Way back in 2006 Martin Edlund at Slate.com wrote about a struggle for the soul of the religious left that pitted Tikkun’s Michael Lerner against Jim Wallis from Sojouners, between Lerner’s “cosmically big tent” and the “apparent moderation” of Wallis. Open-eyed about the political ascension of Wallis, I offered this take.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Jim Wallis

“The problem with Wallis (and those like Wallis) winning the crown of the new “Religious Left” is that it sidelines other faiths into cheering on their favorite version of Jesus instead of crafting a multi-religious counter-message to conservative Christian talking points. That strategy may win more votes in the short term but it won’t build a long-lasting movement in the shifting sands of American religion. While the values of Wallis may be more in line with the “spiritual progressives” than with the conservative Christians currently in power, we shouldn’t forget that much is left unsaid when you replace a “conservative” evangelical with a “moderate” one.”

Fast-forward to the present day and it’s clear the “progressive” (read: moderate) evangelical Christianity of Wallis and Rick “Purpose Driven Life” Warren are the “in” group among today’s Democratic party. It was Warren who gave the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, and it is Wallis who was the visible face of a recent fast to protest federal budget cuts and has been described as a “spiritual advisor” to the president. For the most part this new status quo for the religious left (or “progressive faith coalition” if you prefer) was accepted, despite the fact that Wallis isn’t actually all that “left” or “progressive” on social issues. Now, a new controversy may have exposed just how flimsy this makeshift coalition is, severing the idea that Wallis represents any broad-based movement of believers.

The controversy stems from Sojourners rejecting an ad on its website that calls for the welcoming of LGBT individuals and families into Christian churches.

“So, you can imagine our dismay when Sojourners refused to run our ads. In a written statement, Sojourners said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to decline. Sojourners position is to avoid taking sides on this issue. In that care [sic], the decision to accept advertising may give the appearance of taking sides.” [...]  I called the folks at Sojourners and asked what the problem was, what the “sides” in question might be. The first response was that Sojourners has not taken a stance on gay marriage (the ad is not about gay marriage); or on ordination of homosexuals (the ad is about welcome, not ordination); that the decision, made by “the folks in executive” (why such a high level decision?) was made quickly because of the Mother’s Day deadline. The rationale kept shifting. The reasoning made no sense.”

From there, it started to seem rather clear that the fragile religious left coalition that had put up with Wallis as point-person was quickly crumbling away.

“The big tent collapsed this weekend, and it was Sojourners who yanked out the tent poles. Someone needs to alert official Washington that Jim Wallis and his minions no longer speak for us-if they ever did.” - Jim Naughton

“Perhaps this will all get swept under the rug like Wallis’ terrible positions on reproductive rights do. But from this point forward, it becomes increasingly difficult for Wallis to paint himself as a leader of progressives…” - Daniel “pastordan” Schultz

For many, the emerging consensus is that throwing LGBT rights “under the bus” in the name of unity and political influence is no longer acceptable. As Dan Savage bluntly puts it: “If progressive Christians can’t unite behind the concept of welcome then, gee, what the fuck good are they?”

This controversy, and awakening, are a long time coming. The consequence of building a politically progressive religious coalition around a man who has never really claimed to be all that progressive on all sorts of issues (like, say, abortion). Why? Because it was (and perhaps still is) politically expedient to woo moderate evangelicals tired of culture war issues so that center-left legislation gets passed and center-left politicians get elected. Those “small but significant chunks of white evangelical voters” that helped propel Obama to the White House. If you want those “chunks” you have to woo Wallis, Warren, Cizek, and other moderate evangelicals who are socially conservative, but willing to build coalitions on environmental and economic issues.

I have no issue with political pragmatism and single-issue coalition building, but if taken too far it has a price some may not want to pay. For instance, with Wallis as the media go-to person for the religious left you aren’t going to hear much religious push-back against the current legislative onslaught against abortion rights. Nor are you going to get much in the way of religious diversity in the national spotlight when all the media focuses on is “lefty Jesus vs. righty Jesus” or even “lefty patriarchal sky father vs. righty patriarchal sky father.” A “multi-religious counter message” to conservative Christianity never really emerged. Instead, conservative Christianity has become only more strident, dominating the talking points, media, and debate on any number of issues.

