It’s Tuesday morning and I’m at the San Francisco International airport awaiting my flight back to Oregon. There’s so much I have to report on and write about concerning the American Academy of Religion’s Annual Meeting but it will have to wait until I’m back at my own desk with hours of uninterrupted writing time ahead of me. But rest assured, there’s a lot to come, and many projects that are now gestating due to this meeting.  In the meantime, for today, I’d like to share a few more photos from the AAR to tide you over until I get home.

Sociologist Helen Berger discussing new Pagan census data (more on that soon).

Suzanne Owen (Leeds) discussing The Druid Network gaining charitable status.

Christopher Chase discussing West Coast Pagan practices and ideas.

There’s more to come! So do stay tuned! I’ve spoken with several scholars this weekend, and I’m hoping to spotlight some of their voices and research in the weeks to come here at The Wild Hunt. Also, before I sign off, I’d like to thank Solar Cross for being my host for the AAR Annual Meeting and making my stay a very pleasurable one.

I have a lot to report on from Sunday’s presentations and panels at the American Academy of Religion’s Annual Meeting, including issues of indigenous-Pagan relations and the development of modern Paganism on the West Coast, but I’d like to devote this post to the opening panel co-presented by the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group and the Religion and Ecology Group. The panel, “Elemental Theology and Feminist Earth Practices,” featured dual keynote talks from noted Catholic eco-feminist theologian Rosemary R. Ruether (author of “Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing” among many others) and Pagan eco-feminist, activist, and author Starhawk (whose latest book, “The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups” was just released).

Rosemary Ruether and Starhawk

Here’s the program description:

“Starhawk is the well-known feminist Witch, Earth activist, and writer who initiated the Reclaiming Witchcraft Tradition in San Francisco in 1979. Her books on Pagan ecospirituality, such as The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion (HarperOne, 20th anniv. ed., 1999) and the novel The Fifth Sacred Thing (Bantam, 1993), are still bestsellers. Over the last four decades her thinking and practices have spun off the emergent Goddess spirituality movement, but have also provoked and influenced feminist theologians. One of them is Rosemary R. Ruether, herself a major contributor to feminist theologizing in all Western traditions — be it Christian, Jewish, or Pagan. Over the last ten years, Ruether and Starhawk have developed similar interests in feminist earth practices, honored the four elements and permacultural social principles, and have quoted each other’s work respectfully. In this session all are invited to reflect on the notion of “elemental theology” and/or “feminist Earth practices” as a possible crossroad for feminist theology of different faiths to meet.”

I was lucky enough to get permission from the Contemporary Pagan Studies group to record this talk so that they could make a transcript available later. I’d like to post an excerpt of the entire panel, featuring Starhawk’s opening remarks.

You can download this audio, here.

As you can hear, its a wide-ranging speech that touches on elemental theology, activism, the Occupy movement, permaculture, and other topics. I hope to, in the future, feature more excerpts from this panel, as the contributions were important, not only from Starhawk and Rosemary R. Ruether, but from the responders: Marion S. Grau, Jone Salomonsen, and Heather Eaton. In addition, there was a spirited and interesting Q&A period that should also interest readers here. Once details emerge as to where and when the transcript will be published, I’ll post that information.

There’s more AAR coverage to come, so stay tuned!

I was recently pointed to a just-published piece at the Bryn Mawr Classical Review that reviews the 2010 edited volume “One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire.” That book grew out of a 2006 conference at the University of Exeter, and once you scratch the surface, points to a far larger conversation within academic circles over monotheism, polytheism, and how the shift from many gods to one God changed the world. In the introduction to “One God” editors Stephen Mitchell and Peter Van Nuffelen note how the “prevalance of monotheism” has colored all inquiry into pre-Christian polytheistic religion.

“…for this reason the differences between Graeco-Roman polytheism and the Jewish, Christian, or Islamic monotheisms, which have dominated our own religious and cultural experiences since the end of antiquity, pose a serious challenge to our understanding of the past. We view ancient religion through a filter of assumptions, experiences and prejudice. Monotheism contains its own internalized value judgments about polytheistic paganism, and these have always influence, and sometimes distorted, the academic study of ancient religion.”

When the scholars in this book, and in other books like 1999′s “Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity,” talk about “Pagan monotheism” they are often describing what we would call henotheism, that is, the worship of one god (or goddess) to the exception of others, while still acknowledging and accepting the existence of other deities.

