Maturing from Astrology to Astrotheology

The Zodiac as a Celestial Messenger

Oscar Carter Jones, Joseph dreaming of stars (1869)

Within the phenomenon of pop spirituality, well-addressed in the sociology of the contemporary West,¹ a number of kitsch practices and concepts percolate. One among these is “astrology,” which intersects and correlates with other concepts and practices such as horoscopes, signs, birthstones, the Zodiac, etc. While there’s a considerable element in modern society that dismisses such practices as silly, egotistical, and even that word I already used, kitsch, it should also be admitted that a significant element also is going along with such notions. Moreover, if we can move our mind forward from the social imaginary of the 2000s and realize we are in a post-Dawkins age, where, as Rod Dreher has clarified, we are no longer discussing re-enchantment and disenchantment, but enchantment and dark enchantment,² the kitsch childsplay of pop spirituality is starting to coalesce into a mature force that is challenging traditional religion (read: Christianity) much more institutionally. In 2000, the prayer of a pagan priest in Congress drew controversy.³ In 2024, administrations irrespective of party included and celebrated religious diversity among their ranks (the Jewish Blinken and Hindu Vivek Murthy under Biden; the Hindus Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel under Trump).⁴ The infiltration, diversification, and intensification of spirituality in the modern West has been gaining steam, and there’s a hundred and one ways to demonstrate this.

Thus, coming back to what I first mentioned, astrology has likewise taken on a larger role in the mainstream consciousness. While much talk concerning this practice can still be kitsch, and I mean that in relation to the pre-modern/Greco-Chaldean discipline of astrology, nonetheless such talk is taken seriously and has had many real world repercussions, such as among the dating scene. My purpose in introducing the subject of astrology is to ask the question, “How exactly should Christians be approaching it?” Much of New Age spirituality, as sources I’ve already mentioned will confirm (Dreher and Smith), has arisen due to the post-modernist⁵ condition where the objectivist, rationalist, mechanistic metanarrative of modernity had sapped life out of most Westerners, trapping them in Charles Taylor’s “immanent frame,” and left them with a flattened, monochrome worldview. One of the events that I’d surmise contributed to the fissuring of this modernist edifice is when the Western universalist approach to logic and reason was revealed as actually highly contextualized, propelled by research into the “abnormal” psychological states of non-Westerners.⁶ As research into this proliferated scientists, then wider academicians, then philosophers, and finally journalists realized that so many assumptions about how the world worked and was interpreted were wrong, and why wouldn’t this include many of modernism’s taboos? Thus, for an increasing number of academicians and plebeians the lid was blown off the socio-academic moratorium on “otherworldliness,” figures such as Rupert Sheldrake to Deepak Chopa became noteworthy, and the “post-modernist” landscape quickly mapped onto a “post-secular” one as well.⁷ How any of this is relevant to Christianity connects to what exactly the postmodern condition is propelling: re-enchantment, and insofar as re-enchantment inextricably invites a Christian response (as provided in my essay “The Chastening Rod”), re-enchantment’s flirtation with occult/New Age elements derivatively invites a Christian response to the same. I have honed in on astrology in particular not just to have a particular exhibit to work with, not just because of its prominence within New Age spirituality, and not just because the image of “outer space” is as much a battleground of the fall of modernity as any other, but because I believe there’s much to practically learn from delving into this that positively reinforces the transcendental Christian imaginary.

Diving right into the biblical discourses that are taken as applying to astrological practices is acceptable, but we should be vigilant as to our presumptions. Understanding these verses and highlighting what our priors might be can be accomplished at once by simply looking at these verses without any more commentary:

• “Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth: And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven. But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto Him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day” (Deut. 4:15-20).

• “Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. … Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it” (Isa. 47:1, 12-14).

• “When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God” (Deut. 18:9-13).

• “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king” (1 Sam. 15:23).

• “Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days” (Dan. 2:27-28).

• “And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set My face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people” (Lev. 20:6).

There are many other verses I could use, but these are the primary ones and all speak to the same idea as any of the others I could’ve included. Now, a typical fundamentalist Evangelical construal of such verses expresses the lines to take: this is speaking of astrology, and thus astrology is wicked. Hey, I can certainly see that. Babylon was famous for its work in astrology, with “Chaldean” being a well-known byword for astrologers (as demonstrated in Daniel), and Isaiah derisively mocks such practices. Therefore, astrology is condemned by God.

