Search Results

This chapter focuses on the tensions and ambivalences between the different religious, interpersonal, and social dynamics of Pagan adults and children. These interactions between Pagan adults and children and between Pagan children and other institutions are influenced by specific understandings of the role and nature of the category of the “child.” Pagan adults and children interact with many institutions—scouting organizations, public schools, and other religious traditions—based on specific understandings of what it means to be a “Pagan child” or a “Pagan adult.” The chapter also talks about Pagan parents' methods to include children in public and private religious rituals and Pagan children's improvisations of their own rituals based on their early religious experiences. These examples suggest that understandings of a ritual can be expanded to include informal, ordinary experiences within the family as well as formal ceremonial practices.

This chapter discusses Pagan life-cycle rituals and the ambivalence they elicit by considering the formal inclusion of children into contemporary Paganism through adult-led rituals such as Wiccanings and coming-of-age rites. As Pagan adults conduct these rituals, they simultaneously reject the compulsory transmission of religious belief or practice. This means that Pagan children are welcomed into their parents' religion but are neither expected nor particularly encouraged to accept and practice these traditions themselves. Contemporary Paganism prioritizes religious choice, tolerance, and independence over familial or cultural homogeneity, potentially complicating both the growth of the religion and religious dynamics within families and communities. In the process of constructing, and performing these life-stage rituals, Pagan adults express deep ambivalence about childhood, adulthood, religious choice, and the fundamental values of their religious worlds.

This chapter discusses the place of icons in worship, their character, and the way they came to symbolize the holy and mediate between earth and heaven. In particular, as icons became a vivid focus of devotion, they began to embody human relations with God the Creator and Ruler of the entire Christian world. It is argued that women played a notable part in this developing cult of icons. The chapter concentrates on some features of Late Antique Mediterranean culture, shared by Jews and Gentiles, pagan and Christian alike. These provided a common social experience within which the artistic evolution of the Christian church took place. In particular, the first part of this chapter is devoted to a discussion of funerary art, for this represents one of the most striking ways whereby Christians transmitted pagan rituals and artistic forms to their new faith. The second part examines some of the reasons for the preservation of these forms, once assimilated to a Christian mode, when they came under attack in the East. It asks how much that response informs us about the role of women in the cult of icons.

This chapter delves into some of the debates surrounding the inclusion of children in Pagan rituals and the appropriate level of religious instruction for younger generations. Some Pagan parents respond to the religion's tendency toward the exclusion of children by developing innovative ways to include children in religious ritual and daily practice. The chapter claims that rituals involving Pagan children can challenge scholars and practitioners to rethink understandings of what constitutes religious ritual. Rituals such as blessings and coming-of-age rites are intended to welcome infants and teenagers into Paganism, yet, they are still contested within the religion. The importance of religious choice for Pagan children is a core value within the religion and is one of the few principles that receives nearly unanimous support from adult Pagans.

This chapter considers how traffic with demons was so etched on some ritual forms of traditional Roman worship that either new rites had to be developed or the symbolic content of old rituals reframed for the early Christian church. The clergy sought to save meaningful and familiar ritual forms when it seemed possible to redirect the symbolic content. However, some behaviors were so thoroughly saturated with messages counter to Christian truths that they could not be reformed. Christians thus created a new kind of space where demons dared not tread. The enclosed hallowed space provided a clean slate on which a new story could be written in the language of ritual. Here, Christian worship aligned itself in form and tone with traditional somber customs of Roman worship, but the symbolic content making up the pagan rituals was redirected, and the aspects attractive to demons were filtered out.

This chapter introduces Augustine's Books III and IV of The City of God. It discusses how Augustine countered ideas that gods must be worshipped in order to ensure prosperity in the present life and criticized beliefs that the hindrance of prosperity is hostile to the Christian name. It also looks at Augustine's books that refute claims on the preservation of earthly life and temporal happiness in human affairs. The chapter analyzes the significance of the recent fall of Rome to the Goths due to the imperial proscription of pagan ritual and the destruction of pagan temples. It examines how Augustine offers guidance to his Christian flock, who had suffered harsh tribulations, by reminding them that their true happiness lay not in the blessedness of the world to come.

This chapter assesses the prohibition against tearing a limb from a living animal, which is explicit in Scripture, and the only one of the seven Noahide laws to be found immediately in the Torah. According to the rabbis, tearing a limb from a living animal was part of ancient pagan religious ritual, and thus was a species of idolatry. Clearly, such a practice was to be avoided by Israelites. At first view, this law appears limited in scope, but the chapter argues that it has implications for Jewish–gentile relations extending beyond the immediate purpose of the law. The chapter then demonstrates how Noahide law has directed some innovations within rabbinic law, namely, in reducing double standards in laws that pertain to both Jews and non-Jews. The law of the torn limb also introduces the question of nature in Jewish thought.