“[Stephen] Mitchell’s essay ends with a statement worthy of concluding the volume: “We cannot call the cult [of Theos Hypsistos] monotheistic in the strictly exclusive sense that is applied to ancient Judaism and Christianity, but it involved a series of coherent and explicit rituals and practices which were based on belief in a unique, transcendent god, who could not be represented in human form” (p. 197). The acknowledgment that Theos Hypsistos is not exactly like other monotheistic religions does not mean, as Mitchell rightly argues, that elements of monotheism cannot be found in it and in other pagan cults. But this lack of exclusivity does open up the possibility of claiming that pagan monotheism also has elements of polytheism. The fluidity in defining pagan monotheism reflects the fluidity of the religious realities in which these cults were worshipped.”

Books like “One God” seem to be asking whether monotheism as a system of religion must be inherently intolerant, or if  it was merely “concomitant aspects of religious change which are subsumed within monotheism” that caused such a shift towards religious intolerance. To German Egyptologist Jan Assmann, who released “The Price of Monotheism” in 2009, it comes down to what he calls the “Mosaic Distinction,” which created a distinction between “true” religions and “false” religions.

“This shift does not just have theological repercussions, in the sense that it transforms the way people think about the divine; it also has a properly political dimension, in the sense that it transforms culturally specific religions into world religions.  [...] What seems crucial to me is not the distinction between the One God and many gods but the distinction between truth and falsehood in religion, between the true god and false gods, true doctrine and false doctrine, knowledge and ignorance, belief  and unbelief.”

To Assmann history is full of “monotheistic moments” where this distinction between true and false religion rises up to cause mayhem and destruction.

The back-and-forth of scholarship may seem a bit too “inside baseball” to matter, but the debate over the nature of religion in antiquity and late antiquity casts a shadow on more popular works today, including in journalism, and helps shape the way we think about a topic. Whether acknowledged or not, there are competing narratives in works like Alan Cameron’s  “The Last Pagans of Rome”, which argues that paganism was a spent force that went out with a whimper, or the work of Owen Davies in books like “Paganism: A Very Short Introduction” or “Grimoires: A History of Magic Books” that looks at how pagan ideas and beliefs managed to persevere, adapt, and survive. That “in contemporary society, Paganism can be a liberating spiritual and social force [...] it is no less relevant than it was when it was redefined by Christians nearly two millennia ago. It has retained its ability to stimulate intellectual curiosity and spiritual exploration.”

The shift to reevaluate polytheism has almost certainly influenced figures like religion professor Stephen Prothero, whose 2010 book “God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World-and Why Their Differences Matter”, while no love letter to polytheism, did insert Yoruba into the pantheon of religions that “run the world”. Prothero is the go-to guy for religion at CNN’s Belief Blog, and was a main source for the PBS series “God in America,” how he thinks about polytheism today has far-reaching effects. It is also why the field of Pagan Studies is so important. Pundits, bloggers, and journalists regularly turn to “experts” for new information and confirmation of their ideas and theories, the more good information there is about the validity of polytheism and of contemporary Pagan religions, the more people like me have to reference when we make our own arguments in the public sphere. That there is a wide-ranging discussion about polytheism and monotheism within academia should excite modern Pagans, as it means there could be a seismic shift in how our culture approaches these topics as well.

On Monday the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, announced the winners in its second-annual Scholarship & Mentorship Program for Religion and Theological Study. The goal of the HRC’s  Religion and Faith Program is “to ensure that no one should have to choose between their faith, their sexuality and their gender identity.” The 2011 Dissertation Scholarship was awarded to Megan Goodwin, a doctoral candidate in Religion and Culture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Goodwin’s winning dissertation is entitled “Captive Bodies, Queer Religions: Scripting American Religious Intolerance,” and “focuses on masculinity and religious intolerance in contemporary America.”

Megan Goodwin

I was able to briefly speak to Goodwin about the award, and here’s what she had to say:

“I’m honored to receive the award, and look forward to working with the HRC’s mentorship program. My research explores the crucial role sexuality plays in constructing American religious intolerance. As a queer Pagan scholar, I’m committed to writing about religious and sexual difference — I feel fortunate that the Human Rights Campaign wants to invest in that work.”

