10. Counting (and not counting) the Pagans: Just as the Pew Forum’s 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey gave us new insights into just how many Pagans there are in America, so too does the release of Trinity College’s American Religious Identification Survey data in March of this year. The ARIS survey, like the Pew Forum, showed that modern Pagan religions remain vital and growing.

“As you can see, ‘New Religious Movements and Other Religions’ packed on over a million adherents since 2001, and over 1.5 million in the last twenty years. That brings the total of “others” to nearly 3 million … Both Pew and ARIS give “other” faiths 1.2% of the (American) pie. That in turn seems to back up my earlier assertion that there are at least one million modern Pagans in America (probably more like 1.5 million), add in the over half-million UUs (around 20% of whom are “earth-based” or Pagan) close to a million practitioners of Santeria (in North America), and a few hundred thousand indigenous practitioners, and it seems clear that notions of our continued (slow and steady) growth aren’t unfounded.” in some respect),

Paganism’s healthy growth among the “others”, wasn’t the only survey or poll that was of interest. We also saw proof that America is far more religiously eclectic than some might have imagined, that quite a few Pagans are politically active, and that around half of Americans have heard of Wicca (and aren’t too impressed).

However, not all polling organizations thought Pagans (and other “others”) were worth counting.

“Why were “other” non-Christians not included? No Muslims, no Buddhists, no Pagans. Nothing. They must have that data, so why not release it with the rest? It can’t be simple numerical preferences since the recent ARIS data puts “NRMs and Other Religions” on par with religiously observant Jews and just behind the Mormons, two groups that were included in the released data. Is it down to political influence? I’ve sent a request to Gallup to release the “others” data, but haven’t received a response yet.”

Of course, if you want something done right, why not do it yourself? Pagan scholar Helen Berger, co-author of “Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States”, along with fellow researchers James R. Lewis and Henrik Bogdan, revisited the Pagan Census project this year. I very much look forward to seeing what the updated data will say about our movement.

09. Modern Paganism Goes Global: Even though the emergence of modern Paganism is a well known story in places like Britain, America, and Australia, we saw this year that the modern Pagan impulse has become a truly global phenomenon. Receiving press attention in places like India, Israel, Russia, and South Africa, where an out Pagan serves as an MP.

“Meet Adrian Williams, the only pentacle-wearing witch in parliament. But the card-carrying ANC and South African Communist Party member, 43, from Mpumalanga has renounced the terms “witch” and “witchcraft” because he maintains the issue needs to be treated with sensitivity in South Africa. Williams practises “magick”, but calls himself a pagan or eclectic wiccan.”

As we move forward, we’ll need to start considering what it means that modern forms of Paganism are now truly “world” religions, and adjust our expectations and views of global events in light of that fact. Problems “over there” do affect us, because “we” are now “over there” too. In tomorrow’s top-five, we’ll explore some of the issues that a global Paganism faces, and what that may mean for us in interfaith settings.

08. Our Media Landscape and the Shifting Sands of Religious Journalism: The whole idea of a “top ten stories” list hinges on there being enough stories about modern Pagans to read and evaluate, and 2009 certainly made some wonder if that prospect might become harder in the near future. With the combination punch of an ascendant new-media and a lousy economy, lots of newspapers eliminated their religion beats (or shuttered completely), and some religion journalists anticipated the future being rather bleak.

“Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Paulson called religion-beat reporters a “dwindling band” who have suffered a “serious reversal of fortune” compared to a decade ago. Meanwhile, veteran religion-reporter Gary Stern blogged about his paper eliminating the religion beat, and Mollie at Get Religion wondered how these shake-ups will change the way that blog analyzes religion reporting.”

What does that mean for us? It could mean a lot less attention being paid to Pagans on the ever-dwindling religion-beat. That could be a big problem for those of us who want to stay informed, because our Pagan-created sources of news have had a rough time of things this year as well.

