The Vanderbilt policy says students must be excused from classes and other academic activities on days when their religious traditions put restrictions on labor or forbid it outright, like Eid al Fitr for Muslims and Yom Kippur for Jews. It says professors, department chairs or deans can decide if absences will be excused for religious days that are not “work-restricted,” including the Wiccan and pagan days. “This is a mechanism to let faculty be aware of these holidays, that there may be students approaching them, for example, to reschedule an exam, to make up a day of coursework or something like that because they are choosing to observe their religion on that day,” Vanderbilt spokeswoman Princine Lewis said Tuesday. “And that’s an agreement that would have to be worked out with the faculty member.”

Local conservative commentator Roy Exum has decided this is just another example of liberal decadence at Vanderbilt.

“Now I’m all for Freedom of Religion, but when pagans and witches are accorded center stage at a school where tuition is now nearly $50,000 a year, the crazies are clearly running the insane asylum. [...] Before there were holidays like Yom Kippur for those of the Jewish faith and now the Muslim holidays of Eid al Fitr are included, but don’t you think a bunch of pagans dancing around a maypole “to symbolize the mystery of the Sacred Marriage of Goddess and God” is a little over the top?”

I love it when people profess to love freedom of religion, and then talk about how the principle is being taken too far. Meanwhile, response from modern Pagans has generally been very positive at this forward step towards acceptance and accommodation. Selena Fox of Circle Sanctuary, a longtime advocate for the equal treatment of modern Pagans, struck a hopeful note on receiving the news.

“I am thankful that Vanderbilt University has expanded its diversity accommodation calendar to include some Wiccan and Pagan holidays.  It is my hope that universities, colleges, and other institutions will be inclusive of Wiccan and other Pagan traditions of those in their campus communities as well – and that accommodation of holidays extends not only to students, but to faculty and staff.”

Fox was also interviewed by the Associated Press on this story, along with Marijean Rue, a graduate of Vanderbilt’s Divinity School, who is a Witch in the Tangled Woods Tradition.

Rue, who also worked as a Vanderbilt employee after graduating, she felt comfortable telling other people her religious beliefs and felt Vanderbilt was a progressive campus that was welcoming to all religions. The addition of the holidays is a supportive sign to pagan students and faculty by the university, she said. “You feel like people aren’t going to say, ‘You’re just making this up,’” Rue said. She said young college students who are exploring religious beliefs like paganism could feel more secure in expressing themselves on campus. “When an authoritative body comes out and says, ‘We accept this,’ it really makes people feel safer,” she said.

The adoption of Pagan holidays to the list of holidays for which a student can take an excused absence has been a quietly growing phenomenon in the United States. In 2007 Marshall University in West Virginia added Pagan holidays to  its list, sparking national coverage in the process. Last year, the New Jersey State Board of Education added the eight Wiccan/Pagan “Wheel of the Year” holidays to its “official” list, while North Carolina passed a law requiring all school systems and public universities in the state to allow two excused absences per year for religious observances.

While some may feel this is political correctness run amok, it is simply a long-overdue acknowledgement that modern Pagan religions are, in fact, valid religions. Religions that have holidays and observances, and are legally recognized by the United States government. Universities like Vanderbilt and Marshall are simply codifying a reality that already exists at institutions all across the United States, that Pagan students are receiving excused absences for their holidays. Listing them simply streamlines the process of having to achieve permissions. As Pagan religiosity is further mainstreamed, no doubt Pagan faiths who don’t follow some version of the “Wheel of the Year” will also seek, and be granted, recognition as well. For those who criticize or oppose such measures, it’s simply another instance of their Christian privilege coming into play.

“Marshall University’s Pagan Association, which once received national media attention, no longer meets on campus. Marty Laubach, professor of sociology at Marshall and faculty advisor for the Marshall Pagan Association, said no one from the association has contacted him this semester and the members may no longer be together as a group. He said the association most likely did not drift apart due to conflict within the group, but because members have become more involved with their studies. George Fain, former president of the Pagan Association, worked to establish the pagan group at Marshall in spring of 2007, Laubach said. A September 2008 story in The Parthenon reported that Marshall received national media attention for recognizing Paganism as a religion.”

While some would still question if this is development was truly “newsworthy”, I think it does convey an important truth about modern Paganism: that small Pagan groups often disband or drift apart, and that this is a normal thing. It is an important fact to know, because journalists used to the congregational model of worship might think a group disbanding might be sign of ill health within the faith itself. Instead, it is just a side-effect of our strong individuality. Indeed, according to the Pagan group’s former faculty advisor, we’re “notoriously” ephemeral when it comes to working together.

“Pagan groups are notoriously unstable,” Laubach said. “Smaller groups come and go very quickly. Groups will last as long as the people can get along together.”

This isn’t to say that there aren’t Pagan groups and organizations that have managed to exists for decades, to the contrary, just that the typical expectations for what constitutes a “healthy” Pagan community varies widely from what might be considered healthy within a Christian or Jewish community. A “typical” Pagan community might see a few groups that have survived the years, as well as an ever-rotating and shifting assortment of ad-hoc groups and short-term alliances that change as the needs of the particpants change. So the Marshall University Pagan Association ending might not be news, but it’s the kind of “not-news” that may trigger some better reporting on Pagan communities in the future.

Leave it to Britain, where the influence of minority religions are more keenly felt, to come up with a compromise measure to address the growing numbers of non-Christian workers.

