Friday, October 28, 2022

How the threat of ‘taxpayer-funded abortion’ is being used to mobilize conservative religious voters

In the midterms, some religious voters may be motivated by the argument that if abortion is funded with tax dollars, it makes them personally complicit in sin.

The right to abortion is among the top issues on the ballot in several states. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

October 26, 2022

(The Conversation) — Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the wave of state-level abortion bans that followed, it might appear that anti-abortion activists could declare victory and go home.

However, from their perspective, a major threat still looms: Their tax dollars may be used to fund abortion in states where abortion is legal.

As it currently stands, several policies are in place that almost entirely prevent federal funds from being used to directly pay for abortion services. Since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has prohibited the public funding of abortion through Medicaid except in rare exceptions. In the years since, “Hyde-like restrictions” have been added to other federal healthcare programs, as well as to private insurance plans purchased through the health insurance exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act.

There are also restrictions on federal funds granted to organizations that provide reproductive healthcare for low-income women, like Planned Parenthood, such that these funds cannot be used for abortion services. Even so, anti-abortion activists insist that because money is fungible, any federal support for organizations that provide abortion services or counseling represents an indirect taxpayer subsidy to the “abortion industry.”

As such, despite the multitude of restrictions currently in place, anti-abortion activists promote the idea that Americans are nonetheless being forced to pay for abortions. When the Democratic Party declared in 2016 its intention to roll back these restrictions, framing them as unjust barriers to abortion access, anti-abortion activists only ramped up this existing rhetoric.

In the post-Dobbs world of the 2022 midterms, abortion debates are primarily focused on whether abortion will be legal, but anti-abortion leaders are also highlighting the implications of these laws for voters’ tax dollars.

This should not be surprising. In the course of my research on debates about taxpayer-funded abortion, I found that this threat has historically been used to motivate and mobilize anti-abortion voters. This message has especially resonated for those conservative evangelical Christians and Catholics who believe that when abortion is funded using their tax dollars, this makes them personally complicit in sin.

Opposition to public funding

The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops has long been a central player in advocacy campaigns to “stop taxpayer funding of abortion.” As one message encouraging voters to support this advocacy puts it, “Don’t let our government force you to pay for the deaths of unborn children.”

This concern resonates for Catholic Republicans, more than 7 in 10 who oppose the use of public funds for abortion, according to an analysis of national survey data that I conducted in 2021 with scholars Andrew Whitehead and Ryan Burge. This opposition is even stronger among Republicans who identify as born-again or evangelical Christian – between 84% and 90%.

But abortion funding bans also appeal to fiscally conservative voters who oppose welfare spending in general, whether or not they are morally opposed to abortion. Since the 1970s, anti-abortion leaders have argued that “funding bans protected taxpayers’ wallets as well as their consciences,” according to the legal historian Mary Ziegler. National survey data my colleagues and I analyzed suggests that this argument continues to resonate. Six out of 10 Republicans with no religious affiliation support abortion funding bans; so do between 14% and 17% of Republicans who support legal abortion.

Opposition to taxpayer-funded abortion, even more than abortion itself, is a thread connecting religious and fiscal conservatives within the Republican coalition.

A winning strategy

Campaigns to prevent tax dollars from funding abortion have kept these anti-abortion activists and other Republican voters engaged and mobilized for decades, even when a ban on legal abortion itself seemed unlikely.

As one leader of an anti-abortion organization told me in a 2021 interview: “Ultimately, I think our focus should still remain on criminalizing [abortion]. … But I think in the meantime we also should oppose the taxpayer funding of it … just because it’s a winning strategy.”

This seems no less true post-Dobbs. As the midterms approach, I have found that Republican candidates and movement leaders are continuing to stoke fear about taxpayer-funded abortion in order to mobilize voters, especially religious conservatives.

Bill codifying federal abortion rights

A major issue energizing voters this cycle is the possibility that Congress might pass a bill codifying abortion rights. While the primary issue at stake is whether abortions would be legal nationwide, abortion opponents are quick to note that such a bill would also “force taxpayers to pay for them,” as the anti-abortion news website LifeNews.com put it.

