Hello all, a few months ago I made a post here about Donald Livingston, a former professor of Emory university and founder of the Abbeville institute, a ‘think tank’ dedicated to “critical study of what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition” (About us). Basically they just run a bunch of articles and podcasts about how the south is oppressed and the usual lost cause gambit. My post was well received and a few people asked me to make a new one. I started making this paper but I got a really bad bout of depression and couldn't stand to read any more of their garbage (it really makes you lose your faith in humanity). But I’m feeling much better now and the release of the 1776 commission (which contains many of the fallacies and errors in this article) inspired me to finish it.
I figured I’d pick out this article because it’s a bonkers. It was written by a man named John Marquardt. Unlike Livingston, who is a very public figure with a number of lectures and podcasts, Marquardt seems to be a quiet writer. His information on the website says he attended the University of Georgia and studies trade. I did a little digging and found that he has a biography on ‘prabook’, a website I had never heard of before, saying he majored in journalism and was a New York state senator from 1962-70. A quick search of Wikipedia’s list of assembly people from those times found no records of him.
Marquardt’s paper basically boils down to three arguments:

Slavery was practiced in both the north and the south so it’s unfair to characterize slavery as a Southern institution.
Abolitionism occurred in both the north and the south, so it’s unfair to blame the south for slavery
Both white and Black people owned slaves, so it’s not fair to characterize slavery as a white institution.

Argument one: Slavery in the north
Of the three arguments, I think this one comes the closest to being accurate, although the conclusions that are drawn are objectionable.

During America’s colonial period there were as many as five thousand slaves in Connecticut alone and a few still remained in bondage there as late as 1840.

To be fair, Marquardt does point out that 5,000 is a small proportion of the overall number of slaves in America but he just kind of pretends that it doesn't matter, stating that the existence of any slaves in the north is a sort of moral equivalency. Northerners were clearly bothered by the existence of slavery and tried to abolish it. That’s why the number of slaves in the north was declining while the number of slaves in the south was stable or increasing. (O’Neil, 2019)

In New York, over seven percent of the population in the late Eighteenth Century were black slaves, with the last slave being freed there in 1827. In Rhode Island, over six percent of the population were enslaved and the practice there lasted until 1842, New Jersey, however, had the highest number, almost eight percent, and the latest date for total emancipation, 1865.

Although its true that slavery had existed in many northern states this was not the case everywhere. Northern states under the northwest ordinance never had slavery of any kind and, by 1850 the lines had clearly been drawn, with most northern states either abolishing slavery outright or implementing a form of gradual emancipation while slavery remained legal in all southern states. Although it is true that northern states had an economic interest and participated in slavery, it is clear that the political force of abolitionism was concentrated in the north.
Argument two: good people on both sides
Marquardt gives a long list of early southern abolitionists and argues that the existence of southern abolitionists means the credit for abolishing slavery should be divided between the north and the south.

The roots of the myth that slavery was primarily a white Southern institution were planted three decades prior to the War Between the States by the abolitionists in New York and New England. This myth also included the idea that those same abolitionists of the 1830s had introduced the freeing of slaves in America. Actually, however, the first seeds of emancipation were sown in 1688 when the Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania, issued a “Petition Against Slavery” which urged the abolishment of slavery in all Quaker communities.

(It seems a little strange to argue against abolitionism being a northern institution and your first point of evidence is northern Quakers abolishing slavery.)

As early as 1792, a Kentucky minister, David Rice, gave a speech at Kentucky’s Constitutional Convention in which he called slavery an ‘injustice’ and described slaveholders as ‘licensed robbers.’...Other voices in the South, like those of clergymen David Barrows and John Paxton in Virginia, [also] echoed such sentiments.

Marquardt drags 1830’s northern abolitionists through the coals here, but the reason they were so hostile to southerners was because abolitionism as a political movement had ceased to exist there. Any progress the southern abolitionist movements were making was abruptly shattered in 1831 after the Nat turner slave revolt. After the revolt, southern states began limiting the rights of newspapers to publish abolitionist materials and tightening restrictions on free blacks. Preaching abolitionism in the south could reasonably be met with mob violence. Southern abolitionists might have opposed these actions, but the vast majority of southerners supported them and that is why northern abolitionists (essentially the only ones left after 1840) were so hostile to the south. It's quite telling that all the examples he brings up were from before the Nat turner revolt

The North Carolina group also worked closely with the American Colonization Society that had been founded in 1817 in Washington, D. C., by Dr. Robert Finley just prior to his becoming president of the University of Georgia. The Society advocated the relocation of freed slaves to Liberia, a colony the Society had established in West Africa in 1822. Most anti-slavery groups in the South, as well as a number of slaveholders, supported the idea and cooperated with the Society. After the start of the Northern abolitionist movement in the 1830s, many of its members, as well as others like Abraham Lincoln, strongly urged the shipping of all blacks back to Africa and by 1860 about twelve thousand had been sent there.

I frequently see Marquardt and others bringing up the American colonization society like they were saints, but they were as important for killing southern abolitionist movements as the slave rebellions were. According to Gordon E. Finnie, the majority of southern abolitionists also believed that free blacks should be deported back to Africa. As the southern abolition movement began to lose steam throughout the early 1800’s, the colonial society began to absorb their membership. In Maryland, the Maryland anti-slavery society dissolved and most members joined of it’s members joined the American colonial society. The Colonization society received money from the Maryland state legislature to deport free blacks to Liberia, meaning that the abolitionist movement was co-opted to inflict suffering on the small minority of blacks who managed to be free. (Finnie, 1969)
I should also note, the colony was a huge failure and a significant portion of the freed slaves sent there died within a few years. Moreover, It was fiercely opposed by free blacks and abolitionists. (Morgan, 2020)
Argument three: They did it to themselves
This argument is by and far the most absurd of the claims made by Marquardt.

The matter of black slaveholders is also one that has generally been disregarded in the effort to place the onus of slavery exclusively on white Southern slave owners. In fact, one of the first actual slaveholders in America was a free black named Anthony Johnson. In the 1650s, Johnson was a tobacco farmer in Virginia who owned two hundred and fifty acres of land and had five indentured servants, four white and one black.

I might sound like I’m splitting hairs here, but I don’t think that the situation that existed in the 1650’s should be compared to slavery in the antebellum south. Anthony Johnson had a black indentured servant named John Casor who was sentenced by a court to be an indentured servant for life, (Virginia recognizes slavery, 1999) not at all like the 1800’s where slavery was a racialized system, codified into law. The John Casor situation was the beginning of a transition away from indentured servitude and towards racialized slavery that Johnson and his descendants would not be a controlling part of.

In the next century, the Pendarvis family of free blacks in Colleton County, South Carolina, owned one of the largest rice plantations in the State that was worked by over a hundred twenty black slaves.

The Pendarvis family were the illegitimate children of a white slave owner and is black mistress. On his death, he took the unusual and unprecedented step in legitimizing his children and giving them property including slaves. The decision was very controversial in South Carolina and the white branch of the family broke off and changed their names to Bedon and ceased all contact. The uproar that was caused is proof that the situation was unusual and vilified across the state. I should also note the Pendarvises were mixed race rather than black, a fact that probably made it easier for white southerners to accept. (de Valdes y Cocom, 1995)

Statistics show that by 1860, while both whites and free blacks in the South owned an average of one to five slaves, the number for black slaveholders in New Orleans was much higher. There, a third of the free blacks owned at least six slaves each, with some having more than sixty.

This argument relies on taking the square peg of American race relations and attempting to ram it into the round hole of Louisiana race relations. Although according to American tradition the slaveholders of Louisiana were considered black, Louisiana was originally a French colony. French law drew a distinction between black people and mixed race ‘colored’ people. The slaveholders Marquardt mentions did not consider themselves to be black and would have disagreed with his conclusions.
(Edit: Prior to the 1830's it was, in rare cases, possible for a slave to buy their freedom. After a slave bought their freedom, it was common for them to also buy the freedom of their friends/ family. After the Nat turner rebellion, restrictions were placed on freeing slaves. The numbers of black slaveholders outside of Louisiana can be explained by free black people buying their friends and family but being unable to legally free them, causing them to be counted as slaveowners during the census)
But all of these details obscure a critical flaw in Marquardt’s argument, Even if all of these cases were true (they aren’t) it still doesn't explain why slavery should be considered multi racial, there might be a few black slave owners but all of the slaves were black. If all of the people suffering are from one race, does the racial composition of the people who benefit really matter?
Reflections: Throughout my time reading this and other blogposts on the Abbeville institute, I increasingly find myself unable to understand the arguments made by the authors. It is not a matter of literacy, it is a matter of coherence; authors start their posts by making outrageous claims and then fail to back them up. The insane but coherent lectures of the past have been replaced with pages upon pages of authors simply making claims and assuming the reader will support them. The authors no longer even bother to cite their sources, all of their claims I had to research on my own. I do not know how large the readership of the institute is but I find it deeply troubling that so many articles could be pumped out and consumed with no questions asked. I can only come to the depressing conclusion that the Abbeville institute and other neo-confederate revisionists are getting worse as they trap themselves in their own media bubbles.
If you like (or dislike) what you see be sure to tell me about it! I’d like to write another one of these but I think that I should try a different topic. Any suggestions?

Abbeville institute information:
Author Biography
Original article
About Page
Bibliography:
de Valdes y Cocom, Mario. “The Blurred Lines of Famous Families”, PBS Frontline, 1995
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/secret/famous/pendarvis.html
Finnie, Gordon E. "The Antislavery Movement in the Upper South Before 1840." The Journal of Southern History 35, no. 3 (1969): 319-42. doi:10.2307/2205761.
O’Neil, Aaron. “Black and slave population in the United States 1790-1880”, statista, 2019 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1010169/black-and-slave-population-us-1790-1880/#:~:text=By%201860%2C%20the%20final%20census,in%20all%20of%20the%20US.
Robinston, Morgan. “The American Colonization Society”, The White House Historical Society, 2020 https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-american-colonization-society
“Virginia recognises slavery”, PBS, 1999 https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p262.html

John Steinbeck's "The Pearl", a relatively short novella, packs quite a wallop, embodying so much of what I like about his writing.

Domestic violence is not gendered

It's a well-established fact that men are just as likely to be the victims of domestic violence as women are:

Archer 2000
- Meta-analysis done by the journal Psychological Bulletin found that women are more likely to commit an act of physical aggression against an intimate partner
- Women were slightly more likely (d = -.05) than men to use one or more acts of physical aggression and to use such acts more frequently. Men were more likely (d = . 15) to inflict an injury, and overall, 62% of those injured by a partner were women
Fiebert 2014
- A HUGE meta-analysis of 343 scholarly investigations (270 empirical studies and 73 systematic reviews) found that women are as physically aggressive as men (or more) in their relationships with their spouses or opposite-sex partners
- Aggregate sample size exceeded 440,850 people
Davis 2010
- When you aggregate domestic-violence related suicides and homicides caused by intimate partners, men die of domestic violence-related deaths more than women
- “When domestic violence-related suicides are combined with domestic violence homicides, the total numbers of domestic violence related deaths are higher for males than females.”
Williams et al. 2005
- “Studies of undergraduate college students found that men sustained higher levels of moderate violence than women with severe violence being rare for both women and men (Katz, Kuffel, & Coblentz, 2002) and 29% of males and 35% of females reported perpetrating physical aggression; 12.5% of the males and 4.5% of the females reported receiving severe physical aggression; 14% of females reported that they were the sole perpetrators of aggression — injuries were sustained by 8.4% of males and 5% of females (Hines & Saudino, 2002). These rates, which suggest gender symmetry in the perpetration of relationship violence, are not unique and Fiebert (2004) has amassed a bibliography of 159 peer-reviewed publications finding equal or greater aggression by females than males. The total collected sample is geater than 109,000. An earlier version was published in 1997 (Fiebert, 1997).
Carney et al. 2007
- “As our discussion demonstrates, female perpetrated abuse in intimate relationships is at least as common as male abuse, often extends to the same degree of severity, can result in serious negative outcomes for male and female victims, and seems to reflect a common set of background causes. Contrary to early socio-political explanations, which proposed that women's use of aggression reflected primarily, or solely, self-defense strategies in response to male initiated abuse, women are known to commit unilateral abuse.”

Now, the question remains does this remained true for most severities?
And while a cursory glance of spousal homicides seems to back this up, the story doesn't stop there. And straight away you can tell that, even when it comes to homicide, the differences aren't that large.
Intimate Partner Homicide
Roughly 68% of intimate partner homicide victims are women. You can see a graph here:
https://imgur.com/a/6Hx9dJt
One thing to consider is that many people who murder their spouses are often trapped in abusive relationships themselves. Their murder is usually seen as being either retaliatory or in self-defense. This theory is known as the "battered partner syndrome", and it applies to both men and women (although there is something of a double standard when this explanation is applied to men).
One researcher noted that according to several key criteria of the so-called "battered woman syndrome", abused men fit the profile better than abused women do.

All of the evidence indicates that abused men fit the theory of the “battered woman” better than abused women do.

