The capitalization of the word "pagan" depends on the context in which it is used. In general, "pagan" is not capitalized when it is used as a generic term to refer to ancient polytheistic religions or traditions outside of the major world religions. However, if "Pagan" is used as a proper noun to refer to a specific religious or spiritual tradition, it is capitalized. For example, when discussing the ancient Roman religion, it is correct to write "the pagan gods were worshipped in temples," with a lowercase "p" because it is used as a general term. However, if one is talking about a modern religious tradition such as Wicca, it is correct to write "Wicca is a Pagan religion," with an uppercase "P" because it is the proper noun for that specific tradition. It is worth noting that capitalization conventions can vary, and different organizations or authors may have their own preferences.

Is pagan capitalized

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Editorial: a Capital problem resurfaces on Wikipedia

Almost ten years ago, Oberon Zell and a coalition of Pagan scholars that included author and historian Chas Clifton, editor of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, a peer-reviewed academic journal focused on contemporary Paganism and other forms of Pagan religion, launched a petition asking for journalists, scholars, and other writers to capitalize the P in “Pagan.”

A capital P [Pixabay]

“The Pagan community is worldwide,” the petition said, “with millions of adherents in many countries. Moreover, increasing numbers of contemporary Hindus, First Nations activists, European reconstructionists, indigenous peoples, and other polytheists are accepting the term ‘Pagan’ as a wide umbrella under which they all can gather, distinct from the monotheists and secularists. They are using it positively, not to mean ‘godless’ or ‘lacking (true) religion.'”

The petition further noted that the “current journalistic convention of printing lowercase for these terms [i.e., “pagan”] seems to have originated with the Associated Press Stylebook, first published in 1953. However, a new era of religious pluralism has emerged over the past sixty years. The terms ‘Pagan’ and ‘Paganism’ are now being capitalized in a variety of publications, texts, documents, and references, including religious diversity education resources such as On Common Ground: World Religions in America, The Pluralism Project, Harvard University, and Inmate Religious Beliefs and Practices, Technical Reference Manual, Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Department of Justice.

“In order to assure greater accuracy in 21st-century journalism,” the petition concluded, “we hereby petition the AP and Chicago Stylebooks to capitalize ‘Pagan’ and ‘Paganism’ when speaking of the modern faiths and their adherents in future editions.”

A copy of the petition remains available on Change.org to view but the petition has closed, having garnered 573 supporters.

Prominent Pagan leaders also added their support to the petition. Rev. Selena Fox, for example, noted in her support of the petition via Facebook, “I have been capitalizing Pagan for more than 40 years. I always capitalize it in my writing. I also ask those in the media who interview me to have it capitalized, but because style manuals do not state that Pagan should be capitalized it sometimes is not capitalized in media reports. Let’s hope that administrators of the style manuals we contacted will make this change.”

Unfortunately, little has changed, at least in the world of journalism and style guides. A notable exception is the American Psychological Association, at least when used in reference to modern Paganism and despite its preference for lowercase.

A sharp-eyed reader of The Wild Hunt recently noticed that the question of capitalization had resurfaced on Wikipedia. There, editors are hashing through Wikipedia’s standards to identify guidance on the issue. The conversation on Wikipedia remains at a stalemate. (Editor’s note: The Wild Hunt has no presence on the platform either interactively or even as the subject of an article.)

The result on Wikipedia is equivocal. Some editors noted being torn while also noting that “modern paganism is certainly capitalized much less than recognized religions.”

The Wild Hunt consistently capitalizes “Paganism” when referring to contemporary practice. (We do use lower-case “paganism” to refer to the general historical grouping of ancient polytheistic religions, though even this is not without debate.) Our journalistic colleagues in sources like Religion News Service do not share this commitment and routinely lowercase Pagan even when referring to contemporary practices. Pagans are also relegated to sections such as “alternative faiths” rather than “other faiths.”

English capitalization rules derive from the presence of proper nouns and media and academic sources routinely lock onto that history. So, “a local church” is lowercase but “the local Catholic Church” is uppercase. One should add that some languages like Spanish have inoculated themselves from this issue, by using lowercase for all religions and their adherents.