However, is the picture given by Scripture so simple? Against these verses stand a number of others that may be considered problematic to such a construal. These include the verses in Job (9:8-10; 26:13; 38:31-32) and Amos (5:8) which reference the existence of the constellations Orion, Ursa Major, Draco, as well as the Pleiades (which could be extended to Taurus). These also contain the reference to mazzaroth, a Hebrew hapax legomenon that a number of exegetes agree has to refer to the whole family of Zodiacal signs.⁸ Further, there is the primordial statement in Genesis about how God created the stars in heaven for “them [to] be signs to indicate seasons and days and years, and let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth” (Gen. 1:14-15). Most notably, however, is Psalm 19:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and His circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

This fascinating passage ascribes a peculiar amount of agency, awareness, and purposiveness to celestial bodies, particularly attributing to them a doxological ministry, if it can be called such.⁹ It is well worth wrestling with all on its own.

However, another appearance of this passage, namely its usage by St. Paul (Rom. 10:16-18), makes the mystery even more profound. Paul references Psalm 19 in the context of depriving the nation of Israel from any excuse for not having received the Gospel as the Gentiles have. “Even the Gentiles have welcomed the Messiah, but not the seed of Abraham,” Paul exclaims, “Why is this?” Paul’s argument is that the word of God has gone out repeatedly, from the lips of messengers to the voice of the stars, how could Israel have possibly missed all of these revelations?¹⁰ While some commentators see Paul as construing the Psalm as applying to the evangelists of his day, I believe it’d be inconsistent with both Paul’s and the whole apostolic use of the Old Testament to so radically separate a verse from its original meaning. Even a “weaker” reading of what Paul’s doing here,¹¹ that Paul is simply riffing on some scriptural rhetoric he fancies so as to say that the messengers of the Gospel in Paul’s time have gone out universally (pasan ten gen, perata tes oikoumenes), must still reckon with the fact that the context is that in one age it was the stars who were performing that action.

Moreover, what Paul’s reference denotes is that the heavens have given knowledge that would’ve rendered one who understood their speech as blameless. Therefore, had certain men been watching the stars they would’ve known what they ought to have known. Implicitly, Paul expects people to have been star-gazing. When we consider the astrological features of Psalm 19 this is even clearer. The Zodiac isn’t any old library of star-signs, but as you’ll learn by looking into it it’s a family of signs that follow the elliptic of the Sun across the sky. As

Ioannis Goldmouth

explains, “What the psalmist is describing in Psalm 19 is the cycle of the sun throughout the course of the year. That is why he also says ‘His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof’. The psalmist is drawing a very clear connection here between the sun’s path through the stars and what the sun is trying to say to us.” Indeed, the Hebrew word at work here, tequphah, is taken to mean “circuit,” which, again, can clearly be connected to the Sun’s elliptic (the “circuit” it rides across the sky throughout the year).¹² This makes sense of how the Psalm says “There is no actual speech or word, nor is its voice literally heard” yet “its words carry to the distant horizon” (vv. 3, 4). The Zodiac doesn’t consist of words, rather it is a constellation of signs (pun intended) that at certain times and in certain configurations, communicate knowledge to observant men (astrologers), and the Zodiac is indeed something that is carried to the distant horizon, wherever the night sky can be observed, for astrology is a universal and ancient practice.

Perhaps the most blatant, positive appearance of astrology in Scripture is in the story of the Magi from the East. No more important a story do these men appear in than that of the Savior’s birth, and it’s through the practice of star-gazing, being attentive to a star rising in the Eastern sky, that the Magi were prompted to, firstly, believe something marvelous was happen (due to heavenly signs), and, secondly, make such a significant decision as pack up their things and follow after this star. Something interesting I learned while researching for this article is that in the KJV the Greek word for the Magi is translated as “sorcerer” and “sorcery” in its other occurrences (Acts 8:9-13; 13:6-11), a word that receives nothing else but scorn in the Old Testament. Likewise, there are translations which refer to the Magi outright as astrologers (NEB, AMP, TLB, AAT, etc.).¹³ Not only were the Magi star-gazers, dividers of the heavens, then, but a very real heavenly sign was given that they, in their skill, could seize upon and interpret, rightly, as indicative of the birth of the Promised One.¹⁴