“Civil servants will be able to take bank holidays on the religious days of their choice under moves to introduce “cultural flexitime”. Officials in the education department will be allowed to work from home on statutory days off and take the time owed to mark their own religious traditions. It means staff will be able to work at home on Christmas Day for the first time this year and swap it for a different religious festival such as Eid or Diwali. The pioneering arrangements also apply to cultural traditions, meaning a Welsh employee could move a bank holiday to St David’s Day … The arrangements also apply to minority religions such as Baha’i and Zoroastrianism, and staff could ask for time off to mark pagan festivals such as the summer solstice … Staff choosing to swap bank holidays for other key dates will not be required to prove that they follow a different faith.”

With the growing adoption of “cultural flexitime”, Britain is slowly moving into adopting a post-Christian calendar. For instance, while Christmas may be one of the most important Christian holidays (next to Easter), Yule as celebrated by some Pagans, or Hanukkah as celebrated by most Jews, don’t hold the same level of importance in their ritual years as other holy days. In this new “flexitime” scenario, a non-Christian could work through the winter holidays and instead take time off for Samhain or Yom Kippur instead. No questions asked.

As this system gains in popularity, it will no doubt be adopted by civil and private businesses in America as well. Especially if it is painted as a way to solve all the holiday “problems” caused by the needs of religious minority workers. In the long run it could mean a more secular society as religious observance becomes are more private affair, and less an assumed cultural norm for everyone. Christianity will still be dominant in numbers and influence, but it could slowly cease to be seen as the only religion that “matters” when asking for a day off of work or school.
]]> http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2007/11/britain-finds-way-to-give-you-holiday.html/feed 1 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2007/11/few-quick-notes-2.html http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2007/11/few-quick-notes-2.html#comments Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:38:00 +0000 Jason Pitzl-Waters http://patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2007/11/a-few-quick-notes-2.html First off, some of you may have noticed that I was interviewed for an Associated Press article concerning the decision by Marshall University to allow excused absences for Pagan holidays (which I blogged about previously).

“By specifically including pagans, Marshall is taking an important step toward recognizing the validity of their beliefs, said Jason Pitzl-Waters, an authority on paganism who edits the Wild Hunt Web site, a blog about religion, politics and culture. ‘That’s part of the struggle for modern pagans,’ said Pitzl-Waters, a pagan. ‘Even though modern paganism has been in the public since the 1950s, a lot of people still see it as a rebellious teenage activity, not necessarily something you do as a religious observance’ … ‘What binds [modern Pagans] together isn’t our theology, necessarily,’ Pitzl-Waters said. ‘What binds us together is a sense of communal practice and togetherness.’”

I’d like to thank AP reporter Tom Breen for making me seem (somewhat) coherent, and for including me as a source alongside such luminaries as Ronald Hutton and Helen Berger.

In other media-related news, it seems that the ever-popular culture site Arts & Letters Daily has linked to professor Mary Lefkowitz’s pro-polytheism L.A. Times editorial “Bring back the Greek gods” (which I briefly mentioned last week).

“Prominent secular and atheist commentators have argued lately that religion “poisons” human life and causes endless violence and suffering. But the poison isn’t religion; it’s monotheism. The polytheistic Greeks didn’t advocate killing those who worshiped different gods, and they did not pretend that their religion provided the right answers. Their religion made the ancient Greeks aware of their ignorance and weakness, letting them recognize multiple points of view.”

With this nod from The Chronicle of Higher Education (the organization that runs/hosts the A&L Daily site), can we hope that more polytheism-boosting articles and editorials from prominent academics will soon appear?

Finally, I would like to wish everyone a very happy Day of the Dead (which is celebrated on November 1st and 2nd). Quite a few stories are popping up on the newswires concerning the holiday. The L.A. Times reports on how the syncretic holiday in Mexico is now incorporating Halloween into the mix, Minnesota Public Radio talks about the how the holiday is celebrated, and the OC Register highlights Day of the Dead celebrations in San Juan.

“The library kicked the festivities off with Mariachi performances at noon, with the entertainment continuing throughout the day. Performances by Aztec Dancers helped illustrate the events roots, Garza said. “It added a nice spiritual touch because it’s from the ancient Aztec’s that the day started,” she said.”

Be sure to also check out Chas Clifton’s post (with photos) on Day of the Dead altars set up at Colorado State University (where he teaches).

“After several controversial requests, the university’s policy regarding absences excused for religious reasons is under review, and the decision has been made to add Pagan holidays to the list of excusable holidays. “Based on the research I’ve done, Paganism is practiced by a group of people large enough for it to be considered a major religion,” Steve Hensley, dean of student affairs, said.”

A host of questions arise from this, the two most important being what qualifications did the modern Paganism movement meet to be classified as a “major religion”, and what list of holidays have been chosen? The basic assumption is that the eight holidays making up the “wheel of the year” are the ones that will be picked, but that will create its own problems as modern Pagan religions that don’t follow (or overlap) with these holidays grow.

To a certain extent, efforts at “normalizing” modern Paganism has leaned heavily on presenting it as a movement with a certain unity in belief and practice. A “real religion” that Christians and other dominant religious groups could understand and accept. But the reality is that modern (or “neo”) Paganism is an umbrella term that includes a vast diversity of distinct religious groups, and this reality will start to cause friction if we don’t encourage a more complex understanding of our faith communities.

Paganism isn’t a “major religion”, its a major religious movement. That may seem like a slight distinction to some, but it will become an increasingly important one in the coming future.