Feedback: Finding the Top Religious Stories

Jason Pitzl-Waters —  December 5, 2010 — 22 Comments

As we start to head into December, religion reporters are starting to craft their lists of the top news stories for this past year. Of Sacred and Secular’s Joshunda Sanders has posted a top ten list already, and Kevin Eckstrom of the Religion News Service found 2010 to be a year when older stories were “resurrected”.

“The Roman Catholic Church wasn’t the only institution battling a sense of deja vu, as some of the most controversial religion stories from the past 20 years returned to the headlines. A 1994-style fight over health care reform not only pitted Republicans against Democrats, but also Catholic bishops against Catholic nuns. Lingering questions about President Obama’s Christian faith morphed into a belief among one in five Americans that he’s actually a Muslim. Nearly 10 years after 9/11, Islamophobia returned with a vengeance as a Florida pastor threatened to torch a pile of Qurans, and Tennessee officials debated whether Islam is actually a religion. This time, the resurrected stories were more pointed, the debates more polarizing. Old stories found new life online, and voices that once would have been dismissed as extreme were amplified by the Internet, Facebook and Twitter.”

Eckstrom quotes religion and media scholar Diane Winston that “new media has had the effect of keeping certain news stories alive, bringing them back from the dead and propelling them into the news.” Looking at my own Pagan-centric picks for top stories of 2009, I can already see some continuity with the list I’m putting together for this year, and I think few will deny that new media had a big amplifying and extending effect on several religious stories this past year (take Christine O’Donnell, please).

While most religion reporters will be focusing on the Pope, the Park 51 building, or atheist Christopher Hitchen’s battle with cancer, I’d like to get your input and feedback on what you thought the biggest religion stories were from a Pagan perspective. What events do you feel shaped us this year? What stories do you think will end up having repercussions for years to come? Your feedback can help me put me own list together, and maybe I’ll highlight some of your recommendations at the end of December.

In Paganism, Religion, The Wild Hunt , , ,
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Jason Pitzl-Waters

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  • http://military.pagannewswirecollective.com Lori Dake

    "take Christine O'Donnell, please"

    dah dum dump!

    I'd like to think an obituary list of Pagans (notable and otherwise) would definitely be in order in terms of how these people have touched our lives and beliefs, even if their practices and Gods were not completely in line with our own.

  • bard08

    Druidry gaining religious charity status in the UK!!!!!!! Although a U.S. citizen, this had a huge impact personally and for other Druids throughout the world which makes this a top news story. So excitiing!!

  • Rebecca

    The construction of The Temple of the River in Minnesota. This is an actual, modern day Druid sacred structure. Along with the older Sekhmet Temple in Nevada, I think it heralds the construction of more sacred Pagan structures.
    http://pncminnesota.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/607/

  • Baruch Dreamstalker

    The fight of a Pagan who wants to be a prison chaplain against the California corrections system that enshrines only five religions as worthy of chaplaincy — Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam and Native.

  • http://egregores.blogspot.com/ Apuleius

    One religion-centered story that I keep trying to resurrect is the evil nexus of religious, political, and economic reactionaries who control what we innocuously call "public opinion research" in the US (but which is, in fact, more accurately called the right-wing Christian propaganda industry). Diane Winston, identified in Jason's OP as a "religion and media scholar", actually played a minor role in exposing one little corner of this open secret when she wrote a breathless puff piece on George Gallup Jr. for the Dallas Morning News back in 1998 (it was later reprinted in Christian Ethics Today). Therein Winston praises Gallup as a "Spirit filled layman", who reveals to her that he entered the family business as "a form of ministry."

    Here is the online version of Dr. Winston's article at the Christian Ethics Today website:
    A Measure of Faith: George Gallup, Jr.

    There was at least one significant attempt to focus attention on this issue this year when Nathan Schneider wrote a (pretty half-assed) expose for the Nation: "God, Science and Philanthropy".

    • Crystal7431

      Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen this. This stuff is really frightening when you realize that those that have the money pull all the strings. We need a dozen uber wealthy Pagans to balance it all out.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=511407690 Star Foster

    Patrick McCollum's fight against CA two-tier religion nonsense.

  • Peter Dybing

    The generosity of those who came forward with funds for Haiti relief, They saved hundreds of lives, Organizations like Circle, Officers of Avalon, and many others. Humanity as its best.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000390176778 Jacquie Minerva Georges

    I think Pat Robertson’s Haiti’s “pack with the devil” statement after the earthquake fiasco [it brought the “mysterious” religion into the forefront with his comments]. This is also the year where Christians and Hindu’s via the origins of Yoga.

    • http://military.pagannewswirecollective.com Lori Dake

      Oh yes, can't forget about ole boy Pat! He and Glenn Beck are my two all-time favorite nutjobs. I admit to watching more Glenn lately though, because the 700 club's format of

      Various Problems -> Found Jeebus (via 700 club of course!) => Everything's Better

      has really gotten stale over the years. They need to work on that. Perhaps more outright condemnation like Haiti and 9/11? Yeah, that's it. That'll win over more people. (More like add another nail in the coffin!)

      "Spooky Guy Soros" and the marionette puppets OTOH is pure gold! (or should I say BUY GOLD, because the sky is falling! Oh noez! Hahaha!