Therefore, we seem to have a conundrum. On the one hand, a number of verses seem to emphatically state that star-gazing and heaven-division is abominable.¹⁵ On the other, these very practices are used by God-fearing persons or used to glorify God.¹⁶ The stars and constellations are described as names, and their names are those of the ancient Zodiac, and from primordial time they are expressly given for signs. What can we say? As always, it’s prudent to turn to the wisdom of the Fathers and especially their dogmatic proclamations as provided by their councils. Now, I must clarify that I’ve looked up both in the Ancient Christian Commentary Series as well as Elliot Nesch’s Early Christian Commentary website, so I find it very unlikely I’ve missed anything. I’ve looked up, first, what they’ve said on the particular verses we’ve identified as astrological, and then what they might’ve said in abstraction about astrology.¹⁷ What may we learn from all these? Well, from the conciliar proceedings, such as the Council of Laodicea, there is only the canons and not commentary on them, so they presume why they’re given, and when we examine the patristic sources what I’ve found concerning their views comes down to two primary problems: first, astrology is associated with the idolatry of creatures, as the stars and planets are (rightly) considered created beings;¹⁸ second, astrology is associated with fatalism and pagan destiny, rather than divine providence.¹⁹ The sources of contention here are obvious and make sense, they undermine proper divine worship and they undermine the proper freedom of the human will, twisting and perverting moral accountability, which is definitely a problem indicated in the words of the Fathers.²⁰ Moreover, many astrologers, as modern-day palm-readers and Tarot readers and mediums and whatnot, garnered a reputation in the Fathers’ time for being cheats and charlatans, so much so that St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote that “We would convict them of being cheats and liars and utterly ignorant of truth.”²¹

These, then, are the parameters we’re working with. Scripture condemns astrology/star-gazing on the basis of its idolatry, futility, and fatalism, and the Fathers do the same, but we know the scriptures, and even some Fathers, “dabbled in” similar arts. How can we begin to approach this? As I see it, in order to resolve this tension we must first a way to gaze at the stars without (1) worshipping them, (2) ascribing fatalistic power to their signs, (3) privatizing the practice, (4) making their signs overly individualistic/mundane. Clearly, the stars are important to the Christian religion, as astral symbolism fills Scripture,²² the Magi made use of them, and, even in history, we know of through archaeology that many Jews of antiquity designed their synagogues with ornate Zodiacal imagery.²³

Perhaps oddly, I want to start with the insights of postmodern theology. As I’ve discussed before, postmodernism is a philosophy of “subjective realism,” where we are not concerned with such a post-Enlightenment notion of objectivity but rather intersubjectivity. Thus, our being-in-the-world is defined by the inescapability of hermeneutics, which we can broadly take to mean the practice of construing our experience of multitudinous existentiell, the whole library of “signs” and “signifying signs” per James Smith’s Augustinian vocabulary. What do any of the various things that we experience while swimming through the currents of Dasein mean?²⁴ When (to borrow a picture from Simth)²⁵ Ariel comes upon a three-pronged silver stick in her experience that she cannot make sense of, what is she to do? Her inevitable action will constitute an interpretation, she will read some-thing into the item, assimilating it into her hermeneutic. If, on the authority of a trusted person, she is told it’s a “dinglehopper” for the purpose of hair-combing, that’s how she will then construe it, as will any of us in similar straits. Indeed, this introduces another illuminating aspect of postmodern philosophy, which is that the role of authority is not extrinsic or negative, but rather expected, taking on, as most things under the post-modern banner, a hermeneutic significance: authorities are institutional nodules of interpretive action.²⁶ This isn’t remarkable when you think about it, because our criminal justice systems are essentially exercises in determining interpretations with penal significance. Do the existentiell of a crime scene implicate Person A, or exonerate them in place of B? Likewise, something more “mundane,” like parental authority, does the same, and by its guidance we are told what a booboo means, what taking a toy out of a sibling’s hand means, what certain phenomena (death of grandparents, pregnancy, going to school) mean, etc. As Derrida, glossed by Smith, said “‘I would hesitate before associating the police, directly and necessarily, as [some] seem to do…with a determinate politics, and in particular, with a repressive politics’ (A 132). Restrictions and rules as such, enforced by police, are not inherently repressive; as he mundanely notes, ‘a red light is not repressive’ (A 132; cf. A 138, 139).”²⁷

A second element is this: postmodern philosophy actually helps us understand why humans are liturgical animals, why we seek to engage in rhythmic patterns of ritual.²⁸ Namely, the fundamental purpose of these acts is formation, moreover formation in patterns of hermeneutic be-ing. Liturgy/worship/ritual in-forms us in how to be-in-the-world, to adopt particular habits by which to approach Dasein. Just read these sentences by Smith:

