{"id":12103,"date":"2021-03-19T20:06:10","date_gmt":"2021-03-20T02:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12103"},"modified":"2021-03-19T20:42:03","modified_gmt":"2021-03-20T02:42:03","slug":"we-pagans-are-the-useful-idiots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12103","title":{"rendered":"We Pagans Are the “Useful Idiots”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Reading Religion, <\/em>which is a book-review site run by the American Academy of Religion, recently assigned me a book to review: Our Non-Christian Nation: How Atheists, Satanists, Pagans, and Others Are Demanding Their Rightful Place in Public Life<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The author is a Boston University law professor, and he well summarizes the FIrst Amendment law cases that made it possible, for example, for an avowed Satanist to give the invocation before a city council meeting in upstate New York.\u00a0 And he goes riding around Circle Sanctuary<\/a> in an “side by side” ATV with Selena Fox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Professor Jax Wexler is the kind who expects the class to laugh at his jokes, and he spends a little too much time telling which Supreme Court justices he despises and how getting drunk is the only way to cope after spending time with people from Greece, New York (it’s a suburb of Rochester).<\/p>\n

What struck me the most was that to Wexler we Pagans \u2014 and the Satanists and all the minority religions \u2014 are just “useful idiots<\/a>.”((A “useful idiot” is a person [or group] perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause’s goals, and who is cynically used by the cause’s leaders (Wikipedia).)) We are levers to use against “Christian hegemony,” and when that is finished with, so are we.<\/p>\n

He is an atheist with a capital-A, and in his world, there is no Out There or In There or Over There, only human consciousness trapped in the bone box of the skiull and only this world as revealed by Science. Down the road lies the Atheist utopia, once we get rid of all these “deplorables” with their silly religions.<\/p>\n

If you want to read it, here is the review that I wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Religion, which is a book-review site run by the American Academy of Religion, recently assigned me a book to review: Our Non-Christian Nation: How Atheists, Satanists, Pagans, and Others Are Demanding Their Rightful Place in Public Life. The author is a Boston University law professor, and he well summarizes the FIrst Amendment law cases […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,275,5],"class_list":["post-12103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-new-religious-movements","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-39d","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10197,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10197","url_meta":{"origin":12103,"position":0},"title":"“Solitary Pagans,” a New Academic Study","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in the mid-1990s, Nancy Mostad, then the acquisitions editor at Llewellyn, told me that they estimated that 70 percent of purchasers of books on Paganism were solitaries.Hence the immense success -- by their standards -- of Scott Cunningham's Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. Meanwhile, sociologist of religion\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":10799,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10799","url_meta":{"origin":12103,"position":1},"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":[]},{"id":10841,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10841","url_meta":{"origin":12103,"position":2},"title":"When “Pagans” Return, Who Gets Hurt?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I read an alternative-history novel now and then,((Robert Harris' Fatherland remains an all-time favorite.)) especially those in which the Pagans triumph. For instance, John M. Ford created a 15th-century world, Dragon Waiting: A Masque of History, in which Julian the Philosopher, the last Pagan emperor, did put on his armor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=soutrocknatub-20&l=am2&o=1&a=0380698870","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":471,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=471","url_meta":{"origin":12103,"position":3},"title":"Headstones and bureaucratsNon-Fluffy Wicca posts\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 21, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Headstones and bureaucratsNon-Fluffy Wicca posts about bureaucratic foot-dragging and stonewalling over the issue of headstones for Pagan military service members.Beginning in 1997 with a request by the Aquarian Tabernacle Church of Washington state, various Wiccan groups have requested a pentagram headstone for military cemeteries and been ignored or turned down\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1436,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1436","url_meta":{"origin":12103,"position":4},"title":"Thinking about ‘Nature Religion’ in the Snow","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I spent about an hour today on the snow shovel after fifteen inches fell yesterday, laughing a bitter and sardonic laugh at people who associate flowers and bunny wabbits with the spring equinox. (At least the Sun is stronger now than in midwinter.) Today's preoccupation is the talk that I\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":13085,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13085","url_meta":{"origin":12103,"position":5},"title":"Holli Emore Interviewed about Pagan ‘Ministry’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 1, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"What is the difference between priest\/essing\u00a0 and ministry? What does a Pagan \"minister\" do? Holli Emore serves as executive director of Cherry Hill Seminary (since 2008). Cherry Hill offers a variety of programs that help Pagans become not only more effective group leaders and also qualifies them to work with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/holli-emore-240x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12103","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=12103"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12109,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12103\/revisions\/12109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}