The dissertation scholarship includes a stipend of up to $15,000, free attendance to the HRC’s Summer Intensive, a mentor from outside their seminary, and assistance from the HRC’s Religion and Faith Program in presenting their research at universities, conferences and LGBT gatherings. This win for Goodwin is not only a boost for her academic career, but is a step in legitimizing perspectives and scholarship from religious minorities in the United States. Contemporary Pagan religions have often been at the forefront of recognizing the inherent dignity and worth of all individuals regardless of gender or orientation, and our theologies can be a vital part of the HRC mission to “cultivate a new understanding of sexual orientation, gender identity and religion and effectively counter the repressive environment in which so many students are currently trained.”

News of Goodwin’s award has already started to spread through Pagan scholar networks, and Christine Hoff Kraemer, Ph.D., the department Chair of Theology and Religious History at Cherry Hill Seminary, the premier distance-learning institution for professional Pagan ministry, released a statement on the occasion.

“It’s fantastic that the Human Rights Campaign recognizes the important role that non-mainstream religions are playing in our culture’s thinking about sexuality. Megan Goodwin’s research stands to make a valuable contribution, not just to academic Pagan studies, but to religion and sexuality studies in general.”

Academic scholarships by any number of organizations and institutions are awarded every year, but I think this specific award is significant for our communities. Not simply because Megan Goodwin is Pagan, but because her work was singled out by a highly visible and politically active organization that sees Goodwin as part of a larger mission to change our religious culture. The HRC is up front is wanting to change “how pastors, rabbis, and others of deep faith approach religion and LGBT Equality,” to create a paradigm shift in how they approach “sexuality and gender identity in their congregations and classrooms.” Her selection by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation LGBT Scholarship and Mentorship program for Religious and Theological Study sends a message that Pagan voices, and by extension Pagan theologies, are an important part of that process. My congratulations go out to Megan Goodwin. I’m hoping to spotlight her work here at The Wild Hunt soon.

Pagan scholar Caroline Tully has just posted a rare interview with historian Ronald Hutton, author of “The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft”, in which he takes the time to answer a recent resurgence of criticism regarding his work from within the Pagan community.

Ronald Hutton

“I have no interest in contesting the claims of modern Pagans to represent a secretly surviving tradition, as long as the practitioners do not attack me or offer any actual historical evidence for scrutiny. If they do neither, then they are effectively standing outside history and are not the concern of a historian. I regularly read articles by contemporary witches, expounding one system or another which they say has been passed down through their family or their initiatory tradition for centuries, and offering no evidence to support this claim. They are no concern of mine, and it is open to others to believe or disbelieve them as they will. Gerald Gardner’s Wicca was, however, based on specific historical evidence, above all the early modern trials, and academic framework of interpretation of it, which were very much the business of historians.”

I encourage anyone with any interest in Hutton’s work to head over and read the entire thing. There’s really too much to easily summarize, and quite a bit of insightful commentary concerning history and modern Paganism. In addition, Hutton generously lays out his plans for future books that may be of interest to modern Pagans, including works on witchcraft, and Britain’s pagan heritage. Thanks to Caroline Tully at Necropolis Now for making this happen.

Top Story: Chas Clifton gives us a heads up that the preliminary schedule of the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group’s sessions for this year’s American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting are now up. Taking place this November in San Francisco, California, the AAR’s Annual Meeting is the world’s largest gathering of religious studies scholars. This year the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group will explore themes of “West Coast Pagan Practices and Ideas,” “Pagan Analysis and Critique of ‘Religion’,” and “Elemental Theology and Feminist Earth Practices,” which is being run in partnership with the Religion and Ecology Group.

The joint session with the Religion and Ecology Group, “Elemental Theology and Feminist Earth Practices,” will feature a panel discussion with groundbreaking feminist theologian Rosemary R. Ruether and Reclaiming co-founder Starhawk. In addition, other sessions will see paper presentations from Helen Berger, Christopher W. Chase, and Christine Kraemer (a department chair at Cherry Hill Seminary) among others. All that is in addition to the thousands of other presentations on just about every facet of religious experience you can think of. I will be there this November to cover the event, and hope to bring you special reporting, interviews, and access to a gathering few outside the world of religion studies experience.