  • http://egregores.blogspot.com/ Apuleius

    Another suggestion: Avatar. Pagan responses. Christian responses. Crazy responses. My personal favorite was pastor Mark Driscoll's rant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cI5GxM4f50

    • bard08

      I just followed the link posted, and I have to say the idiot almost ruined my day. It is a scary thought that he has followers.

  • http://www.robinartisson.com Robin Artisson

    The Ascension of an open and public Heathen, Dan O'Halloran, to a high political office stands out in my mind.

    • Lonespark

      I was going to say that too, and Erin Lale's campaign and to some degree also the way pagan voices were sought for comments about stuff like Christine O'Donnel's comments

  • Hamish

    I know The Wild Hunt focuses mostly on the US, but you do cover Canadian stuff.

    I think the biggest religion story here is the gradual realisation among Canadians that the ruling political party has been heavily infiltrated by Christian Nationalists and Third-Wave Pentecostals – which may even include our prime minister. For some, the realisation came when we discovered our science minister didn't believe in evolution, for others it came with Marci McDonald's excellent expose, The Armageddon Factor.

    And while American politicians can expect to be grilled on their religion, in Canada's gentlemanly and secular political world religion is off-limits to journalists – and that's allowed the Conservative Party to quietly reshape policy and appoint far-right judge.

    And while most of the discussion had centred on their misogyny, homophobia, anti-environmentalism, and distrust of public education, they are also very, very anti-Pagan. Tim Bloedow – the senior advisor of one elected federal politician (Maurice Vellacott), and one of the most powerful voices of the religious right – has published a book about how environmentalism is simply a Pagan plot.

    And the government's decision to kill the long-form census means that we will no longer have access to accurate religion statistics (which is how we know that members Neo-Pagan/Heathen faiths are quadrupling every ten years, while Christianity is haemorrhaging members.)

    The evangelicals make up a tiny percentage of Canadian society, so most Canadians don't take them seriously. But they've already found a way to give themselves veto power through our unelected Senate over legislation – veto power that will continue decades after they're thrown out of office. And as quite few of their advisers have openly advocated a return to theocracy as in the Book of Judges in the Bible, it's clear they don't want to stop at simple veto power.

    So yeah – that's the biggest religion story out of Canada.

    • northernsea

      Thanks for this Hamish. It is so true. It is very subtle and almost subliminal; the way they play on fears and invoke judgment.

    • http://egregores.blogspot.com/ Apuleius

      Hamish, are you seriously proposing that if you can't convince people to oppose these right-wingers based on their politics and policies, then you should whip up opposition to them based on their religious beliefs?

      Pentecostals base their beliefs very solidly on the same scriptures and traditions as other Christians. Their beliefs are no crazier and no more dangerous and intolerant (and no less) than those of the Catholic church and most "mainline" Protestant sects

      • Baruch Dreamstalker

        I don't see Hamish as calling for sectarian wars. Canadian democracy has the same problem as ours, the attention span of the electorate. If the people's wake-up call was a science minister who didn't believe in evolution, and the popular question was "Where in hell did *that* come from?" then those in the know should tell them in careful detail.

        • http://egregores.blogspot.com/ Apuleius

          There have already been too many examples in the US of "liberals" crossing the line and attacking Christians politicians on the basis of their religion. Many "progressives" have openly declared that Mitt Romney can't be trusted because he's a Mormon, and people often attack Palin on the basis of her religious beliefs. Also there was the shameful spectacle of Sam Harris and other atheists calling for Francis Collins to be rejected as NIH Director on the basis of his religious beliefs.

          Part of the problem is just what you point out, Baruch: the short attention span of the electorate. This makes it tempting to go for cheap shots wherein a person's "nutty" religious beliefs are mocked, rather than critiquing real positions and policies. It should be, but obviously is not, obvious that this is a dead end for Pagans, whose beliefs are considered to be about as nutty as you can get by most people.

          A second issue is that many people simply do not understand or embrace the basic principles of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. If those who attacked JFK in 1960 for being a Catholic were bigots (as indeed they were) then so is anyone today who attacks a Mormon or a Pentecostalist on the basis of their religion.

          There are evangelical Christians who reject young-earth creationism and who embrace evolution. There are also Evangelicals who have very progressive views. Religion itself is not the issue.

          I am all for criticizing Christianity. But in electoral politics, the "wall of separation" between church and state should be treated as sacred.

          • Baruch Dreamstalker

            I agree that religious exclusionism has no place in democratic politics. That being said, I see nothing wrong, if the Canadian electorate is roiled by this matter, with telling them: "There's a religious cohort that rejects evolution because of a perceived conflict with Genesis. A supremacist cadre within said cohort wants to impose that on the rest of us, by stealth if necessary. Your Parliament has appointed one such to head the Ministry of Science. This isn't all that the cadre plans. Get off your duffs and take your religious freedom back before you lose your democracy."

  • http://egregores.blogspot.com/ Apuleius

    Ben Whitmore's "Trials of the Moon: Reopening the Case for Historical Witchcraft" is starting to garner quite a bit of attention throughout Pagandom. This is definitely a story to keep an eye on!

  • http://twitter.com/thesilverspiral @thesilverspiral

    I think the threat to close the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica is one of the most important stories this year to any practitioners of Western magic.