{"id":7500,"date":"2015-09-08T19:17:41","date_gmt":"2015-09-09T01:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7500"},"modified":"2015-09-09T08:57:11","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T14:57:11","slug":"someday-pagans-will-have-harlems-problem-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7500","title":{"rendered":"Someday, Pagans Will Have Harlem’s Problem Too"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been hearing of this for a while \u2014 “spiritual tourism” in Harlem.<\/a><\/p>\n

Although gospel music is part of the heritage and spirit of the neighbourhood, some have suggested that scenes in local churches are starting to resemble a Hollywood movie. Tourists visiting have become an issue of contention, to the extent that some are now shut out of services.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Shrinking from gentrification on one side, some of Harlem’s well-known historically black churches, famous for their gospel choirs, are overwhelmed on the other side by tourists (many of them European, I am told).<\/p>\n

Others report that their church stopped letting tourists come to services because of the disrespect and rudeness they exhibited. For example, in some cases, as soon as the “praise and worship” or music ended, they got up and left.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The scale is much, much, much smaller, but I think back to the Wiccan wedding that M. and I conducted here in Colorado in the 1980s for an American guy and his Thai bride \u2014 they met while students at Colorado College<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Her relatives orbited the circle like electrons, camcorders whirring. It really put me off. I was not used to multiple electronic devices during ritual \u2014 not “in circle,” but “right outside of circle.”<\/p>\n

The bride’s father was some kind of United Nations functionary \u2014 he lived in Italy \u2014 and after the wedding he did take us all to a Thai restaurant in Denver, where he ordered without reference to the printed menu, and we had a delicious feast, while his daughter made sarcastic remarks about the king of Thailand, whose portrait hung on the wall.<\/p>\n

That made up for the uncomfortable ritual just a little.<\/p>\n

But imagine if Pagan ritual theatre begins to attrach attention outside our community.<\/strong> We will have to adapt. Some already have \u2014 watch this video of a recent Greek Pagan procession through shopping and entertainment districts of Athens<\/a>. As opposed to lining up in rows in pews, I think that the procession is a quintessential Pagan large-group ritual. And maybe some day the tour buses will be there too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been hearing of this for a while \u2014 “spiritual tourism” in Harlem. Although gospel music is part of the heritage and spirit of the neighbourhood, some have suggested that scenes in local churches are starting to resemble a Hollywood movie. Tourists visiting have become an issue of contention, to the extent that some […]<\/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":[10,24,33,5],"class_list":["post-7500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-christianity","tag-greece","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1WY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9456,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9456","url_meta":{"origin":7500,"position":0},"title":"Witchy Cultural Tourists Do Exist","author":"Chas S. 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Clifton","date":"July 5, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1 Part 2 Part 3At today's exchange rate, it costs US $16.38 to tour the excavated ruins of the Roman baths that give Bath its name. I paid the entry fee twice, last Sunday and last Monday. It was worth it.Full of tourists as it is, the place still\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3104,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3104","url_meta":{"origin":7500,"position":3},"title":"Despite CUUPs, Unitarians Still Aesthetically Deprived","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Victoria Weinstein, a blogging Unitarian minister (also known for her clerical-fashion advice blog) critiques her fellow UUs for neglecting the aesthetic side of worship: I wonder how much of our beauty-avoidance is a hangover from our iconoclastic, Puritan origins in America. If so, it\u2019s time we got over it and\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":7932,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7932","url_meta":{"origin":7500,"position":4},"title":"Assessing a New Book on Jesus’ Wife","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 24, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I used to think that of course Jesus was married \u2014 what normal 1st-century small-town Jewish man would not be married? 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At least their sign was missing from the old brick church on Second Street by which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"Gateway Chapel, Florence, Colorado","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/st._jude__co.2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500","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=7500"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7504,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500\/revisions\/7504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}