Brown, G. A. (2004). Gender as a factor in the response of the law-enforcement system to violence against partners. Sexuality and Culture, 8(3-4), 3-139.
http://www.familyofmen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Grant_Partner_Violence.pdf
Another thing to notice is that the rate of men who are murdered by intimate partners has decreased over the years in comparison to women. In fact, some 40 years ago, women murdered their male partners at roughly the same rate as the reverse. Research suggests that this change in prevalence is because domestic violence shelters for women were opened during the same time period (source here). Instead of resorting to murder, many women can now escape their abuse through other means that are not available to men.
Speculation is that if domestic violence against men was taken as seriously as domestic violence against women, the rate of murdered women would go down as well. Since abused men are left with fewer non-violent options compared to abused women, they often end up resorting to suicide or murder in order to escape their abuse.
Of course, none of this is meant to downplay the problem of murdered spouses. Instead, I want to provide context, and propose a solution: If men were given better options to escape from abusive relationships (including better divorce options that don't ruin them financially or cost them access to their children), then there would be fewer women murdered by their partners. Better domestic violence resources for men wouldn't just help men, but would also help women.
And despite all of this, 68% doesn't represent some kind of huge majority where male victims are a simple side note in the discussion. It also happens to be the only data point that skews towards women on this topic. And it represents the smallest number of victims overall, even compared to other forms of serious abuse. Put simply, spousal murder is incredibly rare, regardless of gender.
Rates of serious injury and hospitalization
It's probably best to describe research in this category as "mixed". But that is because most studies find rates that are fairly close to being the same for men and women, with only small deviations away from the middle. For example, a 2008 study conducted on college campuses (in 32 different countries) found that "severe assault" affected men 42% of the time, and women 58% of the time (Table 1, page 258). Another study found that 62% of people injured by intimate partners in heterosexual relationships were women. These are the types of studies people quote when they talk about domestic violence against women being worse than it is against men. And as you can see, that kind of conclusion is tempered by findings that aren't as dramatic as they're often implied to be.
There are also quite a few studies that show rates that are higher for men than they are for women. For example, the 1975 US National Family Violence Survey found that 4.6% of men and 3.8% of women had experienced "severe" forms of domestic violence (among all forms of domestic violence, the rate was 12% for men and 11.6% for women) (source). Several other national surveys have found that "serious" cases of domestic violence tend to involve women as abusers, and men as victims, more often than the reverse. This is true even in years where the overall rate of male perpetration was higher than it was for female perpetration (like in the 2001 National Violence Against Women Survey, cited below). And when looking only at cases that require professional medical attention, 58% of victims are men (source also cited below).
Still, myths about this continue to persist and are taken as fact, despite the data clearly indicating something very different.

16% of men and 14% of women report being seriously injured by their partner.

Straus, M. A., Hamby, S. L., Boney-McCoy, S., & Sugarman, D. B. (1996). The revised conflict tactics scales (CTS2) development and preliminary psychometric data. Journal of family issues, 17(3), 283-316.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/019251396017003001

Assaulted men are more likely than assaulted women to experience serious attacks by being hit with an object, beat up, threatened with a knife or being knifed.

Hoff, B. H. (2001). The risk of serious physical injury from assault by a woman intimate: A re-examination of national violence against women survey data on type of assault by an intimate. MenWeb on-line Journal (ISSN: 1095-5240 http://www.menweb.org/NVAWSrisk.htm). Retrieved from Web on Jan, 18, 2011.

1.8% of men and 1.2% of women reported that their injuries required first aid, while 1.5% of men and 1.1% of women reported that their injuries needed treated by a doctor or nurse.

Headey, B., Scott, D., & De Vaus, D. (1999). Domestic violence in Australia: are women and men equally violent?. Australian Social Monitor, 2(3), 57.
https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=759479315231736;res=IELAPA

The least commonly reported violence was severe perpetration (<1.0% of total sample or 5% of violent relationships, n = 32), where it appears more women (1.6%; n = 29) than men (.9%; n = 2) reported performing such violence...Other findings showed that men reported being the victim of severe violence (3.%; n = 51) more frequently than women (1.9%; n = 35); but, this differences was only marginally significant.

Williams, S. L., & Frieze, I. H. (2005). Patterns of violent relationships, psychological distress, and marital satisfaction in a national sample of men and women. Sex Roles, 52(11-12), 771-784.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stacey_Williams3/publication/30846401_Patterns_of_Violent_Relationships_Psychological_Distress_and_Marital_Satisfaction_in_a_National_Sample_of_Men_and_Women/links/02e7e52332186a94f3000000.pdf

Studies of undergraduate college students found that men sustained higher levels of moderate violence than women with severe violence being rare for both women and men (Katz, Kuffel, & Coblentz, 2002) and 29% of males and 35% of females reported perpetrating physical aggression; 12.5% of the males and 4.5% of the females reported receiving severe physical aggression; 14% of females reported that they were the sole perpetrators of aggression — injuries were sustained by 8.4% of males and 5% of females (Hines & Saudino, 2002). These rates, which suggest gender symmetry in the perpetration of relationship violence, are not unique and Fiebert (2004) has amassed a bibliography of 159 peer-reviewed publications finding equal or greater aggression by females than males. The total collected sample is greater than 109,000. An earlier version was published in 1997 (Fiebert, 1997).

Carney, M., Buttell, F., & Dutton, D. (2007). Women who perpetrate intimate partner violence: A review of the literature with recommendations for treatment. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 12(1), 108-115.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Donald_Dutton/publication/222426549_Women_Who_Perpetrate_Intimate_Partner_Violence_A_Review_of_the_Literature_With_Recommendations_for_Treatment/links/5c465a1592851c22a386f74b/Women-Who-Perpetrate-Intimate-Partner-Violence-A-Review-of-the-Literature-With-Recommendations-for-Treatment.pdf
Psychological Abuse and Suicide
Focusing just on rates of physical violence discounts several other forms of domestic abuse, including psychological abuse, which often results in the victim committing suicide. And in terms of total deaths, this is actually a bigger killer than homicide. As many as 17% to 26% of all suicide deaths may be the result of intimate partner abuse.
In particular,

When domestic violence related suicides are combined with domestic violence homicides, the total numbers of domestic violence related deaths are higher for males than females.

Davis, R. L. (2010). Domestic violence-related deaths. Journal of aggression, conflict and peace research, 2(2), 44.
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.5042/jacpr.2010.0141/full/html
Abuse through the legal system, social manipulation, and false allegations
Women have been shown to engage in higher rates of coercive control and to use the threat of false allegations of domestic abuse and sexual assault to control their victims. As such, this represents a rather unique form of abuse primarily limited to female-on-male domestic violence.

‘She said “what are you gonna do? I’ll start screaming rape and you’re up in court tomorrow, do you think they’ll believe anything you’ve got to say?’’'

The legal system itself commonly gets abused, especially when children are involved. The so-called "silver bullet" refers to the fact that judges believe women by default, and will remove a child from the father's care if the mother lies about abuse. Up to 50% of child abuse cases, 70% of domestic violence cases, and 90% of restraining orders are estimated to be either false or baseless (which basically means "frivolous" in a legal context).
Not only are children wielded by abusers against their victims, but financial assets are also commonly held over their heads as well. The fact that family court is incredibly biased against fathers gets exploited and used as a form of abuse in its own right.
While these cases are not physically violent, I think it is important to realize that they have the potential to ruin lives, and can even lead to suicide. "I never put my hands on you" is not an excuse. This type of abuse is just as harmful and can be just as deadly, as physical abuse.
Unreported Cases
Research indicates that men have a tendency to underreport their abuse. It is estimated that men are 3 to 6 times less likely to report their abuse compared to women (source 1, source 2). Men are also less likely to press charges and are more likely to be intimidated against standing trial. And to make matters worse, the police are less likely to take male victims seriously compared to female victims, sometimes even arresting the man instead of the woman (source 1, source 2, source 3, source 4).
This pattern is so pronounced that when laws were passed requiring the police to automatically press charges when called for domestic disturbances, the number of women arrested on domestic violence charges increased dramatically. This has been referred to as an "unintended consequence" by the proponents of these bills, who thought that they would see an increase in the number of arrests for men instead (source).
Anyways, thanks for reading! And credit to u/Oncefa2 for some of this.

Merle Bombardieri is ready to answer your questions!

AMA Invitation for January 2021
Hi. I’m Merle Bombardieri, the author of The Baby Decision, which many of you have read and recommended to each other. Thanks!
As a licensed clinical social worker, I have led workshops and done coaching and psychotherapy on this topic for 40 years. I did my first AMA here in the spring of 2020.
I am rolling up my sleeves to answer your questions in this brand-new AMA.
Did you make a New Year’s resolution to decide once and for all this year?
Feel free to bring up questions about the decision, feeling stuck, the biological time clock, couple disagreement, pressures from would-be grandparents, fear of regret and anything else. Fea disgust regarding pregnancy and concerns about the environment, current and future pandemics appear regularly on fencesitter, but we didn’t talk about them in the first AMA. Now is the time!
Please be patient. I had over a hundred questions last time. It took me over a month to answer them all. I will try to answer urgent questions first such as unplanned pregnancies and decisions related to possibly preserving your fertility before agreeing to a recommended medical regime or surgical procedure.
If you are in a crisis, such as wanting to hurt yourself or someone else, or have a partner who is hurting or threatening you, please call your local emergency service (911 in the U.S), and/or go to a hospital or call a domestic abuse line. And, of course, post your concern here on fencesitter for amazing support.
Although I am the mother of two daughters (one childfree, one who is one and done), I have been a childfree advocate since 1979. I believe both choices are valid and will never try to sell you on either.
Now let’s get started with your new questions for a New Year.
I have just added a new blogpost, which will also be going up on my website. Because so many questions below and on fencesitter in general have been on this topic, I pasted it here so I can refer you here if your questions in the AMA relate to this.
Making It Fair
Negotiating Equity in Shared Parenting
By Merle Bombardieri, MSW, LICSW

In The Decision Café, my private Facebook group for parenthood-decision-making (co-hosted with Katie Wilson), one woman posted, “I would definitely choose to parent if I could just be a dad.” Many other Café members echoed this sentiment. What do they mean? They mean that they can imagine that parenting itself would be pleasurable, but only if they could take a father’s role: tend to your child, but keep your job, your identity, your weekend pursuits. Be willing to “help” with childcare and housework, but not do most of it. Everyone knows that “most of it” is mother’s work.

The mother role is strikingly different, and none of the Decision Café members want it. A mother, even if she works full time, will typically do the lion’s share of housework and childcare. But that’s not the worst of it. No matter how smart and accomplished she is, no matter how much she hates “mommy culture,” how much she wants to keep her identity and job and just add motherhood into the mix the way fathers do, the cards are stacked against her. Society, family, and some of their friends expect that once that baby pops out, that motherhood will be her primary life, and not just a part of her life. She’s supposed to like this change. If she doesn’t, she’s unfeminine, not a good mother. This assumption, is sexist, insulting, bullying, energy sapping, and soul crushing. They are destructive to all three family members. The potential loving energy in a family of three, the potentially peaceful nursing, cuddling, exquisite bonding of mother-baby intimacy gets crushed under the avalanche of pressures and losses.
Unfortunately, this post contains no magic. But it does offer a framework for understanding the problem and guidelines for couple conversations about it.
If you are already strongly leaning toward childfree anyway, the fairness issue may simply reinforce your resolve to be childfree. However, if you’re just beginning to tilt towards childfree, totally on the fence, or leaning toward parenthood, these guidelines for talking about fairness in parenting, before you give birth or adopt, can guide your decision. If you do choose parenthood, despite anxieties about the division of labor, you’ll be more confident that you will manage to work it out.
In the past, couples assumed, “We’ll just work it out as we go.” But you’re a lot more clear-eyed and in control now than you will be in the few postpartum months. You’ll start off parenting with a game plan for a relatively fair workload.
The framework. The problem isn’t just about you and your partner. In our society, we tend to think that we as individuals and couples are supposed to solve everything on our own.
But you didn’t invent sexism. You’re not responsible for the suffering of previous generations, where women were overburdened and resentful, and men didn’t experience the pleasures and intimacies of playing, cuddling, and hanging out with their kids. Instead, they worked long hours, including travel. And when they were home, they didn’t know what to do with their kids other than tossing a few balls. How could they know since their fathers, with no role modeling from their fathers hadn’t known what to do with them. Today’s fathers get to experience the pleasures of parenting as well as the burden of doing more of the work. This concept helps men look forward to the joys of parenting and at least some willingness to tackle the equity question with their partners.
You are not responsible for the fact that, unlike other industrialized nations, this country provides little or no parental leave (especially desperately needed PAID parental leave, and only rarely childcare or early childhood education). Inflexible work hours and penalization for time off makes things worse. A few illustrations before we roll up our sleeves to brainstorm solutions.
An American woman who returned home after working in France wrote an op-ed about her dismay to discover her life as a working mother had gone from easy to impossible. Even though her company was American, she worked for them in France, the government required them to provide their workers the same paid time off, flextime, and subsidized childcare that French national families enjoyed. The author assumed that working while raising a young child was easy, because it actually had been until she was transferred home. Then all the supports she and her husband had taken for granted completely disappeared!
Remember my “Swedish Family Hotel” exercise in The Baby Decision? I described not only the services I mentioned above but also a planned community. Families lived in simple, private living spaces, but spent time in communal buildings as well, for some meals and community events. The school and park were right in the complex so kids could walk (or run) there on their own. In this segment of the book, I asked readers if they would choose parenting if such a “family hotel” arrangement was available. I used this exercise to help people see whether their childfree leaning was a true lack of desire for parenting or a response to the dearth of crucial supports for parents.
When The Baby Decision was recently translated into German, I had to delete the chapter on how to negotiate with corporations and government organizations to create support systems. Why? Because Germany, Switzerland, and Austria already had these supports. Researchers and mothers themselves in these countries will report there are still inequalities at home and at work, but even so, life is easier for parents in these countries.
Guidelines for Planning for Equity in Parenting
Now that you have some perspective, let’s talking about planning. Here are some suggestions.

Create a foundation for talking. Remember that you are loving partners, even if some of these conversations might feel as if you are enemies. This is not about who’s right and who’s wrong, who will win, who will lose. Realize that the goal is to brainstorm about possibilities of achieving fairness, so you can think outside the box about what would be best for your unique family and personality.

