A couple recent news items gives us a glance into what a multi-religious and post-Christian America could look like. First, in honor of Women’s History Month, the Pew Forum re-analyzes data from their U.S. Religious Landscape Survey and came up with some interesting results.

“March is Women’s History Month. A new analysis of data from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, finds that women are more religious than men on a variety of measures.”

What does that mean? It could potentially mean a couple things. First, leadership and support roles across the spectrum of belief will be slowly turned over to women out of necessity, secondly, religions that continue to alienate women may find themselves in the same fix as Christian churches in Britain (which are losing 50,000 female members per year).

“…while old men argue about whether women can be bishops, or if gays should be treated like human beings, the women have been leaving in droves to faiths that are more relevant to their lives. You can all do the reproductive math and figure out what happens to a religious tradition with a shortage of women.”

The second news item comes from the New York Times who looks at the work of sociologist Phil Zuckerman. Zuckerman, author of  “Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment” spent 14 months in Scandinavia exploring their overwhelmingly secular and irreligious nature and had some surprising news for those who believe that a (Judeo-Christian) God is necessary for a moral and good society.

Well documented though they may be, these two sets of facts run up against the assumption of many Americans that a society where religion is minimal would be, in Mr. Zuckerman’s words, “rampant with immorality, full of evil and teeming with depravity.” Which is why he insists at some length that what he and his wife and children experienced was quite the opposite: “a society — a markedly irreligious society — that was, above all, moral, stable, humane and deeply good.”… Zuckerman found what he terms “benign indifference” and even “utter obliviousness.” The key word in his description of their benign indifference is “nice.” Religion, in their view, is “nice.” Jesus “was a nice man who taught some nice things.” The Bible “is full of nice stories and good morals, isn’t it?”

So what do these two stories mean? How do they fit together? Well, if women become the power structure and lifeblood of religion in America, and if we do indeed become (slowly) more secular to accomodate an increasingly multi-religious society, it could create an atmosphere that greatly benefits faiths that are comfortable with these developments (and hurt faiths that aren’t). Faiths like the modern Pagan faiths. I’m not saying these changes will create some sort of Pagan utopia, if certain extremist elements feel too threatened it will be far from it, but these trends do seem to be a harbinger of continued growth for our family of faiths (and other religions flexible enough to change with the prevailing winds). I for one welcome our new secular female overlords!

A few interesting quotes that I’ve come across in my daily web-travels.

“[It is my] “duty to our Goddess to build a better world.” – The Rev. Luis Barrios, an Episcopal priest canonically resident in the Diocese of New York. The quote is from a statement he released after his conviction for trespassing onto the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation’s property (better known as The School of the Americas).

“People often wonder about my religious beliefs at age 102. I am not a follower of organized anything but the encompassing thrill of the spirit of compassion that surrounds our world. I do not go to church. In this world church to me is a business — I do not find God there. Perhaps I am Wiccan. All my life I find God in nature, sweet and calm and loving.” – Margaret Caldwell, 102, the world’s oldest newspaper columnist.

“Governments, corporations and assorted others regularly exploit the idea that tribal peoples are “primitive” in order to remove them from their land or open it up to outsiders, thereby freeing up access to the natural resources on or under their land. Often this is done in the name of “development”, justified on the grounds that the so-called “primitive” tribes are backward and out-of-date and need to “catch up” with the rest of us. But what are the consequences? For the tribes, they are almost always catastrophic: cultural and spiritual alienation, poverty, alcoholism, disease and death.” – Stephen Corry, Director of Survival International in response to BBC broadcaster Michael Buerk’s assessment of New Guinea tribal peoples as  “primitives” who kill strangers “whenever they come across them”. Survival’s “Stamp It Out” campaign was recently successful in convincing British newspapers The Guardian and The Observer to ban the terms ‘primitive’ and ‘Stone Age’ to describe tribal peoples.