Anti-abortion activists march outside of the U.S. Supreme Court during the March for Life in Washington, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022.

Anti-abortion activists are motivating voters by saying that they would be forced to pay for abortions through their tax dollars.
AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

Even in the absence of such a bill, abortion opponents are raising the alarm about existing Biden administration policies that allow public funds to be used for abortion services, like a new Pentagon policy that would “pay for service members to travel for abortion care.”

As reported by the Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission raised concerns that “the interim rule forces taxpayers to fund the taking of preborn human lives.” Meanwhile, the Christian Right organization Concerned Women for America warned, “A baby has already been killed under this cruel ploy. … Not only that, but the Administration wants Americans to pay for it.”

Abortion on state-level ballots

Voters in several states are also directly deciding the fate of their states’ abortion laws in November 2022. In at least two of these states, anti-abortion leaders are highlighting the implications for voters’ tax dollars.

For example, in Kentucky, where a near-total abortion ban went into effect shortly after Dobbs, voters will decide whether to amend the state constitution to say, “To protect human life, nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.”

Explaining why voters should vote “Yes for Life,” the chair of the campaign supporting the amendment led with its implications for taxpayers: “The constitutional amendment is very clear. It protects taxpayer dollars, and it makes sure there is not an interpreted right of abortion in the constitution.”

In Michigan, where a ballot measure called Proposal 3 would enshrine abortion rights, backlash from anti-abortion activists led by local Catholic organizations prominently features the claim that “If passed, Proposal 3 would result in taxpayer-funded abortion.”

Municipal politics

Cities dedicating public funds to abortion post-Dobbs have also faced scrutiny in the lead-up to the midterms, especially from conservative religious groups.

In Philadelphia, for example, anti-abortion activists represented by the conservative Catholic Thomas More Society have filed suit against city leaders “for illegally using taxpayer money to pay for abortions.” Only weeks before the election, the Pro-Life Union of Greater Philadelphia rallied supporters to a hearing on the case, pleading “Don’t let Mayor (Jim) Kenney get away with it!”

Abortion debates are certainly not only about how abortions will be paid for. But journalists and scholars often pay far too little attention to anti-abortion activists’ persistent focus on the possibility that some abortions will be paid for with their tax dollars. If history and current research is any guide, this threat resonates with a diverse array of Republicans and will be used to mobilize voters in 2022 and beyond.

Gloria Dickson and Brianna Monte, undergraduate research assistants at the University of Connecticut, contributed research to this piece.

(Ruth Braunstein, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Connecticut. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Will the US Supreme Court recognize a religious right to abortion?

We’ll find out soon enough.

Abortion protesters attempt to hand out literature as they stand in the driveway of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Indianapolis on Aug. 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

October 26, 2022

Mark Silk

(RNS) — In August, Indiana radically curtailed the ability to procure an abortion. Where prior law, based on Roe v. Wade, permitted abortions up to 22 weeks of pregnancy, now the procedure will only be allowed if the pregnant person’s serious health or life is at risk. If there is a lethal fetal anomaly, Indiana’s new law permits abortion up to 20 weeks post-fertilization; in cases of rape or incest, up to 10 weeks.

A judge ruling in a lawsuit filed in September by the ACLU of Indiana has blocked the new restrictions from going into effect pending resolution of the ACLU’s claim that the law violates the state’s constitution. But it is a second ACLU lawsuit that is of interest to us here. Filed on behalf of Hoosier Jews for Choice and five anonymous plaintiffs of different faiths, it argues that the near-ban on abortion also violates the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which then-Gov. Mike Pence signed into law in 2015.

Like other RFRAs, Indiana’s stipulates that “a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion… [unless it] (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” The plaintiffs claim their religious beliefs entitle them to obtain abortions in circumstances forbidden by the new Indiana law.