“After the recent merger of PanGaia and newWitch into Witches & Pagans, and the announcement of Thorn magazine ceasing their print edition, I decided to take the temperature of various Pagan periodicals and the resulting picture is rather grim. Of the 32 periodicals listed at the Witches’ Voice, only a handful seem to still be active, operating on a regular publishing schedule, and dealing primarily with Pagan subject matter. Modern Witch Magazine is “out of publication” after one year and three issues, Witch Eye: A Journal of Feri Uprising promises to return in 2009, but the clock is quickly running out for that deadline, and the two best-known Pagan newspapers PagaNet and Widdershins have been out of commission for years.”

We all need to get our content from somewhere, and while the best blogs and podcasts have been doing more and more primary-source journalism, we face a major deficit of news and information if our community doesn’t pull together to pick up some of that slack.  Projects to address this issue are still in their infancy, and it will take a serious amount of collaboration and cooperation to see a robust and thriving Pagan journalism emerge from these troubled times.

07. Paganism in Pop-Culture, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: While serious news may be hurting, the past 12 months have been one of the biggest in recent memory for Pagan themes in popular media. There was the Wiccan-centric episode of “The Simpsons”, the (awful) Wiccan-centric episode of “The Mentalist”, Santeria on “CSI”, a maenad on “True Blood”, and we remained popular on a variety of reality television programs. Still, it wasn’t all awful on the little screen, Ken Burns’ “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” was a beautiful endorsement of American-grown pantheistic nature religion.

“While the bulk of the twelve hours is spent recounting various grass-roots efforts and political struggles over park creation, almost the entire first episode is devoted to the spiritual dimension of nature (called, appropriately enough, “The Scripture of Nature”). Briefly referencing the influence of works by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Burns makes ground-breaking naturalist and preservationist John Muir the centerpiece. “National Parks” clearly illustrates how his unique brand of Christian-colored pantheism (along with a keen scientific mind) would go on to inspire many, including President Theodore Roosevelt, to preserve vast swathes of American wilderness. The early episodes also take care to mention Native American spiritual and political perspectives, and extensively interviews National Parks superintendent, and Mandan-Hidatsa Indian, Gerard Baker (who says that John Muir would have made a good Medicine Man).”

Meanwhile, on the big screen, most of the big news were about films that we won’t see until 2010. There was news of the long-awaited companion/sequel to “The Wicker Man”, entitled “The Wicker Tree”, that is now filming. The film “Agora”, about the famous Neoplatonist philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria, was adrift looking for an American distributor for months despite positive box office and reviews in Europe. Many thought it was because distributors were worried it might offend Christians. In addition, two upcoming Greek-myth-drenched films “Clash of the Titans” and “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” may make 2010 the year of pop-polytheism.

2009, however, seems to be the year of rampant Hollywood pantheism according to the various conservative critics who saw the blockbuster “Avatar”.

“So I guess the conservative intelligentsia has spoken (David Brooks must not have gotten the memo). Pantheism is bad, Hollywood is bad, Americans are foolish eclectic-syncretic Eckhart Tolle-reading dupes who love pantheism, and we (and our souls) are all in big (I assume) trouble. Of course this reading of Hollywood’s output is a tad skewed, and relies on a rather scatter-shot selection of films (“Dances With Wolves”, Disney’s “Pocahontas” and “The Lion King”, “Star Wars”, and, well, “Fern Gully”, I guess) to convince us that pantheism is the with-it thing in Hollywood and beyond. But it just doesn’t seem to line up as well as they seem to think it does.”

I can only imagine that my 2010 round-up will be even more full of surprises, disappointments, and opportunities than 2009. Oh, and speaking of pagan-ish pop-culture in 2009, some guy named Dan Brown released a book about Masons, it also made some conservatives unhappy.

06. Equal Treatment at Work and School, and the Litigation that Follows: This year has seen a lot of high-profile cases of discrimination (and alleged discrimination) of Pagans in the news. You had the Witch who was fired from the University of Nebraska receive a settlement, the Bath & Body Works manager who was fired for making a pilgrimage to Salem, and a Pagan employee of Google who claims he was mocked and fired for his faith. In addition to those cases, you had the school child who was accused of threatening demon possession, though the parent was not allowed to examine the evidence.