2 . Plan discussion at times you’re both comfortable with. Be compassionate toward yourself and your partner. Acknowledge how unfair and unpleasant this issue is, and how hard it is to decide about parenthood.
3 Nothing is written in stone. To have freedom to brainstorm, no one should assume that any idea is a commitment or a promise.
Unless you’ve already agreed that you will become parents, acknowledge that working on the equity question doesn’t constitute an implicit agreement that you will have a child. Start with the assumption that if you do have a child, you will only have one. Considering the possibility of two children may feel overwhelming, one child less so. You can always decide later to have a second child. But for now, keep it simple and less scary.

Find role models. How do you work on this problem when you don’t have a real-life child or an actual schedule to practice with?

Look for people you know or through networking, find families in which the mother does only half the work and has held on to her pre-baby identity. Ask them if they might be willing to tell you how they’ve to worked on these questions. What solutions have they discovered. What mistakes or problems did they encounter on the way to working things out? What problems remain? If they know you, what advice might they offer for working out your own arrangements? Also ask if they had help from family, friends, and community? Did they make adjustments based on the child’s changing needs, on whose work was more demanding a given time?
Do you have people in mind that you aren’t that close to, or whom you’ve learned about through networking but haven’t even met? Give potential role models space to decide whether to talk to you. If you think you might put them on the spot, don’t call them or bring up your request in person. You can e-mail them that you would like to ask them a few questions about how they handle things. Say you’ll understand if they would rather not talk about it. Be willing to talk after the child or children are in bed, or otherwise at their convenience. Offer to talk for 30 minutes or less so you won’t take up too much of their time. Be willing to talk to them anonymously if a friend sets up a phone call for you.
Find role models online. On social media, Reddit’s discussion thread reddit.comfencesitter talks about this topic. Although this group’s main goal is to help non-parents decide whether to procreate, readers are lucky that people who have already become parents (or have chosen to be childfree) stay on to mentor those who are still undecided. They tell detailed stories of arguments, negotiations, and arrangements. They have worked out a wide variety of arrangements, including stay-at-home dads. Some of their arrangements may resonate with you.
5. Read three books and play one card game. You’ll find lots of company and ideas in the three listed books at the end of this article. One of the books, Fair Play suggests making a set of cards representing not only childcare and household tasks but also relaxation time, time out with friends while your partner cares for the child. You can purchase the author’s ready-made deck. (See the bibliography).
6. See a therapist, coach, or mediator to create a tentative contract regarding task sharing. Don’t use a professional that either of you has been seeing individually, because neutrality and trust are essential. Before going to your first appointment, do your homework. Get input from any trusted family, friends, advisors, current coaches, or therapist. Also try to write a tentative contract on your own. Not only will you need fewer sessions (and spend less money) but also you are building skills to talk about these tasks lovingly and respectfully. If you have a child, you’ll talk about this on and off for years. With this preparation your professional will not only help you iron out a tentative chronic but also help you improve your communication and negotiation skills. Of course, you will revise the contract from time to time as you re-evaluate what’s working and what isn’t. You may want to have a refresher appointment with your professional.
Summary
The work we’ve been talking about is tough but worth it. Even if you decide to be childfree, the creativity, love, and humor you’ve used for this project will help you enjoy your childfree life.
A little food for thought. Although, alas, you can’t know in advance, the joys of parenthood might be great enough to justify having to cope with the equity problem.
I believe if you asked most happy mothers of older or grown children if they wish they hadn’t had their child in order to prevent equity problems, most would say “There were times when this problem made me/us crazy, but these children have brought immeasurable meaning and pleasure. They were worth having despite some unfairness, exhaustion, and relationship tension.
Please don’t misinterpret this. I’m not saying grin and bear it. I’m saying fight like hell for justice. Confront your partner and get professional help if he’s not doing his fair share. But I am saying that avoiding any equity fights may not be worth giving up the pleasures of parenthood. I’m not talking here to people on the fence. I’m talking to people who are 60/40 or 70/30 leaning toward parenthood whose major objection to parenthood is their desire for 100% fairness.
MAKING IT FAIR READING LIST
SELECTED BY MERLE BOMBARDIERI, MSW, LICSW
Dunn, Jancee. How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids. New York: Little, Brown, 2017.
Emma {no last name, author goes by “Emma.” The Mental Load. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2017, “You Should Have Asked,” pp.3-21.
Lockman, Darcy. All the Rage. Mothers, Fathers and the Myth of Equal Partnership. New York: Harper, 2019.
Rodsky, Eve. Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do. New York: Putnam, 2019
____________The Fair Play Deck: A Couple’s Conversation Deck for Prioritizing What’s Important. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2020. This a pack of cards for choosing and negotiating, not a book.
Making It Fair
Negotiating Equity in Shared Parenting
By Merle Bombardieri, MSW, LICSW

Syrian Christian Rebellion - Kerala Minority Histories

Hey guys, so working as a social studies teacher, I love sharing concepts on the history and culture of communities, particularly minority communities. I know Reddit is largely a younger audience of Malayalees who often don’t have access to/know of sources on very small communities, except for what they read online. For this reason I wanted to do a short history series on the different minority communities of Kerala, highlighting their origins and sharing major events in their history. The first event I wanted to talk about is one of the earliest rebellions of a native community against a colonial power, which occurred right here on the shores of Kerala when the Syrian Christians rebelled against Portuguese hegemony. If your interested in these minority histories and would like me to do more, please let me know in the comments. I plan on writing about events in the Mappila Community, Cochin Jews, and other minorities as well.
Schism of the St. Thomas Christians: A Brief Overview
When the Portuguese arrived to Kerala, India at the turn of the 16th century, they were astonished to find an ancient community of Christians. These Christians known as the St. Thomas Christians or Kerala Syrian Christians followed the East Syriac liturgical tradition and were by this point members of the Church of the East (Assyrian or "Nestorian Church") centered in modern day Iraq. Initially the Portuguese Catholic officials and the St. Thomas Christians were on great terms. One early observation by the Portuguese on the St. Thomas Christians is seen in the following quote from Fr. Antonio Monserratte in 1579:
“My chief occupation has been with the Christians of Sierra [Kerala was historically called Chera, which is often seen written as Serra or Sierra in Portuguese works], who commonly call themselves of St. Thomas. As regards the origins of these Christians, there are two opinions: One is that all are descended from the disciples of St. Thomas. Others say only from one Mar Thoma the Syrian [Knai Thoma]. This word Mar is in Chaldean design of honor, and means the same as Don and saint in Spanish, and the Syrians use this word Mar in both meanings: for they call St. Thomas Mar Thoma and [they use it for] any honorable and noble person...”
• Fr. Antonio Monserratte. 1579. Published in Documenta Indica XI by Fr. John Wiki (1970).
This citation is a very interesting primary source because Monserratte notes a few key factors about the Thomas Christians. On their origins he writes that there are two different groups, some that claim descent from the missionary activity of St. Thomas the Apostle and others from Mar Thoma the Syrian [Knai Thoma]. Here he is undoubtedly noting the existence of two communities of ancient Christians in Kerala, the majority St. Thomas Christians and the minority Knanaya. He also makes observations on the Syriac nature of these ancient Christians noting that they use terms such as “Mar” meaning Lord in Syriac as a designation of religious and honorable figures. Notations of this similar nature are seen in a plethora of Portuguese sources in the 16th and 17th century.
It is interesting to note that several of the Portuguese sources of this era exhibit that the St. Thomas Christians and Knanaya, though united in Syriac Christianity, were not on good terms and regularly got into feuds related to ethnic tensions. An example of this is noted in the work of Archbishop Francisco Ros (1604) seen in the following quote,
"When there arose between the St. Thomas Christians and the others [Knanaya] great discord, and there were anciently among them great disputes: wherefore at Carturte [Kaduthuruthy] and Cotete [Kottayam] it was necessary to make different churches, each party keeping aloof from the other. And those of the Thomas Caneneo party [Knanaya] went in one church, and the others [St. Thomas Christians] in the other. And last year, 1603, the same was the cause of the quarrels between those of Udiamper [Udiamperoor] and Candanada [Kandanad], each one holding out for his party. It is wonderful to see the aversion which one party has for the other, without being able to forget their antiquities and the fables they have in this matter. St. Thomas Christians descending from Thomas Cananeo [Knanaya] are few. They are at Udiamper [Udiamperoor], and at the great church of Carturte [Kaduthuruthy Valiyapally] and at the great church of Cotete [Kottayam Valiyapally] and at Turigure [Thodupuzha/Chunkom] "
• Archbishop Francisco Ros. 1604. MS. ADD. 9853.
Here Ros notes that the Christians of St. Thomas and the Cananeo Christians (Spanish translation of Knanaya) regularly got into ethnic tensions which led to the creation of separate churches in regions such as Kaduthuruthy and Kottayam. He also notes that in contemporary times (1603) the Christians recently got into a fight at Udiamperoor and Kandanad. Ros expresses that the Christians cannot forget their ancient "antiquities" related to their ethnic division and continue in their aversion. It's almost comical that even in the modern age, 400 years after Ros' report, that some St. Thomas Christians and Knanaya cannot let go of this bitterness.
As the Portuguese made their presence more known in Kerala they soon began to make alliances with local kingdoms and war with others. Eventually their relations with the native Christians withered. This was epitomized in the event known as the Synod of Diamper (Udiamperoor Sunhados). This synod called in 1599 was a meeting of priests and representatives of all the native Christian churches as well the Portuguese clergy. The synod was headed by the then Archbishop of Goa, Alexio De Menezis. The goal and outcomes of the synod was to Latinize the churches, liturgy, and social aspects of the native Christians. By this point the Portuguese clergy had deemed the native Christians as heretics for following the East Syriac liturgical tradition and sought to forcefully impose Latin Catholicism upon them. The Synod of Diamper did exactly this and brought all the native churches under the authority of the Archdiocese of Goa (a 16th century Latin Catholic diocese established by the Portuguese).
The Portuguese clergy had also spread a terrible lie to the Native Christians. In a prelude to the synod, they had asked the Christians to bring all of their existing documents and texts about their history as well as Syriac heritage and religion to the synod because they had claimed an urge to “learn” about the St. Thomas Christians. This was however a blatant lie. As the native Christians compiled and gathered all of their existing documents and presented them to the synod, the Portuguese officials then preceded to burn each and every single document brought before them. With this single act, centuries of Nasrani history and heritage was destroyed. A scribe that was present at this event noted that the native Christians wept and fell to floor in anguish as their heritage was desecrated before their eyes. It is for this reason that in the modern age, there are so few sources in existence about pre-colonial Christian India. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 notes the following about this event:
“The only case in which an ancient Eastern rite has been wilfully romanized is that of the Malabar Christians, where it was not Roman authority but the misguided zeal of Alexius de Menezes, Archbishop of Goa, and his Portuguese advisers at the Synod of Diamper (1599) which spoiled the old Malabar Rite.”
After this event, the native Christians and the Portuguese officials would descend into a relationship of turbulence. An example of this is seen in the following citation from Latin Archbishop Stephen Brito in 1634 who notes the following,
"At the moment we are just hovering, and the fathers cannot go on missions because with these revolts the door remains closed for us to go among the Christians as all have sworn not to communicate with us even in spiritual matters."
• Archbishop Stephen Brito. (1634). Letter of Archbishop Stephen Brito. ARSI Goa 18. FF 143-144.
For centuries the Syrian Christians were generally governed by a native hierarch who held the title of archdeacon. Though Syriac bishops would arrive from time to time, there were events of hiatus, where the Thomas Christians had no bishop. For this reason the archdeacon held the real authority over the community. During the later 17th century, this title was held by Archdeacon Thoma Parambil who was regularly at odds with the Portuguese officials.
The relationship between the Portuguese and the Native Christians met a breaking point when a Syriac Orthodox bishop by the name of Mor Ahatallah had arrived in Kerala in 1652. Knowing of the influence Mor Ahatallah would have on the Thomas Christians, the Portuguese had imprisoned and shipped Mor Ahatallah off to their settlement in Goa after which point he was sent to Rome to have his “credentials” verified. During this time, Archdeacon Thomas and the militia of the native Christians had arrived to the Portuguese settlement in Cochin, Kerala and demanded to meet with Mor Ahatallah. Telling Thomas that Mor Ahatallah had already been sent off to Goa, the Portuguese informed the Archdeacon that no bishop could be allowed except for those authorized by the Portuguese.
This was in fact the breaking point in the relationship between the Thomas Christians and the Portuguese. Rumors were spread that the Portuguese had drowned Mor Ahatallah in the harbor of Cochin which raised the ire of the natives. No longer willing to accept the Portuguese hegemony over their church and community, the Thomas Christians met at St. Mary’s Church Mattancherry and undertook the Koonan Kurishu Satyam (Leaning Cross Oath) in 1653. The Christians had tied a rope to the large stone cross outside of the church and holding this rope swore to no longer adhere to the Latin Catholics.
After this point, the Knanaya priest Anjilimootil Ittythommen is noted to have solidified the schism of the Thomas Christians from the Latin Chuch. Being a senior priest and skilled Syriac writer, it is noted that Ittythommen produced letters from Mor Ahatallah which stated that in the absence of a bishop, twelve priests could lay their hands on an elected candidate and ordain him as their new hierarch. It is noted that these letters were possibly forged by Ittythommen himself who was largely against Portuguese rule. However there is contention among contemporary St. Thomas Christian churches as to whether or not these letters were fake, with some scholars stating they were forged and others saying only a few were forged and some letters were in fact authentic.
Nonetheless the St. Thomas Christians were overjoyed in the prospect of finally having a native hierarch ordained. Still in mass rebellion against the Portuguese, 12 priests among Thomas Christians placed the supposed letters from Mor Ahatallah and their hands upon the head of Archdeacon Thoma and ordained him as the first native bishop of India. Archdeacon Thoma, now taking the ecclesial name of Mar Thoma I (Lord Thomas the First) would now rule his community in rebellion.
However this unity against Portuguese hegemony would not last. Hearing of the distressful situation in Malabar, Pope Alexander VII would send Bishop Joseph Maria Sebastiani along with clergy from the Carmelite order to regain the trust of the St. Thomas Christians. Though unwilling at first, the native Christians were persuaded to rejoin the Catholic communion by the promise of a native Catholic hierarch. This was solidified in the form of Palliveetil Mar Chandy, a native priest and cousin of Mar Thoma I. The Knanaya tharakan (tax collector) Pachikara Punnoose of Chunkom allied himself and the majority of his community with Mar Chandy and thus the Syrian Christians were now evenly divided into those who supported Mar Thoma and those who supported Mar Chandy.
With the consecration of Mar Chandy as a Catholic in 1663, the Latin Catholic Church had won back the support of the majority of the St. Thomas Christians. Out of the 113 churches of the community, 84 now stood with Mar Chandy and 32 with Mar Thoma. Those who remained with Mar Thoma would eventually form a connection with the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch who sent bishop Mor Gregorios Abdal Jaleel of Jerusalem to administer to the 32 churches in 1665. The arrival of Mor Gregorios would introduced the West Syriac Rite and the Syriac Orthodox tradition to India (though it is probable that the West Syriac tradition existed in Kerala before the Portuguese Era) . The 84 churches that stood with Mar Chandy were allowed to retain the East Syriac Rite but a highly latinized version of the same.
This event would forever splinter the Syrian Christians into two church factions: The Syrian Catholics or the descendants of the 84 churches who would form the bulk of the modern Syro Malabar Catholic Church and the Syrian Orthodox or the descendants of the 32 churches who would splinter in mainly five different churches: Malankara Syrian Orthodox, Jacobite Syrian Orthodox (Syriac Orthodox Church in Kerala), Marthoma Syrian Church (Reformed Syrian Church) Thozhiyoor Sabha (Independent Orthodox), and the Syro Malankara Catholic Church who reunited with Rome in 1930.
In the contemporary age, the Synod of Diamper and the events surrounding Nasrani history in the 16th-18th century remain large areas of contention for the Syrian Catholics and the Syrian Orthodox with scholars on either side debating the specifics and technicalities of these mentioned events, often promoting certain instances to show the superiority or canonical/apostolic valdiity of either faction.
At the end of the day, the division of the Nasrani remains a tragic event in the history of Kerala which without doubt can reflect the "divide and conquer" strategies used during the colonial era by European powers.
Bibliography:
• Archbishop Francisco Ros. 1604. MS.ADD. 9853.
• Baum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 0-415-29770-2.
• Frykenberg, Robert Eric (2008). Christianity in India: from Beginnings to the Present. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-826377-7.
• Fr. Antonio Monserratte. 1579. Published in Documenta Indica XI by Fr. John Wiki (1970).
• Neill, Stephen (2004). A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-54885-3.

