{"id":814,"date":"2007-02-08T19:35:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-08T19:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=814"},"modified":"2007-02-08T19:35:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-08T19:35:00","slug":"animal-sacrifice-and-authenticity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=814","title":{"rendered":"Animal Sacrifice and Authenticity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month Classics scholar Mary Beard suggested that contemporary Hellenic Pagans<\/a> were not quite authentic because they omitted the centerpiece of ancient Paganism: animal sacrifice<\/a>. (I discussed her critique here, and she responded.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Orthodox Christian blogger Rod Dreher’s recent post–and especially the comments<\/a>–pretty well illustrate just how squeamish today’s population–even omnivores–are about the idea of animal sacrifice.<\/p>\n

Other than followers of Afro-Diasporic religions (Santeria, Candomble, etc.), only a tiny number of contemporary Western Hemisphere Pagans perform animal sacrifice.<\/p>\n

(Muslims typically perform animal sacrifice for the festival of Eid ul-Adha<\/a>. Christians, as one of Dreher’s commenters points out, believe that Jesus’ death ended sacrifice. Jews would not agree, but having centralized their rituals at the Jerusalem Temple–which was then destroyed–they moved to a different religious model.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month Classics scholar Mary Beard suggested that contemporary Hellenic Pagans were not quite authentic because they omitted the centerpiece of ancient Paganism: animal sacrifice. (I discussed her critique here, and she responded.) Orthodox Christian blogger Rod Dreher’s recent post–and especially the comments–pretty well illustrate just how squeamish today’s population–even omnivores–are about the idea of […]<\/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_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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[33,5],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-greece","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-d8","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6893,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6893","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":0},"title":"Animal Sacrifice and ‘Hard’ Polytheism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"There was some discussion last week at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting as to whether the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group should sponsor or co-sponsor a session devoted to issues surrounding animal sacrifice. Some voices in the Pagan world suggest that you are not really a \"hard\" polytheist (truly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Hinduism\"","block_context":{"text":"Hinduism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=hinduism"},"img":{"alt_text":"imrs.php","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/imrs.php_-300x204.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8205,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8205","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":1},"title":"Call for Abstracts: Paganism and Food","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Call for abstracts Feasts of the Gods: Food and Drink in Contemporary PaganismTo be published as part of Equinox Publishing\u2019s Contemporary and Historical Paganism Series Dear colleagues, You are invited to submit an abstract for a chapter in a new book on food and drink in Contemporary Paganism.\u00a0\u00a0 In this\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":13830,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13830","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":2},"title":"Animal Sacrifice: Are They Doing It Wrong?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 17, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"A possible animal sacrifice location in the Howard Beach area. J.C. Rice (New York Post) The New York Post had two articles recently on apparent animal sacrifice in the Jamaica Bay area of Long Island (politically in both Brooklyn and Queens). \"Animal Sacrifices on the Rise in Queens with Chickens,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"African religion\"","block_context":{"text":"African religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=african-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5677,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5677","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":3},"title":"When Gods Sacrifice to Themselves","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Almost all traditional Pagan cultures have one religious practice in common that contemporary Pagans for the most part avoid: Sacrifice, which means literally \"to make sacred.\" Earlier this month, in fact, at a Pagan camp-out one of the elders was discoursing on the uselessness of sacrifice. If g\/God were a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/9\/91\/Omphalos_pushkin.jpg\/337px-Omphalos_pushkin.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":992,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=992","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":4},"title":"Pomegranate 9.2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been remiss in not noting the contents of the latest issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. Videlicet:\u2022 \"The Quandary of Contemporary Pagan Archives,\"Garth Reese, \u2022 \"The Status of Witchcraft in the Modern World,\" Ronald Hutton,\u2022 \"Kabbalah Recreata: Reception and Adaptation of Kabbalah in Modern Occultism,\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"nature religion\"","block_context":{"text":"nature religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=nature-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10568,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10568","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":5},"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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","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=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}