“Denise DeSadier was not allowed to read the accusations made against her son that got him suspended, and their veracity was seemingly never questioned by the principle (who assured a reporter from the local college paper that the matter was investigated fully) . Further, Shaun was forced to undergo an evaluation of his mental stability before being allowed to return to class, and this incident was placed in his permanent record, marking him as some sort of potential safety risk. Short of pursuing a lawsuit against the school, or dropping out altogether, there is no recourse for these accusations that have marred Shaun’s record.  Wishing only to finish high-school and move on to college, Shaun has jumped through the necessary hoops, and wants to move on with his life.”

In our search for equal treatment, in our slow integration into the mainstream, there will be those who want to destroy lives simply for being different. Who will use our litigation victories as a pretext to fan the populist flames to further their own careers. But I think these cases, disturbing as some of them are, are a sign of progress. That they highlight just how far we’ve come, a place where the ACLU readily fights for us, where our standing as “real religions” are usually taken as a given. We’ll no doubt see more cases like this in 2010, but I also think we’ll see fewer than 2009, and we’ll see even more victories establishing our equal protection and equal treatment under the law. These cases are big news, but I think we’ll see a day where they are truly rare.

Tomorrow I will post the top five Pagan stories for 2009. In the meantime, I invite you to check out the top religion stories from some different perspectives. Here are the Religion Newswriters Association’s picks, the top 10 from Time, the top 10 from The Telegraph, US News and World Report, and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Freedom.

“Prof Hutton said: “This is a spectacular subject for a musical album, and one rarely treated in that form. “The Dolmen make the result work really well, alternating bulletins of real history with electric folk, from high-energy dance to lament, which the band has always played to perfection. “I felt both entertained and moved. “It seemed at times as though a real voice was being given to the dead.” The CD is released following efforts to breathe fresh life into the old town hall, where some of the battle took place.”

The lyrics for the album were written by historian Mark Vine, who authored a book on the subject. You can download the spoken forward by Ronald Hutton, here. There are also several music samples on that page as well. You can order the CD from their web site through PayPal.

Turning from England to my former home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, we find a profile of a new band called Cackle that are bringing a unique brand of self-described “pagan pop punk” to local stages.

“If you attend a live show, you might get asked to pull a tarot card from the deck, followed by a personal reading. You might notice a litany of lit candles twinkling about. You might even witness one of the members casting a circle of salt around the stage area to “keep all the good within and all the bad without,” says drummer Renee Bebeau. “We have to get the sacred space ready for rocking.” If you’re thinking it sounds like a witch’s coven, you’re not too far off base. These pagan performance elements aren’t random, they’re completely by design for a band that defines its genre as “pagan pop punk.” And while Cackle isn’t exactly chipper bubble gum pop, the music is far from the soundtrack to a dark, God-less existence.”

You can see a live video of their song “Nancy Reagan Was a Pagan” at their Facebook fan-page, their debut album is due out on New Year’s Eve. Details on how to pick up or download that album are no doubt forthcoming.

Netherlands Pagan goth-rock band The Dreamside released a new album on December 4th entitled “Lunar Nature”, available now from CD Baby, or for pre-order from Amazon.

“The music of “Lunar Nature” can be described as atmospherical gothic rock with a good mixture of heavy guitars, electronical elements and a proper shot of alternative rock. All this interwoven with Kemi Vita’s remarkable voice and her unique way to express emotions in very personal lyrics. “Lunar Nature” continues were the predecessor “Spin Moon Magic” ended. The album is full of diversity and therefore once more a typical output from The Dreamside.”

This is their first full-length of original material since 2005’s “Spin Moon Magic”, so fans of the band take note!

In a final quick music-related note, Pagan music scholar Alfred Surenyan is fielding a survey about Pagan music for a talk and eventual book on the subject.

“I am currently working on a paper on the Sustainability of Music in Paganism. This project is part of my work in Pagan Music that I have been doing for the past five years. I will be presenting this paper at the Pagan Conference in Claremont at the end of January 2010, and perhaps part of a future book on Pagan Music. In order to understand more on Pagan Music it is the community that would have answers and input. For this reason I reach out and ask members of the Pagan Community for some answers. I have put together a small survey of 10 questions, mostly short answers. If you have some time would you be able to take my survey on Pagan Music. It will not take more than ten minuates of your time and the answers will help me further my research on the ever evolving and growing of the music of our community. The link to the questions is just below this paragraph.”