After hearing oral arguments last week, Marion County Judge Heather Welch asked both sides to submit additional written arguments by this Friday. In the meantime, let’s consider the situation of Anonymous Plaintiff #1, a 39-year-old Jewish woman.

She belongs to a synagogue, participates in a variety of Jewish communal activities, observes the Jewish holidays and keeps a kosher diet by not eating pork or shellfish and not mixing milk and meat. This would seem to be sufficient evidence that (as religious free exercise jurisprudence requires) her “Jewish belief that life begins when a child takes its first breath after being born” is sincerely held.

After having one child, Anonymous Plaintiff #1 got pregnant again and found, through genetic testing, that the fetus had a severe nonhereditary chromosomal defect — a defect that, 95% of the time, results in the fetus being either miscarried or stillborn. No more than 10% of children born with this defect survive beyond 12 months and those that do have severe physical and cognitive disabilities and are never able to walk or talk.

Last March, the woman obtained a legal abortion as permitted by then existing Indiana law and in accord with her religious beliefs — because the pregnancy “put at risk [her] physical, mental, and emotional health and wellbeing during the pregnancy and would have continued to do so if she had allowed it to continue to a miscarriage, stillbirth, or live birth , although it would not have resulted in her death or caused a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment to a major bodily function and may not have resulted in the child dying within three months of birth.”

In other words, the abortion permitted by Indiana’s old law would be forbidden under its new one. As a result, although the woman and her husband would like to try to have another child, she is refraining from becoming pregnant because there is a 1-in-30 chance that the genetic defect would recur.

“Plaintiffs use religious beliefs to demand medical intervention to end human life,” declared Indiana Attorney General Theodore Rokita in his response to the suit. “The State is aware of no case in America holding that a religious belief entitles someone to medical intervention of any kind, much less intervention that ends human life.”

What Indiana’s restrictive new abortion law does do is permit medical intervention that, in Rokita’s terms, “ends human life” in certain limited circumstances. The question is whether the enhanced religious liberty rights provided by Indiana’s RFRA should allow for an expansion of those circumstances.

RFRAs have been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as allowing a range of exemptions from existing laws, including those banning discrimination and requiring contraceptive coverage. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the court became highly deferential to religious claims for exemptions from church in-person attendance regulations.

Would any of the staunchly pro-religion justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade recognize a religious right to abortion? I’m guessing this will be where they draw the line on religious liberty.

Dr. Claude Mutafian to Speak on “Jerusalem and the Armenians until the Ottoman Conquest (1516)”

Claude Mutafian, 71 Jahre alt, hat eine Reihe wichtiger Bücher zur Armenischen geschrieben. Er lebt in Paris.

Published

28 October 2022
AUTHOR
MassisPost

Dr. Claude Mutafian will give a presentation on “Jerusalem and the Armenians until the Ottoman Conquest (1516)” at 7:00PM on Tuesday, November 15, 2022, in the University Business Center, Alice Peters Auditorium, on the Fresno State campus.

In the four-fold division of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Christian and the Armenian Quarters are contiguous but independent. This situation corresponds to the ancientness and the importance of the Armenian presence. Jerusalem has indeed remained a myth for Armenians since the 4th century, when Christianity was proclaimed a national religion.

The relations of the Armenians with the Holy City have never ceased, and they culminated at the time of the Crusades, which gave the opportunity to found in Cilicia, at the end of the 11th century, an Armenian State bordering Frankish Syria, which was to convert into a Kingdom one century later. Jerusalem was then home to the seat of an Armenian Patriarchate and the cultural activity was intense: inscriptions, sculptures, mosaics, pieces of goldsmithery, superb manuscripts decorated with miniatures which are among the masterpieces of Armenian art. Under the rule of the Mamluks, Armenian culture continued to flourish in Jerusalem, and the accounts of European travelers never omitted a section devoted to the Armenians.

Today, Jerusalem is the most important repository of Armenian culture outside Armenia.

