spreading of false information, especially for malicious purposes, is strongly frowned upon and may lead to examination and/or, if proven to be a general pattern of behavior, expulsion. Proof of legal fraud is grounds for expulsion. H. Troth clergy shall be required to maintain confidentiality whenever specifically requested to do so. If you are not certain, and someone is discussing something which seems to be of a private nature with you, then ask if they wish the discussion to be held in total confidence. Total confidence means that you do not tell anyone else. Troth clergy are not responsible for dealing with "partial confidence" ("You can tell this person, and I'd like this person and that person to know, but for gods' sakes, don't breathe a word to this other person"). Make it clear that you will either hold something in total confidence, or you will not; and the choice of which you do is up to the person discussing it, but if they do not choose it to be in total confidence, they cannot change their minds later. Having observed these things, it must also be noted that even Christian confidentiality requirements are being re-thought in light of recent American legislation on reporting suspected child abuse and other issues. The confidentiality issue within the Troth is under continuing study - but as a general rule, if there is any doubt in your mind at all as to whether the subject explicitly wishes his/her discussion with you to be known to others, then don't tell anyone. I. Persons will not under any circumstance, at any time, be accepted for clergy training who have been convicted of certain crimes. These include: rape or attempted rape, child molestation, theft, many killings of the sort defined as murder, and fraud. Cases of manslaughter and certain other killings may be debated by the Godmatheling panel, according to the circumstances as described by court records and the convict's subsequent conduct, as may drug-related offenses leading to incarceration, and various lesser crimes. Concealing past convictions is immediate grounds for expulsion upon discovery. II. Troth clergy shall follow the by-laws and policies of the Troth whenever acting as Troth representatives and/or dealing with Troth members. A. Troth clergy shall not perform any acts of discrimination on grounds of race, gender, or sexual preference, either by omission or comission. This means that a member cannot be excluded from a chartered Troth group, nor denied participation in either group rituals or personal rituals of life-passage, as they appear in Our Troth, on the above grounds. It is, however, permissible (indeed, in some cases, necessary) to distinguish on the basis of gender in regards to specific study groups or rituals dealing with men's mysteries and women's mysteries. B. Troth clergy cannot attempt to enforce rituals or beliefs: members are perfectly free to disagree with what is being taught, refuse to attend given rituals, and hold their own if they like (though if this is a chronic problem, the dissidents should be encouraged to form their own group). Troth clergy can, however, make observations - pointedly, if necessary - on the subject of what can be shown or reasonably hypothesized to have been believed and practiced by our forebears, as opposed to obvious holdovers from Christianity (such as the equasion of Loki with Satan), the inventions of poor-quality modern writers (such as the use of a "blank rune"), and/or confusion of Germanic religion with general neo-Paganism (such as attempts to create a Maiden-Mother-Crone trinity by plugging in Germanic goddess-names). Troth clergy are not responsible for writing rituals for, or otherwise catering to the whims of, members who insist on maintaining theologies which are clearly at odds with all the surviving evidence; see III, 7 below. C. Troth clergy should be able to concisely outline the Troth's organizational structure and summarize the bylaws upon request. III. Regarding Ritual Practice A. Troth clergy are responsible for knowing how to perform all the greater blessings of the year (Yule, Ostara and/or Waluburg's Night, Midsummer, and Winternights) and hopefully, though not necessarily, all the lesser seasonal blessings. The latter are considered less important because they were local feasts, rather than being practiced throughout the Germanic world, and are therefore not general requirements. B. Troth clergy are responsible for knowing how to perform the rituals of life-passing: birth, man- or woman-making (depending on the gender of the clergyperson), wedding, and death. C. Troth clergy should be capable of calling upon most, if not all, of the god/esses individually, and of making at least simple prayers for most purposes, as discussed further in the Training Programme materials. D. Godfolk are responsible for, at the least, being able to perform the rituals roughly as they appear in reliable and readily available sources, such as Our Troth, A Book of Troth, and Teutonic Religion. The ability to write your own rituals is optional at this level. Elders are responsible for being able to write rituals upon requests, unless such requests are so highly specialized as to call for the services of an initiate into a particular type of mystery or mysteries. E. Troth clergy may not refuse to perform any rituals, or refuse members participation in rituals (with the exceptions below detailed), on the sole grounds of race, gender, or sexual preference. They do have the right to refuse to perform, or, if Elders, to write rituals for performance, under the following circumstances: 1. When the circumstances are such as to make it clear that a significant number of the persons present will not be in a conducive frame of mind, especially if there is a great likelihood that the ritual will be disrupted or the participants put in physical danger. 2. When the clergyperson feels a significant degree of doubt about the morality or appropriateness of the ritual: for instance, a call for help in a court case or other personal dispute where the plaintiff appears to be genuinely at fault; a curse against a person who is not demonstrably guilty of an offense deserving it; a rite requesting a god/ess to compel the subject to love. 3. In the case of baby-blessings, a Troth clergyperson may refuse to perform the blessing if s/he is carrying on an active feud against the child's family line, though we can't imagine why the parents would be silly enough to make such a request in the first place. 