The simple truth is that with religious minorities growing, and folks who don’t identify with any one religious tradition growing, progressive organizers could have spent the last five years building that coalition, especially since 12% of progressive activists labeled themselves as Unitarian-Universalist or mixed-faith (as opposed to only 10% who labeled themselves as evangelicals). Around 74% of modern Pagans voted for Obama in the last election, while Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims had similarly lopsided polling numbers. Lerner’s “cosmically big tent” may have seemed impractical, but it could have offered new thinking and new tactics to help break truly progressive religionists out of their seeming mainstream marginalization instead of enduring years of debate between moderate and conservative evangelicals to the exclusion of almost anything else. If this tempest heralds the end of a Wallis-led coalition, it couldn’t have happened soon enough.

There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.

• How do you fight Muslim extremism? With Bollywood! As Chas Clifton says, “Aphrodite will not be denied,” but perhaps it would be more appropriate in this instance to say Parvati will not be denied.
• Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, lashes out at the recent anti-Pagan Washington Times editorial (see my response here) and notes that Technical Sergeant Brandon Longcrier has resigned as the Air Force Academy’s Pagan lay leader “in direct protest over the blatant, strong-arming insensitivity, which the Academy was using in the administration of the naming of that stone circle.” So is it one step forward, two steps back at the AFA? More on this as I can get it.
• Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, Chief Godi of Ásatrúarfélagið in Iceland, isn’t too concerned about the “Thor” movie, saying the gods have endured much worse. If there are any Icelandic speakers who can give me a decent translation of this article I’d appreciate it, the Google translated version leaves much to be desired.
• The trial of James Arthur Ray continues, with the defense repeatedly calling for a mistrial. This does not strike me as the action a confident defense would take, but perhaps my law-practicing readers can enlighten me? For an exhaustive day-by-day run-down of this trial, check out the Reflections Journal.
• Did you know there’s a group blog for Pagan women of color at Patheos.com? Well there is! It’s called “Daughters of Eve” and there’s some really interesting posts there to be read. Go check it out!
• Is the somewhat suppressed tradition of a Heavenly Mother within Mormonism making a comeback? Wouldn’t that make Mormonism, um, polytheistic?
• Check out this witch-trial themed new video for a remix of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus”.
• You know things are getting serious in Iran when clerics are accusing associates of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of “witchcraft” and “summoning genies.” Could a shift in power be coming there? More here.
• On May 12th the first-ever congressional hearing on the indigenous peoples of Africa will be held, hosted by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. Economic development, climate change, and human rights are on the agenda.
• Shepard Fairey, of Obama “Hope” posters fame, and photojournalist Ernesto Yerena have launched a fundraising campaign on a site called Emphas.is toward creating a billboard campaign for the Pine Ridge Reservation.
• In South America Pagan Folk Metal is know as “Ancestral Metal,” and there is apparently a thriving scene.
• Is there a religious freedom “in crowd”?
• Some Medicine Men aren’t all that fond of using the Internet to offer their services.
• Is it really all that shocking that Steven Tyler of Aerosmith practiced sex magick?

That’s it for now! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.

This past week saw a flood of new coverage and commentary concerning Christian pseudo-historian David Barton thanks to a New York Times profile and a much-discussed appearance on The Daily Show. The wave of media attention is due to his standing with three possible Republican presidential candidates, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and Representative Michele Bachmann. While I appreciate the various examinations and criticisms about Barton that have popped up as a result, none have broached one of the most troubling views Barton peddles to his admirers and followers.

“The true historic meaning of “religion” excludes paganism and witchcraft, and thus, does not compel a conclusion that McCollum has state taxpayer standing … paganism and witchcraft were never intended to receive the protections of the Religion Clauses. Thus, in the present case there can be no violation of those clauses … Should this Court conclude that McCollum has taxpayer standing … this Court should at least acknowledge that its conclusion is compelled by Supreme Court precedent, not by history or the intent of the Framers.”