"If you get a poisonous snake, it often means that there was a problem with the formatting of your bibliography."

The British banning of Sri Lankan martial art angampora | historical fact or post-colonial myth?

The claim
In 2019, a video circulated widely on social media, making the claim “A ban prohibiting the practice of the ancient Sri Lankan martial art Angampora has been lifted. Fighters will now be able to openly practise their art for the first time since 1817”.
The video’s claim appears to be supported by Wikipedia’s article on Angampora, which says “The British, who occupied the whole island by 1815 (and who had full control of it by 1818) issued a gazette banning the practice in 1817 with harsh punishments for flouters, paving the way to its decline. This was because the British forces found it difficult to face the Sri Lankan revolutionaries who were practitioners of this art”.
However, the only reference provided in support of this claim is a link to a non-scholarly newspaper article which does not cite any sources. Although the source cited in the Wikipedia article refers to a British “gazette” banning Angampora in 1817, this news article dates the ban to 1818. The discrepancy is minor, but the lack of detail encourages further investigation. Meanwhile, an Sri Lankan blog article on a different site says Angampora was used successfully in an uprising in 1818, and was then banned by a British gazette in 1827.
According to one Sri Lankan news source, Air Marshall Kapila Jayampathy (Commander of Sri Lanka Air Force), recently requested the president of Sri Lanka to lift the ban on angampora, to which the president agreed. The Sri Lankan government website has made note of this, also making the claim of a ban on angampora in 1818. This would seem to give credence to the claim that the martial art was banned, and that it was banned in 1818.
There is clearly a long standing belief that the British banned angampora in the nineteenth century, but exact date and circumstances under which this took place are obviously inconsistently reported. The years 1817, 1818, and 1827 have all been cited, with the Sri Lankan government itself regarding 1818 as the correct date.
This post is eight pages long. If you'd rather watch a video of this content, go here.
Commentary in scholarly literature
Detailed references to this ban are not easy to find in academic literature. However, in 2017, an article by Edvard Šefer in the journal of Physical Culture and Sport, Studies and Research, made the claim in a more scholarly context. Šefer is a self-described engineer with a masters degree in engineering, who also wrote a PhD thesis on bunkai, the analysis and practical application of kata, the training exercises used in karate and other Japanese martial arts. Sefer’s article makes this claim.

After the British occupied the whole island of Sri Lanka in 1815, they banned the practice of Angampora in 1817. They burned down all of the practice huts they found and shot anybody found practicing this art in the knee.", Edvard Šefer, “The Purpose of Kata: When, Why, and for Whom Kata Forms Have Occurred in Okinawa,” Physical Culture and Sport, Studies and Research 76.1 (2017): 60

However, Šefer does not cite any sources for this claim, and his article’s bibliography does not reference any works at all on Angampora.
Commentary in historical sources
The Sri Lankan blog Tales of Ceylon dates the ban a year later, to 1818, and provides additional information, claiming it was enacted by British Governor Robert Brownrigg.

British Governor Robert Brownrigg realized the threat posed by Angam combat techniques, and issued a decree to ban Angampora. Those who defied the ban were punished, with some practitioners being shot in the knees to prevent them from passing on Angampora to younger generations.

This provides a useful historical lead to follow. Brownrigg oversaw the suppression of various rebellions in Sri Lanka (called Ceylon at the time), and his tenure as governor of Ceylon is well documented. Additionally, he is known specifically for a proclamation he made in the Ceylon Government Gazette number 851 on the first of January 1818, in which he declared nineteen Sri Lankans as criminals for their involvement in the Uva Wellassa Great Rebellion of 1817–1818.
Brownrigg’s suppression of the rebellion was brutal, and in the province of Uva all males over the age of 18 were murdered. Several British historical sources document the rebellion and its suppression, and Brownrigg’s proclamation in the Ceylon Government Gazette of 1818 is cited and quoted.

John Davy, An Account of the Interior of Ceylon and of Its Inhabitants: With Travels In That Island From 1816 To 1820. With Notes On Geography, Castes, Religion, Government, Crafts, Music And History (Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821)
Charles Pridham, An Historical, Political, and Statistical Account of Ceylon and Its Dependencies (T. and W. Boone, 1849)
Herbert White, Manual of the Province of Uva (H. C. Cottle, 1893)

However, none of these sources say anything about Brownrigg banning angampora.
The historical website “A Peoples’ History 1793 – 1844 from the newspapers”, contains a wealth of historical newspaper articles from all over the world. Of particular use in this case, is its extensive quotation from the Ceylon Government Gazette. Although the Gazette issues for 1816 and 1817 are missing, the website quotes the Gazette’s commentary on the rebellion in 1818.
This source is particularly useful since it quotes from the Gazette issues of several months in 1818. Since the record is incomplete, it is not possible to check every issue for every month in 1818, to see if there was a proclamation banning angampora. Consequently, the fact that angampora is not mentioned in any of the Gazette records quoted for 1818 is not conclusive evidence against the idea that Brownrigg issued a Gazette proclamation banning it. Nevertheless, the information it does provide, certainly makes it unlikely that the British banned angampora because they felt threatened by this martial art.
The proclamation for the 14th of February describes the difficulties the British army has in fighting against the provincial leader of the rebellion. However, it makes no mention of any danger from martial arts, saying instead “Our army is acting against him but the terrain is unsuitable for artillery and he moves more quickly than we can”. [1]
The proclamation for the 18th of April is even more significant. This time it notes “The difficulty is that the rebels have the support of the people”, and indicates that the British forces are heavily outnumbered, before going on to say “Fortunately they are not skilled in war and use spears and arrows to fight against us. Only a few of our chaps have been hurt”. [2]
This is important for three reasons. Firstly, if angampora was so dangerous to the British army that they felt the need to ban it after the rebellion, it is highly surprising that it is never cited as a threat even when they specifically describe difficulties encountered when fighting the Sri Lankans.
Secondly, the fact that the proclamation says explicitly that the Sri Lankan forces “use spears and arrows to fight against us” suggests that angampora was used, but that the British simply didn’t even take notice of it specifically. Strictly speaking, the term angampora refers specifically to a form of unarmed combat, with other terms used to describe the Sri Lankan forms of combat with weapons, but angampora is also used as an umbrella term for both the traditional Sri Lankan unarmed martial art, and for the forms of martial art which incorporated various weapons, such as staves, daggers, swords, spears and a special kind of metal whip. It is certainly clear that if the Sri Lankans were using angampora the British either didn’t realise they were being confronted by a deadly martial art, or didn’t consider it sufficiently significant to even mention. This certainly contradicts the idea that they saw it as particularly dangerous.
Thirdly, the fact that the record indicates the British considered the Sri Lankans weapons to be an insignificant threat, resulting in few casualties, makes it unlikely that the British felt in any way threatened by Sri Lankan soldiers using angampora, either with or without weapons. In fact the record is particularly dismissive of the Sri Lankan soldiers, saying “they are not skilled in war”. This is quite the opposite of the language we would expect if the British felt threatened by angampora.
On the 21st of November 1818, Brownrigg issued a lengthy proclamation of 12 pages, containing 56 detailed clauses describing various laws to be enacted in response to the rebellion. However, there is no mention of angampora at all. [3]
Other sources
Curiously, it’s extremely difficult to find any detailed and well referenced information on this ban in published books, or scholarly articles. Additionally, it seems there are very few independent sources, with most copying the same phrasing found in numerous online articles.
The earliest online reference to the ban seems to be an electronic reproduction of an article from the Sri Lankan Daily Mirror’s ‘Sports Weekly’ magazine. The original article was published on the 17th of September 2004, and was posted on the website livingheritage.org on the 4th of November 2004.
The article contains the basic information found in numerous sources which date after 2004, claiming the British banned angampora in 1817 after a rebellion, and anyone breaking the ban was shot below the knee. Not only does this seem to be the earliest online reference to the ban, it also seems to be the earliest reference to the penalty of being shot below the knee, which is found in subsequent sources.
Additional historical information
Thus far, the meme seems to be historically unsubstantiated, if not actually debunked. However, it does seem strange that it is so widely disseminated, and even though the details differ in various aspects from source to source, there does seem to be a reasonably consistent agreement that angampora was banned by the British during 1817 or 1818, under the governorship of Robert Brownrigg. Consequently, although historical evidence for the ban is lacking, it still has the appearance of being based on some kind of historical event.
On the 10th of March 2019, an article in the Sri Lankan Sunday Observer presented a typical summary of the account of the angampora ban, dating it to 1818 as a response to the Uva-Wellessa rebellion, attributing it to Governor Robert Brownrigg, claiming it was because “angampora managed to inflict pain and death on the invading British”, and repeating the assertion that practitioners were shot in the knee.
Interestingly, this article drew a response from another writer casting doubt on angampora's supposed "5,000 years of combat tradition", arguing angampora could not possibly be this old, and presenting evidence that angampora was not an indigenous Sri Lankan martial art, but an imported skill from South India. As might be expected, this article was accompanied by lengthy heated discussion in the comments section. While this article did not comment on the supposed British ban of angampora, it did demonstrate that some of angampora's historical claims were vulnerable to historical scrutiny.
However, the original article being criticized provided some additional information which isn’t part of the usual story, claiming that instead of being eradicated, angampora continued to be taught secretly, “by two main clans Sudaliya and Maruwalliya”. This provided another lead to follow.
Alleged evidence for the ban in a historical document
Following up this reference to the two clans leads to an article published on the 19th of June 2008, by photographer and film producer Reza Akram, on the website behance.net. Akram repeats the claim that angampora “was outlawed and systematically driven to decline after 1818 (exactly 200 years ago) by the British”.
Most importantly Akram’s article includes a photograph of a historical document which he describes as containing the actual text of the ban. Under this photo he attributes the ban to Governor Robert Brownrigg, and states explicitly that it was directed against “the Sudaliya and Maruwaliya Angam lineages who were responsible for training the King’s armies”.

"The British decree (pictured) to ban Angampora came in the wake of the Uva-Wellassa freedom fight in 1818. The freedom fight was headed by noblemen such as Monaravila Keppetipola and other noblemen who were distinguished Angampora warriors. The order by Governor Robert Brownrigg was executed by John D’Oyly, effectively cracking down on the Sudaliya and Maruwaliya Angam lineages who were responsible for training the King's armies. This decree signalled the rapid decline of Angampora over the following decades. This document is presently held at the National Archives in Kew, London.", Reza Akram, “ANGAMPORA: The Deadly Ancient Legacy of Sri Lanka,” Behance, 19 June 2018

Finally we have a historical document relevant to the claim of the ban on Angampora. However, a close reading of the document reveals that it does not match Akram’s claim directly. The document is a nineteenth century text, handwritten in a cursive style, but the size of the image makes it quite readable. The relevant section of the text is here.