In Other News:

• Berkeley-based Sunrise Bookshop is going out of business, part of larger trend in the area of metaphysical shops closing down. The recent downturn in the economy is blamed as the “final blow” that made the business unsustainable.
• Al Jigen Billings and Catherine Kehl have launched a new project entitled Pagan Dharma, “a site that looks at the Dharma, the teachings and way of being derived from the Buddha, from the point of view of being a pagan, in whatever loose sense we want to define that.” Looks like it might become a great resource for the many Pagans out there interested in Buddhism, or utilizing Buddhist practices.
• The battle over regulating Yoga in Texas heats up.
• Is the New Apostolic Reformation starting to make more traditional Christian conservatives nervous?
• Is Paganism an expostmodern religious movement?

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

Just a few quick news notes for you this Sunday morning.

Interview with a Pagan Anthropologist: PNC-Minnesota interviews Murph Pizza, a local Pagan and cultural anthropologist specializing in religions and American religious cultures, about “Pagan culture” and what common ground our diverse religions contain.

I make the argument in my thesis that yes, we do have some bottom, base line Pagan values. If you talk to Pagans, they have this weird cultural thing that we just disagree on everything and we’ll never agree on anything. That is really not true. We really are more alike than we realize. We seem to have a cultural habit of denying when someone says, “Well don’t you kind of share the same values?”, we say . “No we are all different, and we like that”. Interestingly, one shared Pagan value is the celebration of diversity. Diversity is one of the things it is hard to be unified about because, well it is diversity! <laughs> The fact that we are negotiating that we are sort of the same people and yet maintain our differences, values, paths, practices, etc, is a real interesting tension. I think it keeps the movement viable. It is frustrating when you are in it, but we need to remember that kind of tension keeps us living and breathing as a culture and a religion.

There is another shared value in that there is a genuine love of place, and of the planet. How it is expressed is where the diversity really hits. Some people become politically or socially active, like SuSu does with Coldwater Spring, or some people mya just keep it in their back yard. How it is expressed is different but there really is a shared sense that this spinning ball of mud is fantastic and it is all we have got. Let’s teach the next generation to keep it around. So that is just a couple of shared values. This shared divine sense of place and insistence on our diversity.

Pizza, who wrote her thesis on the Twin Cities (aka Paganistan) Pagan community, is in the process of having the work published as a book. I would recommend reading the entire, fascinating, interview.

Foreclosures in the Pagan Community: LA Pagan Examiner Joanne Elliott, who’s been doing an excellent job covering local Pagan-oriented stories, reports that Ed Fitch, Gardnerian elder and author of several influential Pagan books, has lost his home due to foreclosure.

“The place is stripped,” Ed Fitch reported on Tuesday of his Orange County home of 31 years as he showed off the empty rooms. He was not without a little nostalgia, though. “I raised my kids here, had a lot of pets,” he said. Then he laughed, “Had a lot of parties – pagan parties, the best kind!”

Fitch will be moving to Texas to live with his eldest son. Many have been hard hit in Los Angeles, though some, like Pagan performer Marguerite Kusuhara, have been able to modify their mortgage and remain in their homes. I suspect that these stories could ring true for many Pagans throughout the United States, as they try to save their homes in this economic crisis.

The Letters From Hardscrabble Creek: I’d just like to quickly note that Pagan academic Chas Clifton’s blog has been hitting on all cylinders the past couple weeks, and you should head over there if you haven’t lately. Covering Pagan chaplaincy issues, an American goddess, and several posts dealing with Pagan scholarship and the back-and-forth over Ronald Hutton’s “Triumph of the Moon” (and the new critique “Trials of Moon”), the results have been engaging to say the least.

“No topic is ever “closed.” Historical works—which is how Prof. Hutton would describe Triumph—are not holy scriptures. New thinkers and new generations bring new scholarship and new interpretations. But what Hutton has done is establish a standard. Anyone who challenges his conclusions (and given that ten years have passed, he has challenged some of them himself, I expect) must do at least as much in-depth research as he has done. They can’t just snipe from the sidelines. Rhetoricians talk about “invented ethos,” by which a speaker or writer displays their qualifications to engage a topic: I have studied such-and-such at this or that level. I have done such-and-such. I have experienced such-and-such. (“Invention” does not imply falsification in this context.) It is that level of ethos I see lacking in his critics—so far.”

I plan on exploring the ongoing Hutton/Trials of the Moon controversy/debate in more detail on this site soon, but until then, Chas’ blog is a good place to start your journey.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!