The link to the survey can be found, here. I encourage all of my Pagan-music loving readers to fill it out.

“Several thousand people walked to the church during the morning clutching bunches of mauve gladioli, pink bougainvillea and fat cigars to leave as offerings to the saint, who also symbolizes the deity Babalu-Aye in the Afro-Cuban Santeria faith. Experts explain this fusion of Santeria and Christian figures by saying that African slaves in Cuba originally pretended to worship the Catholic saints of their Spanish masters while secretly paying homage to their own deities.”

The Reuters article notes that religious expression, particularly Catholic religious expression, has become more pronounced in Cuba since the Pope John Paul II’s visit in the late 1990s. However, despite this relatively recent religious openness, Cuba is still rated as the least religiously free country in the Americas by a recent study of global restrictions on religion released by the Pew Forum. Santeria was initially suppressed by the Communist government, though those restrictions have lapsed over the decades, especially now that the faith draws in tourists interested in witnessing rites, or receiving initiations.

Over at the Washington Post/Newsweek’s On Faith religious blogging brain-trust, Starhawk weighs in on whether action regarding global warming is a moral imperative.

“Responding to climate change is the moral imperative of our time, and people of spirit and faith can play a vital role in helping us make this crucial transition. God, Goddess, Allah, Jehovah, Buddha, Krishna and the Great Spirit know that the politicians aren’t doing it! Watching the manipulations, stalling and deceptions going on in Copenhagen is enough to make us wonder if the Goddess really knew what she was up to in involving human beings–or if she simply didn’t finish the job … we need real commitments. What if every church, synagogue, mosque, temple, and Pagan grove committed to reduce their carbon footprint by the 90 percent that we truly need to reach by 2050? What if they started study groups and chevras and support groups to help people learn the skills and fund the projects and make the changes together?”

In addition to calling for stronger leadership on this issue within religious communities, Starhawk will also be attending the upcoming Gaza Freedom March along with 1300 other activists and notables, including Alice Walker and Roger Waters. You’ll be hearing more about her participation in this event soon. It should be interesting to see what ramifications, if any, her 2008 deportation from Israel will have.

In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald conducted a Nielsen poll concerning religious belief, and found that 6% followed “obscure faiths” like Wicca, while 22% of the total population believe in the existence of witches.

“Committed Christians are even more likely to believe in witches (35 per cent). This may surprise many, but not Pastor Daniel Nalliah of Catch the Fire Ministries, who in October this year organised a prayer offensive on Mount Ainslie after the discovery, it seems, of an altar for black masses. It was, said Nalliah, “the work of dark forces wanting to cast spells on Australia and Federal Parliament [which Mount Ainslie overlooks] – witches have been at work to tear down the fabric of the robust democratic system of Australia through spells”. The offensive appears to have worked.”

The manner in which the survey and the results were conducted and reported didn’t please some local Pagans, who didn’t like being lumped in with UFO-believers, Jedi, and other “obscure” religions. That the 22% who believed in witches weren’t superstitious, just “informed”.

“…the 22 per cent who said they believed in witches are not necessarily superstitious but just informed. In the last Australian census more than 22,000 people admitted to following a pagan religion, many of them Wiccan or witches. To put this in perspective, this is more people than the Australian followers of the Jains, Ba’hai and Sikh religions combined. At the recent World Parliament of Religions hosted in Melbourne, witches and other pagans had their own educational stream just like the Christians and Buddhists. As for the 78 per cent who don’t believe in witches . . . I don’t believe in you either.”

That’s all I have for now, have a happy Solstice tomorrow. If you are looking for some Pagan-friendly holiday music, why not check out my just-posted A Darker Shade of Pagan 2009 Winter Holiday Music Special. It’s sure to put you in a proper Winter-feasting, welcoming-the-light-back sort of mood.