That the office of Sudalyua Mohandiram and Mawrwaleya Mohandiram * are unnecessary and may be abolished, the People of those Departments being assigned to the Naha Wasame –
* Chiefs of Gladiators

In the text there is an asterisk beside the names of the offices, and a marginal note clarifies that these are “Chiefs of Gladiators”. This is a remarkably short statement for a supposedly influential ban on angampora. Additionally, it doesn’t even mention angampora, nor does it say angampora is banned, nor does it mention any penalty for teaching angampora.
Akram’s description of this text is at least partially correct. He says “The order by Governor Robert Brownrigg was executed by John D'Oyly, effectively cracking down on the Sudaliya and Maruwaliya Angam lineages who were responsible for training the King’s armies”.
However, what does this actually mean? How does Akram derive a ban on angampora from this text? The answer lies in the meaning of the marginal note, which clarifies that the two offices which are to be abolished are the “Chiefs of Gladiators”. Akram notes that these are also references to two different clans which taught angampora. He has concluded from this text that the Governor Brownrigg’s abolition of the officers of these two clan leaders, who were Chiefs of Gladiators, constitutes a ban on angampora. But to what extent is this a valid conclusion?
The position of Mohandiram, typically written today in English as Muhandiram, was actually introduced by the Portuguese, during their colonization of Ceylon in the seventeenth century. These positions were granted to the leaders of tribes and clans, making them responsible for certain administrative functions. By the time of the British occupation of Ceylon in the nineteenth century, this system was very well established, and was consequently adopted by the British colonial government.
So what does the document mean when it says the Sudaliya Muhandiram and Maruwaliya Muhandiram were Chiefs of Gladiators, and that their positions would now be abolished? The term Chiefs of Gladiators indicates that the men in these two positions, from two different clans, were responsible for training Sri Lankan soldiers. Akram rightly says that they would have been responsible for training them specifically in the art of angampora. From this, Akram derives the conclusion that the British abolition of these two positions was a complete ban on anyone being taught angampora. We might object that the text doesn’t actually talk about such an absolute ban, but it does seem Akram is on reasonably firm ground to infer that this was the intention of the abolition of these two positions.
This seems like a reasonable conclusion, but it is contradicted by two lines of historical evidence. Ironically, one of them is in the very document Akram cites. Let’s look at it again.

That the office of Sudalyua Mohandiram and Mawrwaleya Mohandiram * are unnecessary and may be abolished, the People of those Departments being assigned to the Naha Wasame –
* Chiefs of Gladiators

It clearly says that the positions of the Chiefs of Gladiators would be abolished, but it also says “the People of those Departments being assigned to the Naha Wasame”. So these Chiefs of Gladiators were indeed administrative officials, equivalent to heads of departments, and although their positions are being abolished, the people under them are simply being re-assigned to a different department. There is no hint that the people assisting these two officials are also being disbanded or their work abolished.
Still, we could infer that the transfer of the staff under these officials was intended to stamp out the teaching of angampora. However, in the very next paragraph of the document, we find evidence against this. The next paragraph contains almost identical wording, saying “That the office of Kottalbade Nilame is unnecessary and may be abolished, the People of that Department remaining under the orders of their Headman only and of the Revenue Agent”.

That the office of Kottalbade Nilame * is unnecessary and may be abolished, the People of that Department remaining under the orders of their Headman only and of the Revenue Agent -
* Chief of Artificers

In this case there is an asterisk beside the title Kottalbade Nilame, and a marginal note explains that this position is “Chief of Artificers”. This was the officer in charge of the palace craftsmen. Again, it is noteworthy that although this administrative position is being abolished, the text states explicitly that the department of craftsmen itself, and all the people working under it, will continue to work under the leadership of their clan headmen and the Revenue Agent, who was possibly British.
This is significant, because although the palace craftsmen were mainly carpenters, painters, stone masons, and jewelers, a number of them were blacksmiths and other metal workers who were specifically responsible for making traditional Sri Lankan weapons, as well as modern British firearms. Clearly the British saw no danger in allowing the palace craftsmen to continue their work of making weapons, and the only change made was the abolition of an administrative appointment resulting in a slight change of leadership. For the palace craftsmen, only the head of their department was changed, while their regular work continued.
From this it is clear that the document cited by Reza Akram is not speaking of any ban on angampora, but of mundane governmental and administrative changes which typically involved streamlining departments by abolishing unnecessary leaders, and shuffling staff.
Another historical source
There is additional historical information indicating that Akram’s interpretation of this document is inaccurate. In a book published in 1821, entitled “An Account of the Interior of Ceylon and of Its Inhabitants”, English chemist John Davy, brother of the much more famous chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, wrote a historical account of the history of Ceylon, as it was then called, while he was stationed there as a member of the army’s medical staff, from 1816 to 1820. Consequently, he was both an eyewitness and historian of the events of the Uva-Wallessa uprising, its brutal suppression by the British, and the various government proclamations and rulings which were enacted subsequently.
Very importantly, Davy identifies the role of these Chiefs of Gladiators, explains their historical function, and describes the actual reason for their abolition. The relevant information is found in a chapter entitled Old Form of Government, in which he describes the changes of government enforced by the British after the suppression of the Uva-Wallessa uprising.
On page 138 he starts a list of “Officers of the Palace”. Within this long list, on page 139, he lists the Sudaliya Muhandiram and Maruwaliya Muhandiram as positions which existed as Officers of the Palace under the old form of government.

OLD FORM OF GOVERNMENT.
Koonam -madoowe lekam mahatmeya.
Soodalia mohandiram nilami.
Mawroowaliye mohandiram nilami. [4]

This is extremely significant. It reveals that these two Chiefs of Gladiators were in fact only responsible for training the soldiers at the royal palace. They were not the only teachers of angampora, and they actually only taught a small number of soldiers. Very usefully, Davy’s historical account explains why they were called the Chiefs of Gladiators. On pages 155 and 156, he explains that the terms Sudaliya and Maruwaliya refer to ethnic or clan divisions within the Sri Lankan people themselves, adding that these two Chiefs of Gladiators both “commanded a class of fencers; one called Sudaliya and the other Mawruwalia”.

"The Soodalia mohandiram nilami, and Mawroowalia mohan diram nilami, each commanded a class of fencers; one called Soodalia, and the other Mawroowalia , terms, the meaning of which I could not ascertain, and which were also applied to the people generally, the whole country having been formerly divided between the two parties." [5]

This confirms that these Chiefs of Gladiators were only responsible for training angampora warriors in the palace. Additionally, Davy provides an explanation for the use of the term “gladiators”. The actual role of the Chiefs of Gladiators was to train soldiers in the art of angampora, in order to fight with each other in single combat, for the entertainment of the king and his court.
Davy says “their engagements were single combats, either with the fist, or with sword and shield, or with clubs”, adding “Formerly they exhibited before the court like gladiators, endeavouring to draw blood and inflict wounds”. [6] So these Chiefs of Gladiators were only training Sri Lankan soldiers in angampora for the benefit of the king and his court. They were not training men for the army, nor were they training the average civilian. Consequently, the abolition of their position only affected the king and his court.
Most importantly, Davy provides the reason why the Chiefs of Gladiators were abolished. It was because the British government decided to end the custom of angampora warriors fighting for the entertainment of the royalty and social elites at the palace, since it led to fights between the two clans led by the two opposing Chiefs of Gladiators. Davy writes “The bloody combat was discontinued, as it gave rise to serious quarrels and feuds amongst the people”. [7]
It is now clear why the Chiefs of Gladiators were abolished. It was not because the British feared the danger of angampora as a martial art; in fact there is no evidence that they even identified it as a specific martial tradition. Nor was it because the British feared the danger of a Sri Lankan army well trained in angampora; in fact their casual dismissal of the weapons of the Sri Lankan warriors makes it clear they considered them an insignificant threat. It was explicitly because the gladiatorial style combat between two warriors of opposing clans, repeatedly caused civil unrest and fighting between those clans.
So Reza Akram’s interpretation of the historical document he cites, is inaccurate. The document does not contain any reference to a ban on angampora, and the abolition of administrative positions it does describe, was intended to affect, very specifically, the gladiatorial combat which took place at the palace. There is no evidence that it was ever intended to constitute or encourage a general ban on angampora, which is not even mentioned in the text. Significantly, there is no mention of any penalty for anyone teaching angampora, and certainly no mention of a threat of being shot in the knee for attempting to learn it.
One additional item of information provided by Davy’s historical record, is completely incompatible with the claim that angampora was banned in 1818. After explaining the reason for the abolition of the gladiatorial combat at the palace, Davy makes it clear that on both the Sudaliya and Maruwaliya sides, other teachers of angampora existed all through the country. He writes “Of each set of fencers {that is, on both the Sudaliya and Maruwaliya sides} there were ten maitres d’armes in different parts of the country to give lessons to all who wished to learn their art”. [8]
So even after the positions of the Chiefs of Gladiators were abolished, there were still plenty of angampora masters all through the country, continuing to teach the art to anyone interested. Davy never mentions any kind of restriction on this teaching, nor any penalties inflicted for people seeking to learn it.
Conclusion
It appears there is no historical support for the claim that angampora was ever banned by the British. Perhaps there is some evidence, somewhere, but it is remarkable that virtually no source making the claim ever provides any evidence for it, and it is even more remarkable that the only historical document which is cited as evidence, does not support this interpretation.
The claims of a vicious crackdown involving the deliberate laming of practitioners by shooting them in the knee, and British fears of angampora as a lethal martial art which inflicted serious casualties on their soldiers, are definitely unsubstantiated. Given that the British are on record as having murdered all males over the age of 18 in their suppression of the Uva-Wallessa uprising, a fact attested to by multiple historical sources, including British records, it is curious that there seems to be no historical evidence for the far milder punishment of a bullet in the knee.
So how did this story even get started? Well, the case of the mysterious ban on angampora is not unique. Historically, nationalist groups seeking to revive interest in ethnic heritage and raise patriotic fervor, have made false claims of colonial era bans or restrictions on cultural practices. As an example, the claim that the British banned, persecuted, and even executed Indian practitioners of yoga, is not historically accurate but has had the effect of raising awareness of yoga and encouraging more people to participate in it, while also firing up national pride.
The sudden appearance of references to this ban in 2004, followed by its ceremonial removal by the government in 2019, suggests strongly (if not conclusively), that this entire story was based on a misunderstanding of a historical source, which was later amplified by nationalistic fervor and an over-enthusiastic attempt to reconstruct and revive and ancient cultural practice.
In many ways this is a typical chapter in the history of post-colonial nations. It is also a very typical event in the process of de-colonization, which often involves reconstructing or simply re-inventing, national and cultural history to serve the new needs and goals of contemporary people.