In short, liturgies make us certain kinds of people, and what defines us is what we love. They do this because we are the sorts of animals whose orientation to the world is shaped from the body up more than from the head down. Liturgies aim our love to different ends precisely by training our hearts through our bodies. They prime us to approach the world in a certain way, to value certain things, to aim for certain goals, to pursue certain dreams, to work together on certain projects. In short, every liturgy constitutes a pedagogy that teaches us, in all sorts of precognitive ways, to be a certain kind of person. Hence every liturgy is an education, and embedded in every liturgy is an implicit worldview of “understanding” of the world. … More specifically, our identity is shaped by what we ultimately love or what we love as ultimate—what, at the end of the day, gives us a sense of meaning, purpose, understanding, and orientation to our being-in-the-world.²⁹

In the liturgical movement of divine worship we find a formative, cosmic process wherein one is attuned to a way of being-in-the-world, a good way that we can identify with the classical eudaimonia. Liturgical formation, then, is a pastoral act of hermeneutic formation.

Following from this, my contention is that this is part of the Church’s role in the life of believers, implicit in its authority to bind and loose, which is supported by all the emphasis on guarding orthodoxy³⁰ in the Pastoral Epistles.³¹ However, the Church and her hierarchy isn’t an exclusive element of God’s New Creation, and in the New Creation we know that “every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them” (Rev. 5:13) raise their voice in praying to God and ministering His Creation as part of the cosmic temple he has designed.³² This extends into the heavens, where, as my friend

Jaidyn Glover-Marshall

has explained, “the stars” as conceived by the Hebrew mind transcend the reductionist-materialist nature given to them by modern science and take on the form of “heavenly regents and priests ruling and ministering in the heavens, exercising the divine decree of sacred time and space, and ordering and participating in God’s sacred plan for his creation.” Insofar as my insights from postmodern theology are followed, an aspect of the priestly office is to ensure that the sheep will know the voice of their Shepherd, that they will construe their experiences in a God-honoring manner, and thus, in conjunction with the liturgy, to ensure good hermeneutic formation. If the heavens are sacerdotal officers, and likewise conduct a heavenly liturgy,³³ they are connected to this function and in some way perform it.

Here I intend to present the rudimentary pieces to build a proper understanding of “star-gazing” that escapes the errors condemned by the Fathers, but yet is able to handle the testimony of certain scriptures. What the Fathers saw in pagan astrology were many errors. First and foremost, idolatry. However, in this model I’m giving, we don’t see the stars any more as idols than we do the saints or even the Eucharist. I’ve read a lot that has primed me to accept the definition of idolatry as something which receives worship meant for God, and seizes hold of it. Contrariwise, an icon is an instrument through which God graciously permits the mediation of His presence/grace to His believers, or His believers conduct their praise/worship through to Him.³⁴ Therefore, when the Israelites looked upon the Bronze Serpent and through it saw by their faith in Yahweh His covenant faithfulness that wouldn’t lead them to perish. However, when the very same icon later had incense/praise offered to it, in and of itself, King Hezekiah was moved to break it apart and do to it as he had the Baals and Asherahs. Likewise, God also permits agents, which, as was common in ancient societies, were persons who officially bore the authority and dignity of their superior to re-present him nonlocally.³⁵ This is the same status awarded to the apostles by Christ, to whom He says that “he that heareth you heareth Me; and He that despiseth you despiseth Me (Lk. 10:16), and “Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained” (Jn. 20:23). God’s authority remains His, but it may be alighted upon His chosen ones, and come to truly and really dwell within them, but such authority should never be considered self-caused.³⁶ Third, there are the messengers, those who are commissioned to bring messages from God, as kingly couriers, to others so as to shed divine wisdom; this is the eponymous office of the angels (messengers).³⁷ My belief is that the stars are best placed in the third category, especially given Paul’s usage of it in Romans 10 which collocates “the voice of them” (ho phthongos auton) with the language of message (vv. 15, 16, 17), they in their heavenly ministry ascertain divine wisdom and then send it down toward the eyes of observant men. I don’t think this is any more controversial or confusing than St. Francis bringing the Wolf of Gubbio to penance, St. Anthony evangelizing the fish of Rimini, or St. Hubert being humbled by the Stag of Maastricht. As below, so above. Or something like that.