That quote is from an amicus brief written by Barton in the case of Patrick M. McCollum; et al., v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, currently before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. McCollum v. CDCR centers on the state of California’s discriminatory “five faiths” policy, which limits the hiring of paid chaplains to Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Native American adherents. Right there, on the record, Barton straight-up denies Pagans equal religious protections under the law. This is why I become concerned when politicians say his views should be taught in public schools. Not because he’s Christian, or a bad historian, but because he flatly denies minority faiths equal treatment under the constitution. If the mainstream media had any teeth, they would be pressing Barton, and any politician who seeks his approval, on this issue.

The fact is that early Americans did indeed consider the issue of non-Christians gaining equal rights under the constitution, and spoke (and debated) at great length on the subject. The idea that the Free Exercise Clause doesn’t apply to non-Christians is dangerous, ahistorical, and stupid. That Barton is preaching this lie weakens the very foundations he claims to revere. The fact is that the Founders were educated and far-sighted men who understood quite well what they were constructing and its implications. Barton would have them be short-sighted dolts. So long as the depth of Barton’s extremism is glossed over, we’ll never get a chance to pin him down on this very, very important issue.

With apologies to all the mothers (divine or otherwise) out there, I thought I’d take the opportunity this Sunday morning to look at reactions to the new Marvel Comics movie “Thor”. I’ve already mentioned Eric Scott‘s take on the film’s merchandising blitz (“Valhal-Mart”), but what do other Pagans (and film critics for that matter) think of this latest mythological tale?

Thor in the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

At Patheos.com Pagan Portal manager Star Foster explains why “Thor” matters.

“I think we should look at this film as if we are a spiritually and culturally hungry person. As if we are a 16 year old young woman considering a military career and in need of a warrior ethic.  As if we are a homemaker taking her kids to an action-flick who is suddenly overwhelmed by Frigga. As if we are a man with a newborn who stumbled across Asatru looking up info on the film and is looking for a spiritual tradition for his family. Because those are the people who will be coming to us with questions. We shouldn’t dismiss them for referencing Thor like so many seekers were dismissed for coming to Wicca by way of The Craft. Maybe Thor will lead folks to their path, and maybe there will be folks who need to be gently dissuaded, but they all deserve positive, straightforward and enlightening answers.”

You can also read Star’s actual review of the movie. Meanwhile, Christopher Campbell at SPOUT is critical of how science and religion are mixed in the film.

“I never could get into the “Thor” comics as much as I wanted to, probably because in my youth I thought them a bastardization of the myths I loved. Now the movie goes a step further in stripping the spirit of those marvelous tales for something so scientifically precise—as in formulaically machinated to certain enjoyment by a mass audience—and so scientifically constructed—from the computer effects to the 3D presentation, a movie like “Thor” involves more technological input than creative. What was once considered movie magic seems now completely movie science.”

The Catholic News Service doesn’t seem to think “Thor” is very Pagan in its message.

“The potential blockbuster’s contributions to cinema, let alone to Western civilization, are negligible, yet it has enough positive qualities to constitute a commendable diversion. While no one will mistake the hammer-wielding protagonist for, say, Wagner’s Parsifal or Siegfried, the story’s Christian framework is readily discernable, even to moviegoers with less-than-Wagnerian attention spans. [...] The notion of a self-sacrificing hero who overcomes pride and takes redemptive action for others certainly registers. And because the narrative has many Christian echoes, “Thor” can’t be criticized for propagating a pagan worldview. Besides, the theological implications of the underlying myth are never seriously explored.”

This is echoed by World Magazine, a Christian publication that also has few theological problems with the movie.

“Parents worried about the pagan source material can rest easy—this bastardization of ancient mythology is so silly that there’s little concern of anyone taking it any more seriously than Superman’s origin of falling from Krypton. In Marvel’s world, Thor, Odin, Loki, and the rest of the Norse deities are transformed into immortals. The movie explains that the Norsemen worshipped them as gods, but that they are really just supernatural beings from another realm. That’s not to say that anything here reflects a Christian understanding of the universe’s origins, but this is wink-and-nod fantasy with no overtures to anything more significant.”

The New York Times found nothing particularly magical about “Thor,” likening it to part of a Marvel-run Ponzi scheme.

