{"id":7,"date":"2005-08-22T03:11:39","date_gmt":"2005-08-21T22:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/neopagan.net\/blog\/?p=7"},"modified":"2005-08-22T03:11:39","modified_gmt":"2005-08-21T22:11:39","slug":"newsweek-mentions-paganism-respectfully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neopagan.net\/blog\/2005\/08\/22\/newsweek-mentions-paganism-respectfully\/","title":{"rendered":"Newsweek Mentions Paganism Respectfully"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Search of the Spiritual<\/a> is a major article with multiple sidebar stories in this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s issue of Newsweek. I was interviewed for this story and, while I was only quoted by name for one sentence, it would seem that the reporter took seriously what I and other Pagans had to say. The few references to Paganism were polite, respectful, and capitalized our names, even if they misinterpreted our beliefs a bit.<\/p>\n

The main story talks about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a flowering of spirituality\u00e2\u20ac\u009d across the USA, including \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in the rebirth of Pagan religions that look for God in the wonders of the natural world \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Most of us aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t looking for the monotheistic God at all, but are finding Gaia (the Earth Mother) and other deities revealed through nature.<\/p>\n

The subhead for the main story gives what might be the most important news: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Move over, politics. Americans are looking for personal, ecstatic experiences of God, and, according to our poll, they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t much care what the neighbors are doing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That has to be a nightmare concept for the Talibaptists of the Religious Reich,<\/a> who have exercised their lust for power by claiming that orthodox busybodies are a voting majority of Americans.<\/p>\n

Oddly enough, the one sidebar story on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Green Religion\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is about a conservative Christian environmental activist. Was this because she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t find a Pagan one or, as Phae suggests, because it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d unless a Christian is doing it? As I mention in The Pagan Man,<\/i><\/a> and What Do Neopagans Believe?,<\/a> environmentalism is a core concept in Earth Religions, while being mostly alien to monotheistic ones.<\/p>\n

The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153definition\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Paganism used in Newsweek\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dictionary of the Divine\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is fairly accurate, if succinct: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Most contemporary Pagans take pre-Christian practices and incorporate them into modern-day rituals. Nature is central to their spirituality; festivals mark the passing of the seasons.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The one for Wicca was similarly done: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The largest branch of Paganism in the United States, its members are sometimes called witches; they follow a code of personal freedom and responsibility.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Paganism was traced back to the 1800s in England, and Wicca to the 1940s\u00e2\u20ac\u201dboth fairly accurate, if annoying to true believers in the Craft.<\/p>\n

Significantly, while the Newsweek\/BeliefNet poll included six kinds of Christian, there was no option other than \u00e2\u20ac\u0153other religion\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for Pagans to select, even though we are one of the fastest growing collections of religions in the world. The folks at BeliefNet<\/a> know better, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m curious to know why the poll they jointly created had such huge gaps. For example, all the poll\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s references to divinity were singular and male, leaving out the millions of (Paleo- and Mesopagan)<\/a> Hindus, Shintoists, Taoists, and Voodooists in the USA, as well as a million or so Feminist Goddess Worshippers, Wiccans, Druids, and other American Neopagans. Most of the choices were either\/or ones, making it impossible to choose multiple options and thus screening out non-monotheistic and non-dualist believers. Nonetheless, the poll results spell big trouble for the Talibaptists and the Catholics, especially when the web results from thousands of people on the internet are compared to the 1,004 responses to their formal poll.<\/p>\n

From a political point of view, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also interesting that poll respondants are evenly split between Republicans, Democrats, and Independents\/ Others. Maybe this country really is ready for a big \u00e2\u20ac\u0153third\u00e2\u20ac\u009d party!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Search of the Spiritual is a major article with multiple sidebar stories in this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s issue of Newsweek. I was interviewed for this story and, while I was only quoted by name for one sentence, it would seem that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-pagan-stuff","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neopagan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neopagan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neopagan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neopagan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neopagan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neopagan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neopagan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neopagan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neopagan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}