{"id":581,"date":"2005-12-20T23:21:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-20T23:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=581"},"modified":"2005-12-20T23:21:00","modified_gmt":"2005-12-20T23:21:00","slug":"581","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=581","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Wars over Christmas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Blame the Emperor Constantine, as this blogger rightly points out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That’s the same Constantine<\/a> who would make Tony Soprano<\/a> look like the Dalai Lama.<\/p>\n

A post on a Pagan mailing list had this gem:<\/p>\n

But I just got done watching (thankfully, I wasn’t at the center but hubby was) a huge donnybrook about Cub Scouts’ December pack meeting being a “holiday party” not the “Christmas party” that some parents were insistent on. The event was quiet and happy but the organizers had law enforcement on standby because it has become that heated.<\/em><\/p>\n

Maybe religious wars are a cultural norm, and we have unknowingly been living until recently in a rare era of relative peace, which we mistook for normality.<\/p>\n

Christmas<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wars over Christmas Blame the Emperor Constantine, as this blogger rightly points out. That’s the same Constantine who would make Tony Soprano look like the Dalai Lama. A post on a Pagan mailing list had this gem: But I just got done watching (thankfully, I wasn’t at the center but hubby was) a huge donnybrook […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-581","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6662,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6662","url_meta":{"origin":581,"position":0},"title":"If You Had a Drone in Ancient Rome, This Is What You Would See","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 3, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A virtual flyover of Rome in 320 CE, when Constantine I was in charge. Or how about a Google Streetview of Pompeii (as it is today)? Or step back about three thousand years and consider this animation of how they built the Pyramids. This is even fancier.","rel":"","context":"In \"Egypt\"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=egypt"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":738,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=738","url_meta":{"origin":581,"position":1},"title":"The religious marketplace in late antiquity, or ‘the more things change . . .’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Studying the program book from the upcoming American Academy of Religion-Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting, I came across this description of a joint session session between the Europe and the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity Group, the Manichaean Studies Seminar, and the Religion in Roman Egypt Consultation:This joint session addresses\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":273,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=273","url_meta":{"origin":581,"position":2},"title":"Kinder, gentler polytheism Charged with\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Kinder, gentler polytheism Charged with reviewing both it and a new book about the emperor Julian, I have finally begun Jonathan Kirsch's God Against the Gods. Even as the legacy of the Vietnam War still influences American politics, so the fourth-century C.E. conflict between the ideas of Julian and his\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3662,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3662","url_meta":{"origin":581,"position":3},"title":"Asperger’s or Just Garage-Band Religion?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"My friends who are scholars of new religious movements (NRMs)\u00a0 theorize about how NRMs develop or do not, become accepted or do not, assimilate or do not. Some engage in a \"scholarship of advocacy,\" defending in various fora the human right to start one's own religion without being labeled a\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":3013,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3013","url_meta":{"origin":581,"position":4},"title":"Christians’ Persecution Perplex","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"So there was some kind of big evangelical Xian pep rally in Houston, headlined by Gov., Perry of Texas, a possible presidential candidate, which is why that it is getting media attention. Jason Pitzl-Waters watches it nervously from the minority-religious-rights perspective. Kallisti works it into a post on polytheism: \"Powerful\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":6538,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6538","url_meta":{"origin":581,"position":5},"title":"Marion Zimmer Bradley, Greenpeace, and the Donatists","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in the 4th century CE, Western Christianity had a problem. During the Emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians, which began in 303 and was severe in some areas, some Christian clergy in the Berber communities of North Africa had surrendered copies of Scripture and otherwise complied with the emperor's edicts.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581","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=581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}