{"id":14010,"date":"2025-05-22T20:56:41","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T02:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14010"},"modified":"2025-05-22T20:56:41","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T02:56:41","slug":"what-does-pagan-persistence-look-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14010","title":{"rendered":"What Does ‘Pagan Persistence’ Look Like?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For more than a century, scholars and Pagans (who are sometimes the same people) have debated the persistence — or not — of Pagan ideas and practices into the Chritian era. This is the question that Robin Douglas and Francis Young examine in Paganism Persisting: A History of European Paganisms since Antiquity.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reviewer Ethan Doyle White writes in Reading Religion: <\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

“Trying to escape the binary between the \u201chermeneutic of survival\u201d and the \u201chermeneutic of concoction\u201d that have historically dominated discussions on the topic, Douglas and Young outline a ‘hermeneutic of persistence,’ maintaining that \u201celements of paganism continued to exist in post-classical European society, constantly ready to be revived and reanimated\u201d (2). Even while pre-Christian religions themselves essentially became extinct in most of Europe, images and ideas from those traditions persevered, allowing them to be adopted and reutilized by later individuals, some of whom considered themselves Christian, and others who were actively seeking replacements for Christianity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get your library to order it or buy some expensive English electrons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For more than a century, scholars and Pagans (who are sometimes the same people) have debated the persistence — or not — of Pagan ideas and practices into the Chritian era. This is the question that Robin Douglas and Francis Young examine in Paganism Persisting: A History of European Paganisms since Antiquity. Reviewer Ethan Doyle […]<\/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":[5,4],"class_list":["post-14010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-paganism","tag-scholarship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3DY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6691,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6691","url_meta":{"origin":14010,"position":0},"title":"‘Sacred Lands and Spiritual Landscapes’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Sacred Lands and Spiritual Landscapes, papers from the spring 2013 Cherry Hill Seminary symposium, edited by Wendy Griffin, is now available for purchase from CHS. Contents Preface, Holli Emore Introduction, Ronald Hutton The Land Within, Wendy Griffin Song of the Cattahoochee: On Being a Southern (Pagan) Witch in Atlanta's Urban\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"sacredlands","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/sacredlands.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12836,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12836","url_meta":{"origin":14010,"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":1101,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1101","url_meta":{"origin":14010,"position":2},"title":"A New 3-Volume Work in Pagan Studies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Barbara Jane Davy, author of Introduction to Pagan Studies (The Pagan Studies Series) has a new edited collection out of source documents for Pagan studies.Paganism (Critical Concepts in Religious Studies) lists on Amazon at an \"institutional\" price, like the other edited collection that I recently mentioned.From the publisher's site:This new\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":1121,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1121","url_meta":{"origin":14010,"position":3},"title":"Handbook of Contemporary Paganism in Print","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My contributor copy of the new Handbook of Contemporary Paganism from Brill arrived. (You can tell from the price that it is intended primarily for the institutional market.) Here is the table of contents:\"The Modern Magical Revival,\" Nevill Drury\"The Influence of Aleister Crowley on Gerald Gardner and the Early Witchcraft\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":2371,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2371","url_meta":{"origin":14010,"position":4},"title":"Seeking AAR Pagan Studies Papers","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"After reading the Call for Papers, now is the time to submit proposals for the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group's sessions at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting. We have two topics this year: What does Pagan studies offer to academic analysis and critique? How do historical constructions of \u201cpaganism\u201d\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":798,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=798","url_meta":{"origin":14010,"position":5},"title":"New Pomegranate Contents","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 25, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In the rush of travel and then preparing for the spring semester, I forgot to post the contents of the latest issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies (Volume 8, no. 2, Nov. 2006).So here is what's happening in Pagan Studies:\"Santeria Sacrificial Rituals: A Reconsideration of Religious\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14010","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=14010"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14014,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14010\/revisions\/14014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}