Neither do we see any fatalism in what we’re modeling, which the very function of the stars as outlined above indicates. God still is the only Being exercising cosmic sovereignty, and thus His providence, rather than Fate, is at work in guiding Creation. Indeed, a brief survey of biblical accounts of divination reveals this. It’s well-recognized that the mysterious Urim and Thummim were used as divinatory instruments, the casting of lots was a well-established Hebrew practice, and Joseph and Daniel were famous oneiromancers. I’ve looked into these examples and have determined this about them: divinatory acts in the Bible are almost always meant to seek divine insight on a present or past concern, never to prognosticate a matter of fate; likewise, when the future is divined it’s actually Divined, it’s a prophetic act commissioned by the Most High. Therefore, we see that the Bible indicates that while we might need to help clarify the present, the mystery of the future is the sole prerogative of God to exercise His sovereignty over (Isa. 46:9-10; Dan. 4:35; Ps. 33:10-11). Rather, the way I’d understand the purpose of the stars and their Zodiacal configurations is in precisely this manner: clarifying the present. Here is where the two other necessities in a workable model of astrology come to bear: its lack of individualism and of excess mundanity. If the stars are going to speak of worldly affairs, they ought to be pretty big affairs, and not the dating habits of some suburban Northeast material girl. Psalm 8 admits the awefulness of God’s concern for man, and man’s role in Creation, relative to the grandeur of the created order as a whole (“that Thou art mindful of him” is preceded by “Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained”), thus it’s a pretty great thing for the heavens to be involved in the fortunes of man, and not just “a man,” but Man, Adam, the Gardener. Perhaps a bit audaciously, I’d also argue that the New Covenantal construal of the stars’ ordainment for “signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years” (Gen. 1:14) is that by virtue of the supersession of the Old Calendar, the stars alert us not only to when our own particular calendars align with sacred days but also to when moments are of ritual significance (such as the day of a baptism or of a king’s coronation).³⁸ Returning to the point at hand on divination, to read the stars, then, in a positive sense would follow with the established biblical practice of divination: beseeching insight on present concerns. In other words, stars serve as interpretive authorities. We don’t read the heavens in order to determine if we’ll get a promotion (which is fatalistic and individualistic) nor who to vote for (fatalistic), but rather to interpret an event. The closest we can get to “scrying” is simply using an astrological sign to determine the “mood” we might be in, but simple life experience proves that could mean any number of things and retrospection tends to be more insightful than prospection.³⁹ A great example of this can be seen in the astrological work done by Ioannis Goldsmouth, in particular his reading of the 2024 presidential election and his reading of the Shiloh Hendrix affair.⁴⁰ I should note that, just as the Church is given interpretive authority but exercises such in fidelity to divine revelation, whatever interpretive authority we discern from the voiceless heavens will do the same, and moreover as guided by the royal-priestly prerogative of mankind (per the theological anthropology of Ps. 8 and Gen. 1-2; cf. 1 Cor. 6:3). Therefore, the stars never should give signs, and humans never should construe such, that are hostile to Truth.

Therefore, we see here the elements of an astrological discipline that sidesteps the condemnations of the Fathers and accords as well as possible with the biblical warrants. We avoid overly crude and egoistic construals of the Zodiac, commonplace in kitsch pop spirituality, by giving due credit to the grandeur of the created order that man and stars both minister in, understanding that one’s Starbucks order pales in comparison to civilizational moments. Astrological discourse should happen among formal practitioners, learned and virtuous men, as most arcane arts were in the days of yore, kept safe from rabble-rousing, and should be the fruits of much contemplation not rushed or spent in vain. We avoid fatalism by focusing on a hermeneutic purpose behind astrological configurations rather than an occultic/divinatory one.⁴¹ Derivative of both of these is a resolution to the concerns of Fathers such as Augustine and Cyril, for this is a model that simply can’t be gimmicked and profiteered. Moreover, in my model I detect a rather notable resonance with one of Augustine’s most positive comments concerning astrological practice: “But it may be said that the stars give notice of events and do not bring those events about, so that the position of the stars becomes a kind of statement, predicting, not producing, future happenings; and this has been an opinion held by men of respectable intelligence.”⁴² Now, if Augustine, with all the hostility he manifests in his fifth book of his masterpiece, is able to stomach such a position as this, how much more stomachable should my model be, which grants absolutely no predictive/oracular power to astrological signs? (Only the most circumstantial power at best.) The only other significant structural reform I’d recommend for astrology is a name change. “Astrology” has long been an indeterminate moniker, and it also has quite a weighty burden of connotations. Moreover, following in the footsteps of my older article “The Important Difference Between ‘Bible Scholars’ and ‘Theologians,’” we must understand the properly contemplative, religious, and devotional act that the word theo-logy implies. Thus, and following in the footsteps of some others here, what my model, and what the biblical practices that inspire it, ought best be called is astrotheology. We are in discourse with divine wisdom, but through the messages of stars who too meditate on the Divine in their celestial circuits of worship. The stars alone aren’t our focus, but the stars in their glory of Yahweh God are whom we dialogue with.