Defenders of lowercase Paganism also note that it is often used as a blanket term, much like “fundamentalism.” They often point to terms like “evangelism” vs “Evangelical” or “communist” vs. “Marxist.”

Fair enough. There is a rational argument to be made that “communist” encompasses various forms of a political and economic ideology in the same way that Paganism encompasses various branches of different faiths. The latter is also true of the term “Christianity,” as there are numerous doctrinal differences across Christians, yet Christianity remains capitalized. Moreover, a member who is part of a movement results in capitalization, such as a member of the Communist Party or an individual speaking for the Communist government. Both of these precedents suggest that Pagan must be capitalized.

What is exposed in many arguments is that Paganism suffers from a particular form of historical erasure. The lowercase use of Paganism is not the result of an orthographically neutral decision but an echo of the thousand-year rivalry between Pagans and Christians. As Dr. Charles King, professor of Roman history, late antiquity, social and religious history at the University of Omaha wrote on this topic:

The use of a lower case “p” for “Paganism” is not a neutral convention of spelling, but one that is deliberately dismissive of an ancient rival of Christianity. One could note again that the other complex aggregative religions that I have mentioned—Hinduism, Daoism, Shinto, and even Roman-era Druidism—all get capital initial letters, because that is the normal way to refer to other religions in English writing, even those religions that in practice are complex aggregates. To deny an initial capital letter to “Paganism” is to endorse an outdated form of Christianizing bias, which is simply not appropriate to modern scholarship.

We agree. Dr. King also notes the false flag about requiring uniformity of beliefs as a rationale for capitalization.

There is also an occasional editor who argues that veracity is a requirement for the capitalization of a religion, raising the immediate question of why we capitalize fictional religions, such as “Bene Gesserit,” “Robotology,” and “the Sith.”

The lowercase use of Paganism is nothing short of a bias to mollify certain Christians. Practically every website and style guide responds to the question, “Do You Capitalize Religions When Writing?” with a yes. They should do the same for our religious tradition.

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About Manny Moreno

Manny Moreno (pro: he/él/lui) was born in Cuba and raised in the American South. He lives in South Florida and Nemi, Italy. He has been in the Pagan community for almost four decades. He is a Witch and was raised as a child of Oyá. He is encouraged by the Balance within the natural world and enjoys storms and the night. Manny is married and splits his free time between the Florida Swamps, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Alban Hills. He is also a beekeeper, orchid-grower, and builder of bat houses.

Uppercase Paganism

My days generally begin with a cup of coffee and a trip to Patheos Pagan. One of my jobs as “channel manager” is scheduling posts for our Facebook feed. If this sounds unglamorous, well it is. The only real upside to it is that I get to read a lot of great stuff while my head gently defogs.