American Tribalism: How the Fringes Control Our Democracy

“Domestic divisions are the greatest threat to our national security.” -Susan Rice.
Note: My apologies if I at times engage in “both-sides-ism” in this post, it was meant for a more general audience than NeoLiberal and often times that is the best way to make a point about tribalism to mixed (and tribal) audience. Additionally, I am not highly familiar with Reddit formatting and as such some things might look peculiar. Thank you for reading.
Identity with a political tribe has taken supreme precedence over matters such as ideology. Blind allegiance is rewarded, not independence, thoughtful consideration, or compromise. Dissent has lost much of its political prestige, the respect, if begrudging, for those “profiles in courage” has largely evaporated. Courageous senators of a time not long past were once applauded for their courage, if not their action (Wayne Morse on the Gulf of Tonkin, James Buckley on Watergate, Charles Goodell on Vietnam, or Howard Baker on the Panama Canal)a When we do see courageous political dissent (e.g from John McCain on the Affordable Care Act or Joe Manchin on the nomination of Justice Kavanaugh), its emissaries are greeted with only contempt. The descent of politics into a conflict between groups held in near religious reverence by their followers is antithetical to democracy itself and seems to absolve its participants from the basic rigors of civility. Civil disagreement is trumped by a hatred reminiscent of that between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. From Jesse Helms, Newt Gingrich, or the “Tea Party” on the right to Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and the “Justice Democrats” of the left, polarization has grown steadily worse.
These partisan tribes develop norms that are then used as the standards for partisan to be conforming group members. As people identify with a group more strongly, they conform to these tribal norms to appear as “good” members of their tribe, and those who do not conform to the tribal norms are targeted by the extremists within the tribe through systems such as primaries. For instance, Republican Representative Bob Inglis of South Carolina lost a 2010 primary to Trey Gowdy by 40 points despite having a 93% rating from the American Conservative Union due to Inglis’s support of climate legislation, a post recession bailout, and his opposition to the 2007 troop surge in Iraq. Even dissent as minor as Representative Inglis’s can trigger a tribal reaction from the group. Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler campaigns extensively on her voting record of siding with President Trump on 100% of votes, in my view it is a sad reflection on the state of our political process if an absolute lack of dissent is applauded by one’s supporters.
In 2016 researchers assembled 1,178 Washingtonians for a study on how partisanship affected their perception of a ballot measure that would institute a carbon tax. The group was divided evenly between Republicans and Democrats; those groups were further divided into a groups viewing Republican endorsements of the policy and Democratic opposition, and a group viewing Republican opposers to the policy and Democratic endorsers. While Republicans continually opposed the policy, they were much more prone to supporting it when told that famous Republicans such as George Shultz (An advisor to the Eisenhower Administration, Nixon’s Secretary of Labor and the Treasury, and finally Reagan’s Secretary of State) had endorsed the policy. This gap was only more pronounced among the well educated in these groups. Global warming is an existential threat to humanity itself, yet our views on it are largely informed due to partisan biases as opposed to scientific fact.
The Media’s Role:
The Soviet Union’s propaganda newspaper was entitled Pravda, Russian for truth, so too does Fox News’ motto of “Fair and Balanced” disguise propaganda and an impartiality taken seriously by few. Politics is not a sport, to create policy and build a united nation compromise is second only to the understanding of other’s beliefs. Media-be it from the right or left-portrays political happenings as a conflict between two teams, with a “win” being valued over the nation’s wellbeing, and, as the saying goes, perception often becomes reality. The facile portrayal of politics as a sport in news has led political discourse to increasingly adopt these characteristics. Media gains views through sensationalism and the portrayal of politics as a horse race, but in doing so it preys on our divisions and often provides a platform to those such as climate change deniers or other conspiracy theorists who normally would be shut from the arena of mainstream political belief. As Carlton University professor Jim Davies explains, “everything about the news—from the dramatic headlines to the riveting background music to the colors on the screen (lots of red, which experts agree is one of, if not the most, emotionally charged color)—is engineered to prey on our hardwired impulses to pay attention to what seems exciting and important. The manner in which the news is presented—be it on television or the social feeds on our phone—often triggers the release of dopamine, a powerful neurochemical that tags experiences as meaningful and makes us want to seek them over and over again.”
The national motto of the United States is “E Pluribus Unum” or “Out of Many, One”. Humans are naturally tribal creatures, but our founders understood that democracy requires us to embrace pluralism and unite our many tribes into one united nation. Social media is in diametric opposition to these principles, sorting us into tribal echo chambers by way of clandestine algorithms that dehumanize our opposition and do no more than confirm our biases. Social media has also opened the door to foreign interference in our elections and the inflammation of our tribal instincts by way of Russian, Chinese, or Iranian propaganda. Foreign disinformation now colors our view of our fellow Americans and of our democratic processes themselves. Anti-democratic actors such as Father Coughlinb harnessed the new technology of radio to fan the flames of fascism, but today we are faced with thousands of Fathers Coughlin spreading disinformation not in weekly radio broadcasts, but in a never-ending firehose of social media extremism that pushes our society deeper into division. Tom Wheeler of the Brooking’s Institution put it well; “digital technology is gnawing at the core of democracy by dividing us into tribes and devaluing truth.”
The Importance of Interaction:
I would argue that the best way to stymie hateful tribalism in the media is not to legislation, but often very minor actions taken by us. I would argue two primary actions should be taken; firstly, one should view media from across the political spectrum; secondly, one should engage in discussion with those you disagree with. As Zachary Wood explained in a “Ted Talk”, “tuning out opposing viewpoints doesn't make them go away, because millions of people agree with them. In order to understand the potential of society to progress forward, we need to understand the counterforces.” People increasingly do not interact with ideas they oppose, and in doing so they lose an understanding of those ideas and come to regard their opponents as what is known as “strawmen”, as Krysta Scripter explains “Especially when we hold a strong opinion, it's increasingly less likely that we're talking [..] with anyone who disagrees.” Interaction with those we disagree with also fosters intellectual humility, defined by the Journal of Positive Psychology as “the ability to have an accurate view of one’s intellectual strengths and limitations and the ability to negotiate ideas in a fair and inoffensive manner. “ It has been shown that this intellectual humility can not only improve one’s learning abilities, but their social skills as well.
The engagement with other’s ideas also reinforces the ideal of pluralism, which is often considering an underpinning of democracy. Pluralism, defined by Oxford as “a condition or system in which two or more states, groups, principles, sources of authority, etc., coexist.”, allows for a democracy in which diverse ideas are expected to compete, if we cannot coexist with others, we cannot properly function as a democracy. For instance, Marwan Muasher, a Middle Eastern policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that a lack of pluralism has been a defining factor in the destabilization of many areas in the Middle East. By interacting with others, we are learning for ourselves while helping support the foundations of democracy.
System of the Fringes:
The factors contributing to partisanship can be traced to the very roots of our electoral systems themselves. Closed partisan primaries, gerrymandering, and our first past the post voting system collaborate to enable a vocal minority of extremists to hold final sway over our electoral process. Only a small percentage of eligible voters even bother to vote in primaries, and these are commonly the most extreme of the electorate. As former U.S Representative Mickey Edwards(R-OK) notes, only 8% of the total Alabama electorate voted for far-right Judge Roy Moore over incumbent Senator Luther Stranged in the 2017 Republican special election primary, and Strange was by all means more popular among the general electorate than Moore, yet it was Moore who advanced to the general election. In Nebraska’s Second Congressional District progressive Democrat Kara Eastman lost to Republican Don Bacon by 4.8% even as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden carried the district by nearly 6 points; Eastman’s moderate Democratic primary opponent Ann Ashford would have been very likely to win the seat. Candidates such as Moore or Eastman are able to win primaries, and thus advance to be one of two, or even the only, competitive candidate in a general election by appealing to small yet vocal aspects of the electorate. This issue goes all the way to the top; the mostly closed, low turnout 2016 Republican primary led to the rise of the unpopular Donald Trump. The Republican Party was moved into the position to facilitate the rise of Trump by its fringes controlling primaries for years beforehand. The bottom line is clear: primaries do not represent the electorate.
The second issue I would cite is gerrymandering, which is closely connected to the first. Gerrymandering, named for Vice President Elbridge Gerrye, is a practice in which legislatures draw legislative districts in such a way as to maximize the benefits of one political party; Gerrymandering has been a persistent issue throughout American history, but it has become more significant than ever as of late. Competitive elections are a cornerstone of democracy yet Gerrymandering reduces the value of elections while removing competition, allowing politicians to become increasingly radical without facing serious electoral hurdles. A study by Antoine Yoshinaka and Chad Murphy found that “members of the out-of-power party tended to have more drastic changes made to their districts as a way for the in-power party to insulate its members”. For instance, as the Brenna Center for Justices notes that gerrymandering in Maryland removed Republican Roscoe Bartlett in 2012. Maryland’s gerrymandering also means that (relatively) far left Representatives such as Kweisi Mfume and (relatively) far right Representative Andy Harris are both consistently re-elected by large margins; ideally both districts would overlap with more significant support for the other party and ensure competitive elections. Furthermore, if congressional districts were drawn to ensure and encourage competition, the congressional balance would be taken out of the hands of a small number of voters in swing districts. Some would argue that this would allow parties to seize supermajorities, I would disagree as in a congressional map drawn to be as competitive as possible it is unlikely that any party would be able to win all of the competitive seats, and if this were to happen the party would have to have moved to the center enough that it would represent the majority will.
Thirdly, our “first past the post” voting system is flawed. The system allows for phenomena such as “vote splitting” and allows candidates to win with small shares of the vote, as low as under 30% in some primaries or 35% in general elections. This system allows candidates to succeed with wedges of the public and disempowers third parties. For instance, in 1974 former U.S Representative Ray Blanton won the Democratic primary with 22.7% of the vote, Blanton would defeat Republican Lamar Alexander in the general election but his single term as Governor would be marred by scandal and RealClearPolitics would name him one of the “Ten Most Corrupt Politicians” in American history, in the final days of his governorship, he would infamously pardon two dozen convicted murderers and 28 others in exchange for money. More recently, Donald Trump won the 2016 Republican Primary while regularly winning under 40% of the vote due to his divided opposition.
Great political leaders of the past-LBJ, Sam Rayburn, Howard Baker, Bob Dolef-understood the importance of compromise, and only through that understanding were they able to achieve the legislative reforms they did, yet legislative leaders today stifle the legislative process and focus instead on their own interests, putting party above democracy. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell(R-KY) has long been known as a master of legislative obstruction not seen since the days of James Allen, while Representative Justin Amash has said of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (and every Speaker he has experienced-this is not unique to her) tactics “We have not been allowed to offer amendments on the House floor in more than four years. In effect, every bill we vote on is take it or leave it.”. That being said, there are still those who value compromise, such as Senator Diane Feinstein(D-CA) or retiring Senator Lamar Alexander(R-TN), but our legislative leaders, enabled by primaries and our voting system, largely stymie attempts at compromise.
A Framework for Unity:
The majority of Americans are exhausted with partisan tribalism. Most Americans are not far right or far left, yet both sides maintain caricatures of one another, and an increasing number of Americans confine themselves to partisan-not necessarily ideological-echo chambers that fail to provide them with the support for pluralism and understanding of opposing views that is critical to democracy. I argue that three crucial electoral reforms should be instituted, a commission to end gerrymandering, a blanket primary, and ranked choice voting. States have consistently altered their primary systems since Robert La Follette popularized the idea in the early 1900s, one, Indiana, went farther. Indiana was a hotbed of the Klux Klan during the organization’s second wave and officials as influential as the state’s Governor were members of the terrorist group. Members of the Klan were significantly more likely to vote in primaries than any other group and could seize control of the political system due to their high turnout rates in these primaries, this led Indiana to largely do away with the primary system for local elections in 1928; they would not be restored until the mid 1970s. That being noted, I would not advocate for the abolition of primaries, instead I would argue for abolishing the partisan requirements tied to primaries. States such as Vermont allow one to choose whether to vote in the Republican or Democratic primaries in the state regardless of party affiliation, allowing independents and others into the fold and enabling the primary to be more representative.
That being said, some have gone farther and instituted the now largely forgotten “blanket primary”, which I would argue would be the best alternative. A blanket primary system allows voters to vote in any party’s primary for different offices, with the candidate with the best showing from each party advancing to the general election, : this system commonly produced consensus candidates. Washington and Alaska long maintained a “blanket primary” system, which contributed to both states being quite competitive, as liberal Republicans such as Daniel Evans won in the generally Democratic state of Washington. A blanket primary was adopted by California in the 1996, but the Supreme Court overruled decades of precedent in the 2001 decision California Democratic Party v. Jones and deemed the blanket primary unconstitutional. The reasoning in this decision, put forth by Justice Scalia in a 7-2 decisionh, was that parties can govern their own affairs; I would disagree and argue that this falls out of the scope of a “party affair” and would posit that it is an affair of the people and furthermore argue the decision was a violation of states’ rights. As Justice Stevens puts it in his dissent “A State's power to determine how its officials are to be elected is a quintessential attribute of sovereignty.”
Secondly how can gerrymandering be stymied, and how should we redraw the maps? I would suggest one of two solutions, either an algorithm or a nonpartisan committee to redistrict. I would argue congressional maps are best drawn in a manner that would ensure the highest number of competitive districts. FiveThirtyEight, a polling and analysis website ran by Nate Silver, recently released a series of 8 congressional maps gerrymandered in various ways, one of these is drawn to maximize competition. The maximized competition map includes 242 highly competitive districts, this ensures that one’s vote is likely to have a significant impact while ensuring that elections are not confined to several dozen congressional districts, practically disenfranchising large portions of the electorate. As David Daley of the electoral reform organization FairVote notes “If your goal is to reduce polarization, this system would reduce the oversized influence of partisan voters in low-turnout primaries, give moderate and independent voters more choices, and empower the broader electorate that turns out in November general elections”.
Finally, how we can reform our voting system itself. Several ideas have gained popularity, including approval voting (utilized in Bismarck, North Dakota), but by and large the most popular is ranked choice voting, Maine uses ranked choice voting in its elections, and Alaska recently approved a referendum to do so as well. Ranked choice voting would allow people to rank every candidate for an office in order of preference, candidates are eliminated in each round and their votes redistributed to their second choice until a candidate possesses a majority vote. The majority requirement ensures that candidates possess a true mandate for their policies: other effects of ranked choice voting include more moderate candidates as candidates are required to appeal to a larger segment of the electorate, less tribalism and a more civil political culture as candidates are competing for the second or third choice votes of those who may support another candidate as their first-choice vote, and the negation of the “spoiler effect”.
Opponents of ranked-choice voting make several arguments, well summarized in the Heritage Foundation piece “Ranked Choice Voting Is A Bad Choice” but the primary argument is the claim that in a ranked-choice system, one could vote for a candidate they greatly dislike, whom they ranked quite low. I would object vehemently to this argument. Firstly, one would never vote for the candidate they ranked last, and if one were not comfortable voting for multiple candidates they could leave them out of their rankings. Secondly, one will only vote for a candidate ranked low on their ballot if the election is down to that candidate and the candidate or candidates one has ranked lower. For example, if one were to have ranked every third-party presidential candidate above Joe Biden and Donald Trump in this election but still ranked Biden above Trump, their vote would have gone to their second least favored candidate, but only because the alternative was a candidate they favored even less. Our political system is in chaos, and technologies such as social media exacerbate these issues. Electoral reform and reforms to our manner of politics are, frankly, the only way we can escape this political quagmire for brighter pastures.
Footnotes:
a.. The four acts of “political courage” I reference here are as follows; Wayne Morse(D-OR) being one of two Senators to oppose the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; James Buckley(C-NY) being the first conservative Senator to call for the resignation of President Nixon; Appointed Senator Charles Goodell(R-NY) opposing the Vietnam War, an action which led to his defeat in the 1970 election, losing the support even of the Nixon White House; and Republican Senate Leader Howard Baker(R-TN) aiding President Carter with negotiations surrounding the Panama Canal, which may have cost him the 1980 Republican presidential nomination.
b. Father Charles Coughlin was a radio priest from the late 1930s and early 1940s infamous for his advocacy for, arguably, fascist policies and for sympathizing with the enemy during WWII, his weekly broadcasts attracted millions of listeners until he was removed from air early in WWII, although he continued to preside over his church until his death in the late 1970s.
c. The strawman fallacy is defined by Wikipedia as “a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the proper idea of argument under discussion was not addressed or properly refuted.”
d. I would note that Senator Strange was an appointed incumbent, but an incumbent nonetheless, and one who had demonstrated relative popularity with the general electorate in the past in other races.
e. Gerry was Governor of Massachusetts at the time of the redistricting, and in fairness to him, he was reluctant to support the redistricting bill. The term “gerrymander” comes from a political cartoon soon after the bill was passed.
f. LBJ refers to Lyndon Baines Johnson, I refer more so to his work as Senate Majority Leader from 1953-1960 than to his work in the Presidency. Sam Rayburn, the longest serving Speaker of the House in American history, was LBJ’s counterpart from 1953-1960 and served as Speaker until his death in 1961, both Texans, Rayburn was a significant influence on LBJ and in some ways served as a father figure. Howard Baker served as Republican Senate Leader from 1977-`985, the last four of those years at Majority Leader. Bob Dole served as Baker’s successor, both were influential legislators who valued bipartisanship. Dole himself would cite his work for progressive 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee George McGovern to end hunger as the work he is most proud of.
g. James “Jim” Allen served as a Senator from Alabama from 1969-1977 and was an infamous master of senate rules. Allen’s behavior almost single handedly led to the lowering of the filibuster threshold from 67 votes to 60, I would recommend Walter Mondales’s account of the matter, which may be found in his memoir, “The Good Fight”.
h. Justices Ginsburg and Stevens dissented.
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Amash, Justin. “We Have Not Been Allowed to Offer Amendments on the House Floor in More than Four Years. In Effect, Every Bill We Vote on Is Take It or Leave It.This Is Not Legislating.” Twitter, Twitter, 14 Oct. 2020, twitter.com/justinamash/status/1316417188836839424.
Stulberg, Brad. “Step Away from the 24-Hour News Cycle.”
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Fish, Greg. “How The Media Fuels Hyper-Partisanship By Treating Politics Like A Sport.” Rantt Media, Rantt Media, 29 June 2018, rantt.com/how-the-media-fuels-hyper-partisanship-by-treating-politics-like-a-sport.
Wood, Zachary R. “Why It's Worth Listening to People You Disagree With.” Why It's Worth Listening to People You Disagree With, by Unknown Yet, www.dailygood.org/story/2180/why-it-s-worth-listening-to-people-you-disagree-with/.
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John Gee's Last Stand