“A howling turkey is at least something to laugh at, and maybe even something to see. But “Thor” is an example of the programmed triumph of commercial calculation over imagination. A postcredits teaser gives viewers who have lingered in the theater a taste of “The Avengers,” which at some future date will braid together the “Iron Man,” “Incredible Hulk” and “Thor” franchises under the eye-patched aegis of Samuel L. Jackson. Or something. This is franchise building of the kind that has long been practiced by comic book publishers to keep their long-running serials fresh and their readership hooked.”

That said, the movie did garner a “fresh” rating at Rotten Tomatoes, so some critics are enjoying it. As are some Pagans, like Laura at The Juggler.

“I thought the most Pagan part of the film actually happened about a quarter of a way through the film. I mean, who among us has not tailgated at a Pagan Festival, drinking beer and trying to pull Mjolnir from the rock where it was lodged? [...] If you are a Pagan Geek like I am, Thor has something for everyone.  It is worth the highly inflated price of admission for the pure entertainment value.”

Have you seen “Thor” yet? What did you think? Was it a religious experience? Two hours of popcorn-y fun? Not worth the price of admission? Feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts and impressions. Oh, and if you wanted to know the differences between the comic and mythological versions of Thor, Newsarama has you covered.

While much attention has been paid to Arizona’s controversial laws concerning immigration, portions of which are currently being challenged in federal court, other controversial pieces of legislation passed in the state have been largely overlooked. One such law essentially bans ethnic study courses in publicly-funded schools, and seems specifically designed to eliminate the Mexican-American Studies Program at the Tucson Unified School District.

“…this [law] prohibits school classes, which I’m going to quote here, “promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed for particular ethnic groups or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of treatment of pupils as individuals.” [...] it’s a state law, but it’s really aimed at the Mexican-American Studies Program at the Tucson Unified School District. It’s a high school program which students can take instead of general U.S. history and government. The class teaches government from a Latino perspective, emphasizing heroes such as Cesar Chavez. And the head of the Department of Education of the state, Tom Horne, has been trying to get this law passed for four years, his office has.”

The new law, which went into effect on January 1st, was initially fought by Tuscon Unified School District (TUSD) but that resistance has faltered as threats of severe funding cuts have been issued as punishment for non-compliance. In addition, the governing board of TUSD is considering a controversial new resolution that would make all the Mexican-American Studies courses electives instead of counting towards the social studies requirement (assuming they are deemed legal). This latest development has spurred acts of civil disobedience by students, and a final vote has been delayed until a forum can take place.

I often ask myself what the “Pagan angle” is to any story I write about. Why should we specifically involve ourselves in any particular issue? There are a million blogs that cover politics from across the spectrum, so I try to leave partisan issues by the wayside unless it directly affects us or our interests. In this case, Aine, an 18-year-old Pagan from Arizona, wrote to me with an argument that this is something we should care about, and something our clergy and leaders should be responding to. Aine has taken classes in the now-controversial Mexican-American Studies Program at TUSD and writes eloquently about why the battle being waged over ethnic studies classes in Arizona might just be a Pagan issue.

I’ve come to talk about an issue that has begun tearing at the already fragile seams of our state. Many people involved in the ethnic studies debate in Arizona have turned it into a politics game, creating such tension in the community that families have even become fractured in the fight. Which is what it is; don’t doubt it. There is a reason our youth are chaining themselves to chairs and throwing their fists up. And it is not political.

This may not seem like an issue that concerns Pagans, due to the amazing spin job and duality crafted by the media and those in power. But I am begging, pleading, with my fellow Pagans that you please listen with open hearts and minds, forgetting the surface politics, and understand why the fight in Arizona does matter to us. To all of us: Wiccan, Feri, Asatru, Pagan, Heathen, whatever you are.

I have attended the ethnic studies classes (Mexican-American Studies) for two years, beginning in my junior year of high school. I took both junior and senior Latino Literature, as well as Mexican-American History and Mexican-American Government. These classes were instrumental in my development as a human being and as an interested member of my community invested in its growth. These classes helped my development as a Pagan. And this is because they are based on ancient philosophies indigenous to the American Southwest, including Mayan and Aztec belief.