The Arizona Republic reports on the travails of a downtown Scottsdale Goddess-worshiping temple that neighbors accuse of being a “sex church”. The Phoenix Goddess Temple, run by mother priestess Tracy Elise, claims that they teach Tantra (actually they claim to practice a syncretic “Neo Tantra”) and don’t engage in prostitution (sacred or otherwise).

Scottsdale police spokesman Sgt. Mark Clark said police visited the Phoenix Goddess Temple last week to investigate a complaint that it was a house of prostitution but could not determine if the allegations were true … The temple has drawn police attention because its tenets connect spirituality and sexuality and it employs sexual healers and teaches its members about tantric sexual techniques. “It’s perceived as a sex church,” Elise said. The 48-year-old priestess was unapologetic about the temple and its views on sex, which she said are far more enlightened than those of most other religions. A waiver that members sign states: “I acknowledge that I will not receive any type of sexual gratification in exchange for money during my session” at the temple. A citizen’s complaint to police alleges that prices listed at the temple say services are $204 for one hour and $440 for 2 1/2 hours but do not say what those services are.

Though a police sting operation yielded no arrests, and despite the fact that they seem quite careful to avoid veering into illegality concerning their sex-oriented teachings and sessions (note the rules for a “cuddle party” held at the temple), that hasn’t stopped neighbors from complaining to law enforcement officials and making assumptions about what goes on inside the temple.

Kim Edwards, president of the Scottsdale Southwest Village homeowners group, said she witnessed congestion problems at the church but was unaware of what was going in the home. She figured it was a business operation. “I almost hit somebody crossing the street there,” she said, adding that she complained to the city. “I wouldn’t support any church at that location because of the traffic it draws. But because of the nature of this church, it sends up a lot of red flags.” Another neighborhood leader, Hope Monkewicz, said she was disturbed by a veil of secrecy surrounding the temple. “If you’re operating there and no one knows about it, you can’t be doing something good in there,” she said.

But unhappy neighborhood leaders can breath a sigh of relief, the temple is moving to Phoenix. Not because they were forced out due to their teachings on sex, but because of local zoning laws.

In Scottsdale, the city code enforcement inspectors notified the Phoenix Goddess Temple on Oct. 21 that it needed approval to operate a church out of the home at 68th Street and Exeter, said Malcolm Hankins, the code enforcement manager. After meeting with city planners in December, the temple considered its options for acquiring an adjacent property or moving to a new location. It ultimately decided to move to Phoenix but was still operating this week in Scottsdale … Earlier this week, Elise said she plans to move to a home in 5900 block of East Shea Boulevard in March. Phoenix planner Alan Stephenson said the city has not received an application to operate a temple at the home, but a church would be allowed in that residential zone.

No doubt the Phoenix Goddess Temple will continue to do well for itself, let’s hope the neighbors and local authorities are a bit more tolerant at their new location. Though the only laws they were breaking were local zoning ordinances, I’m disturbed by the neighbor who found them suspicious simply because “no one knows about it”. This is a group that seemed to have no trouble talking to the press, and keep an extensive web site explaining what they do (and don’t do), yet the spectre of sex and female empowerment seemed to trigger suspicion and hostility. If you want a crystal ball to predict how the future growth of modern Paganism will be received once we’re fically robust enough to open temples and sanctuaries in local communities, you could do worse than to examine how these men and women were treated.

Yesterday the Supreme Court handed down a decision regarding the case of Pleasant Grove City, UT v. Summum, The competing issues at hand were if a government body has the right to unrestricted free speech (including religious speech), and the idea that public land equals a public forum (with the government as caretakers, not gatekeepers). An argument that emerged when the New Age/UFO religion Summum wanted a monument to their Seven Principles placed in the same park as a Ten Commandments display. The unanimous opinion of the court was that in this particular instance the local government’s free speech claims trumped Summum’s free speech claims.

