The Irish Saints: Redeemed Paganism

The Theology Pugcast

In an earlier episode, the Pugsters talked about Tolkien’s ideas of the value of pagan myth and the need to Christianize it. In this episode, Glenn picks up on that and applies it not to mythology but to culture, specifically, the religion of pre-Christian Ireland and what happened when it was Christianized. In pagan Ireland, the Druids were walking encyclopedias of everything related to the culture—religion, rituals, magic, law, history, music, …. When Ireland converted to Christianity, they assumed that religious leaders similarly had to learn everything there was to know about Christianity and culture. Along with tangents on the history of monasticism and martyrdom, the guys talked about a number of saints’ lives and the contributions of Irish Christianity to civilization.