{"id":944,"date":"2007-10-31T19:33:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-31T19:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=944"},"modified":"2007-10-31T19:33:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-31T19:33:00","slug":"witches-and-economic-decline-in-the-american-midwest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=944","title":{"rendered":"Witches and Economic Decline in the American Midwest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The GetReligion blog, which covers issues of religion and journalism, takes on coverage of the Witch School’s move to Rossville, Illinois<\/a>. (Full Chicago Tribune<\/em> story and video here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Jason Pitzl-Waters has posted repeatedly about the various Witch School controversies<\/a>, so see his blog for the background.<\/p>\n

Maybe it is because I am still working to unload my late sister’s white elephant of a house in a small northern Missouri town, but I feel that this is as much of an economics story as a religious one.<\/p>\n

But this is America, and we habitually mis-label our debates. We use the language of race and ethnicity to talk about issues of social class. And we use the language of religion to talk about people’s gut-level fears that their little town — and by extension, them — just does not matter any more in the America of Wal-Mart and mega-churches.<\/p>\n

From GetReligion: A reader of ours, Christopher, mentioned in a note to us that the story is largely about a community dealing with \u201ceconomic decline, arson, and drugs.”<\/em><\/p>\n

I agree. Although I have never set foot in Rossville, I have been in plenty of places like it. <\/p>\n

And it is just too wrenching to their self-image for the Chamber of Commerce types to think of themselves as another Salem, Mass., and to promote Rossville that way!<\/p>\n

Instead, they probably hope to attract a new factory. But it is not coming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The GetReligion blog, which covers issues of religion and journalism, takes on coverage of the Witch School’s move to Rossville, Illinois. (Full Chicago Tribune story and video here.) Jason Pitzl-Waters has posted repeatedly about the various Witch School controversies, so see his blog for the background. Maybe it is because I am still working to […]<\/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":[],"tags":[10,46,29],"class_list":["post-944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-american-religion","tag-war-on-some-drugs","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-fe","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":811,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=811","url_meta":{"origin":944,"position":0},"title":"You Sexy Witch – 2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"No, it's not a porn site but a light-hearted collection of pop-culture witch images.Here is some World War II bomber \"nose art,\" for instance.Some of the images, such as those of Fiona Horne, are not work-safe, however.I want to see the Halloween party hats mentioned in the upcoming book on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"sexuality\"","block_context":{"text":"sexuality","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=sexuality"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10351,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10351","url_meta":{"origin":944,"position":1},"title":"A Survey on Pagan Metaphysics and Ethics","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"This comes from Gwendolyn Reese, whose work has appeared several times in The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. She writes, The purposes of this study are to explore the relationship between how the metaphysical and theological beliefs held by Pagans\/Witches\/Heathens relate to each other and to beliefs about\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":2307,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2307","url_meta":{"origin":944,"position":2},"title":"Trademarking Your Religion","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"At the Washington Post's \"Under God\" blog, a story about how the Seventh-Day Adventist church guards its trademark\u2014even against other Adventists. This has got me thinking: will all religions end up trademarked? Do you need intellectual-property lawyers and copyright lawyers to be a \"real religion\"? Imagine trademarking \"Witch.\" Someone in\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":6280,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6280","url_meta":{"origin":944,"position":3},"title":"Quick Review: The Wizard and the Witch","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my earliest entries on this blog, clear back in 2003, was a complaint about the lack of biographical and autobiographical writing in American Wicca \u2014 and I would extend that to all types of new Paganism generally. That entry did mention Margot Adler's Heretic's Heart (1997), but I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"wizard and witch","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/wizard-and-witch.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":955,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=955","url_meta":{"origin":944,"position":4},"title":"An Immigrant’s Story","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"So here I am at the final joint annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society for Biblical Literature. The book show is always one of the best parts. It is of the size that is usually measured in \"football fields.\" Naturally books relating to Christianity dominate,\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":944,"position":5},"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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944","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=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}