“The case centered on Pleasant Grove City, Utah, which displays a Ten Commandments monument in a public park. A religious group called Summum sought the right to erect its “Seven Aphorisms” in the park as well. When city officials declined, Summum sued, arguing that its free-speech rights had been violated. The Supreme Court analyzed the case under free-speech law, ruling 9-0 that it would be impractical to force communities to permanently erect every monument they are given.”

So is this loss a setback for religious minorities seeking equal standing with the dominant monotheisms? Not particularly. The decision here was a narrow one, and Supreme Court justices and analysts have both opined that the case could very well be re-heard on Establishment Clause grounds.

Justice John Paul Stevens provided this assessment of the Supreme Court’s new review of the constitutionality of placing religious monuments on government property: “…the effect of today’s decision will be limited.” In fact, in the 15 weeks between the Court’s hearing on Nov. 12 in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum (07-665) and the final decision Wednesday, one thing remained absolutely unchanged: the real dispute here was not about free speech, but about church-state relations. But that was not even argued. At the oral argument, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., told a lawyer for the small Utah city defending  its policy on a Ten Commandments monument in a city park: “You’re just picking your poison, aren’t you?  I mean, the more you say that the monument is government speech, to get out of the Free Speech Clause, the more it seems to me you’re walking into a trip under the Establishment Clause.”

To quote court-watcher Dahlia Lithwick, if Pleasant Grove City “wins this case as a result of the court’s free speech jurisprudence, [they] will be back in five years to lose it under the court’s religion doctrine.”. This was echoed by Americans United executive director Rev. Barry Lynn who stated that “the case should have been analyzed under church-state doctrine” instead of on free-speech grounds. So expect to hear about this case again very soon, Summum’s lawyers are already gearing up to challenge the ruling on Establishment grounds, and the justices seem to be warning Pleasant Grove to act fast or lose the next round.

Although the Supreme Court case centered on the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment, the Establishment Clause loomed in the background. Alito noted that his decision does not imply that there are not restrictions on government speech. “For example, government speech must comport with the Establishment Clause,” he said. Justice David Souter said the connections between the Establishment Clause and government speech have not yet been figured out. He said it would be “in the interest of a careful government” to have more than one monument to avoid an appearance of establishing religion.

Pleasant Grove should heed Justice Souter, for while arch-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia says that this monument’s circumstances are “virtually identical” to one allowed to stand in Texas, that Ten Commandments existed in a continumm of over 40 other monuments, dulling Establishment claims. Ultimately, neither side here can claim a lasting victory. Summum may not be able to erect their monument (which could have radically changed the management of public lands), but in the long run Pleasant Grove will have to have to either add more monuments to avoid Establishment Clause challenges, or take down all religiously-oriented monuments (the path favored by Americans United). This decision brings the case back into the more familiar (if sometimes complex) area of past religious monument cases. That might not result in a big dramatic shift in legal opinion as it would have if Summum had won here, but it will most likely follow the course of rulings that have been slowly secularizing our public spaces for a post-Christian and multi-religious American future.

The movie “Agora”, which chronicles the pagan philosopher Hypatia’s attempts to preserve the collected wisdom of Alexandria, has released a teaser trailer.

“Agora” is scheduled for a mid-December 2009 release (rioting Christian mobs are quite Christmas-y). The film is directed by Alejandro Amenabar (“The Others”, “The Sea Inside”), and stars Academy Award-winning English actress Rachel Weisz as Hypatia. For more on the film check out my post from March 2008. Thanks to Rimrunner for the heads-up!

Before we begin, I recommend playing this song in the background to experience the full effect of this blog post. I should also mention that I don’t own an Apple iPhone, and have no intention of purchasing one in the near future. So having said all that, let’s get into the topic at hand: is the Apple iPhone the new killer app for Pagan and occult practitioners? I don’t simply mean Pagans using them as script prompters during ritual, I mean using this hot tech item to cast spells, practice divination, and even curse your enemies.