The aim of Dr. Mutafian’s new book is to present the relations between Armenia and Jerusalem in their historical and artistic context. The abundance of maps and genealogical charts makes it easy to read. The iconography plays a fundamental role, the text being essentially treated as captions for images, let them be reproductions of miniatures, monuments, works of art, or manuscript pages of historians and travelers.

In his talk, Dr. Mutafian will discuss the Armenians of Jerusalem and also his new book.

Claude Armen Mutafian is the son of parents who were survivors of the 1915 Genocide. His father is the well-known painter Zareh Mutafian. His studies lead him towards Mathematics, and he taught for more than 40 years in various Universities: Paris, Princeton, New Jersey, Havana, Mexico, and Yerevan. His passion has always been History and he has written about the Genocide and Karabagh, but his main field of interest remains the Medieval period, in particular Cilician Armenia and its relations with the Crusaders and the Mongols. Cilicia at the Crossroad of Empires was published in 1988, and the Historical Atlas of Armenia in 2001.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Parking is available in Fresno State Lots P6 and P5, near the University Business Center, Fresno State. A free parking code can be obtained by contacting the Armenian Studies Program.

For information about upcoming Armenian Studies Program presentations, please follow us on our Facebook page, @ArmenianStudiesFresnoState or at the Program website, https://fresnostate.edu/armenianstudies.

THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM

Poll: Nearly half of Americans think the US should be a Christian nation

But those who say that tend to avoid hard-line positions and have different views about what a Christian nation should look like.

Photo by Brad Dodson/Unsplash/Creative Commons

October 27, 2022

Jack Jenkins

(RNS) — Forty-five percent of Americans believe the U.S. should be a “Christian nation,” one of several striking findings from a sweeping new Pew Research Center survey examining Christian nationalism.

But researchers say respondents differed greatly when it came to outlining what a Christian nation should look like, suggesting a wide spectrum of beliefs.

“There are a lot of Americans — 45% — who tell us they think the United States should be a Christian nation. That is a lot of people,” Greg Smith, one of the lead authors of the survey, said in an interview. “(But) what people mean when they say they think the U.S. should be a Christian nation is really quite nuanced.”

The findings, unveiled Thursday (Oct. 27), come as Christian nationalism has become a trending topic in midterm election campaigns, with extremists and even members of Congress such as Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene identifying with the term and others, such as Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, expressing open hostility to the separation of church and state. In the road show known as the ReAwaken America Tour, unapologetically Christian nationalist leaders crisscross the country spouting conspiracy theories and baptizing people.

“More than four-in-ten U.S. adults say the country should be a ‘Christian nation,’ but far fewer want churches to endorse candidates, speak out on politics” Graphic courtesy of Pew Research Center

Pew’s findings suggest the recent surge in attention paid to Christian nationalism has had an effect on Americans, although some suggested politicians may be staking out positions to the right of those who merely say America should be a “Christian nation.”

“I used to think it was a positive view, but now with the MAGA crowd, I view it as racist, homophobic, anti-woman,” read one response to the question, according to the report.

According to the survey, which was conducted in September, 60% of Americans believe the U.S. was originally intended to be a Christian nation, but only 33% say it remains so today. Most (67%) say churches and other houses of worship should keep out of political matters, with only 31% endorsing faith groups’ expressing views on social and political issues.

Even those who believe America should be a Christian nation generally avoided hard-line positions. Most of this group (52%) said the government should never declare any particular faith the official state religion. Only 28% said they wanted Christianity recognized as the country’s official faith. Similarly, 52% said the government should advocate for moral values shared by several religions, compared with 24% who said it should advocate for Christian values alone.

But the pro-Christian America group was more split on the separation of church and state: 39% said the principle should be enforced, whereas 31% said the government should abandon it. An additional 30% disliked either option, refused to say or didn’t know.

Most in the group (54%) also said that if the Bible and U.S. laws conflict, Scripture should have more influence than the will of the people.