I haven't seen much discussion of something very noteworthy that Bill Reel dropped last week on his Facebook feed - scans of John Gee's final words as editor of the Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities (JSSEA). What Gee wrote in his remarks is not about apologetics directly, but the connection to his apologetic studies is obvious; in fact, I think it is apparent in Gee's final words that apologetics are his first priority. All that being said, I should probably confess that, although the repercussions for Gee's style of apologetics are obvious in these scans, the actual reason I enjoy this stuff is less about detached academic curiosity, and probably something closer to the reasons my wife watches The Bachelor.
The JSSEA is, as far as I can tell, a legitimate academic journal publishing in the field of Egyptology, based in Toronto. According to Gee's CV, he edited three volumes of this journal from 2008-2010. The final volume he edited (vol. 37) begins with some editorial remarks by Gee, an odd diatribe railing against the concept of peer review, titled "The Problem With Peer Review." Scan can be found here, but I am including a transcription:

The Problem with Peer Review
Peer review is supposed to be an unalloyed good, but anyone who thinks so cannot have spent much time in the process.
In theory peer review works as follows: A submission is received and the editor sends the submission without the name attached to one or more reviewers, each of whom is an expert in that subject. The reviewers independently recommend whether to accept the submission or suggest revisions. The reviewers do not know who wrote the paper and the author does not know who the reviewers are. If the paper does not pass muster, the editor is relieved of the responsibility of rejecting a friend's paper.
In practice, however, there are numerous problems with peer review.
Since Egyptology must cover four thousand years of human history and every facet of a complex civilization, Egyptologists must specialize of necessity. While the pool of Egyptologists is not very large, the number of peers in some specialized areas can in some cases be numbered on the fingers of one hand. In such small specialties, any reviewer who cannot figure out who the author is within a couple of minutes probably does not know enough to review the piece, and the same is true of an author who cannot discover who the reviewer is. If, as is true for some specialties, none of the specialists agree, it will simply not be possible to publish anything in a peer reviewed journal.
Peer review can be manipulated for malicious purposes. Examples from other disciplines have gained some notoriety. Under such circumstances, peer review can actually impede progress in a discipline as it prevents publication of new ideas, or correction of mistakes.
Because peer review is mostly anonymous and unremunerated work, there is no incentive for a peer reviewer to invest time or effort in it. As a result, some peer reviews are perfunctory without much thought or effort. I am aware of one papyrus published in an ostensibly peer-reviewed journal where the author cannot possibly have even read the papyrus he was publishing, but none of the reviewers even noticed showing that they cannot have read it either. This publication has been cited numerous times showing that none of the scholars citing the publication had bothered to read the papyrus either. This is clearly a failure of the review system.
As part of the peer review process, reviewers sometimes make suggestions to improve the article. These suggestions should improve the article. Sometimes, however, they do not improve the article. At other times they would have improved the article but the author has chosen to reject them.
Finally, one cannot edit a journal without stepping on various toes. I regret that I had to turn down many papers, including some written by friends. No personal slight was intended even if some was taken.
It is understandable why a freshly graduated student might be justifiably proud of themselves. It must be so wearisome to work with mere mortals. Mere mortals might not be overawed with a freshly graduated student's certifiable brilliance (just look at the diploma) and might actually make editorial suggestions or have the temerity to question the logic of the argument. I apologize to those who were offended at the prospect of working with mere mortals.
I am sorry for the inordinate delay in this issue. As one literary character expressed it, "I am afraid you have been long desiring my absence, nor have I any thing to plead in excuse of my stay."¹ When an editor can no longer bring the Journal in on time, it is time to leave. I wish Katja Goebs the best as she takes over the helm of the JSSEA...

Wow, that's... really something. While I'm sure that many of the imperfections of peer review he cites are real, it is nevertheless surprising to me that he would finish his editorship in an academic journal with a rant that seems to imply the academic community would be better off without it, not to mention a weirdly sarcastic tangent apparently directed at some student whose article he must have rejected. I am also curious about this alleged incident where someone published in "an ostensibly peer-reviewed journal where the author cannot possibly have even read the papyrus he was publishing," which he claims is a failure of the peer review system. RfM speculated this is a reference to Robert Ritner's 2000 article published in Dialogue titled, "The 'Breathing Permit of Hor' Thirty-four Years Later." The article is an update to Klaus Baer's original translation of the named papyrus. As the article notes in the introduction, Baer's initial work was based on photographs, and Ritner's own update is based on newer color photographs, since the church hadn't published an official volume yet, and since the church did not grant much outside access to the actual papyrus. Although the essay itself is tangential to any apologetics on the Book of Abraham, there is some criticism of Gee's arguments therein, mostly in the footnotes. After reading the rest of Gee's remarks in his journal, I am inclined to agree with RfM that this is probably what Gee is referring to.
So let's move on to Gee's next contribution to his final edited edition of this journal, a book review of The Libyan Anarchy: Inscriptions from Egypt's Third Intermediate Period by Robert Ritner. As many of us are aware, Ritner was once Gee's professor's, and there is a history between the two, much of it centered around Gee's apologetics on the Book of Abraham. The book being reviewed, however, apparently has nothing to do with the Book of Abraham. The scan of the review can be found here, but I will transcribe the text as well:

Robert K. Ritner, Jr., The Libyan Anarchy: Inscriptions from Egypt's Third Intermediate Period, [Writings of the Ancient World 21) (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009). ISBN-13: 978-1-58983-174-2. xx + 622 pp. $59.95.
For twenty years, the Society of Biblical Literature's series, Writings of the Ancient World has made available affordable and accurate translations of ancient texts that prove invaluable to students and professionals, especially ancient historians and biblical scholars who might not be proficient in the various languages. This book continues that series with translations of a number of texts from the Libyan period - the Egyptian time period contemporary with the bulk of the biblical narrative. Professor Ritner is generally a capable scholar, but has been known to badly misread the texts that he was proportedly (sic) publishing,²⁴ so his translations and particularly his transliterations need to be checked against the original glyphs. The work under consideration shows that still to be the case.
Professor Ritner translates nearly three hundred texts in his anthology but numbers them rather oddly so that it seems as though there are only about two hundred. Most Of this material is conveniently available in the more comprehensive work of Karl Jansen-Winkeln²⁵ and Olivier Perdu²⁶ neither of which does Ritner mention. Anyone who uses Ritner's work will want to have Jansen-Winkeln at his elbow. For example, Ritner's translation of the settlement text of Henuttawy (C) from the Tenth Pylon of Karnak (pp. 138-43) is missing significant portions of the text, which may be found in Jansen-Winkeln.²⁷
The translations are adequate. Hyper-Polotskian translations often leave the impression that the text has been translated but not into English. The translator seems to have avoided the worst excesses of the Polotskians but the translations are still often awkward and mechanical. "This is one of Ritner's few positive contributions to the field, one not written with the primary intent of attacking someone, and he seems thoroughly bored. It is disappointing that Ritner's considerable verbal gifts vanish when he is not writing vitriol.
Professor Ritner seems proud that his was the first Egyptological volume in the series Writings of the Ancient World to provide transliterations of the texts (p. 9). This would have been a real achievement if the transliterations were on the facing pages of the translations like those of the Other volumes of the series. Alas, such was not the case. Five pages of straight transliteration (pp. 88-92,349-53) followed by six or seven pages of translation (pp. 92-98, 353-58) becomes ludicrous besides useless. pinnacle is ten pages of straight transliteration (pp. 468-77). Think of the paper and ink wasted on pages that will scarcely be read! Without them the volume would have been much shorter, and probably significantly less expensive. Inclusion of the transliterations might have been helpful if the transliterations were accurate. Ritner's transliterations are generally an idealized view of the text as though they were written in the correct Middle Egyptian of a thousand years previously. But they were not, so the text in the transliteration often does not reflect what is written the hieroglyphs, and Ritner's transliterations suppress or distort numerous features of the contemporary language. Throughout the book brackets are so commonly misplaced that it is a wonder that they were included at all.
The poor formatting can at least be explained by noting that Professor Ritner simply dumped material on Bob Buller who tried to pull together "a coherent manuscript" out of the mess that Ritner gave him (p. 10). Buller has spent an enormous amount of work on this volume and the fact that it is as good as it is says much to Buller's credit. Buller should be exonerated for the continuous type-setting problems such as not placing the transliterations and translations on facing pages, or the ubiquitous breaks of lines in the middle of the words. Professor Ritner should have caught some of those. It was simply beyond Buller's skill to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear that he had been given.
The book appears in print a decade out of date. Only four works in the bibliography date after 1999. At one point, Ritner says that a book that came out five years before his did was too late to be considered (p. 193). Ritner only lists it as "Wilson 2005" but does not include it in the bibliography and so leaves follow-up impossible. Several times Ritner says that the "dimensions [are] not given" (pp. 66-67) even though they are in a book that he lists in his bibliography (p. 601) and published by the Oriental Institute where he works, but apparently could not bother to use as a basis for the inscriptions that he published from it.
The numerous historical errors will lead those who are not specialists on Third Intermediate period studies astray. Here are a sampling:
- Ritner provides a helpful genealogy of Ankhefenkhonsu (p. 16) showing the High Priest Menkhepere (conventionally 1035-986 B.c.) ten generations apart from Sheshonq 1 (924-889 B.C.). This would mean that if Ritner has reconstructed the genealogy correctly, then for ten generations, the men in this genealogy were consistently having children at the average age of eleven. Either Ritner's reconstruction is incorrect or the chronology of the Third Intermediate Period needs to be expanded on the order of a century.
-Ritner often assigns rulers incorrectly. This is attributable to a number of reasons. Sometimes it simply reflects the uncertain nature of work on the Third Intermediate Period. Sometimes it reflects the inability or unwillingness to stay current in an active field. Sometimes it reflects carelessness. A few examples from the first seventy pages will suffice:
- An inscription of Sheshonq Vla (Janssen-Winkeln's V II) is attributed to Sheshonq I (p. 34).
- An unattributable inscription is attributed to Osorkon II (p. 36).
- An inscription of Petubastis I is attributed to Sheshonq Ill (p. 37).
- An inscription of Takeloth Ill is attributed to Osorkon Ill (p. 39).
- An inscription of Osorkon II is attributed to Osorkon Ill (p. 40).
- Inscriptions from different rulers are combined (p. 51).
- An inscription of Sheshonq IV is attributed to Osorkon Ill (p. 57).
- An inscription likely of Osorkon II is unattributed (p. 59).
- A unattributable inscription of early Dynasty 22 is attributed to Osorkon I (p. 61).
For this reason, Ritner's book needs to be used very carefully and everything should be double-checked.
While the Twenty-First through Twenty-Fourth Dynasties can properly be called the Libyan period, and there is certainly Libyan influence, Ritner has a tendency to see influence when it is not actually there. Two examples will suffice. Ritner labels one individual a "Libyan Dynast" and reads his name 'Pk-wꜣ-iw- šꜣ(?)" (p. 79). He has misread the name, which is Pkwꜣrꜣwr, an odd spelling for the well-attested Egyptian name Pꜣ-krr. In one of the priestly annals, his insertion of the title "chief of the Man is simply his own invention surreptitiously inserted into a lacuna (p. 53).
The preceding has been a mere sample of the hundred of errors that plague the volume. There seems little point wasting paper by listing all of them.
In the end, this book constantly reminds the reader of Breasted's Ancient Records, a ground-breaking translation effort making many texts available for the first time in English, which unfortunately is out-of-date and in desperate need of revision. Breasted's work took at least half a century to achieve that feat, but Ritner's needed merely to roll off the press. While Egyptologists may find Professor Ritner's numerous mistakes amusing, no historian or biblical scholar should rely on his work. In that sense the volume defeats its purpose.
John Gee

