(Pagan) News of Note
My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.
SF Weekly interviews Sister Edith Myflesh from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and discusses the group’s popularity, charity work, religious diversity, and what real-live nuns think of them.
“…the sisters have no affiliation to any one creed. Some are pagan, some Jewish, even some practicing Catholics. Despite the church’s stance that the order “mocks” women who’ve taken traditional religious vows, Sister Edith swears the nuns she’s met have been nothing but supportive. “They get what we do,” she says, explaining that the tasks of the female clergy – caring for the sick, raising money for charity – have a lot in common with the sisters’. And like parishioners going to confession, Sister Edith has found that people blurt out the most personal things to a member of the order in full makeup. “When we look like that, we’re not human anymore. We become mirrors for people to project onto,” she says, recalling the times she’s given relationship advice to strangers.”
More subtle hints that as religion becomes ever-more female dominated boundary maintenance and the castigation of blasphemers will slowly lose its importance, replaced instead with a more pragmatic stance regarding the usefulness of holy fools?
Over at his Beliefnet blog, Gus diZerega gives a three-part argument (part one, part two, part three) against a “Pagan clergy”. In his final installment, diZerega argues that completely severing matters of faith and religion from government control (marriage, military, prison chaplaincy) will serve us far better than trying to construct an institutionalized clergy model.
“To sum it up, as our numbers increase we will need a larger professionally trained group of Pagans who can do some of the kinds of counseling work that Christians do through their clergy. But we do not need that kind of institutionalized status to do it, and our traditions and the core of who we are will be safer if we do not seek it We are on much safer ground to invoke the issue of religious freedom, now that we are widely recognized in the courts and among many religious leaders as a legitimate spiritual practice.”
DiZerega seems to assert that Pagan religious leaders should stick to ritual, rites of passage, and teaching, while other Pagans should pursue academic experience in counseling and medicine (and I’m assuming, legal arbitration), avoiding the (corrupting?) confluence of power and influence usually associated with the monotheist clergy/laity model. Indeed, according to diZerega, the entire modern concept of “clergy” can contaminate us in our search for mainstream respectability.
The lesbian-focused site Lez Get Real features a short e-mail conversation with Pagan author Deborah Blake concerning Wiccan and Pagan attitudes towards homosexuality.
“First of all, in answer to your question about homosexuality–in general, Pagans accept all paths, very definitely including homosexuality. My step-daughter is gay and a Pagan. In fact, many gays, lesbians and transgenders are attracted to Wicca and Paganism in part because it is such an accepting religion. There is absolutely nothing in our beliefs that says that alternative sexuality is bad, forbidden or in any way “lesser” than more conventionally accepted sexuality.”
Always nice to see more communication between the LGBT community with the modern Pagan community. While there are a variety of attitudes within different modern Pagan religions concerning LGBT-folk, I would say that the vast majority are fully accepting and welcoming to gays. Indeed, as I’ve pointed out before, gay marriage is very much a Pagan issue too.
Over at Letter From Hardscrabble Creek, Chas Clifton passes along the news that HBO’s “Rome” may rise again as a feature-length film.
“A feature version may be in the works to wrap up the unresolved plot strands of the award-winning HBO/BBC TV series Rome, which dramatised the dirty-politics underside of Rome’s transitional period from republic to virtual monarchy amidst civil war.”
As much as I enjoyed the series, I thought it went (historically speaking) off the rails towards the end of its second season. I mean, they couldn’t even give poor Cicero his famous last words! Still, the sets were fantastic, and the religious elements engaging, so I suppose I’d fork over the cash to see a big-screen version should it actually come about.
In a final note, if you want to know how hard it really is to uncover Pagan news on a daily basis, check out the Pew Forum’s examination of religious news coverage in 2008.
“Throughout much of 2008, the media generally seemed to follow two patterns in its coverage of religion. First, religion reporting was often episodic, clustering intensely around big events such as the pope’s visit and religion stories related to the 2008 holiday season. Religion stories also faded quickly from the headlines. Second, the angle of religion coverage frequently gravitated toward controversies, such as Barack Obama’s relationship with Jeremiah Wright and stories about the clergy sex-abuse scandal that surfaced during the pope’s visit. This was particularly problematic for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates, who were inundated with questions concerning their faith.”
All in all, only 1% of mainsteam media coverage focused on religious news (on par with education, immigration, and race), and nearly 40% of that centered on the Pope’s visit to America. Considering the huge impact faith and religion have on the world, you would think it’d be a bit higher. If it weren’t for the Internet, blogs, and Google scouring every online news source, I doubt we’d hear much at all concerning minority faiths.
That’s all I have for now, have a great day!
One response so far
YES! Finally someone who agrees! Thank you Tomas! What you said was *right* on and eloquently written. There is hope for Paganism!