Angie Buchanan and Phyllis Curott at the PWRIn 1993 representatives of the Greek Orthodox Church publicly pulled out of the Parliament of World Religions (PWR) to protest the inclusion of “godless” Pagans. They haven’t come back. But that may change if Angie Buchanan has her way.

Angie, as well as two other Pagans — Andras Corban Arthen and Phyllis Curott — are on the 35-member Board of Trustees of the Council of the Parliament of World Religions. They’ve worked diligently to build bridges to other faith traditions since they were elected to the Board — Angie in 2002, Andras in 2006, and Phyllis just this year. As a result of their efforts, Pagans (in which I include Wiccans like myself) are finally coming into our own. I know it’s been a difficult road, and there’s still room for improvement.

But when people develop meaningful personal relationships while working together — as Angie, Andras, and Phyllis have with the Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, American Indians, Protestants, Jains, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, etc. on the Parliament’s Board — they begin to see each others’ religions through the lens of their respect for that other person. That’s a very good thing for Pagans, since so many misconceptions and prejudices exist about us among mainstream religions.

In the past the spectrum of disrespect for Paganism has extended from branding us as Satanists to dismissing us as superstitious. From the perspective of Abrahamic traditions, Paganism has essentially been viewed as a heresy. Thus the Greek Orthodox walk-out. But at this Parliament, Pagans made it very clear that we’re aligned with other indigenous religions. Wiccans and Pagans practice the remnants of the pre-Christian, indigenous religions of Europe. Like other indigenous religions, we practice an Earth-based Nature religion. And like other indigenous religions, ours was persecuted by conquerors, who forced us to go underground during the Christianization of Europe.

What was exciting for me to hear about from Angie, and read about on the Pagans at the Parliament and other blog sites, was how the Pagan alliance with indigenous religions has deepened over the past five years since the last PWR. These connections were encouraged by the creation of the Indigenous Task Force by the PWR Board, and its inclusion of Andras as a member. This year Earth Traditions, Angie’s Chicago-based “church,” sponsored the spiritual leader of the Vodun Hwendo tradition, bringing His Excellency Robert Houndohome Hounon of Benin to the Parliament. His presence increased the number of indigenous elders attending, as did the sponsorship of Jonas Trinkunas, krivis (chief high priest) of Romuva, the pagan religion of Lithuania by EarthSpirit, Andras’ organization. The Covenant of the Goddess (CoG) brought Raul Manani, an indigenous practitioner from Argentina — CoG has been especially involved in this work through their Lost and Endangered Religions Project (LERP) since the late 1990s. And Zay Speer attended as a representative of the Onondaga people (part of the Iroquois Federation), athough she is a Reclaiming Witch. She’s been working for the federation on environmental and interfaith issues for the past few years. (These personal invitations were extended in addition to official sponsorships by the PWF to Ainu spiritual leaders (from Japan) were as well as a number of Aboriginal elders. Native American and African elders continue to attend as well.)

Next time I’ll tell you about other connections we Pagans made at the Parliament.


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