This morning I find myself (very) slightly perplexed by two of my favorite writers here. The first is John Beckett at Under the Ancient Oaks who writes: “Must we always obey the Gods or suffer great calamities?” The second is Molly Khan from Heathen at Heart: “Altars are usually simple, but there is an emphasis on quality, with less-expensive representations of the Gods seen as undesirable.” Can you spot what’s similar about these sentences? Muses on a Roman sarcophagus, photo by Jastrow, from WikiMedia. Until this morning I had no idea that it was becoming commonplace in Modern Paganism to capitalize “Gods” when speaking of deities. I guess it looks polite, and I’m certain that it’s meant to honor those gods, but it’s something that just strikes me as a little odd. For me, capitalizing gods would be like capitalizing the word dudes, and I don’t think that’s anywhere we want to go. “Pay your devotions to the Dudes.” Doesn’t that just look wrong? I realize that not everyone has such a casual relationship with their gods, but for me they can certainly be “the dudes.” I don’t have conversations with them as if they are hipsters at my local watering hole, but we communicate, and it’s generally a very positive and often informal thing. What strikes me as odd about Molly and John’s sentences are that they aren’t even referring to their personal deities, but gods in general. What to capitalize in Paganism has long been a tricky and confusing subject. I always tend to capitalize the word Pagan when referring to someone who self-identifies that way. Peg Aloi who is an academic and writes here at The Witching Hour does not. Is Witchcraft a religion or a practice? Depends on who you ask, and the definition one chooses has a lot to do with how the word is subsequently written. What follows are some of the more troublesome words in Modern Paganism and how I approach them. This is not a style guide, and how people approach capitalizing words within Paganism is often a very personal thing. This is just how I do it, and I’m sharing it with all of you simply because it’s on my mind. Cylinder Seal with a Deity Accepting an Offering, Mesopotamian. From the Walters Art Museum and WikiMedia. Pagan and Paganism: These are words I capitalize when they are used as self-identifiers. “My name is Jason and I’m a Pagan and I practice Paganism,” is an example of that. There’s a lot of disagreement on what the word “Pagan” means in 2015 but as long as it’s being used to identify our large and eclectic community it should probably be in uppercase. When using the word to describe ancient beliefs and practices I use the lowercase p. “The Ancient Greeks practiced paganism,” is an example of this. Since the Greeks would not have referred to their religion as “paganism” I keep it in lowercase. Ancient Europe wasn’t full of paganism back in the day it was full of paganisms, lots of different religions which today are grouped under the word pagan. Nobody would have self-identified that way. Today though, it’s possible to be a follower of the Greek Gods and identify in a way that calls for the uppercase “p.” If someone describes themselves as a Hellenic Pagan uppercase is the way to go. Druid and Druidry: We don’t know a whole lot about the ancient druids, but the word is kind of like a job title. “What do you do for the community?” “Well, I’m a druid.” It’s probably the equivalent of a judge or minister today. As a result of this I don’t capitalize the word when writing about the druids of antiquity. They practiced a Celtic Religion, not a religion called druidry. Modern Druids are an all together different fish. Because they self-identify as Druids and that identity forms their spiritual selves I capitalize the word. If they describe their faith as Druidry, that also goes in caps. There are also Druid social orders, and since I capitalize Freemason and Masonic I extend that courtesy to the word Druid too. Witchcraft, Witches, and Wicca: Wicca refers to a religious path and should always be capitalized. The words Wicca and Wiccan have no other context in 2015. Sadly, the easy stops there, and the other two words included in this section are far more problematic. For many of us the words Wicca and Witchcraft behave like synonyms. The title of Gerald Gardner’s books on Witchcraft were called Witchcraft Today and The Meaning of Witchcraft. He was referring to a religious practice in those titles; in addition, he didn’t even use the word Wicca as we use it today. This is a big issue to some people because the word witchcraft is also used to signify a practice instead of a spirituality, and there are many out there who see this is as the true meaning of the word. In such a context witchcraft is simply a way to approach magic, and one can be both a religious something and practice witchcraft separately from that. “I’m a Christian who practices witchcraft” is an example. From WikiMedia Many people who use the identifier Traditional Witchcraft see witchcraft as more of a practice than a religion. However they identify so strongly with the term Traditional Witchcraft that I always capitalize it. In addition many branches of Traditional Witchcraft have strong spiritual components. Robert Cochrane’s Trad Craft contains long odes to deity and is much more a spiritual system than a magical one. The words witch and witchcraft are often used in a very broad sense as well. Often anyone who practices an indigenous form of folk-magic is labeled a witch. Since witch is an English word and the practitioners themselves wouldn’t identify themselves that way I keep the w lower-case. For me the self-identity thing is always the most important, if one thinks of themself as a Witch then I capitalize the word. If I’m hoisting an identity onto someone else (like a cunning-person who would have identified as, well, a cunning-woman or cunning-man) then I use witch with the lower-case spelling. Polytheism and Polytheist: Two years ago this wouldn’t have been an issue but with the rise of the term polytheism as a descriptor for a religious movement it now has to be addressed. If someone’s primary means of self-identification is polytheism, then I will call them a Polytheist with a capital p. But I don’t think most people do that, at least not yet. I think of myself as a polytheist, but my primary means of self-identification is British Traditional Witch. In my case it’s an adjective to describe how I view (my) Wicca, it’s not a general term of self-identification. Many polytheists identify with particular traditions, and in those case I capitalize the tradition and not the descriptor. Polytheism is quickly becoming an umbrella term for many people who practice polytheism and feel left out of the broader Pagan Community. When Polytheism and Polytheist are being used to identify someone in this community they get the big P. This will probably require more nuance in the future as our community fractures and more people gravitate towards Polytheism as a movement. Gods, gods, and God: We’ve now come full circle and have returned to the word that started this article. Generally when I’m writing about various deities and using the word gods it remains lowercase. It’s possible that I might choose to capitalize the word gods if I were referring specifically to my gods, something like “these are the Gods of my household,” but even then I think that looks a little funny. To me the word god signifies a “particular type of being,” it’s not an honorific, so it doesn’t get capitalized. Lately I’ve tried to avoid the word “gods” while writing because it infers maleness, all while being used to reference dozens of deities representing every aspect of human sexuality. Because of this I’ve gotten into the habit of mostly using deity and/or deities to make sure my meaning is clear. Also using a capital g in gods might infer to the casual reader that one is writing about Yahweh. I don’t want lazy readers to think I’m writing about Yahweh unless I’m specifically writing about Yahweh. Monotheists often use the word god to signify their one deity. When writing about their god I’ll capitalize the word. For example: “Suzy told me that she worships God.” In such a context it’s rather likely that she’s referring to Jesus’s alleged father. “God” isn’t so much a descriptor as to what their god is as it is a name. The terms The Goddess and The God are similar. Originally the terms “Goddess and God” were used as placeholder titles for specific deities in oathbound traditions. Eventually they became associated with specific deities in their own right. When The Goddess or The God are being used as the name of a higher power they get capitalized. When I’m referring to goddesses or gods they go back to lowercase, but that’s just me. I try hard to be consistent with my capitalization because I think the use of lower and uppercase letters signifies specific ideas. Of course, what is here is just how I use them. Your interpretation (or Molly’s or John’s) may be completely different, and that’s just fine.