The modernist worldview flattened that very world into a materialistic pancake. Meaning was sucked out of everything and all biomass was reduced to mechanical cogs worth nothing more than their output. As increasing numbers in post-modernist society rebel against this metanarrative, and repressed energies begin to erupt from deep below, the Christian faith’s challenge is to temper and shepherd the souls of modernity’s victims. Those who desire to look at the stars with wonder once more, as their ancestors did, ought to be given a positive Christian vision of the transcendental framing of all Creation, and all its creatures, in worshipful subjection to the Infinite Godhead. I see potential in this model of mine, but of course it’s more of a rough draft if anything, and I can imagine there’s a number of kinks to hammer out. Still, that’s precisely why I have drafted it and released it publicly, so it may be seen by others and refined in the discursive crucible.

1. See C. Smith, Souls in Transition; S. Sutcliffe, Children of the New Age; D. Groothius, Unmasking the New Age.

2. R. Dreher, Living in Wonder, 83-110.

3. Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala.

4. Another notable example, the Republican Party, long caricatured as the party of the culture wars, had a pagan prayer at the invocation of the 2024 RNC.

5. I am following the terminological parameters set out by James Smith with regards to “postmodern,” “postmodernist,” “post-modern,” “postmodernity,” etc.” See his Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 19, 20(fn8), and passim.

6. Such research was first prominently brought together in R. Nisbett’s The Geography of Thought. Cf. J. Henrich, The WEIRDest People in the World.

7. Cf. J.K.A. Smith’s Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, appropriately subtitled “mapping a post-secular theology.”

8. Most, from what I’ve seen, rely on a 1956 article by G. Driver, “Two Astronomical Passages in the Old Testament,” JTS 7/1 (1956): 1-11.

9. Most commentaries, despite what I’ll note below, seem to sidestep such astrological connotations. Those comments which come the closest simply emphasize the doxological and “aweful” roles of the stars, which circumvents the deeper question of why/how exactly such bodies conduct such roles. See J. Goldingay, Psalms 1-41, 282-99; C. Blaising and C. Hardin, Psalms 1-50, 145-58.

10. M. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord, 250; Brendan Byrne, Romans, 325; Frank Matera, Romans, 249-52, cf. 49.

11. Such as D. Moo’s (Romans, 666-67).

12. The esteemed historian E.R. Goodenough noted in his magisterial study of “Jewish symbols in the Greco-Roman period” (abridged ed.) that Helios’ chariot ride had Zodiacal associations (p. 49).

13. Which likely represents a decision to make the function of the Magi more apparent to modern readers than any desire to reveal hidden nuances or play with the words. You can think of how Taoiseach, a Gaelic noun, is often kept rendered as such even though “prime minister” is a completely appropriate English noun (due to the parliamentary and semi-presidential structure of Ireland’s government). “Magi,” then, can be kept “native,” for the purpose of prose or emphasizing its exotic nature, or, for the purpose of modernization or clarity, fully localized as “astrologer.”

14. A full analysis of the astrological symbolism behind the birth of Christ was given by the late biblical scholar Michael Heiser in his Reversing Hermon, 55-70. Be warned, it’s a rabbit hole!

15. Here, if not anywhere else, I’d want to tangentially remark that as it concerns

Ioannis Goldmouth

’s comment that in “the original Hebrew in the Old Testament, what is translated to English as ‘astrology’ actually directly translates as ‘to divinize the heavens’ or ‘make the heavens divine’” this is simply not the case. Rather, the words I’ve been using to generically refer to practitioners of astrology, as in the sentence above, are the actual translations of the original Hebrew. The only other word used of them is אַשָּׁף (ashshaph), which is an onomatopoeic Babylonian loanword generally taken to mean “conjurer” or “magician.” While Goldmouth’s claim, wherever it comes from, would make a good etymological way to explain biblical astrology, it simply isn’t true, thus increasing the challenge.

16. An old journal article by the Italian Hebrew professor Ida Zatelli documents some other evidences of astrological practices in Scripture, although it is heavily flavored with critical scholarship. This is an article that is brought up by Dr. Heiser. See I. Zatelli, “Astrology and the Worship of the Stars in the Bible,” ZATW 103/1 (2009): 86-99.