“Among those who want U.S. to be a ‘Christian nation,’ upward of half say Bible should influence U.S. laws and take precedence over the will of the people” Graphic courtesy of Pew Research Center

Smith stressed that some respondents who expressed support for a Christian nation “do mean that they think Christian beliefs, values and morality ought to be reflected in U.S. laws and policies.” But many respondents “tell us that they think the U.S. should be guided by Christian principles in a general way, but they don’t mean that we should live in a theocracy,” he said. “They don’t mean that they want to get rid of separation of church and state. They don’t mean they want to see the U.S. officially declared to be a Christian nation. It’s a nuanced picture.”

Among U.S. adults overall, only a small subset believe the U.S. government should declare Christianity the national faith (15%), advocate for Christian values (13%) or stop enforcing the separation of church and state (19%).

Partisanship strongly shaped the responses, with those who are Republican or lean toward the GOP far more likely to say America should be a Christian nation (67%) than Democrats or Democratic leaners (29%). Republicans were also significantly more likely to say the founders intended the country to be a Christian nation (76%), although nearly half of Democrats agreed (47%).

These divisions appear to reflect national political trends. While Democratic lawmakers — especially members of the Congressional Freethought Caucus — have voiced concerns about Christian nationalism’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, many congressional Republicans have declined to condemn the ideology, with only a small number affirming support for the separation of church and state.

The outsized presence of white evangelicals in the GOP may play a role. In Pew’s survey, white evangelicals were the faith group most likely to say America should be a Christian nation (81%). But they were followed by Black Protestants (65%), a heavily Democratic group. White nonevangelical Protestants were more split, with 54% agreeing the U.S. should be a Christian nation.

Photo by Aaron Burden/Unsplash/Creative Commons

Catholics were the only major Christian group where a majority did not express support of the idea (47%) of a Christian nation, though they were split along racial lines: Most white Catholics (56%) agreed America should be a Christian nation, while Hispanic Catholics were the least likely of any Christian group to say the same (36%).

Few Jewish (16%) or religiously unaffiliated Americans (17%) thought the U.S. should be a Christian nation, followed by an even smaller subset of atheists and agnostics (7%).

Age is also a factor. Among Americans ages 65 or older, 63% said America should be a Christian nation, compared with 23% of 18- to 29-year-olds.

Pew asked half of respondents to define a “Christian nation” in their own words and used their open-ended answers to group most people into three categories: those who see it as general guidance of Christian beliefs and values in society (34%); those who see it as being guided by beliefs and values, but without specifically referencing God or Christian concepts (12%); and those who see it as having Christian-based laws and governance (18%).

Those who think the U.S. should not be a Christian nation were more likely to describe a Christian nation as having Christian-based laws and governance (30%) than did those who believe it should be (6%).

The survey polled the other half of respondents about their views on Christian nationalism. Among all U.S. adults, fewer than half (45%) said they had heard anything about the term. Non-Christians were more likely than Christians overall to have heard or read anything about Christian nationalism (55% vs. 40%), and Democrats were more likely to express familiarity than Republicans (55% vs. 37%).

But researchers noted that while 54% of those surveyed said they hadn’t heard of Christian nationalism, respondents overall were far more likely to view the concept unfavorably (24%) than favorably (5%), suggesting that people familiar with the concept generally view it negatively.

As Christian nationalism digs in, differing visions surface

As Christian nationalists get more specific, ideological and theological divisions have reemerged.

Tennessee Pastor Greg Locke speaks at an event as part of the ReAwaken America Tour. Screengrab

October 28, 2022

Jack Jenkins

WASHINGTON (RNS) — When Tennessee Pastor Greg Locke took the stage at the ReAwaken America Tour in Pennsylvania over the weekend, the throngs who had come out to hear conspiracy theories and inflammatory rhetoric about Democratic candidates instead heard Locke aim some of his sharpest criticism at a surprising target: Pope Francis.

“If you trust anybody but Jesus to get you to heaven, you ain’t going,” Locke said, his voice rising. “You say, ‘Well what about the pope?’ He ain’t a pope, he’s a pimp … He has prostituted the church.”

