Paganism Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Ethnocentrism== Recently, the [[ethnocentric]] and [[moral absolutist]] origins of the common usage of the term pagan have been proposed,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hanegraaff |first1=Wouter |title=Reconstructing "Religion" from the Bottom Up |journal=Numen |year=2016 |volume=63 |issue=5/6 |pages=576β605 |doi=10.1163/15685276-12341439 |jstor=44505310 |hdl=11245.1/8b66dd94-5e6c-4c56-95ec-dbf822201e46 |s2cid=171686966 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44505310}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Blumberg |first1=Antonia |title=What Not To Say When You Meet Someone Who Is Pagan |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-not-to-say-when-you-meet-someone-who-is-pagan_n_57474735e4b055bb11719b22 |access-date=23 March 2021 |agency=Huffington Post |date=27 May 2016}}</ref> with scholar David Petts noting how, with particular reference to Christianity, "...local religions are defined in opposition to privileged 'world religions'; they become everything that world religions are not, rather than being explored as a subject in their own right."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Petts |first1=David |title=Pagan and Christian: Religious Change in Early Medieval Europe |date=26 May 2011 |publisher=Bristol Classical Press |location=London |isbn=978-0-7156-3754-8 |page=31}}</ref> In addition, Petts notes how various spiritual, religious, and metaphysical ideas branded as "pagan" from diverse cultures were studied in opposition to Abrahamism in early anthropology, a binary he links to ethnocentrism and colonialism.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kourbage |first1=Melanie |title=Kourbage on Petts, 'Pagan and Christian: Religious Change in Early Medieval Europe' |url=https://networks.h-net.org/node/35008/reviews/42650/kourbage-petts-pagan-and-christian-religious-change-early-medieval |website=Humanities and Social Sciences Online |publisher=H-German |access-date=23 March 2021}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page