The trend toward fundamentalism and totalitarianism in today's world has put members of "alternative" spiritual paths in jeopardy. This essay is a reflection on how being a Pagan in a predominately monotheistic world requires diligent, but tolerant, actions and attitudes.

The trend toward fundamentalism in today's world has put members of "alternative" spiritual paths in jeopardy. This essay is a reflection on how being a Pagan in a predominately monotheistic world requires diligent, but tolerant, actions and attitudes.
Being a Pagan today is similar to being a Pagan during the early Christian years. Some tolerance, some distrust, and some prohibitive laws to force Pagans to remain unseen. Constantine (I avoid the "Saint" designation) established Christianity as the state religion; closed Pagan schools, forbade traditional Pagan worship, and otherwise "encouraged" people to convert.

Today, although some hesitate to admit it, we have a state religion based on Old Testament Judeo-Christian theology, our schools are being converted from secular institutions of learning to classrooms where the Bible may be used as a textbook and "moments of silence" (ie., "prayer") being mandated. Pagan students are prohibited from wearing Pentacles as signs of their faith while crucifixes are evident everywhere. Local ordinances are enacted to prohibit home worship, usually originating from complaints centered around Pagan worship. Books are banned and authors castigated as being "Satanic." Laws are passed to protect persecuted Christians while ignoring the persecution of other faiths by Christians or Jews or Moslems.

The attacks on Paganism have become much more insidious over the last four years. Christian fundamentalist Jerry Fallwell blamed pagans, along with gays, the ACLU and others, for the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Rather than unifying society, religion has become a political and divisive issue once again. The Bush administration constantly raises the specter of religion in the American and world political scenes and has repeatedly equated the administrations actions as being directly guided by God. For a government that continues to preach “no big government” the Bush administration has created the largest budget deficit in history, has quickly eroded our civil liberties, has undertaken many seriously unethical acts with big business, has bullied many nations that at one time were our allies, has created a huge credibility gap around the world, and evidently is guilty of manufacturing “facts” to go to war. And now has the ability to imprison US citizens without charge or legal representation for as long as it likes.

How do we as Pagans, respond to these issues? Do we, as the Reclaiming Community under Starhawk, take a more radical, proactive, visible approach to issues of social justice, environmentalism and religious liberty, or do we work behind the scenes to educate people one on one, performing healing ritual and magick?

Some things that must be considered before any action is taken are:

* Would an organized effort, under the Wiccan or Pagan banner, be perceived as threatening and contrary to what Goddess based spirituality stands for?

* Is 60's style radicalism called for or appropriate in the specific instance?

* What is the ultimate desired result?

* Are short-term immediate results wanted or long-term permanent ones?

An additional question is, "Who are we acting for?"

Depending on the situation we may, in fact, desire to present a unified and vocal presence--if the situation at hand is emergent and needing immediate action. For the most part, however, a non-threatening approach is best. The power of the written word is far superior to a group of loud demonstrators who will cause alienation more than reflection. We must be responsible and mature enough to win over minds and spirits to protect the Mother Earth and Her plant, animal and human children. Individual rights must be protected and one of the best ways to do this is through a bombardment of well-written, thoughtful and fact-based letters to the parties involved. Legal assistance is available to most of us through Pagan attorneys and the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU has fought and won many issues involving the right to worship and the display of religious jewelry.

Individually we need to counter negative stereotypes with knowledgeable statements that portray present day Paganism and Wiccan practice in an accurate way--dealing with the issues rather than any distorted or outrageous claim based on emotion.

If we want tolerance for ourselves we must offer tolerance to others. While we may feel anger toward those that falsely accuse us of evil, we cannot hope to educate society as a whole by falling into the same methodology used by the Christian Right. We must advocate the right of everyone to believe as they wish and to read what they will--only by showing that we, as Pagans, are tolerant of other beliefs and are "good neighbors" can we hope to begin to break stereotypes down so that true education and communication begin.

The attacks against Wiccan and Pagan belief and expression are normally based on fear and control issues. It is important in our attempts to educate that we remain passionate but non-emotional is our responses. Providing facts is extremely important to counter attacks by extremist and to correct misconceptions.

Pagans vote! Sometimes the choice isn't easy as we are often faced with the "lesser of" scenarios. But the number of Pagans is growing daily. Wicca is the eighth largest religion in the United States. Voting the way our minds tell us is the best way to preserve our individual and collective liberties, and our environment.
Pagans also must stand up when they see government sponsored acts of intolerance, brutality and those that violate human rights and decency. These acts are happening daily around the world and in our own nation and are being perpetuated under the guise of “protecting” the lives and liberty of Americans even when liberty itself is being threatened from within.
This said the foremost thing to keep in mind is that our lives are an extension of our religion. We are tolerant of others, we see the sacredness in all of nature, and we cause no harm. We desire to be treated with the same tolerance we show others, we desire to nurture our world so that it will continue to nurture us and our future generations.

It is important to know what we are talking about! Any misinformation may be misleading and substantiate the other person's erroneous perceptions.

We must support each other. We must choose our battles well. We must allow each other to follow our own paths and refrain from that which we originally rebelled against--the claim that only certain ways are correct, that our way is best.

We must remember that we do not proselytize. Anyone who recognizes or feels the need to rejoin the Old One's and the value in nature based religions will find their way. But we can provide the knowledge to help people to their path. We must exercise our constitutional rights and protect those rights. We must maintain a presence in our communities to show our neighbors that we are as we say we are but we must be non-invasive.

If we wish to be treated seriously we must act seriously. Sure we should have fun amongst ourselves at our gatherings and rituals...but it is a mistake to behave as we are expected to behave by those who watch "Charmed" every week. We are more than Halloween personalities and we should not flaunt our differences for shock value--to do so only trivializes our religion.

We should do well to correct those biases and misconceptions that exist on a one-to-one basis and score individual victories, which, over time, will educate our society as a whole.
During these times of world uncertainty, where your religion may cause others to look upon you with suspicion if not down right hatred, it is even more important for Pagans to practice our traditions and to create positive, healing rituals. This is not the time to hide or to give up on our magick. But we must realize that we need to do these things wisely. Foremost we must fight against fundamentalism and the trend to create a society and government based upon monotheistic fundamentalist "visions". We already have too many "American Talibans" in our society willing to corrupt American ideals to install their own brand of totalitarianism.