It was an odd note to strike at a rally where perhaps the biggest name on the speaker’s roster was retired Gen. Michael Flynn, a Catholic who later made it a point to mention his faith while voicing support for Christian nationalism. “I’m a Christian — I’m a Catholic, by the way,” said Flynn.

Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn speaks Nov. 13, 2021, at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. Video screen grab

Locke had aired his anti-Catholic position a few days before in a Facebook post advocating for burning rosaries and “Catholic statues.” When another user urged him to abandon the anti-Catholic rhetoric, Locke doubled down. “Catholicism is idolatry 100%” he wrote. “I will not be silent whether you follow or not. It’s a false pagan religion and so filled with perversity it’s ridiculous.”

Anti-Catholic rhetoric has long been a theme in nativist American thought, which includes some forms of extremist Protestant Christian agitators such as the Ku Klux Klan. But in the current Christian nationalist surge that fuels the ReAwaken gatherings and others like it, the ideology has served more as a glue holding together a wide range of right-wing coalitions. Locke’s remarks injected an uneasy tension, raising the prospect that what was once a unifying force is now prone to causing potential divisions in right-wing ranks.

The theological differences among the hardline Christian nationalist groups — some now emboldened to the point of embracing the Christian nationalist label — have been present from the start. Texas Pastor Robert Jeffress, who rose to national prominence as an early supporter of then-candidate Donald Trump, is an ardent purveyor of Christian nationalism. As far back as 2018, Jeffress preached an Independence Day-themed homily titled “America is a Christian nation,” and he now sells a book of the same name.

Before then, the pastor was known for railing against the Catholic Church. In 2010 he argued it was little more than a “cult-like, pagan religion,” adding, “isn’t that the genius of Satan?” A year later, he also decried the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a “cult” and a “false religion.”

But Jeffress and other faith leaders’ sectarian rhetoric faded as they made common cause in support for the president. After Trump was voted out of office, Catholics and conservative Protestants were unified in the Stop the Steal movement. By the time the movement culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a curious form of Trumpian ecumenism had taken hold, as rioters of several faiths prayed together as they led the assault.

In the aftermath of Jan. 6, several types of extremists gravitated toward Christian nationalism and claimed it as their own, some linking it to opposition to pandemic restrictions, masks and vaccines and others incorporating the ideology into attacks on LGBTQ people.

But within this cohort, the different variants of Christian nationalism began to show themselves and develop. Even as Locke was becoming a major Christian nationalist voice, Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist head of the group America First, and a Catholic, was on the rise as well. While Locke has advocated for burning rosaries, Fuentes has celebrated the idea of “Catholic Taliban rule.”

Meanwhile, Andrew Torba, the head of the alternative social media website Gab, which has been widely shamed for sharing antisemitic messages, has presented in a new book another form of Christian nationalism, one that rails against groups that center on End Times theology — particularly the belief that the Second Coming is imminent. Torba and his co-author refer to these ideas as “an eschatology of defeat” and blame their advocates for a moral decline of society.

“You cannot simultaneously hope for a revival of Christian faithfulness in our nation while expecting the world to end at any moment,” Torba and his coauthor wrote.

Torba’s critique is not likely to go down well with various evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions that have made the End Times central to their message, among them Trump’s biggest supporters. Jeffress has published two books focused on the topic — “Countdown to the Apocalypse” and “Twilight’s Last Gleaming.”

FILE – Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., speaks at a news conference held by members of the House Freedom Caucus on Capitol Hill in Washington, on July 29, 2021. Boebert has spoken by phone with Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., just days after likening her to a bomb-carrying terrorist. By both lawmakers’ accounts, the call on Nov. 29, 2021, did not go well. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Rep. Lauren Boebert, who made headlines earlier this year for arguing against the separation of church and state, also outlined support for the theology in a recent speech.

“Many of us in this room believe that we are in the last of the last days,” she told attendees at a Republican dinner in Tennessee. “You get to be a part of ushering in the second coming of Jesus.”

