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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in pagan ethics

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Social Justice: A Pagan Perspective

I gave a keynote talk at the Conference of Current Pagan Studies January 23 on viewing social justice from a Pagan perspective. It went well and while the paper it was based on is much too long for a normal blog post, I have made it available as an article on my web page. After a discussion of social justice at a more abstract level, I end with exploring issues of Nature and race.

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  • Gus diZerega
    Gus diZerega says #
    Thanks Erin...Fixed!
  • Erin
    Erin says #
    I click the link and it says the webpage can't be found. I really want to read this. Please fix.

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

b2ap3_thumbnail_658px-DEA_mar_loose.jpgIn her 2002 editorial on incarcerated Pagans Anne Newkirk Niven writes about the value of ministering to that population. She sensibly points out that such folks will not be confined forever and will at some point exit the system. Cherry Hill Seminary offers literature for incarcerated Pagans at a very nominal fee. *

Niven tells us that not all Pagans feel such ministry is worth the effort. But it is worth noting that the US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. Since the 80s, incarceration in federal prisons has soared 800%. A great many of those who are confined were committing nothing that Pagans would view as an ethical violation: they were taking some form of illegal drug. And such policies are inherently racist. People of color are locked up in far greater numbers than those with fair skin.

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  • Maureen Juarez
    Maureen Juarez says #
    It's crazy how many times I have seen people mention the use of drugs and the select behavior of law enforcement persons. There ar
  • Carol P. Christ
    Carol P. Christ says #
    You are very right that arrests for minor drug crimes are primarily of young black men. Why are the police not stopping and friski

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

A while back, I read a book by a contemporary theologian whose initial premise was: The story of the struggle between Good and Evil is a human universal.

And that's quite simply not true.

One certainly seems to see this story everywhere. Go to a Hollywood movie, pick up a popular novel: good guys vs. bad guys. Worse: we see it in our own heads. Matriarchy good, patriarchy bad. Abrahamics bad, paganisms good.

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  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    David, my heart beats faster when I hear words like "teleological" and "deontological." (How pathetic is *that*?) I surely do love
  • David Oliver Kling
    David Oliver Kling says #
    I often do the same thing! None the less, it's a good conversation to have and thinking about how we view our ethics is very impo
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Thanks David: you're absolutely right about the overstated conclusion. One of my besetting flaws as a writer is a tendency to get
  • David Oliver Kling
    David Oliver Kling says #
    I agree that non-dualistic thinking is preferred to dualistic thought. We certainly live in a dualistic culture here in the USA.

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