“Young people are more accepting of homosexuality and evolution than are older people. They are also more comfortable with having a bigger government, and they are less concerned about Hollywood threatening their values. But when asked generally about morality and religion, young adults are just as convinced as older people that there are absolute standards of right and wrong that apply to everyone. Young adults are also slightly more supportive of government efforts to protect morality and of efforts by houses of worship to express their social and political views.”

As for Millenials and modern Paganism, 2% of adults aged 18-29 adhere to a Pagan, New Age, Unitarian-Universalist, or “eclectic” faith (the “other faiths”). Outstripping adherence to Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and roughly tied with Judaism and Mormonism. Further, Millenials are about tied with Baby Boomers in adherence to an “other” faith, with Generation X making up the demographically largest grouping. You can download the entire report, here. You may also want to take a look at Pew’s 2007 Religious Landscape Survey, something I’ve covered in depth here, which much this data is culled from.

What does it all mean? It could certainly mean a more tolerant world, as an overwhelming majority of this generation believe there is more than “one true way”, and that the Bible isn’t the literal word of God. Less than half even believe that religion is important. Millenials, along with Generation X, represent a sea-change in attitudes that have so bitterly divided previous generations. A “post-Christian” future, one where Christianity is only one voice among many, seems ever more likely. A world where religion may be female-dominated and largely private. Sounds like a future I’d like to stick around for.

In Other News:

Did the Founders Mean Pagans Too? The Newsweek/Washington Post religion site On Faith features an editorial from Dr. Barbara McGraw, Director of the Center for Engaged Religious Pluralism at Saint Mary’s College of California. In it she addresses the now-infamous WallBuilders amicus brief in McCollum v. California that argues the Constitutional religion clauses only applied to monotheists.

“…perhaps Richard Henry Lee put it best when he said in 1787: “It is true, we are not disposed to differ much, at present, about religion; but when we are making a constitution, it is to be hoped, for ages and millions yet unborn . . . .” In other words, those who differ about religion in ages and among millions yet unborn are included in the protections of the Constitution. What is especially sad about the narrow way that Barton wants to interpret the founding era is that Barton’s approach obscures the real contribution of Christianity to America: support for a political system that protects the individual’s relationship with the Divine (however understood) … genuine Christianity supports religious rights for all. Christianity was not at the founding, nor is it now a monolithic “ism” that justifies the domination and suppression of others–not even Wiccan/Pagans.”

I’d recommend reading all the various quotes she offers, building the case that the founders meant for religious freedom to apply to all Americans, at all stages of its existence, no matter what that future may bring. You can expect to hear a lot more about Patrick McCollum’s case in the near future, when I spoke to him at Pantheacon it was clear that a lot of attention and interest is building in this case. Expect things to break out into the mainstream media very soon.

Anti-Pagan Smears: WorldNetDaily, where no nutty conspiracy theory goes unloved, touts the new book by its managing editor David Kupelian, entitled “How Evil Works: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces That Are Transforming America”. Along with the usual stuff, Obama is a Marxist, Hollywood is bad, public schools are turning boys into big sissies, mental illness is a scam, etc, we get a whole section on the dangers of Paganism and the “New Age”.

“Why are neo-pagan and New Age religions like Wicca becoming so popular? (America’s increasing disillusionment with Christianity has created a giant cultural and spiritual vacuum, into which alternative religions are being drawn.)”

Now, I’ve covered WND’s anti-Pagan stuff before, but I usually just ignore it nowadays. However, since Kupelian’s new book is being promoted by a major publisher, and he’s making the publicity rounds with conservative heavyweights like Sean Hannity, I thought this deserved a bit of attention. It matters in this instance, because the folks who like to gobble up those pop-journalism partisan books (from the left and right) that burn up the bestsellers lists will be getting a bit more than political opinion. They’ll also be getting anti-Pagan talking points. It’s not very pretty when political populism starts mixing with intolerant religious ideologies, so we should keep our eyes open.

Bob Barr Recants Recanting His Anti-Pagan Views: If you all were wondering what conservative/libertarian politician-turned-pundit Bob Barr thinks about the Air Force Academy building a Pagan worship area, wonder no longer!

“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.

“March is Women’s History Month. A new analysis of data from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, finds that women are more religious than men on a variety of measures.”

What does that mean? It could potentially mean a couple things. First, leadership and support roles across the spectrum of belief will be slowly turned over to women out of necessity, secondly, religions that continue to alienate women may find themselves in the same fix as Christian churches in Britain (which are losing 50,000 female members per year).

“…while old men argue about whether women can be bishops, or if gays should be treated like human beings, the women have been leaving in droves to faiths that are more relevant to their lives. You can all do the reproductive math and figure out what happens to a religious tradition with a shortage of women.”