These differences are unlikely to affect the Christian nationalists’ common front immediately or slow their approach to the coming elections. Hardline Christian nationalists across the ideological spectrum are more apt to focus on Democratic candidates and their supporters as a common enemy. Nor are figures such as Locke likely to topple a conservative Christian coalition that dates back to the 1970s, when a truce was struck between the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and the anti-abortion Catholic right.

If Trump runs for reelection in 2024, it’s likely many who trumpet Christian nationalism will simply set their differences aside — just as they did the last two times he ran for office.

But with many on the extreme right distancing themselves from Trump, and the pandemic and COVID-19 vaccinations no longer making the headlines they once were, the faithful who are drawn to rallies such as ReAwaken America may encounter new fissures as they debate new causes to rally behind — or against. Some Christian nationalist voices, such as Jeffress, have already peeled off. “There is no legitimate faith-based reason for refusing to take the vaccine,” the pastor told the Associated Press last year. He also declined to argue that the 2020 election was “stolen,” a common refrain among many right-wing Christian nationalists.

And even if attendees and speakers at the ReAwaken America tour write off pastors like Jeffress, a question remains: How long will Catholics like Flynn abide attacks on their faith from even their most stalwart Protestant collaborators?

A modern witch celebrates the cycle of life and death at the confluence of cultures

This time of year, a bruja, or witch, practices central Mexican Indigenous rituals and modern pagan ones, both honoring the Earth and “us as individuals as part of nature.” But the holidays of the Day of the Dead and Samhain are not the same.

The Rev. Laura Gonzalez poses after teaching about Day of the Dead at a bookstore in Chicago in 2019. Courtesy photo

October 28, 2022

Heather Greene

(RNS) — As Americans of all faiths prepare for Halloween with costumes and candy or the Day of the Dead with food and flowers, the pagan community is also preparing for its holiday celebrating death and rebirth.

Samhain is the third and final harvest festival of the pagan Wheel of the Year, as the holiday calendar is known in many Earth-based religions.

“(Modern) Pagans have incorporated the seasonal concern with the dead in a holy day that celebrates the cyclicity of life, death, and rebirth,” writes folklorist and pagan scholar Sabina Magliocco in her book “Witching Culture.”

Not unlike the Day of the Dead and Halloween, Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “Sow-en”) includes feasting and honoring one’s ancestors, though those celebrating Samhain are likely to add some divination. Based largely on Irish folk religion, it is a time when the divide between the physical and spiritual worlds are believed to be thin.

The Rev. Laura González, who is a practicing witch and a pagan educator and podcaster in Chicago, celebrates all three. “(My practice) is a hodgepodge,” she laughs.

The Rev. Laura Gonzalez celebrating Tlaxochimaco 2022 in Little Village, Chicago. Courtesy photo

González merges modern paganism with Mexican traditions, including practices indigenous to central Mexico, where she is from. “At their core, modern paganism and these indigenous practices both honor the Earth,” she said. Nature reverence is essential, she said, to her spiritual path.

“Let me describe to you what happens in my life,” González said in a phone interview. On Oct. 1, the decorations go up for Halloween, a purely secular holiday for her. Then, around Oct. 27, she sets up a Day of the Dead altar to honor deceased relatives, as most Mexicans do about this time, she said. “My mother died on Oct. 27, 2011. I believe it was her last wink to me,” said González.

Since then, González has been honoring her mother with bread and coffee but has also made it her mission to teach others about the Day of the Dead and its origins. She teaches those traditions as well as modern paganism both locally and over the internet at the pagan distance-learning Fraternidad de la Diosa in Chihuahua, Mexico.

On Samhain, González always hosts a small ritual for her Pagan students and participates in Samhain celebrations, either as an attendee or organizer. Some years she travels to Wisconsin to be with fellow members of the Wiccan church Circle Sanctuary.

