Q: What is Reconstructionism?
A: A rigid and strictly historically informed methodology of reconstructing the practices and world view of the past. It is revivalism of the cultures of the European-Mediterranean cultural basin. It essentially means doing your homework for the practices you’re trying to emulate.
Q: What are the beliefs of reconstructionism?
A: Reconstructionism is merely the methodology of practice; not a form of belief. It’s not a “denomination”, and it has little to do with actual belief. Reconstructionism is a tool; not a religion.
Q: Does reconstructionism ignore the cultural differences of the past and now?
A: Reconstructionism isn’t ignoring the cultural differences between now and antiquity, nor is it trying to live like it’s the Iron Age, nor is it even practicing the precise religion of the Iron Age. It isn’t disregarding modern ethics and values.
Q: Does reconstructionism mean spiritual stagnation?
A: No. The religions that reconstructionists follow, if practiced, will be living religions. This means there will be change and adaptation, and with that spiritual progression.
Q: Why use Reconstructionist methodology in the first place if the cultures that are being reconstructed are basically dead religions? What’s the point?
A: The cultures that reconstructionist polytheist Pagans seek the emulate may be dead, but that doesn’t mean there’s isn’t any value in their philosophical world view, nor does it mean that their understanding is somehow less valuable than those that survived destruction at the hands of evangelism, proselytization and prosecution. These questions heavily display blatant ethnocentric snobbery. The idea that what we have now, the violent Protestant overculture that has stripped the world of its resources and created a system of consumerist hyper-commodification, is somehow “better” or “more acceptable” than the traditions of our ancestors is nothing more than self-indulgent pomposity.
(Special thanks to /r/Pagan for assisting with making this)
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