I have heard elders in these traditions speak of the Mayan calendar, of the great temples of ancient cities. Names that were once foreign to my tongue roll easily now: Tezkatlipoka, Huitzilopotchli, Quetzalcoatl. Yes, we also learned of the Conquistadors, and Cesar Chavez, and the walkouts in 1969. We also learned the old names of the mountains surrounding our town, the old customs and practices of the native people, their understanding of this land. This, if no other reason, should be why Pagans are invested in keeping the ethnic studies program in Arizona alive: knowledge.

I’ve heard and read many complaints from my fellow Pagans bemoaning our lost history, the oral knowledge that was wiped out or forgotten. In Arizona, we have our indigenous knowledge being returned to us. We’re relearning the lost tales, the buried knowledge, from people who heard it from the elders who remember the truth before it was contorted or burned. This is what the people in power are trying to dismantle.

Perhaps they have good reason. Learning your history empowers you, especially we who have been so powerless. Not only are we learning the old knowledge of the Southwest, we have read Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Critical Race Theory. We have read Shakespeare’s The Tempest and viewed it as a prophetic play to the actual colonization of the Americas. We have read a memoir written by an ex-gang member and a book about the real border horror we live so close to. We have been exposed to material most people don’t read until college.

This is what those in power are afraid of. And they have infected others in the community with their fear, preaching that our students have been brainwashed. Turned into leftist, liberal revolutionaries that hate our government. Yet never have our teachers said that we must believe everything we read. Quite the opposite. Our teachers have told us to follow our hearts and our heads, to think critically. What is valued in our classes is the ability to formulate your beliefs in an intelligent manner, not what those beliefs are. We are not expected to believe what our teachers do, or to follow in their footsteps. We are being turned into human beings, not robots programmed with the command to destroy the U.S government.

It is this humanization that is what our opponents so fear. When we are fully human, empowered, we will not sit idly by and let our rights be taken away. We will not dance beautifully for those who have lied about our program, our teachers, and us. We will not watch as our precious knowledge is stripped away again.

Please understand that this fight is not about “Right” or “Left” or “Center”. You don’t have to be Mexican-American or brown to care about these classes. This fight is about our right to be educated, to learn. To learn everything about the peoples who have shaped this country, whether you think it is great or not (and, because of these classes, I think it is great). Some people say culture should only be taught at home. But surely, as Pagans, many of us whom grew up in homes where our roots were not acknowledged or smothered by a belief system that has held our world in its clutches for millennia, we can understand that sentiment of isolation breeds silence. If we are unable to learn about cultures both in our blood and not our own, we will become divided, no longer capable of comprehending others. Our cultures are being lost, our indigenous cultures, and beyond the façade of politics surely we can see that what is at stake is knowledge. The ability to learn freely.

I have sat with Catholics, Christians, atheists and Muslims and discussed openly my Paganism, my sexuality and gender identity, and it is in these classes that I feel truly safe. The classes breed compassion, love, and understanding. That is why we are fighting so hard, why teens are chaining themselves down and yelling. We have talked quietly, and peacefully, and reasonably, and those in power have ignored us. They have called us racist and brainwashed. Our teachers are receiving death threats because they dare to teach a history of people called savages, people who discovered 0 (zero), who created one of the most accurate calendars in the world, and who conveyed ideas not through writing but image. Perhaps this does not seem as serious a loss as the killing of philosophers, or the burning of libraries, or the forced conversions we have all heard of. But it is. The law and the people supporting the destruction of these classes are attempting to silence a voice that speaks of knowledge, and hope, and peace. Courage, love, and a warrior spirit I am sure many Pagans and Heathens can relate to.

I do not exaggerate when I say we are fighting for our lives. Countless students have been saved from dropping out by these classes, because they teach us that we do have a voice, that we do have power, and that what we say matters. The future of our education is at stake, and it doesn’t matter what political side you are on. Everyone who cares about freedom of speech, freedom of the indigenous people to teach their knowledge and accept their place as a group that has contributed to our country, freedom of the youth to be heard even if we can’t vote—support us. Support us in any way you can. Send money to the lawsuit fighting the law, send emails to the activists with ideas on how to get our message out in ways more people will listen to and understand, send your thoughts and energy and hope. We need hope so badly. Some people have been fighting this fight for years, and we’re tired. We need support, we need to know that we’re not alone in this fight, we need to know that our spiritual communities care.