4. In the case of man- or woman-making, a Troth clergyperson obviously cannot perform the bulk of the ceremony for a subject of the opposite gender. S/he is then responsible for calling together the men or women of the group, giving them the basic outlines (as seen in Our Troth), and facilitating thereafter as necessary and possible. While, in the worst cases, it is acceptable to request a delay of man-making until a certain degree of maturity has been shown (woman-making is more generally determined by the obvious physical event, and therefore less open to judgement), it should be remembered that the initiation itself is expected to work a certain change in the youth's idea of himself, and in the way he is treated and judged by the adult men of the group; he should, therefore, be given the benefit of the doubt whenever possible. 5. In the case of marriage, a Troth clergyperson is not only within rights, but morally obligated, to refuse to perform the ceremony if the relationship is visibly abusive, if one of the partners is legally underage, if the laws of the state would class even an unregistered handfasting as contributory to bigamy, if one or both of the partners is psychologically, emotionally, or intellectually handicapped or immature to the point of not fully understanding the commitment made by the ceremony, or if one or both of the partners is otherwise demonstrably incapable of making and keeping the oaths of marriage. In no cases, as mentioned above, are the race(s), gender(s), or sexual preference(s) of the partners in question acceptable as a sole or chief determinant of unsuitability. Since polygamy is part of the Germanic tradition, it is considered acceptable so long as the state does not recognise the ceremony in any way which would constitute a violation of bigamy statutes. However, it is strongly recommended that a Troth clergyperson asked to perform such a ceremony refer the subjects to someone with experience in group marriages for pre-marital counselling, as such relationships are likely to consitute a significant counselling problem: no matter how stable the people involved, our society is not set up to support or encourage such marriages, and the addition of more factors causes the geometric, rather than arithmetic, expansion of human difficulties within a relationship. If the ceremony is for several people at once, it may be considered to fall into the category of a special ritual request (see below) and referred elsewhere. 6. In the case of burial rites, a Troth clergyperson may refuse to perform them with a clear conscience if the person in question was known to be devout in a religion with no sympathies to, or understanding of, our own (for instance, a member's Lutheran grandmother), if the person in question was demonstrably unworthy of the respect shown by such rites (executed for a cowardly murder, for instance), or if the person in question had specifically requested that a certain rite or rites not be performed. A Troth clergyperson may legitimately refuse to perform a burial for anyone who was not a worshipper of the Germanic god/esses, but should be advised that, in the case of many neo-Pagans (for instance), this could cause considerable heartbreak and disillusionment with our religion. One must therefore think about such cases very carefully before making a decision. In particular, one must be careful in dealing with neo-Pagans who sometimes or often paid honour to our deities, even if this was done in a manner not generally consistent with our historical background: in such an event, it is strongly recommended to consider the devotion of the dead person as more important than his/her theology. 7. A Troth clergyperson is expected to at least have a moderate familiarity with all the god/esses. However, it sometimes happens that a person and a god/ess develop a strong dislike for one another, or that a person finds it difficult or impossible to deal with certain aspects of a given god/ess' nature, and hence is highly uncomfortable with that being. If a clergyperson with such a problem is asked to call on the god/ess in question, it is permissible to refer the asker to another clergyperson, or assist him/her in the technical details of writing and arranging the ritual if no other clergyperson is available in the area, but not to take part in it him/herself. This also holds true if the ritual is one being carried out for a purpose worthy and fitting in the worship of one deity, but not necessarily in that of another: for instance, a priest given chiefly to Nerthus being asked to call Wodan to bless the weapons of a departing soldier for the purpose of slaying a great many of the enemy. 8. As a polytheistic religion, the Troth includes a great many pathways, beliefs, and practices, some of which are highly specialized. Troth clergy are not required to be specialists in all of them, though most will have one or two personal areas of devotion and/or excellence. Therefore, Troth clergy are not responsible for being able to perform everything they may be requested to do outside of the general realm of the blessings given in the recommended texts. Elders are expected to be able to write rituals, but it is unrealistic to expect, for instance, a gyðja specializing in Wanic mysteries to put together and lead a Wodanist's berserker-initiation, a goði of Tiw to perform Wanic ecstatic dancing to bring fruitfulness to a wedding, Godwoman Citygirl to carry out a pig sacrifice in her back yard, or Godman Crowvoice to bless a smith by singing "The Forging of Nothung" from Siegfried. In short: if a person, couple, or small group wants a ritual, for whatever purpose, that requires an intense spiritual specialization, a performance outside of the ordinary demands of Troth ritual, or any other unusual knowledge or capability, the chief burden of effort in bringing it about is on the heads of the asker(s), not the clergyperson. The clergyperson's responsibility in such a case is to assist in finding a capable person or people to whom the asker(s) can be referred; within the area if possible, outside it if necessary. If a person, couple, or group wishes a clergyperson to perform a ritual for them at a place that is expensive or difficult to reach, they are responsible for the transport, not you. If someone has a theological theory with which you are unacquainted and/or which you find downright preposterous, and wishes you to write and/or perform a ritual based on it, you can give them basic advice on writing/performing rituals and wish them well. |
