{"id":81,"date":"2003-12-10T20:14:00","date_gmt":"2003-12-10T20:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=81"},"modified":"2011-08-25T15:06:21","modified_gmt":"2011-08-25T21:06:21","slug":"81","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=81","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Culture shaping religion<\/strong><\/p>\n

A recent Washington Post<\/em> story <\/a>surveys Pagan response to H. James Towey, director of the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, whose recent remarks implied that Pagan charities did not exist.<\/p>\n

I wonder, of course, if Towey really was thinking of capital-P Pagans when he responded to the original question. But that’s irrelevant now.<\/p>\n

Two thoughts:<\/p>\n

1. Congratulations to someone out there for effective public relations work in rounding up sources for the reporter, Alan Cooperman. Based on my own newspaper and p.r. experience, I suspect that he had help in shaping the story. (But why was he unable to get even a “no comment” from Towey’s office? Or was that cut from the story?)<\/p>\n

2. Although many Pagans contribute to secular charities and nonprofits, this incident once again shows that in the American religious marketplace, you have to tie your religion’s name to what you do and “show the flag” as part of acquiring legitimacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Culture shaping religion A recent Washington Post story surveys Pagan response to H. James Towey, director of the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, whose recent remarks implied that Pagan charities did not exist. I wonder, of course, if Towey really was thinking of capital-P Pagans when he responded to the original question. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-81","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13588,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13588","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":0},"title":"“Patrick, Pagans and Party Animals”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 16, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"A screenshot from Patrick, Pagans and Party Animals, a video about the saint and the explosion of the secular holiday of St. Patrick's Day. Jenny Butler, a Pagan-studies scholar from University College Cork, appears at 3:00 and elsewhere to speak up for the \"Pagan\" dimension of the story. Requires free\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Catholicism\"","block_context":{"text":"Catholicism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=catholicism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/party-aniamsl-300x204.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":519,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=519","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":1},"title":"Saturday with the PagansRocky Mountain\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday with the PagansRocky Mountain News religion writer Jean Torkelson goes to Denver's Pagan Pride celebration and writes a middle-of-the-road \"Pagans are mostly just regular folks\" column.Behind each pagan, a story: Dressed in brooding black, Michael Torres looked like a shadow falling across the sunlit park. Raised in the intense\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8262,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8262","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":2},"title":"Call for Papers: Family, Home, and Ways of Life: Living Paganisms in a Globalized World","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Information on the upcoming Family, Home, and Ways of Life: Living Paganisms in a Globalized World conference in Krakow, Poland, 24-25 March 2017, may be found at this link. Presentations may address various issues within the following (suggested) topics: Everyday life of contemporary Pagans Understanding human relationships: from till death\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":257,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=257","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":3},"title":"Pagans invented the wheel Well,\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 7, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Pagans invented the wheel Well, yes, of course, if you think about it--presuming that you equate pre-Big Name Religion (Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, etc.) with \"Pagan.\" But first, let me acknowledge publication of Pagan Pride, a book of short readings (in unusual square format) \"honoring the Craft and Culture of Earth\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12836,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12836","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":4},"title":"CFP: Pagan Studies Conference at Masaryk University","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 11, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Paganism and its Others 13-14 June 2022 Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts, Brno, Czechia The Department for the Study of Religions at Masaryk University invites your participation in a conference on the overall theme of \u201cPaganism and its Others\u201d to be held in Brno, Czechia, 13-14 June, 2022, with in-person\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":66,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=66","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":5},"title":"Watching the news . .\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 16, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Watching the news . . . Not surprisingly, The Drudge Report was first with this story, in tandem with Religion New Blog. It's right up both their alleys. I found it ironic that the woman herself, obviously not playing with a full deck (\"I had cut myself. I do that\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","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=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3194,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions\/3194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}