“In total, upwards of six-in-ten adults (65%) express belief in or report having experience with at least one of these diverse supernatural phenomena (belief in reincarnation, belief in spiritual energy located in physical things, belief in yoga as spiritual practice, belief in the “evil eye,” belief in astrology, having been in touch with the dead, consulting a psychic, or experiencing a ghostly encounter). This includes roughly one-quarter of the population (23%) who report having only one of these beliefs or experiences. More than four-in-ten people (43%) answer two or more of these items affirmatively, including 25% who answer two or three of these items affirmatively and nearly one-in-five (18%) who answer yes to four or more. Roughly one-third of the public (35%) answers no to all eight items.”

This increasing trend of heterodoxy undermines the idea that the Religious Right, and other vanguards of religious orthodoxy, have much sway outside their main base of support. When nearly a quarter of America Christians say they believe trees possess spiritual energy, I’m far more convinced we’ll see a post-Christian culture than some sort of Family-style conservative Christian coup in the years to come. This transition may upset some, but I suspect that most Pagans, especially the eclectic and syncretic, will feel right at home.

In Other News: Pagans seem to be the ultimate test of how “open” your local city council’s opening invocations are. When a government body is accused of engaging in primarily sectarian prayer, as is the case in Bakersfield California, they usually point out that the invocation slot is welcome to any faith tradition that wants a turn. But as Americans United senior policy analyst Rob Boston points out, that openness often grinds to a halt when a Wiccan signs up.

“When communities try to set up a totally open forum for prayers, “what usually happens is that sooner or later someone comes along from a religion that is unpopular or misunderstood” — such as a Wiccan or Pagan — “and the conservative Christians throw a fit,” he said in an e-mail.”

Councilmember Jacquie Sullivan says Bakersfield is ready to pass the Pagan test, stating that “it would be their turn”. Did you hear that Bakersfield Pagans? Time to step up! They are ready. It’s your turn! Whether the “include a Wiccan” gambit would help them in a lawsuit is still an open question.

In Toronto, a con-artist who bilked a woman out of tens-of-thousands of dollars isn’t just up on charges of fraud, but also on charges of pretending to be a witch.

Det. Constable Jones says it’s rare to charge someone under Section 365, but the circumstances of this case fit. “It’s a historical quirk,” says Alan Young, a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. Some sections of the Canadian criminal code reflect offences that were more prevalent centuries ago. When the code was enacted in 1892, witchcraft per se was no longer a punishable offence, he says, but lawmakers wanted to ensure witchcraft wasn’t used as a cover for fraud. Section 365 states that any one who fraudulently pretends to exercise or to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, or enchantment or who “undertakes, for a consideration, to tell fortunes … is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.” “It’s not really about occult activity,” Prof. Young says. “It’s about defrauding people.”

One would assume that a real Witch would be immune from such charges. One would also hope that this near-forgotten law won’t be abused in a crusade against honest psychic practitioners, as they have been in America.

The Daily Grail features an excerpted essay from Greg Taylor that is very close to my heart, the history of occult practices in rock music.

“There is a vast amount of related material we could cover: from the influence of the occult upon Norwegian Black Metal, to Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson’s interest in Aleister Crowley, which has recently resulted in a feature film. Or perhaps even The Mars Volta’s use of an Ouija Board in the creation of their 2008 album The Bedlam in Goliath (considering the mayhem that allegedly resulted, perhaps they should have listened to David Bowie’s advice…). But, ultimately, rock music is about transcending the intellect, and just losing yourself in a maelstrom of sound and feeling.”

That essay, and others, is from Darklore volume 2, available now from Amazon.com. Also, in a somewhat related note, Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth’s “Thee Psychick Bible” (a project initiated by Industrial music pioneer Genesis P-Orridge) has been re-released in an updated, expanded, corrected edition. Perfect gifts for the occult music-lover in your family, and if all this talk of occult and Pagan music has you wanting to listen to some, why not check out my weekly podcast?

In a final note, the Houston Chronicle looks at the massive December pilgrimages in Mexico, with many traveling to the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe (her feast day is on Saturday), located on a former pagan shrine. While nearly a million travel to gain the blessings of the “goddess of Mexico”, the local priests want you to know that there is no trace of pre-Christianity left in the rites and traditions surrounding this popular saint.