At the most recent protest there were clergy with a Virgen de Guadalupe altar outside the TUSD Board Meeting. For a long time I resisted requesting the aid of the Pagan clergy (or Pagans at all) here for fear of the backlash, the false connection of our classes to liberal politics.

But the time for fear is over, and I am begging every Pagan and Heathen to help in this fight. We need you, in any way you can help. We have fought for our own sacred knowledge, for the traditions of the Norse and Germanic people, for the knowledge of the Celts and Druids, for the hidden histories of the Romans and Greeks. Don’t let our indigenous knowledge be lost, or slowly killed, or marginalized. We know how it is to try to find our roots, our place again, and I am begging that you do not let them take our roots away. It doesn’t matter if your white, black, brown, yellow, red, any color: your roots, both blood and land of birth, that’s what matters.

Anything you do, whether talking with family and friends about the issue, or writing to our schools to show your support, or ritualizing or praying or the multitude of other things Pagans do, will help. Just listening and understanding us, our struggles, our truth, is help. But, please, help. We need it. Thank you.

I’d like to thank Aine for sharing this first-hand perspective of such contentious issue. To find out more, Jeff Biggers at The Huffington Post seems to be closely following the story, as are local blogs the Tucson Progressive and The Three Sonorans. Local opposition to these laws and proposals seems to be centered in the group “Save Ethnic Studies.” You can find some more background on the resolution to change the status of ethnic-studies programs, here (and here). For the “pro” side, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne penned a critical report of these classes when he was superintendent.

For those who want to contact Aine, I can pass along your info, or you can offer advice and insights in the comments.

Several folks have pointed out to me a photo from the May 3rd print edition of the Washington Post. It is a shot of Arlington National Cemetery headlining a section on the death of Osama bin Laden. It, perhaps inadvertently, makes very clear why the military, and all Americans, should take the needs and accommodation of modern Pagan faiths seriously.

“Look in the left foreground of the photo – you will see the Pentacle on VA marker for Wiccan soldier Charles Thomas Heinlein, Jr. at Arlington National Cemetery. He was killed in action in Iraq. His grave is in section 60, where many US soldiers killed in wars in Iraq & Afghanistan are buried & honored.” – Selena Fox, Circle Sanctuary

When crude editorials mock Pagan faiths and our equal treatment in the military, when pseudo-historians and Christian pundits claim non-Christians shouldn’t even have constitutional protections, they are, in part, talking about Wiccan soldiers like Charles Thomas Heinlein, Jr. or Sgt. Patrick Stewart. Men who gave their lives in service to the United States. Modern Pagans of all persuasions are part of our everyday society, our fabric of life. We are your coworkers, teachers, friends, and family. When we are “othered,” it has ramifications beyond the editorial page, it leads to rights being delayed, parents risking the loss of their children, and an unspoken tiered system of  religious rights and freedoms being created. Pagans ask for no “special rights” just the equal treatment we are all supposed to enjoy in America, the freedoms and rights our Pagan military personnel served, suffered, and died for.

Yesterday conservative Washington DC-based newspaper The Washington Times published an editorial mocking and criticizing the Air Force Academy for erecting an outdoor worship area to benefit Pagan cadets. I normally don’t pay much attention or respond to Pagan-bashing editorials, but in this case the anti-Pagan sentiment came hand-in-hand with a complete lack of fact-checking and bald-faced ignorance concerning modern Paganism, our history, and the American promise of equal treatment for all faiths. I’m going to skip over the name-calling (“space cadets”) and get right to what this anonymously-penned screed gets wrong.

“…the stone circle is designed for the benefit of a handful of those claiming to be Wiccans or Druids. [...] All of the actual Wiccans and Druids died out hundreds of years ago. The religions of the barbaric tribes of Europe faded away as the Roman conquest brought civilization to the region. Teachings once handed down by oral tradition were entirely forgotten over time.”