The iPhone helps you manage your e-mail, listen to your music, stay connected, and—every now again—make a phone call or two. Now, with the assistance of two recent arrivals at the App Store, it can also help you master the dark arts. Oh, sure—VooDude bills itself as an entertainment app, but I think we can see through its facade. The app, from Aspyr Media lets you create your very own voodoo doll, which you can then poke with your finger, shake using the built-in accelerometer, or (virtually) set on fire. Aspyr calls Voo Dude a “stress relief buddy,” and I’m sure it’s all fun and games—until someone uses the app’s customization feature to create a VooDude who looks suspiciously like you. (You can use pictures from the image library on the iPhone or iPod touch to personalize your voodoo doll.)

What better way to focus your will than using a machine you already obsess over and use every day? The makers of VooDude should also include a healing extension for the program (band-aids, medicine, etc), imagine the boost in sales! Respond immediately to healing energy requests you get via e-mail on your iPhone! Brilliant! However, if poppets aren’t really your thing, there are also several divinatory tools available for the iPhone, from palmistry to several tarot-based programs (iTarot, Touch Tarot, Party Tarot). Also, you may never miss a high holiday again.

“Get quick offline information and forthcoming dates of all religious festivals. Religious festivals give us an opportunity to ignite cosmic love, mercy, generosity, selflessness, truthfulness and purity. Each festival, in its own way, pays tribute to all the enlightened beings and the pure inner love we nurture in our hearts. Major festivals of all religions including … Asatru  …Hindu …Wiccan”

That along with programs to help you along in your esoteric studies, keep track of moon phases, and brush up on classic esoteric texts, certainly positions the iPhone as an attractive piece of machinery for the aspiring techno-Pagan . I can only imagine the interactive possibilities once more Pagan programmers get to work. Maybe the iPhone has finally created a useful ritual (and lifestyle) tool for a truly modern Pagan population…. [soundtrack swells].

PS – In a fit of self-promotion (and speaking of swelling soundtracks), I should mention that the iPhone has access to all the podcasts listed in iTunes, which means you could subscribe to A Darker Shade of Pagan to provide the  perfect soundtrack for your modern Pagan lifestyle. I merely remark.

Religion Clause (the best source for religious litigation news) just posted some new developments in the numerous legal challenges that Wiccan chaplain Patrick McCollum had brought against the state of California’s prison system, and it looks like more bad news.

“In McCollum v. California, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13580 (ND CA, Feb. 23, 2009), a volunteer Wiccan prison chaplain claimed that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has not given him the same access to prisoners and facilities as it gives to chaplains of other faiths, and that it retaliated against him because of his complaints about the treatment of Wiccans in California prisons. The court held that plaintiff had not shown sufficient evidence of disparate treatment to support his equal protection claim. Nor had he proven that the temporary suspension of his volunteer privileges or the failure to hire him for a position for which he applied were because of his exercise of 1st Amendment rights. (See prior related posting.)”

This, along with McCollum’s loss concerning challenges to California’s “five faiths” policy, doesn’t exactly paint a rosy picture concerning the future of Wiccan/Pagan prison chaplaincy. No word yet on if McCollum plans to challenge these rulings to a higher court. One brief ray of hope here is that law professor Howard M. Friedman (author of Religion Clause) points to a recently-released ruling from last year that could help McCollum lauch a more successful challenge to the “five faiths” policy.

“While the Northern District of California denied standing to a chaplain to challenge the 5 Faiths Policy, a decision from last year has just become available through LEXIS in which the Eastern District of California finds that an inmate does have standing to challenge the policy. In Rouser v. White, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107199 (ED CA, Sept. 16, 2008), the court also found that plaintiff’s complaint alleges “plausible grounds” for relief in his Establishment Clause challenge.”

So if McCollum partners up with a Wiccan or Pagan inmate willing to challenge the “five faiths” he might get a bit further next time. This may also be true in issues concerning equal access of Pagan prisoners to chaplains. In the meantime, the ongoing mistreatment of minority religions in prison continues.