The Pagan City

Jason Pitzl-Waters has posted a fascinating and scary article on The Wild Hunt: Witch Hunts Are Now An International Epidemic. “According to some U.N. experts tracking the issue “at least” tens of thousands have died due to witch hunts, while millions have been beaten, abused, isolated, and turned into refugees.”

In a parallel vein, there is also: “Wave of Homophobia Sweeps the Muslim World.” over at Religion News Blog. “In Mauritania, Bangladesh, Yemen, parts of Nigeria and Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Iran convicted homosexuals can also be sentenced to death.”

Want more?

Hrafnkell Haraldsson’s updates his “Christianity as a Hate Group.”

From the website of Values Voter Summit we had such breakout sessions as:

TRUE TOLERANCE: COUNTERING THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS – CONGRESSIONAL B
Candi Cushman–Education Analyst, Focus on the Family Action

MARRIAGE: WHY IT’S WORTH DEFENDING AND HOW REDEFINING IT THREATENS RELIGIOUS LIBERTY – DIPLOMAT ROOM
Charles Donovan, Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation; Thomas Messner, Visiting Fellow; The Heritage Foundation; Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Founder and President, Ruth Institute

Redefining marriage poses serious threats to the religious liberties of people who continue to believe that marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman. This understanding of marriage is an important religious belief for many Americans, but the freedom to express it will come under growing pressure as courts, public officials, and private institutions come to regard the traditional understanding of marriage as a form of irrational prejudice that should be purged from public life. This briefing will focus on policy and legal developments, as well as how to communicate the link between marriage and religious liberty.

SPEECHLESS – SILENCING THE CHRISTIANS – CONGRESSIONAL B
Casey Smith, Jr., Executive Assistant to the Chairman and President, American Family Association

Americans are at a greater risk of losing their basic freedoms today than ever before in the history of this nation. Political correctness and the voice of the liberal minority are undermining the morals and values of main-stream America. Christians are being silenced all across America: in the political debate, the public square, the schools, the workplace, and even in the sanctuary of their own churches. Through video, renowned author and commentator, Janet Parshall, takes you on a journey across the country to meet citizens who have been arrested for speaking out at a public rally, students who are being forced to attend classes that require them to recite verses from the Koran and to stage their own Jihad and activists pushing social tolerance to such an extreme that the Bible itself is being labeled “hate speech.”

THE NEW MASCULINITY – CONGRESSIONAL A
Dr. Pat Fagan, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Family and Religion, FRC; Michael Schwartz, Chief of Staff, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.); Dr. Matthew Spalding, Director, B. Kenneth Simon Center for Studies, The Heritage Foundation

Feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men. It is time to redress the disorder it has wrought and that must start with getting the principles and ideals for a new “masculinism” right. Such a “masculinism” will have its dovetailing counterpart in a new “feminism” for they mutually define each other and, in nature, are meant to be complementary. This panel will begin this exploration.

THUGOCRACY – FIGHTING THE VAST LEFT WING CONSPIRACY – EMPIRE ROOM
Terry Jeffrey, Editor, CNSNews.com; Michael Barone*

“Hate crime” legislation, removal of conscience protections for health care workers, the Fairness Doctrine, groups like ACORN intimidating voters and committing voter fraud, “Card Check” legislation to create a permanent majority – President Obama and the Democratic Party is doing all it can to suppress free speech that they disagree with and that threatens their plans for a “permanent majority” in power. Political pundit Michael Barone calls it a “thugocracy” and “Gangster Government,” how real is this threat and how can we fight it?

DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD – PALLADIAN ROOM
Mark Bucher, Bucher & Palmer, LLP; Lila Rose, President, LiveAction

As many state and local governments are tightening their budgets to weather this fiscal storm, communities are taking a second look at the funding of the controversial abortion corporation Planned Parenthood. Since 1987, Planned Parenthood has taken in $3.2 billion in taxpayer funds. Planned Parenthood has used its money to support candidates who will continue this money stream and to lobby against initiatives such as parental notification laws in cases of minors seeking an abortion. Learn from people, like you, who have successfully stopped Planned Parenthood funding in their communities.

ACTIVISM AND CONSERVATISM: FIT TO A TEA (PARTY) – CABINET ROOM
Jeff Griffith, Pennsylvania Tea Party Coordinator; Amy Kremer, National Coordinator, Tea Party Patriots; Crane Durham, Host, “Nothing but the Truth”

On April 15th, hundreds of thousands of citizens gathered in more than 800 cities to voice their opposition to out of control spending at all levels of government. Organized in all 50 states by Americans from all walks of life, these “tea parties” were a true grassroots protest of irresponsible fiscal policies and intrusive government. The mainstream media could not explain the phenomenon that anyone would be fed up with Washington, D.C. now that the liberals in charge. We will tell you how it happened, why it is still happening and how you can organize your own.

