{"id":676,"date":"2006-06-11T20:06:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-11T20:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=676"},"modified":"2006-06-11T20:06:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-11T20:06:00","slug":"676","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=676","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s drop ‘Neopagan’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back in the 1970s, when Tim (now Oberon) Zell<\/a> was editing Green Egg<\/em> (America’s leading Pagan zine at the time), “Neopagan” or “Neo-Pagan” was a cutting-edge term for a collection of religious movements from Wicca to Egyptian Reconstructionism.<\/p>\n

More recently, the British Pagan scholar Graham Harvey<\/a> has suggested dropping the term on the grounds that after fifty or more years, we are not so “neo” anymore.<\/p>\n

In academia, it is more and more replaced with “contemporary Paganism(s),” as in the Consultation on Contemporary Pagan Studies<\/a> in the American Academy of Religion<\/a>. (A “consultation” is a type of program unit.)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, various conservative Catholic writers seem to be re-discovering “pagan” and “neo-pagan” as a term of abuse, starting at the Vatican.<\/p>\n

Here the pope’s astronomer refers to “creationism” as “a kind of paganism<\/a>.” I think that is because the Vatican accepts evolution; therefore, creationism is non-Christian, or pagan and superstitious. <\/p>\n

G.K. Chesterton, patron saint of all rightwing Catholic writers, referred to the Nazis as pagan<\/a> and in fact used the term neo-Pagan (as modern “anti-Christian”) at least forty years before Green Egg<\/em> came along.<\/p>\n

Here’s a Catholic blogger doing the same thing<\/a>. He seems to equate Sir Edmund Hilary’s “neo-paganism” with merely being worldly and irreligious.<\/p>\n

So they are not talking about us directly because we are not really on their radar yet.<\/p>\n

In Pagan Theology<\/em><\/a>, Michael York (who does not capitalize the term) argues for both the existence of Pagan religion as a category, whether ancient or contemporary, as well as for Pagan elements (pilgrimages, veneration of shrines, etc.) in the bookish religions. In a future post, I can discuss his definition. But buy the book anyway.<\/p>\n

To me, “Pagan” has value as a term defining polytheistic, nondualistic religions whether ancient or present-day. Eventually even the pope will realize that.<\/p>\n

But Roman Catholics aside, I find Graham Harvey’s argument convincing.<\/p>\n

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

Let’s drop ‘Neopagan’ Back in the 1970s, when Tim (now Oberon) Zell was editing Green Egg (America’s leading Pagan zine at the time), “Neopagan” or “Neo-Pagan” was a cutting-edge term for a collection of religious movements from Wicca to Egyptian Reconstructionism. More recently, the British Pagan scholar Graham Harvey has suggested dropping the term on […]<\/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-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-676","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":493,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=493","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":0},"title":"Pagan studies, nature religion at\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 18, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Pagan studies, nature religion at AAR-SBLFor anyone attending the annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion and Society for Biblical Literature in Philadelphia in November, here is a quick--and not necessarily definitive--list of the Pagan-studies sessions.First, the all-day Conference on Contemporary Pagan Studies, which has been happening since 1998\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1121,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1121","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":1},"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":10568,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10568","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":2},"title":"Pagan with a Capital P","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"In editing the current issue of The Pomegranate, one of my \"favorite\" issues came up again: whether or not Pagan is capitalized. American scholars and Pagan authors tend to say yes. There has been a small campaign to convince the editors of the Associated Press Stylebook, widely used in the\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\/05\/Letter-P.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1226,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1226","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":3},"title":"That Theodish Political Candidate","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Sarah Pike of California State University, Chico evaluates Dan Halloran's run for a New York City Council seat as an \"out\" Pagan and concludes, \"Since for many Americans, the Republican Party is inseparable from conservative Christianity, Neopagans were surprised that the party stood by Halloran, and took it as 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":8434,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8434","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":4},"title":"CFP: 2017 AAR Contemporary Pagan Studies Group","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"All the calls for the 2017 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion are now online. The meeting itself will be held 18\u201321 November in Boston. The Pagan studies theme is \"Witch Hunts: Rhetorical, Historical and Contemporary.\" The term \u201cwitch hunt\u201d is used as a rhetorical strategy in contemporary\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":5,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":5},"title":"Who and Where are the Pagans?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 8, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Sociologist Helen A. Berger, author of A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States, has a new book coming out in July, written together with Evan Leach and Leigh Shaffer. The title is Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in\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\/676","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=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}