There’s an old saying among pagans. “All Wiccans are Pagans, but not all Pagans are Wiccans.” It’s time we adopt a new saying. “All Pagan religions are non-Christian, but not all non-Christian religions are Pagan.”
For a very long time neo-Pagans have referred to Paganism as an umbrella term, That is to say that Paganism covers a wide range of religions. This is a very loose definition of the term that has been used by neo-Pagans to basically classify any religion that is a non-Christian religion as a Pagan one for so long that it’s just plain accepted at face value. Even Google list it as such “Other than one of the main world religions” but that translates to just “non-Christian” when you take into account that Pagans almost exclusively focus on Christianity for its oppression and not only turn a blind eye to Islam for its oppression, but even defend it.
This loose definition includes Native American, Universal Unitarian, voodoo, satanism, Santeria and many other religions. There’s even a rise of people claiming to be “Pagan Atheist” if you can believe such nonsense.
The true meaning of the word Pagan is “Country Folk”. The term was used by the Roman Christian churches of ancient Europe to describe the native people of Europe. So when they referred to a religion as “Pagan” they were specifically referring to the native religions of the European people. Likewise when the church referred to native Scandinavians they called them “Heathens”. And today many Scandinavian religions are called Heathen religions because Pagan refers to the south-western Europe region. Both terms came to be used as derogatory terms by the church to diminish and stigmatize the old religions. But this reasoning is lost when neo-Pagans wrap, say Native American religions, in a cloak of Paganism. Are they not simultaneously committing an act of colonialism while diminishing the old religions of Europe even further… effectively harming them just as the invading Christians did?
Today neo-Pagans have taken the term to include non-European religions of Africa, Native Americans, aboriginal Australians, Taoism, Buddhism and many others. But by classifying Paganism as to mean any religion that is non-Christian (excuse me, non-main world religion), is to classify Paganism to be specifically an anti-Christian Collective. This is an abuse of the term that both vilifies Paganism as well as Waters it down to a meaningless synonym for “diversity”. When Pagans refer to Native American religions, for example, as “Pagan” they are committing cultural appropriation in the name of the cultural Marxism that has invaded Paganism.
This has also opened the door for black supremacist to claim not only are African religions Pagan, but that they are the true Pagans. Pagans which ancient Europeans culturally appropriated, and in turn let them classify All European Paganism as the result of white supremacy.
The true definition of Paganism needs to be reclaimed with a more clear definition to use in these modern times of identity politics. Now when someone asks me what is a Pagan, I respond:
“A Pagan is a person who follows any of the Native European religions or contemporary religions derived from them.”
If this definition gets propagated throughout the community we could take back Paganism from the cultural Marxist that have worked to make Paganism little more than a club for anti-christian liberals seeking to pad their intersectional oppression resume.