“Arriving by bus, car or bicycle, the faithful first stop at the artesian stream springing from the roots of a huge and ancient cypress tree. They don crowns made of fresh flowers and leave petitions to God hanging from the fence posts, wash in or drink from the spring and dance before the statue in a small chapel … When their dance is finished, the pilgrims ride a few miles down the mountainside to the village of Chalma itself, where they walk through a gantlet of vendors and restaurants to arrive at the church. There they attend Mass, get blessed by priests and leave petitions or letters of thanks to God hanging on walls. “It is 100 percent Catholic,” Manzanares said of the pilgrimage, “based in Catholic belief for the Catholic faithful.” Chalma’s shrine was erected by Spanish friars in the 1530s conquest in a cave that the Aztecs once worshipped as the dwelling of Ozteatl, a god represented by a large man-sized black boulder they believed had healing powers. The friars destroyed the stone, according to some accounts, and a Christ statue appeared in its place.”

Catholic perhaps, but grown from “pagan” soil and tradition. Whether Guadalupe is “100% Catholic” or a Christianized version of the Aztec moon goddess Tonantzin, she is still the most-venerated goddess/saint in the Americas, and neither Catholic nor Pagan should take that lightly.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

“Conservative and progressive religious activists are deeply religious, but have strikingly different religious profiles. In terms of religious affiliation, conservative activists are almost exclusively Christian, whereas progressive activists are more diverse.”

Let’s have a look at the graphs.

I think “strikingly different” is a fair assessment. Not even 1% of conservative activists would admit to being non-Christian, while 2% of progressive activists admit to being in the “other” category (the happy land of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Pagans that exists only in the minds of polling organizations) and an impressively significant 12% labeled themselves as Unitarian-Universalist or mixed-faith.

“Progressive activists are markedly more diverse in terms of religious affiliation. No single faith tradition makes up a majority of progressive religious activists. A plurality (44%) of progressive religious activists identify as Mainline Protestants, one?sixth (17%) are Roman Catholics, and one?tenth are Evangelical Protestants. Twelve percent identify with Unitarian?Universalists, interfaith, or mixed faith groups. Six percent of progressive religious activists are Jewish. Interestingly, 8% of these activists have no formal religious affiliation or identify as formerly affiliated. Two percent identify with other religious traditions.”

So what does it all mean? First it confirms that majority-holding conservative evangelicals (54%), in alliance with conservative Catholics (35%), completely dominate religiously-motivated activism on the right, and the likelihood of non-Christian faiths ever having a significant voice in the current state of right-wing politics is slim-to-nil. Meanwhile, no one group holds a majority within the world of religious progressives, allowing for a far more diverse coalition to exist. This reality has some wide-ranging political implications, it means that as minority religions grow they may be far more likely to vote for a liberal/progressive candidate, even if they disagree on some issues, because the opposition is seen as uniquely hostile to them. Around 74% of modern Pagans voted for Obama in the last election, and I bet that Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims had similarly lopsided polling numbers.

“Among progressive activists, 58% say Obama was their first choice in the Democratic primary, and 93% supported him in the general election … Among progressive activists, 1-in-5 say faith was the most important factor, and 41% report that faith was as important as other factors in deciding who to support in the election.”

Further, while minority faiths are vastly smaller in number compared to evangelicals or Catholics, some polling suggests that people who have a “favorable” opinion of minority faiths are more likely to vote in their interests, creating a sphere of influence that far outstrips their actual population. Conservative activists should see these polling results with some dismay, while they have a dependably large bloc of support amongst conservative evangelicals, the candidates that make them happy can often deeply alienate non-Christians who might otherwise be interested in conservative stances on various issues. As for liberal and progressive organizers, they need to recognize that a large portion of their religious coalition doesn’t identify as Christian, and to stop over-privileging “nice” pseudo-moderate Christians like Jim Wallis and Rick “Purpose Driven Life” Warren up as the voice of a “religious left” that will draw more evangelical voters away from the conservatives. This new poll makes it pretty clear that isn’t about to happen no matter who you get to make an invocation.

“A number of scholars have noted that it would be helpful to have a follow-up of that survey to see if and how the community has changed or remained the same. The survey that follows uses many, although not all of the same questions that were in the original survey to provide that comparison. There are also new questions, for instance about the Internet, something that was of little interest 20 years ago but is now, and some from other studies, that again permit a comparison. This has resulted in the survey being somewhat long–we appreciate your taking the time to complete it.”