17. See W. Smith and S. Cheetham, A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, vol. 1, 150, 255-56, 569-70, 723; T. Willard, “Astrology, Alchemy and other Occult Sciences,” in Handbook of Medieval Culture, vol. 1, A. Classen, ed., 102-119; M.L.W. Laistner, “The Western Church and Astrology during the Early Middle Ages,” Harvard Theological Review 34/4 (Oct. 1941): 251-75. A particular, less-known patristic source I found was St. Augustine’s Second Letter to Januarius (LV, esp. §7-9), which discusses the claims of astrological elements in the dating of Easter. There is also Thomas Aquinas’ question on divination (95), which dissects astrology in particular (art. 5), though later and post-patristic.

18. As Michael Heiser notes this is certainly what’s behind the condemnation of worshipping the Sun, moon, and stars in Deut. 4, given that passage’s grammatical connection to others where celestial bodies are collocated with the elohim (The Unseen Realm, 114-17).

19. As George Meade says in A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, the Church held astrologers as excommunicable for “for that [astrology] was to put destiny in the place of divine providence” (1:639).

20. Such as Augustine (The City of God, 180):

As for those who make the position of the stars depend on the will of God, when they in some way decide the characters of each person and what blessing and what harm is to come his way – if they think that those stars have this power deputed to them by the supreme power of God and that it is their will that decides — then they do the heavens a grace injustice in supposing that in that shining senate, as we may call it, and in that resplendent senate-house, they decreed the commission of crimes so abominable that if any earthly state had decreed them, its own destruction would have been decreed by the whole of humanity.

Cf. Laistner: “[astrology was condemned] because it sought to substitute for God and the operation of Divine Grace and Providence a fatalistic scheme of the Universe in which the life and fortunes of every man were rigidly predetermined from the moment of birth or even of conception” (p. 254).

21. Quoted in Laistner, 255.

22. J.B. Jordan, Through New Eyes, 53-68.

23. J. Magness, “Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues,” Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past, eds. W.G. Dever and S. Gitin, 363-90; J.H. Charlesworth, “Jewish Astrology in the Talmud, Pseudepigrapha, The Dead Sea Scrolls, and Early Palestinian Synagogues,” Harvard Theological Review 70/3-4 (Oct 1977): 183-200; R. Hachlili, “The Zodiac in Ancient Jewish Art: Representation and Significance,” BASOR 228 (Dec. 1977): 61-77.

24. This “hermeneutic ontology” is the central focus of Smith’s The Fall of Interpretation.

25. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 40-41.

26. See J.K.A. Smith, The Fall of Interpretation, 199-222; idem, Who’s Afraid of Relativism?, 151-78; J. Milbank, Theology and Social Theory (2nd ed.), 278-326. Cf. G. Lindback, The Nature of Doctrine.

27. Smith, Fall of Interpretation, 215.

28. This is foremost the focus of Smith’s implementation of postmodern theory, as in works such as Desiring the Kingdom (+ the whole “Cultural Liturgies” series) and Who’s Afraid of Relativism. See, as well, Lindback, The Nature of Doctrine; S. Hauerwas, A Community of Character.

29. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 25, 26-27; cf. 46-49. Emphasis mine.

30. Which, and not controversially, should be read as “interpretation.”

31. See B. Fiore, The Pastoral Epistles, passim.

32. G.K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, esp. 29-80.

33. Understand, if you don’t, I am drawing a (biblical) distinction between the heavens below the firmament (the sky), the heavens above the firmament (“outer space”), and the heaven of heavens (God’s realm, the angelic world, the unseen/invisible).

34. This concept doesn’t escape the influence of Smith, and is expressly owed to his post-Heideggerian reading of Augustine. See James K.A. Smith, Speech and Theology, 114-82; idem, “Confessions of an Existentialist: Reading Augustine After Heidegger: Part I,” New Blackfriars 82/964 (2001): 272-82; “Part II,” New Blackfriars 82/965-66 (2001): 335-47. Cf. M.R. Barnes, “The Visible Christ and the Invisible Trinity: MT. 5:8 in Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology of 400,” Modern Theology 19/3 (2003): 329-55; J.K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, 203-76; H. Boersma, Heavenly Participation.

35. T.J. Lane, The Catholic Priesthood, 83-86; W. Foerster, “ἔξεστι, ἐξουσία, ἐξουσιάζω, κατεξουσιάζω,” in TDNT, 10 vols., ed. G. Kittel, 2:560-75; P. W. Walaskay, ‘And So We Came to Rome’ – The Political Perspective of St. Luke, 32-35.

