{"id":674,"date":"2006-06-07T02:35:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-07T02:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=674"},"modified":"2006-06-07T02:35:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-07T02:35:00","slug":"674","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=674","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Rutherford Institute defends Wicca (sort of)<\/strong><\/p>\n

John W. Whitehead, founder of The Rutherford Institute<\/a>, a sort of ACLU of the religious right, says that Christians should support Wiccans’ efforts to get tombstones for military veterans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although our country was founded on a Judeo-Christian base, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution understood that religious freedom was for everyone, not just Christians. In other words, the only way that freedom can prevail for Christians is for Christians to stand up and fight for the minority beliefs and religions of others.<\/p>\n

Without it, freedom will most likely be lost. And we will be left wondering whose freedoms we are really fighting for.<\/em><\/p>\n

OK, he does have to slip in the “founded on a Judeo-Christian base” line. It would be more accurate to say “founded on a Neoclassical Deist<\/a> base.” Remember what the Constitution says about Jesus Christ? Nothing at all. But his overall point is a good one.<\/p>\n

Tags: Wicca<\/a>, Rutherford Institute<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rutherford Institute defends Wicca (sort of) John W. Whitehead, founder of The Rutherford Institute, a sort of ACLU of the religious right, says that Christians should support Wiccans’ efforts to get tombstones for military veterans. Although our country was founded on a Judeo-Christian base, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution understood that religious freedom was […]<\/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-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-674","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6360,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6360","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":0},"title":"The ‘Pentecostal Drift’ and Modern Paganism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Religion blogger Peter Berger, melding articles from\u00a0 The Tablet (Roman Catholic) and The Christian Century (mainline Protestant) notes \"the major demographic shift in world Christianity\u2014the fact that more Christians now live in the Global South: Asia, Africa, Latin America\u2014than in the old Christian homelands of Europe and North America.\" With\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":600,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=600","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":1},"title":"Misunderstanding religious freedomThe Christian Science\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Misunderstanding religious freedomThe Christian Science Monitor observes the anniversary of the 1786 Virginia Statute Establishing Religious Freedom with the observation that many Americans have an imperfect idea what \"freedom of religion\" means.Dr. Haynes, who advises schools on these issues, offers a vivid example of the misunderstanding found not just among\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2748,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2748","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":2},"title":"Army Appoints Hindu Chaplain (Sort of)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"There about 1,000 identified Hindus in the U.S. Army, and now they have a chaplain, Captain Pratima Dharm. Yes, that is probably fewer than the followers of Pagan paths in uniform. The Buddhists have been recognized too, but a qualified Wiccan officer was rejected. But there might be more to\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":5555,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5555","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":3},"title":"Francis of Assisi: From Radical Monk to Garden Ornament","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 31, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The real-estate supplement of the Taos News this week carried an article titled \"Five Must-Haves for a Beautiful Backyard.\" Oddly enough, four of the five items* were available at the store owned by a person interviewed for the story. \"Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, is one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"St. Francis as a bird bath with the wolf of Gubbio.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholichomeandgarden.com\/images\/Saint%20Garden%20Statues\/Saint%20Francis%20Garden%20Statue%20Birdbath.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":168,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=168","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":4},"title":"The fastest-growing religion? The notion\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 21, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The fastest-growing religion? The notion that Wicca is America's fastest-growing religion has achieved meme status. Everyone says it, but who started it? Thanks to Jim Lewis, I have been looking at some of the data collected by the American Religious Identification Survey, conducted at CUNY, and comparing sociological changes in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14050,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14050","url_meta":{"origin":674,"position":5},"title":"Will Christians Fulfill a Pagan Emperor’s Plan?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 15, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Julian \"The Philosopher,\" Rome's last Pagan emperor (mid-360s), would get chuckle out of this. (Although to me he comes across as super-serious, he must have found some things funny. I hope.) While he was force-fed Christian theology by bishops, growing up in a royal Christian household, he later studied ancient\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Julian_antioch-mint-bull.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\/674","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=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}