{"id":2938,"date":"2011-07-27T06:57:38","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T12:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2938"},"modified":"2011-07-26T19:06:29","modified_gmt":"2011-07-27T01:06:29","slug":"how-to-talk-with-the-non-pagan-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2938","title":{"rendered":"How to Talk with the Non-Pagan Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lots of Pagan sites are talking about a magickal showdown with some Christian spiritual warriors over the District of Columbia. Jason Pitzl-Waters has the thoroughly hyperlinked details.<\/a><\/p>\n

Here Hecate, who helped start this particular rolling, says some valuable things about framing the issue<\/em> when talking with non-Pagans.<\/a><\/p>\n

When talking to the press, framing matters. Your message is that local Pagans, whose heritage goes back to some of the world\u2019s first democracies and who are soldiers, police, fire fighters, doctors, teachers, business owners, parents, and citizens, are standing up for traditional American values including tolerance and religious freedom. Your group will be doing that by [gathering and reading the Constitution, collecting canned food for people of all religious backgrounds who have been hit by the bad economy, chanting and praying, whatever.] You\u2019re saddened that one group of Americans would attack other Americans over their religions. You hope to remind America of the religious toleration that our Founders believed was such an important American value.<\/p>\n

Your message is NOT that Pagans don\u2019t worship Satan, eat babies, etc. Repeat: your message is NOT about what Pagans don\u2019t do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She is a lawyer by trade and just might know something about the practice of rhetoric, y’know? (Many of the famous Pagan rhetoricians, guys like Quintilian, <\/a>were\u2014at times\u2014lawyers, although the profession was structured differently then.)<\/p>\n

To use the language of classical rhetoric, she is arguing the stasis of definition<\/em><\/a>. In contemporary political rhetoric, it’s part of what we call “controlling the narrative” or in other words making your side look good, reasonable, ethical, in tune with enduring American values. etc.<\/p>\n

And thanks for the mention in the blog post! I am all for material spirituality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lots of Pagan sites are talking about a magickal showdown with some Christian spiritual warriors over the District of Columbia. Jason Pitzl-Waters has the thoroughly hyperlinked details. Here Hecate, who helped start this particular rolling, says some valuable things about framing the issue when talking with non-Pagans. When talking to the press, framing matters. Your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[95,5],"class_list":["post-2938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-journalism","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-Lo","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10197,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10197","url_meta":{"origin":2938,"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":2938,"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":13495,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13495","url_meta":{"origin":2938,"position":2},"title":"Lifting up Love & Light in North Carolina","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 4, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"A mug with the Pagan triple goddess symbol is pictured at Quantum Soul in Carrboro on Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023. The student newspaper at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, does the annual Pagans-and-witches story but reaches out a little farther to interview a graduate student working in that\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":7277,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7277","url_meta":{"origin":2938,"position":3},"title":"TV Pagans Looking Good \u2013 or at Least Better","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"From the abstract to Robert A. Saunder's paper \"Primetime Paganism: Popular-Culture Representations of Europhilic Polytheism in Game of Thrones and Vikings,\" reprinted at Medievalists.net, in which he argues two points: First, that traditional filmic treatments of pagans [sic] qua villains is shifting, with contemporary popular culture allowing for more nuanced\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":12836,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12836","url_meta":{"origin":2938,"position":4},"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":735,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=735","url_meta":{"origin":2938,"position":5},"title":"Can you adopt a tradition?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2938","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=2938"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2941,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2938\/revisions\/2941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}