Samhain is traditionally honored on Oct. 31, but some pagans celebrate it Nov. 6 or 7, an astrologically calculated date. Regardless, group celebrations must often yield to modern schedules, and González said she will celebrate an early Samhain this year.

“My (Samhain) celebration is for the ancestors and for the Earth going into slumber — the Goddess goes to sleep,” González said. She likes to focus her ritual on modern pagan trailblazers, often referred to as “the mighty dead,” rather than on her relatives, which she honors on the Day of the Dead.

González’s central Mexican indigenous practice and her modern pagan practice, rooted in northern Mexico and the United States, “are very similar,” she added, both honoring the Earth and “us as individuals as part of nature,” something she believes has been lost in modern Day of the Dead traditions. However, she quickly added, “Indigenous practices are not pagan.”

Growing up in Mexico City, González was surrounded by mainstream Mexican culture, with Day of the Dead festivals and altars. As she was exposed to the Indigenous traditions that are still woven through Mexican culture, she explained, she began to study folk magic and traditions, as well as “Native philosophies.”

The Day of the Dead, she said, “is the ultimate syncretic holiday,” a merger of the European-based Catholic traditions with Indigenous beliefs and celebrations. “The practices brought to Mexico by the Catholic colonizers were filled with pagan DNA,” she said. All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day contain remnants of traditional Samhain and other older beliefs, she noted.

“These colonizers came to a land filled — filled — with skulls and its imagery,” she said, which must have been frightening and somewhat of a culture shock, she added.

An altar during Tlaxochimaco 2022 commemorations in Little Village, Chicago. Courtesy photo

An altar during Tlaxochimaco 2022 commemorations in Chicago. Courtesy photo

González is now actively participating in the revival of the Indigenous traditions as a teacher and celebrant. The Indigenous holiday, she said, is a 40-day celebration. The first 20 days is called Tlaxochimaco, or the birth of flowers, and the second is Xoco Huetzi, or the fall of the fruit.

“We all are flowers,” she explained. We grow, flower, bloom and then become fruit. Eventually falling and becoming seed, and the cycle continues. The Aztecs “used this mythology to describe life and life cycles,” she said.

“But there are people who do not make it to fruit. They die young,” González explained. These people are honored during Tlaxochimaco.

During Xoco Huetzi, celebrations are held to honor those who have made it to old age before passing. Both festivals traditionally involve dancing, she said, which is considered an offering to the dead.

The 40-day celebration was eventually condensed into two days aligning with the colonizers’ Catholic traditions, she said, becoming the modern Day of the Dead celebration, a holiday that is quickly becoming as popular north of the Mexican border as Halloween is.

While González is not offended by purely secular Halloween celebrations, even with its classic depiction of witches, she struggles with the growing commercialization of the Day of the Dead. “I know what I am, and I know what I celebrate,” she said, speaking of Halloween. “I find it funny that the wise woman has been made into something scary.”

What does offend her is people dressed as sugar skulls. “It’s a double-edged sword,” González said. “It’s a source of pride knowing the world loves our culture,” she said. However, she added, “You love our culture, you love our music, you love our food, you love our traditions, you love our aesthetics, you love our parties and holidays, you love all of that, but you don’t love us.”

An example of a Samhain altar. Photo by Heather Greene

This is the definition of cultural appropriation, she added.

“The world is filled with racism, discrimination, colorism, classism,” she continued. “There is a disconnection between the thing and the people who made the thing.” She likened this to a second wave of colonization.

Her recommendation: “If you like Day of the Dead stuff,” she said, “shake a tree and a Mexican artisan will fall from it. Buy Mexican. You will benefit the very people who have created the aesthetic,” she said. “The big box stores don’t need your money,” she said, but Mexican and Mexican American families do.

Many pagans, especially in the growing Latino pagan community, do honor multiple traditions like González, particularly around the time when the holidays align.

“I think it’s important to recognize where we come from and how we survive whatever challenges our ancestors had,” said González. Samhain, Day of the Dead and the Aztec traditions “are, after all, a celebration of life and their lives.”

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment