CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — In a move that has raised eyebrows — and some ire — in the online Catholic community, Loyola University of Chicago recognized a student group that promotes Paganism. The club was approved by the university’s student government, a step which is necessary in many colleges to become eligible for funding and for the use of school buildings, not the school’s administration. When the administration became aware of its existence, the club was told to remove “Pagan” from its name. Administrators were apparently unaware of the new club until the story was picked up by the national news site The College Fix.
That’s the story as told by club founder and president Jill Kreider:
I started the club in the hopes of letting people know that there are Pagan students on campus. My friend and VP is a Celtic pagan and he and I both wanted this club to at least acknowledge our existence, even if we didn’t make it past the initial interview stage.The upper administration had little to do with the original process and only came into the picture after the [College] Fix article alerted them of our existence.
Kreider, who also serves as an interfaith advocate on campus, didn’t share much with The Wild Hunt, citing a desire to “tread lightly” and a heavy school workload. In an email to The College Fix about the club, she shared some of her vision:
Loyola’s mission states that, ‘seeking God in all things’ is one of the main [tenets] of the university. While the mission primarily focuses on the Abrahamic God, there is no reason a Pagan student (or a Hindu, Baha’i or Sikh student) cannot seek using his or her own faith, regardless of which god they are doing it for.
Loyola University Chicago is one of 175 run by the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, of which Pope Francis is a member. The school is named for the Jesuits’ founder, Ignatius Loyola. Kreider’s remarks resulted in a firestorm of comments, articles and posts online, especially attached to that original story.
While some equated Pagan religions to Satanism or defended those faiths, a larger number of the posts speak to the internal conflicts within Christianity itself. Based on the comment threads, Roman Catholicism is deemed suspect by many other Christians, in part because of the veneration of saints and the Virgin Mary, which critics equate with Pagan idolatry. Defenders of Paganism, using well-worn arguments about the Pagan symbolism underlying many Christian festivals, have been met with agreement from those who wish to denounce Catholicism as a tool of the Devil. Here’s a typical anti-Catholic diatribe from another Christian in the thread:
The Catholic cult is the largest organization of homosexuals, pedophiles and anti-christs on this earth. Their doctrine is pagan and the Word of God identifies them with over 20 points of identification that THEY ARE INDEED THE BEAST OF REVELATION AND DANIEL. –Jennifer Chronister
University officials appear to be treading lightly themselves in this case. In response to inquiries by The Wild Hunt, spokesperson Steven Christensen provided the same statement given to The College Fix. Here is that response in its entirety:
I can confirm that the Pagan Student Alliance was granted recognition by the Department of Student Activities and Greek Affairs (SAGA), which is a unit within the Division of Student Development, on October 9, 2014. Requests to form new student organizations are accepted at the beginning of each semester, and a number of factors are considered before recognition is granted to an organization. Those factors do not require a potential organization to identify with the religious views of the University.
Following the SAGA approval, other leaders within Student Development expressed concerns related to the organization’s name, and the breadth and lack of definition of its constitution. During the week of October 13, the president and vice president of the Pagan Student Alliance met with Student Development leadership regarding these concerns and the group agreed to modify the name of the organization to the Indigenous Faith Traditions Alliance. As with all student organizations, a clear sense of purpose is required, and the group has been asked to further define their purpose on campus. The group has agreed to this request.
Related to this, and all student groups, at Loyola we welcome and foster an open exchange of ideas and encourage debate and sharing differing views and opinions to advance education. We believe that discussion around complex topics results in deeper critical thinking skills and well-rounded citizens.
According to the university website, “The search for truth is carried out in an atmosphere of Academic Freedom and open inquiry based on two fundamental assumptions of the Catholic faith. First, that the truth will set us free. Second, that faith and reason ultimately bear harmonious witness to the unity of all truth.” Welcoming a Pagan, or rather an “Indigenous Faith Traditions,” club appears consistent for a university that already has Muslim and Hindu clubs on campus.
In editorial on Christian blog site Aleteia.org, Susan E. Wills prodded at the new name of the club, saying, “. . . one can’t help but picture a group meeting of Buddhists, Taoists, Santeras . . . Wiccans, and pagans all arguing over whether Wiccans should even be allowed in the club. It is not an ‘indigenous’ religion at all. It was basically created in the 1950s by the self-proclaimed Druid Gerald Gardner, an Englishman.” Wills goes on to question how Wiccan theology fits into a Catholic worldview, saying:
“Wicca is a religion only in the loosest sense of the word, having been cobbled together from various sources in the 1950s, having no defined doctrine (as each practitioner is free to believe what he or she wants) and largely practiced alone … While individual Wiccans may be ‘good people’ and ‘good citizens’, it is difficult to see any nuggets of truth or goodness in Wicca itself.”
While the original College Fix article points out that Wicca is one of the better-known Pagan religions, it’s the only reference to the Wiccan faith in connection with the club. It’s not clear why Wills chose to fixate on Wicca in her remarks. Kreider identifies herself as Hellenistic Pagan and her vice-president as a Celtic Pagan. The group’s original mission as posted on Facebook was, “to unify Pagans, the spiritual but not religious, those seeking faith or religion, minority faith students (including but not limited to: Buddhists, Taoists, Shinto practitioners, Santeras, etc…) pluralists and those students interested in New Age religions on Loyola’s campus. If you don’t have a faith group on campus, we’re here to fill that gap!”
In an article published in the Oct. 17 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Beth McMurtrie discusses the new problems facing Catholic colleges today as the religious climate of the United States changes. According to the article, in 1973 82% of full-time freshmen at Catholic colleges identified as Catholic. In 2013, that number was only 50%. Loyola’s acceptance of the new Pagan club appears to be one example of a Jesuit university being forced to wrestle with its own identity in modern society and, as such, making an effort to adjust to an evolving student population.
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This should be no more shocking to people than religious-themed organizations at an a-religiously funded state university. That is, not at all.
The people who are making an enormous stink about this situation simply do not understand how university student politics work. Provided there are no administrative bylaws that prevent such an organization from being formed (omission is not applicable in this case) then it is up to the student union/governing body to determine for themselves whether or not the group is acceptable. It shows that the majority of these people either never went to university or were never part of the student government.
Beyond their standard keyboard warrior ignorance, that is. Why bother doing something productive when they can fly into a foaming circlejerk of hateful rage without leaving the comfort of their homes?
Catholic history, such as is found in the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, is the story of the Church conquering Pagan Europe and beyond. So it is understandable that many Catholic institutions would bristle at the word “Pagan”.
I’d be in favor of going with Original Legitimate Faiths Club to really rile them up. 😉
That would be sooooo neat !
I wonder if the group had considered changing their name to “Earth-based” religions instead than “Indigenous”.
I’m actually liking this trend of using “indigenous” or “elder faiths” in the naming of inclusive Pagan groups. As long as there are some indigenous traditions included, I don’t think using that term is going to take anyone too far off-track, unless they start having a focus that needs a better name to reflect their purpose.
“Indigenous” isn’t the best term, but it’s more accurate for some people than “earth-based”. All our traditions are, at some level, indigenous, but many of us aren’t earth-centered or nature-worshipping.
Wicca isn’t indigenous in any way, although I have no doubts that Gerald B. Gardner believed that it (or the Witch-cult) was.
Like I said it’s not perfect, but Wicca could be argued to draw from indigenous Celtic sources and traditions. Personally though, I would feel far more comfortable joining a society based on indigenous religions than one based around earth based ones, and I doubt I am the only one.
I wouldn’t even concede that to the Christians, ‘not indigenous in any way?’ Sure didn’t come from missionaries, I’d say, and even if it’s too modern for some tastes, that doesn’t mean it’s not about Pagan Gods, …rather than some impression Wicca’s really all about following Gerald Gardner or something. That sounds more like the misinformed anti-Wiccan Christian lady quoted in that article trying to claim ‘This isn’t a real religion because it’s not like Christianity’ again.
Wicca may not be as wound up about ancient sources, but it’s certainly more indigenous faith than some of the other groups this ‘Pagan’ (but you can’t call it ‘Pagan’ ) group includes, such as New Agers and Agnostics and Taoists Buddhists etc, …just seems petty to try cutting WIccans out of a group that they can’t call Pagan cause of the Christians and which ended up being a catch-all for ‘Everyone without a club yet’ anyway.
Anyone familiar with Gardner’s writings knows that he was well aware of the hodge-podge nature of Wicca. He openly acknowledged that he had no idea if there was any real connection between Wicca and Druidry, for example. And he also very explicitly conceded (and more than once) that Wicca has a wide variety of influences from different cultures and different historical eras.
Nevertheless, it is now accepted by Ronald Hutton (although not necessarily by his fan-base), that modern Wicca does in fact have a close connection with Pagan religious traditions that existed at least 2000 years ago. To use Hutton’s own words, there were in late antiquity “certain types of ancient religion” which “certainly influenced” Wicca and which even “hd certain linear connections with it.”
But all genuinely organic, indigenous religions are like this.
I’m not much of a fan of either, honestly. Earth-based is inaccurate for some Pagan religions and I can imagine a First Nations student side-eyeing “indigenous religions” hung on (at best) reconstructed or cobbled-together religions. Other possibilities like “Alternative Religions” prove problematic as well (do they exist for no other reason than being an alternative to an omnipresent Christianity?), though I kind of like the one in the previous WH post, “Old Faiths” (while an easy argument could be made that Wicca in particular isn’t all that old, at least it has “the old religion” as a historic moniker to fall back on).
I think the difficulty– if not impossibility– of finding an accurate, representative term for Pagan Umbrella religions other than “Pagan” throws points in the column of people saying that, other than religious freedom initiatives and being not-Christian, there actually isn’t anything that Pagan religions all have in common. I’m not 100% sold on that (I actually do think non-hard-recon Neo-Pagan religions have quite a lot in common), but the argument here writes itself.
There is one thing they all have in common – they are all minority religions.
And neither monotheistic nor abrahamic.
Otherwise, it’s true that this name is problematic. They should just campaign to have the word “Pagan” it would be clear enough.
Well, I wouldn’t even go that far.
You have Christo-Pagans, which means at least partly Abrahamic, and some Pagans use the “all part of the one divine” form of belief, which is essentially monotheistic.
I might be more conservative than you then: for me, christo-pagans are no pagans. In addition, I don’t consider Pantheism, “all part of the one divine” as monotheism either.
Allow me to play devil’s advocate, but why are Christio-Pagans not pagans? Plenty of the old folks worshipped Christ before the Church adopted the whole “convert or die” stance. Also, how is pantheism not a form of monotheism? Positing one God, however immanent and transcendental, is still positing the existence of a singular God.
Playing the devil’s advocate for yaweh? Sounds like music to my ears :-Þ
More seriously, back in the Antiquity, yeah sure, why not add one god to the altar, it’s not going to be such a big deal isn’t it?
But hell, the thing is that christianity nowadays IS an exclusive religion, and I don’t think there would be many christians who’d think it’s okay to worship yaweh one day and Diana another. Still I recognize the fact that yaweh once was s god of a polytheistic religion, but he’s not anymore: he basically cannibalized all the other (ways to go Óðinn…) and then imposed himself as the sole legitimate deity. I don’t really understand the concept of worshiping an all-powerful almighty exclusive god on the one hand and a an inclusive, culture-based Deity on the other.
Plus yaweh is quite a blood-thirsty violent god, not really worth much respect/worship IMO.
For Pantheism, I see it more as an extension/variation of Animism. It’s only my opinion so it’s not fool-proof but I also tend to associate montheism with revealed religions (even if one doesn’t agree, there’s still a significant overlap) which Pantheism is not.
In any cases.
Maybe it’s just the Anti-christian me who’s talking…
I think it really depends on *perspective,* and what people consider *important.* You can see how the Christian magazine writer assumes that Wiccans must not have a real religion or any beliefs at all, just cause Christians think it constitutes ‘Believe anything you want,’ …also believe it must treat Gerald Gardner as a ‘founding prophet’ (that they try to insult as a dismissable ‘founding authority’) when that’s really not a Wiccan attitude at all.
Likewise, a lot of Pagan faiths that don’t like to be called ‘Earth-based’ might *well* be considered to have their basis in the natural world, (As opposed to say, ‘revealed texts’ about a transcendent God ruling a ‘fallen’ artifice) even if the *perception* is that ‘Earth-based’ is all about hippies and granola and environmentalism and for some reason would *exclude* say, hard polytheism. Come down to it, that’s about a lot of these reconstructionists not finding the ‘Earth basis’ as *important* as other things, which is of course their right, but in the same way, Wiccans consider the *faith* to be old and the *practice* to be a modern reinvention. …so that ought to work both ways, really.
I’d argue that the Pagan umbrella has a *lot* more in common than some think: There’s actually a really big center-of-mass that we seem to all live among and overlap in one way or another, even if you could find a group that differs on any given particular point. Part of the problem is that people are rather trained to *define* a religion or a faith group based on some point of doctrine or a shared statement of belief, rather than some other things involving a shared worldview which I think *even* many or most hard recons have in common with the ‘Pagan umbrella.’ (Even if they may *define* themselves as different because of the things they find importantly-different about their own practices.)
When it comes to ‘definitions’ the real question is usually about the would-be-definer’s *standards,* really.
Good conclusion-hopping with the bit about granola and environmentalism, but not my point. If something is an “earth religion”, I’d think some form of nature or nature spirit veneration would be pretty central to what they think and do. This fits some reconstructionist religions (notably Heathenry, with how important landwight veneration is), but doesn’t fit others (notably Kemetic Recon, making me wish I’d bookmarked a few of Kiya’s great rants on the subject).
It’s ironic that shared worldview is the part you think unites Pagans, including hard recons, because that’s where I think it falls apart. There is literally no way to say this that won’t ruffle feathers, but a shared worldview largely informed by Christianity is the part that I think does unite Neo-Pagans. While some of this does apply to some reconstructed religions, broadly I’m talking about signifiers like personal gods, god-focus above all else (vs. ancestors and nature spirits), focus on afterlife, belief in multiple planes of existence, a scriptural attitude toward mythology, a tendency toward consolidation (for instance, one “pantheon” for a broad range of cultures subsumed under a single banner e.g. ‘the Norse Pantheon’), generally things Russell tagged in his explanation of the difference between world-accepting folk religions and world-rejecting universal religions. It’s nigh on impossible to come to age in a Christian culture and not carry a ton of Christian worldview patterns, but the only people I see questioning most of these are people who’ve done a ton of work toward reconstructing cultural worldview and thought (i.e. hard recons). So yes, I completely agree that there’s a really big overlapping center of mass for many Pagan Umbrella religions, and I think it’s this.
It’s nigh on impossible to come to age in a Christian culture and not carry a ton of Christian worldview patterns
This is beautifully said!
I hope that as our Western societies evolve more and more away from christianity, we will be able to get rid of this cumbersome monotheistic varnish.
It honestly doesn’t surprise me that this happened at a Jesuit college. They’re an interesting breed.
Right your are Erin, Jesuits rarely do things “just because”. Most of the rethoric used by christian apologetics, creationists and the like, was made by the Jesuits. Maybe it’s a move to gain acceptance and adapt to the times (like let’s say, the way the Pope tries to cater to the scientific community); and that would be great. But my gut tells me there might be an ulterior motive. For now, it’s good to know about such a thing happening in a christian college.
Isn’t that the school Karl Siegfried teaches music at ? I find is strange he wasn’t involved or at least comment on it somewhat.
Otherwise, it’s neat for those students ! Thumbs up!
Glad to hear they have a club – would have been very happy to join one when I was in college. That article on Aleteia is absolutely horrendous .
Susan E. Wills needs to pick up an anthropology of religion book, because there is no requirement of “defined doctrine,” or doctrine at all, for a religion to qualify as an actual religion. Same goes for solitary practice.
And she might want to get her eyes/brain checked if she finds it difficult to see any truth or goodness in Wicca. It’s not that hard to see. It’s not my cup of tea, but I’ve always been able to see the truth and goodness in Wicca, even when I was a Mormon.
Not to mention that Wicca is the most doctrinal of the Pagan faiths, as far as I’ve seen. We could all rattle off doctrines like The Rede, the Law of Three, The Charge of the Goddess, the theology of Goddess and God, etc. She must be in denial or something.
There’s a big difference between “doctrinal” (ie, authoritative teaching) and the Rede since “rede” itself means “guideline”. The threefold law and the Charge are more tradition than doctrine these days. I personally think there’s more doctrine in the Havamal and the Eddas than in the few traditional pieces in Wicca.