It is worth noting that capitalization conventions can vary, and different organizations or authors may have their own preferences. It is always a good idea to consult style guides or refer to the specific guidelines provided by the author or publication you are writing for to ensure consistency and accuracy..

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Reviews for "Capitalizing Cultural Identities: 'Pagan' in Focus"

1. John - 1 star

I found "Is pagan capitalized" to be a complete waste of time. The article was poorly written and didn't provide any useful information. I was left feeling even more confused about the capitalization rules for the word "pagan." The author should have done more research and provided clearer explanations. I would not recommend this article to anyone looking for a definitive answer on this topic.

2. Sarah - 2 stars

I was disappointed with "Is pagan capitalized" because it seemed more like a personal opinion rather than a comprehensive guide. The author didn't cite any credible sources to support their claims, and the information provided was subjective and unreliable. It would have been more beneficial if the article had delved into the historical and grammatical aspects of capitalization rules. Overall, this article was not helpful in answering my question.

2. Michael - 1 star

"Is pagan capitalized" presented a very biased viewpoint on capitalization. The author seemed to have a personal agenda and failed to present a balanced perspective. I was expecting a well-researched article with clear guidelines, but instead, I got a subjective and poorly written piece. I would have appreciated a more objective approach to this topic.

4. Emily - 1 star

I had high hopes for "Is pagan capitalized," but unfortunately, it fell short. The article lacked coherence and failed to address the main question adequately. The author's writing style was confusing, and the information provided was insufficient and poorly organized. I was left frustrated and still unsure about the correct capitalization of "pagan." Overall, a disappointing read.

5. David - 2 stars

"Is pagan capitalized" was an underwhelming article. The author seemed unsure of themselves, as they provided conflicting information and didn't offer a clear answer. I expected a more concise and well-researched piece. The lack of credibility and coherence made it difficult to trust the information presented. I would recommend seeking other sources for a more reliable answer on this topic.

Capitalizing Labels: Examining the Case of 'Pagan