The second news item comes from the New York Times who looks at the work of sociologist Phil Zuckerman. Zuckerman, author of  “Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment” spent 14 months in Scandinavia exploring their overwhelmingly secular and irreligious nature and had some surprising news for those who believe that a (Judeo-Christian) God is necessary for a moral and good society.

Well documented though they may be, these two sets of facts run up against the assumption of many Americans that a society where religion is minimal would be, in Mr. Zuckerman’s words, “rampant with immorality, full of evil and teeming with depravity.” Which is why he insists at some length that what he and his wife and children experienced was quite the opposite: “a society — a markedly irreligious society — that was, above all, moral, stable, humane and deeply good.”… Zuckerman found what he terms “benign indifference” and even “utter obliviousness.” The key word in his description of their benign indifference is “nice.” Religion, in their view, is “nice.” Jesus “was a nice man who taught some nice things.” The Bible “is full of nice stories and good morals, isn’t it?”

So what do these two stories mean? How do they fit together? Well, if women become the power structure and lifeblood of religion in America, and if we do indeed become (slowly) more secular to accomodate an increasingly multi-religious society, it could create an atmosphere that greatly benefits faiths that are comfortable with these developments (and hurt faiths that aren’t). Faiths like the modern Pagan faiths. I’m not saying these changes will create some sort of Pagan utopia, if certain extremist elements feel too threatened it will be far from it, but these trends do seem to be a harbinger of continued growth for our family of faiths (and other religions flexible enough to change with the prevailing winds). I for one welcome our new secular female overlords!

The California Literary Review has published an excerpt from “The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World” by Adrian Murdoch. A sensitive and nuanced portrayal of the man who almost stemmed the tide of Christianity.

“It is unfair that Julian is still known to us primarily for attributed and spurious dying words. That tradition has the wounded and dying emperor filling his hand with blood, flinging it into the air and crying: “Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!” But then the history, as ever, was written by the winning side. Whether the Galilean actually won or not, it is perfectly possible to go beyond an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations and look not just at Julian’s death but, beyond that, to his life, to see how he was a product of his time. It was a narrow—one might even say lucky—victory for the Galilean, and Julian might just as easily have entered the history books as Julian the Philosopher rather than as Julian the Apostate.”

I can only imagine that Julian would take great pleasure in the modern resurgence of Pagan/polytheistic religions (you could argue that he prefigured the modern Pagan faiths by generations), and would no doubt keep a blog in which to publish his criticisms of “the Galileans”.

Stefani “Spiral” Barner examines the high-choice ethic of modern Paganism that allows both for a pro-military warrior culture, and pacifistic conscientious objectors.

“…the Pagan community is in a unique position. It is possible to support both the service person and the CO—to honor the sacrifices that either choice demands and to embrace the paradox that comes with loving both. Let us demonstrate to the world that it is possible to be both anti-war and pro-soldier. Let us struggle together for peace, even as we recognize and support those who are sent to war. Let us cherish the wisdom that comes from speaking truth to power, as well as the insight that is gained through willingly enduring fear and pain, sacrifice and strife. Let us hear and share the truths of both soldier and CO.”

Barner also references recent court decisions that seem to support granting conscientious objector status within philosophically diverse religious communities. Allowing for CO status in religions that aren’t explicitly pacifist. A situation that seems confusing for top-down organizations like the military or some Christian denominations, but one that is completely normal for the average Pagan used to dozens (if not hundreds) of unique (and valid) relationships with the divine.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has released lots of new data in its groundbreaking U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. Including the political inclinations of Pagans (and the other “others”).

ReligiousLiberty.TV points to two YouTube videos that examines Christian proselytism in India from the Hindu perspective.

“The video also proposed a “Code of Ethics” for religious conversion which includes language that it should be the result of true spiritual change, not manipulation or coercion. This is likely to increasingly become a larger issue in a global economy and information society. As this issue grows, churches will need re-evaluate their methods of spreading the gospel and seriously consider how they are being perceived in order to avoid sweeping attempts to ban all forms of proselytism.”

A idea of a mutually-agreed upon code of conduct for religious conversions has been floating around for years now, and is supposed to come to fruition soon. It remains to be seen if such a document would be “toothless”, as many groups see conversion as their highest priority, and have no qualms of moving in ethically questionable directions.

In a final note, scientists may have discovered when legendary king and hero Odysseus returned to Ithaca after the Trojan War.

“They say the epic poem appears to confirm that the return of Odysseus to the island of Ithaca coincided with a solar eclipse on April 16, 1178BC. In the Odyssey, the moment when Odysseus kills the suitors who have been courting Penelope, his wife, during his absence after the Trojan War, is marked by the Sun being “blotted from the sky”. “

Of course this calculation rests on Homer being accurate centuries after the fact, and not taking too much poetic license. So take this date with a grain of salt.

That is all I have for now, have a great day!
]]> http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/06/pagan-news-of-note_24.html/feed 9 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/05/as-handfastings-go-mainstream-so-do.html http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/05/as-handfastings-go-mainstream-so-do.html#comments Sun, 04 May 2008 12:30:00 +0000 Jason http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/05/as-handfastings-go-mainstream-so-do-pagans.html Lisa Cupido, writing for The Modesto Bee, has a very informative and interesting write-up of the growing popularity of Pagan handfasting ceremonies among couples (both Pagan and non-Pagan) looking to wed. Cupido interviews a wide-ranging assortment of sources for the piece, from author Raven Kaldera (who touches on same-sex marriage within modern Paganism), to trained celebrant Lamira Martin.

“Lamira Martin is a celebrant from St. Louis, Mo., who trained with the Celebrant USA Foundation, an institute that teaches people to officiate at weddings, funerals and other personalized ceremonies. She has been performing pagan and nondenominational weddings for only a year and a half but has wed 60 couples of all ages and backgrounds. Her most popular requests include handfasting, unity candle lighting and sand ceremonies … ‘Most of the couples I meet are in their 20s and want something beautiful and spiritual, but not religious … A lot of people have lost the connection to their churches, but they still want a ritual and to write their own ceremony.’”

In addition to covering the growing popularity of handfastings, Cupido also digs into what is feeding the popularity of handfastings (Paganism’s explosive growth over the last twenty years), and the economic ripples this new popularity creates.

“As some vendors of pagan items can attest, there is no shortage of customers for popular Wiccan and Celtic wedding items like costumes, Renaissance gowns, handfasting ropes and candles. Kimberly and Bill Tuttle, the owners of Gryphon’s Moon, started their company 13 years ago, unaware that their moonstone pendants and incense would attract so many pagan clients. The most popular item on their Web site, gryphonsmoon.com, is their handfasting ring, which features the inscription “Hearts as one,” in Runic, an early Germanic alphabet.”

In a final note on this very well-written and researched article, I would like to congratulate Cupido on being one of the first journalists to (indirectly) include the data about Pagans from the recently released Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. A survey that gives a big boost to the estimated Pagan population in America.

“A 2001 survey by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York found that the number of followers of Wicca, one of the many religions that fall beneath the pagan umbrella, increased from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001, making it the fastest-growing religion in America in terms of percentage increase. Marty Laubach, a sociology professor at Marshall University, says the number of followers of pagan religions is even higher now, citing a 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey that put the estimate at 1.2 million. ‘My suspicion is that the first number was way too low due to people not responding,’ Laubach said. ‘The 1990 study was conducted at the height of the ’satanic panic,’ which kept many neopagans in the closet.’”

One of the best articles dealing with modern Pagans I have read in awhile. I suggest reading the whole thing. Kudos to Lisa Cupido, this is what journalistic coverage of Paganism is supposed to look like.
]]> http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/05/as-handfastings-go-mainstream-so-do.html/feed 2 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/03/ramifications-of-post-christian-society.html http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/03/ramifications-of-post-christian-society.html#comments Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:33:00 +0000 Jason http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/03/the-ramifications-of-a-post-christian-society.html Reverberations from the Pew Forum’s groundbreaking U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, the first independent survey to place modern Paganism over the one million mark, are still being felt. Recently The Chronicle Review, a publication of The Chronicle of Higher Education, explored some of the ramifications of these findings.

“…findings in the study shed new light on issues around which there has been no scholarly consensus … it is becoming increasingly obvious that the term “Judeo-Christian” no longer makes sense, given how many Americans are neither. But the favorite terms to replace it – “Judeo-Christian-Islamic” or “Abrahamic” – seem equally inappropriate. It is not just that Buddhists, who do not trace their roots to Abraham, may outnumber Muslims, who do. It is that the combined percentage of those who identify themselves as either Hindu (0.4 percent) or from “other world religions” (0.3 percent) does so as well. We are not one nation divided into three monotheistic faiths. We are a nation characterized by many faiths, as well as by none.”

If America is no longer a “Judeo-Christian” (or “Abrahamic”) country, what does that mean? Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life, claims that the era of a common Christian morality is coming to a close.

“The fact that we now have so many religions in this country suggests either that no common morality is possible, or that, if it is, religion cannot be its most important source. The ways in which religious diversity either increases or detracts from speaking about the common good ought to be a subject stimulated by Pew’s conclusions.”

Which means that we could see a day when divisive “culture war” and other “social issues” will cease to be a tug-of-war between liberal secularists on one side, and conservative Christians on the other. Instead, there will be a variety of viewpoints and moralities involved in the discussion, changing the entire dynamic of debate.

Some will wonder if this is simply a statistical “blip” before some new Great Awakening re-asserts Christian moral dominance in America, but Wolfe says that data points to Christian denominations having retention problems across the board, including the “conservative” and “evangelical” denominations.

“Protestant denominations … were all losers … Pew has found that the strictest of all churches, at least in the sheer amount of proselytizing time and energy it requires, has the lowest overall retention rate … whatever the case in the past, there is no strong evidence of strict churches attracting a disproportionate share of members now … If the religious world of adults in the United States is diverse and in constant flux, the religious affiliations of young Americans, who will be tomorrow’s voters and citizens, are even more so. Three times as many Americans under 30 as those over 70 are not religiously affiliated.”

These problems haven’t escaped the notice of conservative and evangelical churches, but their attempts to fix what they define as an “image problem” may be too little and too late.

“Christians are supposed to represent Christ to the world. But according to the latest report card, something has gone terribly wrong. Using descriptions like “hypocritical,” “insensitive,” and “judgmental,” young Americans share an impression of Christians that’s nothing short of … unChristian.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we’ll be living in some sort of multi-religious utopia any time soon. Those in power rarely let go easily, and we may see battles over issues of religious morality and political influence get a lot worse before they attain a new balance. America may have woken up into a new “post-Christian” society, but the hangover from two hundred years of Christian dominance will most likely give us headaches for many years to come.
]]> http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/03/ramifications-of-post-christian-society.html/feed 2 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/02/parsing-pew-numbers.html http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/02/parsing-pew-numbers.html#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:05:00 +0000 Jason http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/02/parsing-the-pew-numbers.html The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has released a new study of the religious landscape in America. The results, which the Pew Forum calls “unprecedentedly precise”, points towards an increasingly “post-Christian” landscape in America.

“The United States is firmly 78 percent Christian but barely 51 percent Protestant, according to a survey released Monday (Feb. 25). The findings, part of the sweeping U.S. Religious Landscape Survey produced by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, reaffirm a decades-long decline toward minority status for the family of churches that long steered American politics and culture.”

That “barely” 51% figure includes both mainline and evangelical varieties of Protestants. The vast majority of the rest of that 78 percent are the Catholics, who are the largest Christian denomination in America with 23 percent of American adults. But things aren’t looking too good for the Catholics either.

“In the marketplace of American faith, Catholicism is the big loser. Catholics have lost more members to other faiths, or to no faith at all, than any other U.S. religion, according to the new survey released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life … Perhaps more worrisome for church leaders, while 2.6 percent of Americans converted to Catholicism, four times as many — 10.1 percent — of cradle Catholics have left for another faith or no faith at all. Roughly 10 percent of all Americans are former Catholics, the study reported.”

According to Pew researchers, Catholic numbers have only remained stable due to waves of Hispanic immigration. So Catholicism’s stability is precarious, and observers claim that as the current waves of Catholic immigrants assimilate to American culture, they too will drift away from the faith as previous waves of immigrants have.

So if Christianity’s cultural power is starting to wane, what is taking its place? Well, the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans has risen to 16.1 percent, with a large chunk of that number claiming to have no particular religious orientation. Hindus have acheived the highest retention rate among faiths in America (8 in 10 children remain Hindu), meanwhile, the study finds that religious adherence is becoming increasingly fluid, with 28 percent of people leaving their childhood faith, and a whopping 44 percent changing affiliation in their lifetime.

Finally, we have confirmation that modern Paganism is continuing to grow. The study found that 0.4 percent of Americans adhere to a “New Age” religion, broken down into “Pagan”, “Wiccan”, and “Other”. These figures don’t include those who described themselves as “eclectic”, “spiritual but not religious”, “other liberal faith groups”, or members of CUUPs who identified themselves primarily as Unitarian Universalists. Working then with the idea then that (at least) 0.4 percent of Americans are modern Pagans (according to the study), that means there are at least 1.2 million Pagans of one variety or another in America.

This is the largest scientific study that (theoretically) places modern Paganism over the one million mark. A number that could conceivably be much larger (0.8% refused to answer the survey). Previously, the largest estimated number was 768,400 Pagans in North American according to a COG poll. It is very likely that the actual number of people fitting under the umbrella of modern Paganism is much larger. Signaling perhaps that our days of being classified under “other” are coming to a close. For more data, I suggest looking through the entire study, There is a treasure trove of information here, that has only begun to be analyzed.
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