{"id":5809,"date":"2013-07-08T16:57:19","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T22:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5809"},"modified":"2013-07-09T15:12:15","modified_gmt":"2013-07-09T21:12:15","slug":"defining-paganism-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5809","title":{"rendered":"Defining Paganism (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of a weeks ago, on another blog, a commenter, wishing to insist that his<\/em> sort of Paganism was different from some other people’s Paganism, concluded his comment by asserting that there was no overall definition of Paganism anyway.<\/p>\n

I decided to step in and disagree, since I could think of at least two non-sectarian definitions. I offered the broad, relationship-focused definition that Michel York offered a few years ago in Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion. <\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

An affirmation of interactive and polymorphic sacred relationship by the individual or community with the tangible, sentient and\/or nonempirical.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But what about atheist Pagans!?<\/em> the commenter responded, thinking that he had me cornered.<\/p>\n

Not a problem, I said, they fit under the umbrella too. York offered it as a definition that allows not only polytheism but non-theistic humanism and naturism\/naturalism.<\/p>\n

The commenter responded with something about “gobbledegook,” which I translate as “You are asking me to think too much and to question my position.”<\/p>\n

But even though I know that reading comprehension is low online, I am going to break down York’s definition and talk briefly abut what I like it from a religious-studies perspective. Then in a future post, I will look at another definition, one perhaps more suited to a historian.<\/p>\n

“An affirmation”<\/strong> \u2014 Not a “belief” or a “creed,” but just an understanding by practitioners that this sacred relationship exists.<\/p>\n

“interactive and polymorphic”<\/strong> \u2014 whatever Pagans do, they treat as flowing both ways: “We need the gods, and the gods need us.” “We respond to the world, and the world responds to us.”\u00a0 These relationships are polymorphic because they can take many shapes\u2014not just formal worship, but all kinds of interactions.<\/p>\n

“sacred relationship”<\/strong> \u2014 now here we hit rough water. The existence of “the sacred” or any “agent beyond the purview of science” is debatable in religious studies. One contingent sees the term “sacred” as meaningless (or of “mixed empirical utility”) and asserts that every action or attitude described as “sacred” can be explained within the the realms of human power games, economic games, gender games, etc. Or else it is just an accidental product of brain wiring of dubious evolutionary value.<\/p>\n

But for now, let assume a sacred realm, as most religious people do, with which one can\u00a0 have a relationship. That does not necessarily mean a theistic relationship. For more than anything, this definition treats “Pagan” as a way of being religious<\/em>, not as a set of rituals or beliefs or creeds.<\/p>\n

“by the individual or community”<\/strong> \u2014 Solitary Pagans, you’re covered.<\/p>\n

“with the tangible, sentient and\/or nonempirical”<\/strong> \u2014 this phrase covers “green religion<\/a>” in Bron Taylor’s sense. Your relationship might be with Mother Ocean, as his is. Or a mountain? Or a work of art \u2014 all tangible. It may be with persons, human or other-than-human, but still characterized as sacred.<\/p>\n

It might be with the “nonempirical,” those “agents beyond the purview of science”: spirits, gods, wights, whatever you want to call them. But the “or” still leaves room for non-theistic Pagans.<\/p>\n

In the book, York differentiates Paganism from other ideal types of religion: Abrahamic, dharmic, and secular. But he also sees “paganism” (he does not capitalize) as appearing in other religions, for example, if Christian pilgrims visit a sacred mountain (the tangible), that is a Pagan element in their practice.<\/p>\n

Certainly some Sunni Muslims would agree: hence the Saudi government’s destruction of sites from the time of the prophet Muhammed,<\/a> including what many think was a house he lived in \u2014 these tangible elements might distract believers from The Book.<\/p>\n

This definition, unlike the next one that I will discuss, is set out independent of culture, history, ethnicity, and so forth. It does put what seem like disparate groups into one basket \u2014 and it largely ignores groups’ claims about their own origins, lineages, and so forth.<\/p>\n

But to return to the idea of “a way of being religious,” it does seem useful in discussing earth- and body-centered\u00a0 practices (such as pilgrimage) that were previously shoved to the side in favor of textual criticism and the study of hierarchies and religious transmission from one leader to the next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of a weeks ago, on another blog, a commenter, wishing to insist that his sort of Paganism was different from some other people’s Paganism, concluded his comment by asserting that there was no overall definition of Paganism anyway. I decided to step in and disagree, since I could think of at least two […]<\/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-5809","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-1vH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5825,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5825","url_meta":{"origin":5809,"position":0},"title":"Defining Paganism (1.5)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The first definition of Paganism that I offered, that of Prof. Michael York, should be placed in its context, which was primarily the academic study of religion. (Amazon link to York's published books.) When it was published in 2003, academic interest in the study of contemporary (or neo-) Paganism had\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":5853,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5853","url_meta":{"origin":5809,"position":1},"title":"Defining Paganism (2)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Previous: \"Defining Paganism (1)\" and \"Defining Paganism (1.5)\" The first definition that I offered was created by a scholar of religion, Michael York. It facilitates the ability to talk about Paganism not as a set of doctrines, but as a way of being religious. In an essay that he published\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":5888,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5888","url_meta":{"origin":5809,"position":2},"title":"A Pagan-Flavored Study of Religion","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Graham Harvey, one of founders of contemporary Pagan studies, has a new book out, Food, Sex and Strangers, which \"offers alternative ways of thinking about what religion involves and how we might better understand it. Drawing on studies of contemporary religions, especially among indigenous peoples, the book argues that religion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.acumenpublishing.co.uk\/jackets\/m\/1844656934.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5217,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5217","url_meta":{"origin":5809,"position":3},"title":"Parsing Paganism, Rejecting the F-Word","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This whole issue of \"Pagan fundamentalism,\" Pagan identity politics, and related disputes have been giving me a lot of agita. In fact, I do wish that \"the f-word\" had never been introduced, because rather than helping the conversation, it shuts it down. As soon as you refer to someone as\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":11101,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11101","url_meta":{"origin":5809,"position":4},"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":5289,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5289","url_meta":{"origin":5809,"position":5},"title":"Is Paganism Doomed?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"No, this is not the judgment of one of the usual (Pagan) suspects. It is a tangent spun off a column by Rod Dreher, who comments frequently on ecclesiastical matters. He was raised a southern Protestant, converted to Roman Catholicism, left that church over the sex-abuse scandals, and is now\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5809","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=5809"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5824,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5809\/revisions\/5824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}