It’s not just contemporary Pagans who are vexed by that problem. Journalist Ron Dreher of the Crunchy Con[servative] blog tries to respond to a political conservative’s criticism, the critic being columnist Maggie Gallagher.

And then his commenters arrive in flocks.

And the argument goes around and around, sounding very much like Wiccans and reconstructionist Pagans arguing, only with different religious language.

And then a real Pagan does arrive in the comments. Someone tries to refute him by quoting G.K. Chesterton, as though the definition of “pagan” had not matured over the last hundred years. Is that the best they can do?

Yes, a sort of philosophical/literary paganism was in vogue in Chesterton’s time–the next issue of The Pomegranate will have an excellent article on that era. But it is not exactly what we are talking about now.