FAITH, POLITICS, AND THE INTERNET: HOW TO CONTEND FOR TRUTH IN A DIGITAL AGE
Dr. Russell Moore, Dean of Theology and Senior Vice President for Academic Administration, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Joe Carter, Web Editor, First Things; Hunter Baker, Author and Professor, Houston Baptist University; Jared Bridges, Director of Online Communications, FRC

The new media has given new emphasis to the age-old, often contentious relationship between faith and politics. A panel of internet activists from across the new media spectrum will discuss what it takes to have an effective voice in the political discussion online while remaining faithful to the things that matter most.

This is a response to “Vacationing with the Pagans” by Eric Miller in the September 2009 edition of Christianity Today.

Mr. Miller begins his article by describing a family outing to Virginia Beach to see a tribute band performing two hours of song by the Beatles. Bemused by the metamorphosis of the faux Fab Four from their early rock and roll beginnings to their all-out pyschedelia of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band he expresses shock at the reactions of the audience (especially his son) and concludes that:

All kinds of names have been given to this transformation. But this concert leaves me thinking one thought: We’re on vacation with the new pagans. They’re everywhere.

Everywhere? Oh, dear.

While I’m not going to discuss the point to Mr. Miller’s article, if there is one. I do take exception to his repeated misuse of the words pagan and paganism. He makes some pretty astounding generalizations which make me question: if he is on vacation, is he a tourist in his own land?

Apparently so.

Paganism: an old word with enduring resonance, and for good reason. Think of it as the state of heart and mind that has emerged as the reality of Law has come, over the past century, to seem less and less real—a long historical process that reached a kind of climax in the ’60s, when to “question authority” meant, among other things, to question the very existence of authority.

I would like to infer that Mr. Miller is referring to the decline in people deferring to a spiritual authority and not all authority in general. I am sure there are people who self-identify as Pagans who are also anarchists; I am equally sure such folk are in the minority.

Also, what is the “Law” of which Mr. Miller writes? History overflows with the conflicts of Catholics and Protestants bloodily arguing over what Christian law is/was/will be. I find it hard to believe that the readers of Christianity Today could even agree on a definition of “Law.” Mr. Miller never explains his own usage.

But the canard that non-Christians, i.e. pagans or Pagans, are somehow with authority — spiritual or otherwise — is a canard that dates back to Theodosius, if not earlier. True, Mr. Miller is writing for a Christian audience, but for contemporary Christians to have any sort of understanding of what modern Paganism is, we need something of substance.

Ready for more?

A recognizably Christian culture has given way to a new paganism. What is this?

It is the embrace of nature without Nature. It is the reverence of bios, physical life, in tandem with a dimming awareness of zoe, spiritual life. It is, in fact, the mistaking of physical life for spiritual life, with all the historically ingrained religious sensibilities rushing toward bios with a very familiar zeal.

A very familiar zeal, indeed. Where have I read about this before?

So, these “new pagans,” go to cover band concerts, recognize no authority, and have given up the spirit entirely for the flesh. It sounds more like a description of those tedious atheists who run around proselytizing naturalism.

Again, Mr. Miller is unclear. My knowledge of ancient and medieval Greek is almost non-existent. Sure, βίος can be translated as “life.” But zoe? Does he mean ζωή or zoë which also means “life?”

It gets better:

So now, for us twenty-first century pagans, being 25 is all—the most alive we’ll ever be. Men and women on both sides of that envied age try with holy fervency to attain it, whatever the cost in dollars or dignity. The hair must be cut just so (and then cut again and again—just so). The body must be kept trim, ever prepared for a 25-year-old’s feats. Old age never looked so bad. What red-blooded American male today would ever want to wake up and find himself married to a grandmother? What American woman wants to look like one?

So the “new pagans” are also youth-obsessed and vain? Hold on a minute. Isn’t it human nature to retain, if not youth, at least youthfulness? What about Pat Robertson’s deal with GNC (General Nutrition Center) for diet shakes?

He goes on:

Our too-spiritual spirituality ended up leaving us, as Christians but also as a wider populace, in considerable confusion about all things material, whether bathing suits or beer or bombs. And our disregard of the physical was bound to invite a walloping counter-embrace of it. By the 1960s, paganism was, once more, unshackled. Our creaturely identity, in all its post-Edenic glory and corruption, became impossible to box in. The body was back.

I’m sure a lot of active Pagans would be surprised to find out that their various paths were unfettered during that decade. It was a surprise to me. And, as with so many other Christian articles, the answer to every problem is “worship.”

This all strikes me as disingenuous. The brief bio (“life!”) of Mr. Miller describes him as an associate professor of history at Geneva College. One would hope that a faculty chair at a liberal arts college in Beaver Falls, PA would have a better grasp on the history of the emergence of Christianity from Classical religions, and also be aware of the contemporary usage of pagan and paganism to know that these words are loaded with different meanings than the ones assigned to them in this rambling article. “New pagans” sounds a lot like the phrase “Neo-Pagan” that has been in use since the 19th century.

One would also hope that Mr. Miller represents ancient and modern people who follow non-Abrahamic faiths as something other than authority-forsaking, body-obsessed teenyboppers at a concert that was a reenactment of history rather than an actual part of history.

I have some pagan friends who recently attended a U2 concert. Although not a Christian band, its members have often expressed a deep influence and appreciation for their Christian upbringing and its ethos.

Did they feel like tourists? No. They had fun.