I urge all my readers who identify in any way with the modern Pagan/Heathen movement to participate in this census and spread the word to everyone you know. The more respondents the census has, the more accurate the data. You can find it, here. You can be sure that I will be paying attention to this renewed project as it goes forward, and will keep you appraised of any updates or results.

“The accompanying maps give a portrait of this remarkable pattern of religious dispersion in the U.S. for these religious groups, based on a new analysis of more than 170,000 Gallup interviews conducted between January and June of this year. A good deal of the religious dispersion across the states is explainable by historical immigration patterns — particularly the impact of the large waves of European Catholics and Jews who came through ports of entry in the Middle Atlantic states in the 19th and early 20th centuries.”

Their results are much what you’d expect, the Pacific Northwest has a lot of “nones”, Utah and surrounding states have a lot of Mormons, Protestantism dominates in the South, there are lots of Jewish people in New York and Florida, and Catholicism remains vital in New England. All fine and good, but when I looked at the breakdown of their numbers I noticed something odd.

Why were “other” non-Christians not included? No Muslims, no Buddhists, no Pagans. Nothing. They must have that data, so why not release it with the rest? It can’t be simple numerical preferences since the recent ARIS data puts “NRMs and Other Religions” on par with religiously observant Jews and just behind the Mormons, two groups that were included in the released data. Is it down to political influence? I’ve sent a request to Gallup to release the “others” data, but haven’t received a response yet. With such a large sample size we could get some interesting results as to where the “others” live, data that could be useful to Pagan organizations and advocacy groups as we continue to grow. Hopefully the rest of their data is forthcoming, but it couldn’t hurt to politely and respectfully request that Gallup release their state-by-state data on “Other non-Christian Religions”.

ADDENDUM: Folks in the comments are starting to get the following canned reply from Gallup on the matter of the “others”.

“As noted in our article, “Religious Identity: States Differ Widely,” the table “does not include Muslims or other non-Christian religions due to small sample sizes. Table also does not show “No opinion” responses.” Added together, all the “No opinion” responses and “other non-Christian” responses were about 5% of the total responses. Individually, each of the many religions included in the “other non-Christian” category received less than 1% of the responses – many were substantially less than 1%. The numbers were, in fact, so small that differences between states were not statistically significant, and could be misleading. That’s not to say there aren’t significant numbers of people associated with each of these religions, but they are relatively small percentages of the total population. Because the margin of error depends on sample size, a much larger (and more expensive) survey would be required to get reliable figures for the smaller groups.”

If there is a standard reply, we must not be the only ones wondering about Gallup’s omissions.

“According to the just-published “Cascadia: the Elusive Utopia.” … a lot of these “nones” in the Pacific Northwest are actually very spiritual, walking a path of their own making, but not into organized religions and churches. Sociology professor Mark Shibley of Southern Oregon University wrote the lead essay called “The Promise and Limits of Secular Spirituality in Cascadia.” “This region is different. The people here are not as connected to religious institutions,” he says. The alternative spirituality here shows itself in two main ways, Shibley notes: “nature spirituality,” such as you see in the secular environmental movement, and the more well-known New Age spirituality, where the gaze is shifted inward.”

If thousands of Cascadian residents are drawing on “nature spirituality” and “New Age spirituality”, you potentially end up with a whole lot of (what we would probably recognize as) Pagans who just aren’t bothering to label themselves that way in surveys. As if to confirm that thesis, the Ashland Daily Tidings rounds up a Pagan priestess and three other residents of the Pacific Northwest to talk about their beliefs. At times, it becomes very hard to differentiate the Pagan answers from the (ostensibly) non-Pagan answers.

“Absolutely. There are lots of different sources [for the spiritual and sacred]. Nature is the core. It’s earth-centered, an awareness of things greater than me, that science can’t explain.”

