{"id":1105,"date":"2009-01-06T16:09:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-06T16:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1105"},"modified":"2009-01-06T16:09:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-06T16:09:00","slug":"pagans-are-not-a-community-nor-a-tribe-not-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1105","title":{"rendered":"Pagans are not a Community nor a Tribe — Not Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lively discussion at The Wild Hunt over “moving on from Paganism<\/a>” should put an end to the notion that Pagans constitute a “tribe” or a “community.”<\/p>\n

Not yet, anyway. We are still part of modern society with its cafeteria spirituality.<\/p>\n

Many Pagans, such as Emma Restall Orr in her book that I recently reviewed<\/a>, are fond of the idea of “tribe.”<\/p>\n

Jews, for example, are a tribe (or several). A Jew might never cross the threshold of shul, synagogue, or temple–may even be an avowed atheist–but he or she is still a Jew. Only conversion to one of the other Abrahamic faiths might change that fact — after a time — and even then, you still have “crypto-Jews<\/a>” popping up. (Everyone wants to be special.)<\/p>\n

A Navajo Indian might follow traditional religion, Mormonism, some kind of Christianity, or the Peyote Road, but is still a Navajo.<\/p>\n

What we have is a network<\/em>, not a community nor a tribe. Maybe in a few generations that will change, who knows? (For you anthro and sociology majors, it is the Gemeinschaft \/ Gesellschaft issue,<\/a> no?)<\/p>\n

Everytime I hear someone going on about “the Pagan community,” I say to myself, “Not yet.” Not when you can walk in and walk out so easily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The lively discussion at The Wild Hunt over “moving on from Paganism” should put an end to the notion that Pagans constitute a “tribe” or a “community.” Not yet, anyway. We are still part of modern society with its cafeteria spirituality. Many Pagans, such as Emma Restall Orr in her book that I recently reviewed, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-1105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-hP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11101,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11101","url_meta":{"origin":1105,"position":0},"title":"“Pagans,” a Short Documentary Film","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"? Oooh, scary Pagans! We spend a lot of time with the curtains drawn, gazing at candles, right. We wear black robes . . .\u00a0 Seriously, there is some good stuff here: Pagans, a short documentary. To tell the story of the dramatic rise of neo-paganism in America, though, you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12836,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12836","url_meta":{"origin":1105,"position":1},"title":"CFP: Pagan Studies Conference at Masaryk University","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 11, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Paganism and its Others 13-14 June 2022 Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts, Brno, Czechia The Department for the Study of Religions at Masaryk University invites your participation in a conference on the overall theme of \u201cPaganism and its Others\u201d to be held in Brno, Czechia, 13-14 June, 2022, with in-person\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6979,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6979","url_meta":{"origin":1105,"position":2},"title":"Looking at Your Polis as a Pagan","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 31, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"A Wiccan email list that I am on recently went through a discussion of teaching \"theology\" to children. It is one of the perennial questions among contemporary Pagans: teach the kids or let them make up their own minds as adults. Surprisingly, some discussants reported that said adult children-of-Pagans regretted\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"childhood\"","block_context":{"text":"childhood","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=childhood"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":814,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=814","url_meta":{"origin":1105,"position":3},"title":"Animal Sacrifice and Authenticity","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1271,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1271","url_meta":{"origin":1105,"position":4},"title":"Our ‘Open-Source’ Religion","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Paganism as an open-source religion. (That approach works for some Jews too.)Douglas Cowen, in his book Cyberhenge, goes even further, making an explicit analogy to computer coding: \u201cPagans are \u2018hacking\u2019 their own religious traditions out of the \u2018source codes\u2019 provided by pantheons, faith practices, liturgies, rituals, and divinatory practices drawn\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10799,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10799","url_meta":{"origin":1105,"position":5},"title":"A New Study of Solitary Pagans","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Solitary Pagans: Contemporary Witches, Wiccans, and Others Who Practice Alone is a new study from Helen A. Berger, a sociologist of religion who has been studying contemporary Paganism for decades. Her body of work is large enough now that future scholars will be returning to it again and again for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/solitary-pagans.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}