Last month Classics scholar Mary Beard suggested that contemporary Hellenic Pagans were not quite authentic because they omitted the centerpiece of ancient Paganism: animal sacrifice. (I discussed her critique here, and she responded.)

Orthodox Christian blogger Rod Dreher’s recent post–and especially the comments–pretty well illustrate just how squeamish today’s population–even omnivores–are about the idea of animal sacrifice.

Other than followers of Afro-Diasporic religions (Santeria, Candomble, etc.), only a tiny number of contemporary Western Hemisphere Pagans perform animal sacrifice.

(Muslims typically perform animal sacrifice for the festival of Eid ul-Adha. Christians, as one of Dreher’s commenters points out, believe that Jesus’ death ended sacrifice. Jews would not agree, but having centralized their rituals at the Jerusalem Temple–which was then destroyed–they moved to a different religious model.)