I’ve linked these two statements together because they speak to the same problem, that modern Pagans of various stripes aren’t “real” because we can’t prove an ancient and direct lineage to polytheists from the pre-Christian era. First, in matters of law it doesn’t matter how ancient the providence, the Church of All Worlds (CAW) formed in 1961 has the same legal rights as the traditionalist Witches who claim an ancient pedigree, and both of those groups have the same rights as any Christian organization. Further, the editorial mangles ancient history, and seems completely ignorant about the importance of folklore, classical philosophy, and grimoires in keeping “pagan” ideas alive after Christianity became the dominant faith in Europe. In any case, whatever stance any of us take on history, and how ancient or modern various modern Pagan faiths are, it has little bearing on how relevant or deserving they are of equal treatment and protection under the law.

“Around the 1950s, fringe leftists enamored by the concept of worshipping the Earth adopted the ancient labels and pretended to follow the old ways. They just left out the inconvenient bits, like human sacrifice.”

First, I think Gerald Gardner and several other occultists of his era would be very, very surprised to hear that. Gardner, by many accounts from contemporaries, was a Tory, and the romantic preservation and investigation of England’s folklore very much a respectable (small-c) conservative pastime. The overt mixture of leftist politics and folklore didn’t happen until the late 1950s and early 1960s when figures like Ewan MacColl and A. L. Lloyd came to the fore. Indeed, some have written about the tensions between figures like Gardner and Robert Cochrane over political and social ideas. Wicca was not a “leftist” initiative, though you could make the argument that it was indeed “fringe” in its early days. As for the fraternal Druid societies that eventually helped inspire modern Pagan Druid groups, or various Germanic Pagan revivals, “fringe leftists” is hardly the term I would use.

As for “human sacrifice,” it really depends on which groups you are talking about, and from which era. Many “pagan” cultures eliminated such practices long before Christianity came along, and those who didn’t often treated the practice the way some modern cultures approach capital punishment. Even if some of us are reconstructing or re-imagining religions based on faiths that practiced human sacrifice, we aren’t historical reenactors.

“While there may be religious and cultural elements that we wish to bring forward into our modern lives, we are not an historical re-enactment group. We are generally law-abiding modern people and enjoy things like indoor plumbing, central heating, modern medicine, and eyeglasses. What we want to do is bring forward those things that are of value and work with what is relevant for the time in which we live.”

If you really want to talk about “human sacrifice” it certainly wouldn’t stop with the dominance of Christianity. There’s a bloody and long history of ritualized and blessed slaughter in the Christian era, and to pretend otherwise smacks of revisionism.

Running out of bad things he (she? they?) can say about modern Paganism, they quickly turn to environmentalism, portraying it as a stalking horse for Paganism.

“Such [environmental] questions can only be raised in a politically correct military that may actually contain more Earth worshippers than imagined. Though cloaked in scientific terms, the tenets of global warming are essentially pagan. This belief system, which cannot be questioned, holds that material sacrifice – turn down your thermostat and trade in your light bulbs – will result in a change in the weather. It is the modern equivalent of a rain dance. These neo-Pagan worshippers now have a federally supplied space they can call their own in the hills of Colorado Springs, Colo.”

Some scholars claim that “nature religion” is the future of religion on this planet, and they may be right, but caring about the planet isn’t the same thing as invoking pre-Christian deities. Is the Washington Times honestly against using materials that might have less impact on our environment? Really? Is designing a “greener” bullet somehow taking us on a road to moral ruin? Here’s hoping nobody at the Washington Times is recycling, I would hate to imperil their immortal souls.

Anti-Pagan editorials are a dime-a-dozen. They aren’t hard to find and the people who write them are generally easy to ignore as fringe haters so concerned about their own ideas of what’s correct that nobody would enter “heaven”. However, as we see more and more ideologues start to assert that non-Christian faiths aren’t deserving of equal treatment or protection under the United States constitution, we run the risk losing ground if we don’t take the time to debunk them and engage with the wider world on why our faiths are just as deserving as any dominant monotheism.