36. I feel obliged to point out that the description of salvific authority to the apostles, derived from Christ, doesn’t open the room for adoptionist/Arian interpretations of Christ. On the basis of the apostles’ authority it cannot be argued then that the Son of Man’s salvific authority (Mt. 9:6) is derived from the Creator by agential means. Rather, on the basis of numerous NT passages the Son’s saving power is clearly offered of His own being, of His own death and resurrection. I recommend any textbook on Christology.

37. As Dr. Heiser endeavored to clarify “angel” is a functional role, not an ontological category, the latter of the former being “elohim.” See M. Heiser, Angels.

38. Audacious, and incredibly difficult to summarize in this post. Suffice to say, building off of all I remarked on in 2024 concerning liturgical theology, and what I’ve alluded to in other articles on the “subjectivity” of national identities, and moreover on how those historically are what shape historic Christian spiritualities (see the first half of “What a Biblical Liturgy Would Look Like”). Cf. on this, in part, @Andrew Henry’s “The Sacred Year.”

39. This resonates with a concept I’ve developed, though I need to find a way to write on it, that truth is something that ages like wine. Thus, if we take the Gospels for example, all the decades-old debates concerning its dating are no problem to me because they represent the time needed for the (true) mythology of Christ to percolate in the contemplations of the Evangelists. (I still wouldn’t, on this view, tolerate very late, post-apostolic dating, because I still believe the Gospels must have apostolic authorship.)

40. My only gripes with these articles lie in astrological methodology over interpretation. The ancients could only see seven planets, and, of course, in the Hebrew/biblical mentality (the source of the astrology in this article) the number seven is rife with potent symbolism. But what do these three extra planets mean? Well, first, three is a symbolically potent number in Judeo-Christian mythology, and, moreover, I do think Ioannis has noteworthy reasons for including the modern planets in Christian astrology, which can be found in his own articles, as well as this Note of his in response to a comment of mine pressing him on this very matter.

41. The single greatest problem that could be raised up here would perhaps come from a skeptical perspective, both Christian and non-Christian. Given that, ever since Johannes Kepler, we understand that the planets follow mathematically precise orbits, dictated by interplanetary gravitational forces, and thus certain signs will always appear at certain times, wouldn’t this mean certain things would always happen at certain times, thus either (1) reducing at all to coincidence and/or (2) falling back into fatalism/determinism? First, I think a reasonable response may be found in the polyvalency of symbolism, which voices such as Joanathan Pageau have talked about. Imagine if in a particular timeframe Jupiter was in ascendance. Jupiter, being the kingly planet, and being in its ascendancy, this would be a very good sign for a kingdom. Imagine, however, that in this timeframe a king dies. Well, that’s not very good for royalty, is it? Actually, maybe it is. A traditional European declaration upon the death of a monarch is “The king is dead, long live the king!” This emphasizes both the sad reality that a particular agent of a realm’s royal authority has left us, but at the same time the joyful reality that the royal authority itself is untouched and has immediately passed onto their heir. So, Jupiter in ascendancy at the same time a king dies could be construed as indicating, “Royalty persists always, beyond and against death.” Further, Jupiter’s royal virtue is polyvalent itself, and provided that modern astrology, modern Vedic astrology at that, has any worth, a comment I saw on Reddit concerning how “Jupiter will give some sort of arrogance” also informs us that signs could also be taken as implying their negative. Rather than nobility, Jupiter in its ascendancy could be communicating the strengthening of nobility’s inverse, vainglory/arrogance. This is akin to how I’ve seen different ways to construe the weakening of signs. A second, but much more contentious, response I can give requires seeing some value in the elements of process metaphysics. Whitehead held the bold belief that the processes that composed reality underwent their experiential relations via prehensions that could not just transcend space, but even time. The past doesn’t just affect the future in a very real way, but the future can even affect the past. A strong indeterminacy, backed by the concurrent developments in quantum theory, then underlies the process system, where our assumed observation of determinate relations and mechanistic processes in external reality become much more complex than we might imagine. So intensely does this rely on the incredible endeavor of attempting a harmonization of process metaphysics with Christian orthodoxy that I am strongly inclined to drop this very esoteric train of thought. I have only just started lining up the reading on Whitehead necessary to attempt that. However and whenever, the starting point will have to be Greg Boyd’s Trinity and Process.

42. Augustine, City of God, 180.