Hogwash tempe8/10/2023 “We are willing to begrudgingly accept that they belong at the religion table, whatever that is,” Zeller said. Yet all things being equal, Americans tend to give credence to older religions, even if they think them odd or don’t understand them. Just replace ‘early Christians’ with whatever your current cult fear is.” “He says that they have these secret gatherings, they’re stealing children from families, they’re engaged in weird sexual practices, and they’re disrupting the social order. “This Roman governor is complaining about the Christians and using all this anti-cult language,” Zeller said. Zeller assigns his students to read the second-century letter that Pliny the Younger wrote to Emperor Trajan about early Christianity. Meanwhile, grandfathered-in religions were once denounced as cults. The Satanic Temple’s website features a section that contrasts its work with the Church of Satan. Even religions with centuries of seniority, which are grandfathered into the “real” religions club, often have adherents in the pews (or online) who disagree over who can say what it means to be part of a faith group.Įven Satanists disagree over who the true faithful are. One person’s religion is another’s hogwash. Artists might spend their lifetimes doing art but couldn’t come up with a formal definition of what is art.”Īs courts wrestle with the First Amendment implications of what is - and isn’t - a religion, scholars who study religion agreed that the term is slippery. “When I teach this in class, I always compare it to art. “Scholars who spend their lives researching and teaching religions still can’t agree on this,” he said. It’s a question that religion scholars have long debated, said Benjamin Zeller, associate professor of religion at Lake Forest College who studies new religious movements. “I am following a code of ethics, having fellowship with brethren. In a statement, Lucien Greaves, founder of the media-savvy group, said that “accepting religious tax-exemption - rather than renouncing it in protest - can help us to better assert our claims to equal access and exemption while laying to rest any suspicion that we don’t meet the qualifications of a true religious organization.”Ī member of the temple made a similar claim in the trailer for “Hail Satan?,” which details the nonprofit’s attempts to put up a statue of Satan on public grounds. That recognition means the group can now get the same benefits as religious organizations - including tax exemption and protection from discrimination.
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