Hávamál is more a collection of proverbs that have value than dictates, and calling the Eddas doctrine is flawed since they were written down well after the conversion of Iceland. By Christians…
Not saying that Hávamál does not hand down authentic Heathen knowledge (it does, here and there) but no it’s not a doctrinal document. You’d be hard pressed to find any “doctrinal” anything in the Old Norse Religion at all.
Wicca: founded in England, by an Englishman. How’s that not indigenous?
But, more seriously, are people even vaguely surprised that a Catholic establishment is pitching a fit at the formation of a group that uses a term that means “Non-Christian”?
It really sounds that the Jesuits are kind of setting parameters where the club is *really* about “People we might consider conversion fodder cause they aren’t otherwise organized.” …and they *don’t* want to concede that Pagan religions, or …people they’ve just historically called ‘pagans’ actually might have real religious faith and identity.
I don’t know about Frankie, but Benny refused to consider the various religions labelled “Pagan” as actual religions, and refused to engage with them.
Indeed, that was the official line of the Catholic Church (TM) until recently.
Probably because the peoples who became the English aren’t indigenous to the British isles. They’re uninvited invaders whom the Scots and the Welsh wish never came and relegated them to second class citizenship on their own island.
I don’t know that I consider this a win or moving the ball forward in any substantive way. If anything, it’s a setback. You can have a Pagan club so long as nobody is open or…flamboyant about it and the whole thing is vaguely misrepresented as being Native American? Why not go full-on 1890 and subsume it into a Romantic Era Literary Club or nature club of some sort? Would anyone consider it progress if they started an LGBT club on campus on the condition that it was called something like “Confirmed Bachelors Club”?
“Right-o, then, we won’t call it a Pagan club. We’ve resolved to change our name to the Student Idolaters’ Union. No? Oh dear. Well, there’s always ‘Students Against The Scaring Of The Horses’, as that seems to meet your mandate quite properly.” I imagine, though, that it must be unnerving to wage a (by all appearances quite successful) two millennium long campaign against other religions and then have people crop up like mushrooms in your own living room and demand the right to organize into “That Enemy That Won’t Stay Down, Dammit” clubs. That’s kind of a win no matter how many pearls are clutched at their name.
To reverse the roles, I wonder how the Christians would feel if asked not to use the word “Christian” in the name of their group?
That would presume they were attending a Pagan university.
Which would be all kinds of awesome.
We would need to create a Pagan University.
I imagine it somewhere in the North-East, with a focus on Humanities and Arts. There would be courses of ancient languages, literature, drama and performance as well as a whole faculty dedicated to sustainable agriculture and architecture (with a focus on sustainable structures).
Someone should start an Indigogo campaign!
In clinical terms, they’d be crapping razorblades. The Thomas Moore Society and Alliance Defense Fund lawyers would be tripping over each other to litigate, and the culture war Christian blogosphere would make them the martyr de jour.
A bit off-topic but has anyone else noticed that “Chicago” is misspelled in the logo image used for the university?
Thank you for spotting that. I will be replacing it with another one shortly. Hopefully someone at the school has noticed that error.
What do you expect from an outfit that spells Pagan with an “I”?
The question is: does “Indigenous” properly distinguish “us” from the monotheists? And the answer is: yes it does. Montheistic religions are never truly “indigenous”. In fact, monotheistic religions always define themselves (and enthusiastically so) as unalterably opposed to whatever religions happen to be indigenous when they (the monotheists) first come along. The watchword for monotheists is: whatever you have been doing up until now is wrong. Stop it. And you don’t want us to show you what happens if you don’t.
All religions grow organically from somewhere. Except monotheism. Monotheism’s origins are in evil fantasies that exist only in the human mind (which is capable of much that is wonderful and even beautiful and even divine, but which is also capable of great evil).
Surely “indigenous” is dependent on location? Even monotheist religions started somewhere, after all.
Sure, but it’s not all that important. Most christians are not crying over the fact that jerusalem isn’t in their backyard anymore (and even the crusaders were in good part there for loot). There’s probably a stronger focus on expending the faith (Korea, New-Guinea) than grounding it somewhere. After all, the whole world will end up knowing the faith isn’t it?