That’s not the Pagan priestess, that’s Dominick Della Sala, Ph.D. – chief scientist, National Center for Conservation Science and Policy, in Ashland. Sala was raised Catholic in Brooklyn, NY. Perhaps merely living in the Pacific Northwest makes one predisposed to see the sacred within nature, which would explain why Oregon (and the Pacific Northwest in general) is such a Pagan mecca (I moved here after all). So when we parse those surveys to get an idea of how we’re growing, “we” might be far larger than we expected in places where the “nones” thrive. For more on the spirituality of the Northwest, you might want to pick up “Cascadia: The Elusive Utopia: Exploring the Spirit of the Pacific Northwest”, as mentioned earlier in this post, for more insight. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to continue watching the sun rise in Eugene.

George Barna, whose company conducted the research, pointed out that some popular stereotypes about the spiritual life of gays and lesbians are simply wrong. “People who portray gay adults as godless, hedonistic, Christian bashers are not working with the facts,” declared the best-selling author of numerous books about faith and culture. “A substantial majority of gays cite their faith as a central facet of their life, consider themselves to be Christian, and claim to have some type of meaningful personal commitment to Jesus Christ active in their life today … Although there are clearly some substantial differences in the religious beliefs and practices of the straight and gay populations, there may be less of a spiritual gap between straights and gays than many Americans would assume.”

I can tell you that the above paragraph won’t win him any fans from any number of prominent conservative Christians. Then again, Barna has been increasingly re-positioning himself as something of a maverick within evangelical Christianity. So what else does this recent batch of polling data reveal? Well, while “straight” America and “gay” America have an awful lot in common, spiritually speaking, according to Barna there is one somewhat noticeable difference.

One of the most basic beliefs has to do with one’s understanding of God. This proved to be one of the biggest differences noted in the study. While seven out of every ten heterosexuals (71%) have an orthodox, biblical perception of God, just 43% of homosexuals do. In fact, an equal percentage possesses a pantheistic view about deity – i.e., that “God” refers to any of a variety of perspectives, such as personally achieving a state of higher consciousness or maximized personal potential, or that there are multiple gods that exist, or even that everyone is god.

In other words, homosexuals tend to be more “pagan” that heterosexuals. But this “pantheism” isn’t a barrier to finding common ground, as according to Barna all the “faith tribes” (including the pantheists) need to work together to restore America.

Citing his research, Barna indicated that the United States has seven dominant faith tribes that hold the key to the restoration of the nation. “We must recover the values that made this nation great and that must be firmly in place for order, reason, freedom and unity to prevail,” the researcher explained. “Our faith tribes are central to the development and application of people’s worldviews, which in turn produce the values on which we base our daily decisions. It is on the basis of such values that a nation rises to greatness or plummets to oblivion. The choice is ours. And it is up to our faith tribes to demonstrate the courageous leadership necessary to facilitate a national restoration of the mind, heart and soul. Without a nationwide commitment to this process, we are destined to become a country of historical significance and present-day insignificance.”

This is an awfully big tent that Barna is building. Is he being prophetic, or simply marketing to the changing times? I’d be curious to know how his largely evangelical audience is responding to this shift towards inclusion, bridge-building, and interfaith outreach. Perhaps he’s making a break from the old evangelical order and embracing the (generally) more tolerant “Mosaic Generation” (aka “Generation Y”)? I guess I’ll just have to wait for the next installment of George Barna’s quest to “unite the tribes”.

“Four out of ten Christians (40%) strongly agreed that Satan “is not a living being but is a symbol of evil.” An additional two out of ten Christians (19%) said they “agree somewhat” with that perspective. A minority of Christians indicated that they believe Satan is real by disagreeing with the statement: one-quarter (26%) disagreed strongly and about one-tenth (9%) disagreed somewhat. The remaining 8% were not sure what they believe about the existence of Satan.”

Interestingly, roughly half of the Christians who don’t believe in a literal Satan do believe that there are “demons” or “evil spirits” that can play havoc with your life. Does this mean that in a sizable portion of the Christian mind a pantheon of spiritual forces (good and evil) seems more likely a single living embodiement of supreme evil? Looks like Pagans and Christains have more in common than I thought! Not that it is helping us have better relations, only 5% of Christians have a positive view of Wicca (and by extension, I assume other Pagan faiths) while a whopping 55% percent don’t like us one bit. Still, it does open some interesting doors for conversation don’t you think?