Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Pagan
Syncretic Electric: Looking at our History (Part 3) – Religious Expression in the U.S.A.

Syncretic Electric: Looking at our History (Part 3) – Religious Expression in the U.S.A.

Last updated on: September 13, 2013 at 1:08 pm by Julian Betkowski

Syncretic Electric: Looking at our History (Part 3) – Religious Expression in the U.S.A. 2013-09-13T13:08:15+00:00 Julian Betkowski

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

New England Scenery, Frederic Edwin Church, 1851

So far in this series, I have spoken rather generally about the broad cultural forces in Western culture that have influenced, and perhaps even produced, a uniquely Modern Paganism. Within the United States, however, there are particular religious tendencies that I believe are responsible for determining the form, if not the content, of communal Pagan religious practice.

It has been, in part, my desire in this project to demonstrate that Contemporary Paganism is not, as some of us would like to claim, a discrete entity, somehow separate and removed from our larger culture, but in fact a particular product of certain cultural forces and our collective reaction to them. So far, I have briefly examined the general saturation of Western Culture going as far back as the Late Medieval era with Classical Greek and Roman thought, and have generally sketched out the role of the Gothic and Romantic literary movements in resuscitating certain Pagan ideals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By and large, however, these trends have been largely European, and while American Paganism continues to be deeply indebted to its British and European forebears, I would suggest that there are particularly American forces, especially as concerns the American approach to spirituality and religion, that have played a heavy role in the growth and development of American Paganism, both communally and theologically.

Sarah M. Pike observes:

Neopagans’ view of festivals as spiritual frontiers in the wild is drawn on a thematic that powerfully characterizes American attitudes toward this land. Neopagans tap into the frontier myth that is at the heart of American religious diversity because it help the promise of endless space within which to create a new religious life and community. (2001, p. 18)

Almost from the beginning of European settlement in America, the land was poeticized into the promise of religious freedom and possibility. While Paganism in its modern form is a late addition to the American religious milieu, it certainly seems to build on these same sets of ideas. Indeed, as we in the United States speak about the Pagan religious experience, we tend to characterize it in terms of personal autonomy, freedom of choice, and personal expression. Perhaps this sort of rhetoric is made possible by the ingrained American metaphors of space, frontier, and personal freedom.

In the United States, as in the most of the Western World, Christianity in its various forms represents the dominant form of religious expression. However, even Christianity has suffered some dramatic transformations as a result of its interaction with the broader spiritual ethic of the United States. There has been a broad tendency within the religious life of Americans in general to move away from centralized religious authority and focus on the personal experience of and relationship with divine beings and forces. Within Christianity, this has manifested itself in several ways, from the emigration of the Quakers to the United States to the emergence of the Pentecostal and Apostolic churches (which are gaining increasing relevance worldwide). Unitarian Universalism, which many American Pagans are familiar with because of individual congregations allowing us to use their facilities for our own religious expressions, is itself a uniquely American expression of religious freedom with its almost total lack of dogma and assertion that everyone, universally, is saved.

As such, the plurality of Paganism in the United States can be seen as a further development of religious trends endemic to American culture.

Neopagans thus follow a familiar American path of constructing spiritual space by rejecting the meanings and rituals proposed by culturally dominant Christian churches. Christianity becomes essential as what is rejected – and which rejects – to establish Neopagans’ own identity. (Pike, 2001, p.18)

Even the rejection of Christianity as defining characteristic of American Paganism can be seen when looking at other American religious movements. American Protestantism in general defines itself at least in part in opposition to European Catholicism. Indeed, this antipathy runs so deep that it nearly scuttled John F. Kennedy’s presidential hopes, and subsequently we have not had another Catholic president. Indeed, the American religious community seems generally inclined to define itself in opposition to centralized authority, though this opposition expresses itself in various manners and intensities.

One of American Paganism’s most striking antecedents is the Spiritualist movement of the nineteenth century.

Neopagan festivals are akin to the gatherings of nineteenth-century Spiritualists in their eclecticism and the challenge they represent to more orthodox and established religious practices. Loosely defined organizational structures resisted institutionalization and allowed both groups to accommodate participants from a wide variety of faiths at their gatherings. (Pike, 2001, p. 14-15)

Spiritualism allowed members of diverse faiths to gather together in appreciation of certain shared spiritual experiences. Despite the oddity of Spiritualism, it remained a powerfully Christian movement, even if it was viewed as heretical and dangerous by other contemporary Christians. Amerian Paganism follows the model of both the Spiritualist and Revival movements in the United States of both providing spaces of unity for a variety of fringe or minority religious expressions, while simultaneously sequestering itself away from the larger relgious community.

American Paganism, I assert, expresses the generic religious trend of opposition and difference in a particularly bold way. The average American Pagan is free both of overarching authority and of rigorous dogma. The prevalence of eclecticism in American Paganism further demonstrates the freedom of religious expressions available. Such freedom has produced a number of criticisms both from within and outside of the Pagan community, but the fact that many Pagans themselves feel that they are free to assemble their spirituality as they please without regard to the opinions or criticisms of others says something particular about the way that Americans in general and Pagans specifically have come to characterize personal religious experience.

References:

Pike, S.M. (2001). Earthly bodies, magical selves: Contemporary pagans and the search for community. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press

Syncretic Electric is published on alternate Fridays. Subscribe via RSS or e-mail!

American religious history

Previous Post

September 12, 2013

Loop of Brighid: Invocation of the Graces, a Brigidine Sacred Text - Part 7

Next Post

September 16, 2013 Seekers and Guides: Six Senses for Learning

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Lakeside Hearth Adventures in Wortcunning Alone In Her Presence Arts, Crafts & Cooking Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft Book of Blackbirds Book Reviews Born-Again Witch Cauldron, Sword, Spear, & Stone Cermony and Liturgy Columns Community Dandelion Seeds Dear Jasmine Druid Thoughts Editor's Picks Everyday Pagan Family & Household Practice Family Traditions Full Frontal Magic Gateway Goddess Guest Articles Happily Heathen Health and Wellness Hearth of Hellenism Heathen Woman Hills of the Horizon History Holidays Horse Goddesses Interfaith Interviews Irish-American Witchcraft Jewish Witch Lamp & Labyrinth Letters from Midgard Literature, Media, Film, Music Loop of Brighid Love, Sex & Relationships Magic or Magick Making Light Naturalistic Traditions Nature News Outside The Circle Pantheisticon Politics Prayers, Poems, Blessings & Stories Queer Femme Mystic Queer of Swords Recipes Ritual and Practice Science and Research Seekers and Guides Seeking the Grail Socially Responsible Magic Spear of Athena Star Made Witch Syncretic Electric Technology The Blooming Staff The Busy Witch The Cartomancer The Crow's Nest The Dance of Pagan Recovery The Hearth of Hellenism The Lady's Quill The Other Side of the Hedge The Path of She The Rantin' Raven The Witches Next Door The Zen Pagan Theology, Ethics, Philosophy Tree City Witch Urban Earthwitch Wayfaring Woman Witch on Fire Wyrd Words

Select a Month January 2026 March 2025 December 2024 June 2024 April 2024 March 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Lo-debar" mean in Hebrew?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The chosen city Valley of rest No pasture The Lord’s land