Wow! It's hard to know where to begin with a book review that's dripping with so much personal invective. The actual validity of his criticisms is well outside of my expertise, but I am reminded of when Gee published a similarly scathing review of Volume 4 of the Joseph Smith Papers Project. It looks like a pattern that when Gee perceives an enemy to his apologetic endeavors, he publishes scathing "proxy reviews" that don't address his underlying apologetic concerns, but which are clearly motivated by them. In the case of the JSPP volume 4, both Mormon and non-Mormon academics outside his circle of apologetic allies agreed that his criticisms were spurious. In searching for opinions from Ritner's peers on his book, I can only find one review from the Journal of the American Oriental Society, which is very positive, labelling it "expertly produced and efficiently organized," "extremely important for anyone researching the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period," and his translations "as fresh as they are up-to-date." Google scholar lists 96 citations of this work.
But of special note is footnote 24, which is supposed to cite Gee's allegation that Robert Ritner "has been known to badly misread the texts that he was proportedly (sic) publishing." Some of you may have been wondering what egregious academic error he cites here that establishes such a poor reputation for poor Robert Ritner. Surely, if Gee is publishing such a hostile assessment of Ritner's abilities in an academic journal, he must be citing something substantial and widely accepted within the Egyptological community right?
That's where this gets good. Following footnote 24, it turns out his citation is an article from freaking FARMS! In an Egyptological journal! I kid you not. He cites "Kerry Muhlestein, "The Book of Breathings in Its Place," FARMS Review 17/2 (2005):482-86."
But we aren't done, because the cherry on top are the editorial remarks by Gee's successor, Katja Goebs, in the subsequent volume. I will transcribe her relevant remarks here:

2) Peer Review
It is the conviction of the current editor and board that peer review is an indispensable, even if not infallible, factor in ensuring high academic standards. It has also become — at least in the North American context — a sine qua non for young scholars seeking to bolster their CVs when applying for grants and jobs. What is more, the referees' comments often furnish helpful additional materials and theoretical insights for author and editor. JSSEA will remain peer reviewed.
...
4) Book Reviews
Recently, there has been some discussion about the appropriate level of criticism that might be conveyed in a review. Our Book Reviews Committee is committed to ensuring that a scholarly discussion of new academic works takes place that neither descends into insubstantial generalities, nor into angry personal vendettas. An apparent recent exception to this rule represents an oversight resulting from time-pressures shortly before publication of the issue in question.

Lol.
I think this episode is valuable as a demonstration of why one should not mix apologetics with scholarship. Even though none of the content here is ostensibly about the Book of Abraham, it's all about the Book of Abraham, and that has seemingly compromised Gee's academic career. It's fine to defend one's faith on intellectual as well as faith-centered grounds, but the Interpreter-style apologetics frequently forgets that they cannot claim the authority of academic inquiry without adhering to its core precepts.

FAQ: Combining witchcraft and Christianity?

Sorry this post is about 5000 words. There is a TLDR at the end, but I recommend reading the whole thing if you are seriously considering combining witchcraft/Wicca/paganism with Christianity in any way shape or form.

First and foremost...

I'll admit that I don’t identify myself as a Christian witch or a Christian pagan, but as I grew up in a Christian household and I began my interest in witchcraft, being a Christian witch or a Christian Wiccan was something I considered for a long time, so I feel confident enough to discuss this topic and give out advice about it.
I’m not making this post to bash Christianity or calling it out as a ‘bad’ religion. I have my own personal reasons for no longer identifying as a Christian that actually has very little to do with witchcraft. Also, I didn’t grow up in the Catholic scene, so I cannot give specific or overly accurate advice about Catholic Witchcraft, only what I have read from others on the internet.
I know this is a controversial topic, but I’m going to speak my own truth and what you choose to believe is totally up to you. If this doesn’t resonate with you, that’s okay, and if it does and you find it helpful, that’s great. Ultimately I want this post to provide understanding & insight rather than breeding more fear & ignorance.
This topic is important to me because I know that a lot of witches are in the broom closet because they live among Christians, so having the option to combine witchcraft & paganism with Christianity can make for a good compromise, or allow friends and family to be more accepting.
I’m going to cover 3 main topics; Christian witchcraft, Christo-Paganism, and Christian Wicca. These terms have a lot of overlap and defining them is a personal matter, but in this post I am going to treat them as distinct terms from each other, so I can cover different topics in manageable chunks. The things I discuss in the Christo-Paganism and Christian Witch sections will also be useful to a Christian Wiccan, and vice versa, so I recommend that you read the whole thing if you are considering blending witchcraft, paganism and Christianity.
Let’s take a step back for a second so we can be on the same page; I define the following terms as:

witch: anyone who practices witchcraft
witchcraft: the art and science of working with magick
magick: it's subjective, but I like to define it as using your will and intention to purposefully create influences on the universe

I know those are rather broad definitions, but that is how I like to define them. So now you understand where I’m coming from when I’m talking about witches, witchcraft, and magick.

Witchcraft & Christianity

Being a Christian witch means that you are first and foremost a Christian, and you also practice witchcraft. Since witchcraft is a skill or a practice, it is not in of itself religious. Therefore, theoretically, witchcraft can be practised in conjunction with any religion.
I define a Christian Witch to be someone who practices witchcraft but does not necessarily subscribe to any of the Wiccan or Pagan beliefs & practices. For example, during a spell, a Christian Witch would call upon solely God or Jesus to aid in their work, whereas someone like a Christian Wiccan may call upon both the God & Goddess.
Of course, the reason why Christian witchcraft is such a controversial topic is because the Bible literally says that sorcerers will go to Hell. I’m not exactly qualified to discuss the specifics of Bible verses and how they should be interpreted, but I have a bit of food-for-thought for you. I’ve done some research into the etymology of the word “sorcerer” in Hebrew and Greek, particularly how it is used in the book of Revelation chapters 21 and 22.
Long story short, Hebrew and Greek has many different words for sorcerers and witches. English basically has two; sorcerer and witch, and both words have rather negative connotations. But Hebrew and Greek has many words for those who work with magick (sorcery), and the definition of what exactly is considered to be sorcery has changed a lot over the last couple millennia. There are numerous pieces of evidence alluding to the fact that the Hebrew words for ‘sorcerer’ and ‘witch’ only referred to those who practised black magick, in essence, to harm others or use magick with malevolent intent. So if the Bible only condemns those who use magick to harm, then you can infer that it is perfectly fine to use magick as long as you don’t use it to cause harm. Sources: source 1, source 2, source 3, source 4
In my heart, how I feel, is that witches who use magick to heal and connect to the world God created, who come from a place of love, are welcome in God’s Kingdom. I think that as long as you have strict rules and morals for your craft like you never use magick to harm, you don’t do necromancy, you don’t do sex magick, you don’t work with demons, things like that, you can be a witch and still be a Christian.
In fact, depending on how on you define magick, you’re already using it without even realising.

Praying. You're telling your will and intention to the universe; that's magick.
There's an altar in your church. Witches have altars too.
Your vicar consecrates bread and wine. Witches also consecrate their tools. Both processes require workings with what I would call magick.

And if we look at rituals in Catholicism in particular, some of them cannot be described in any way other than purely magickal. Some Catholic practices (or so I’ve been told by witches who are former Catholics) are just downright witchy. I’ve seen a lot of Catholics drawn to witchcraft because they love the ritualistic aspect of Catholicism, but they no longer find the belief system appealing. In other words, they’re looking for the intense spiritual experience without the misogyny and homophobia, among other reasons. Catholics and Christians use magick, they just don’t call it witchcraft, but for all in intents and purposes there is no difference.
The Bible condemns the use of divination, but have you ever seen an omen that influenced a decision or how you felt about something? A black cat crossing your path is an omen of bad luck, a sparrow in the house is an omen of death, flicking to a random page in the Bible for insight. Spotting omens is the most basic of divination practices. Are you going to Hell for believing in old wives’ tales?
Jesus performed "miracles" all the time. Turning water to wine, healing the sick, feeding hundreds of people, rising from the dead. Some of the stories may be exaggerated, but the essence remains the same; he used magick.

How to be a Christian Witch

Okay so now I have explained why I personally think it is fine to be a Christian witch, now let’s discuss exactly how to be a Christian witch.
First, if you want to label yourself as a witch, go ahead. But I think some Christian witches would be more comfortable with the term ‘light worker’. A light worker is basically someone who feels an enormous pull towards helping others. They are spiritually inclined beings who volunteer to act as a beacon for the Earth, and commit to serving humanity. I think this term is a much better fit for a Christian witch, since if you are a Christian then you are already committed to serving humanity and helping others. There is a lot of overlap in the practices of a light worker and a witch; for example, reading tarot, meditation & visualisation, reiki, crystals, candles, evoking benevolent entities & spirits, and more. Lightwork is not tied to any particular religion and it can be a secular practice, much like witchcraft.
I think before you start down the path of a Christian witch, you’ve got to have a strict list of your personal dos and don’ts when it comes to your craft. One of the most important rules for being a witch is to know thyself, after all.
You are first and foremost a Christian, so your craft should conform to your Christian beliefs and morals. Curses and hexes are probably going to be a “don’t”, but what about binding spells? Binding spells have many purposes that most would consider ‘good’. How do you feel about working with entities or spirits? Demons is a definite no, and angels are probably yes, but what about nature spirits? So compile your own personal list of the boundaries of your craft and how they conform to your values as a Christian.
You can still celebrate most or all of the sabbats that Wiccans and Pagans have. This is actually surprisingly easy because the majority of them have Christian counterparts. This is mostly because the traditional Pagan holidays were Christianised to make it easier for pagans to convert to Christianity. For example, Imbolc is Candlemas, Ostara is Easter, Lughnasadh is Lammas, and Yule is Christmas.
For casting spells and conducting rituals, you can call upon God or Jesus to assist you. Spells are just prayers with extra steps, so this makes sense. If you want to call upon the quarters like Wiccans do in casting a circle, you can call upon the archangels. Each one is associated with a different element.

Raphael = East, air
Michael = South, fire
Gabriel = West, water
Uriel = North, earth

For different practices, I suggest taking up some of the ones I mentioned earlier like tarot, crystal work, and meditation. Tarot, while it is no different to gathering insight from a random page in the Bible, can set off alarm bells for Christians so a good alternative is oracle cards, or even angel cards. Oracle and angel cards don’t have the same perceived negativity attached to them that tarot cards do. Another alternative is cartomancy; just using a regular playing card deck to divinate.

Christo-Paganism

I am going to define a Christo-Pagan as someone who is a Christian and also chooses to work with other gods from Pagan pantheons like Celtic paganism and Norse paganism. A Christo-Pagan may also practice concepts that are considered to be typically pagan, like earth-worship and working with nature spirits.
Christo-Paganism, like most forms of paganism, is a very individual path with many different flavours. Some are Christians with pagan leanings, others are pagans with Christian leanings, and some are kind of a 50/50 split combining both systems equally.
Most Christian Pagans have conflict when they think about The Ten Commandments, particularly the first one "You shall have no other Gods before me." Sounds pretty straight forward, right? You're not allowed to worship other Gods. But it makes an important distinction; it recognises the existence of other gods. This basically implies that you could worship other gods, but you must revere the nameless Christian God the most.
In the creed, you normally say "We believe in one God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." We have a contradiction, one God and many gods; how can both be true? Well, a while ago, I discovered this belief called "Omnitheism". 'Omni' meaning 'all', and 'theism' meaning 'God'. It is the belief that there is one single Divinity, which I like to call The Source, or Spirit (other names include The All, Akasha, the High God, the True Divinity, or the Unknown Deity), and everything in the universe is a counterpart of The Source, or Spirit. It can also be the belief that every living being is a god within itself.
There are several ways of interpreting this. One is how the Hermetic Kabbalah describes the Tree Of Life: Spirit is an infinite source of energy, with no bounds. Spirit's energy pours through the different planes of existence before reaching the physical world. In the physical world, The Source's energy creates all physical things, objects, and living beings. Every plant, every animal, every person is a part of The Source, and our end goal is to seek unity with the Divinity, thus, you can argue that we are all God, since each of us possesses part of the vastness of Spirit, or The Source.
I like to think that it's like we are all individual branches on a tree, and as a whole we make one tree. At the same time, you can take a branch off the tree and plant it and it will make its own tree. So we're basically all gods in various stages; leaves, branches, and trees.
Another theory you may prefer is the Egg Universe. This is a theory that the whole universe is an egg, and this egg contains a juvenile god in a sense. In order to learn as much about life as possible, the god in this egg has split its consciousness into billions of separate consciences. And parts of this consciousness has manifested as you and me. We are all god. So yeah, there is one god, but we, and other levels of consciousness are part of it too, like the gods that Pagans worship, or even a plant growing in a forest. Every living thing is a counterpart of the greater consciousness. That was a really brief explanation so if you want to understand it better I suggest watching this YouTube video.
Look at different belief systems and make up your own mind. Religion is a highly subjective thing and only you can truly know God for yourself.
I haven’t even began to cover the fact that early Christianity was split into many different sects with wildly diverging beliefs. It’s only by chance that we have the type of Christianity we have today. One of these sects that faded into obscurity is Gnostic Christianity, which holds the belief that the God described in the Old Testament is not the true Christian God, but instead a mistaken creation by the female aspect of the True Divinity. They also believe that Jesus was created in order to fix the spiritual mistakes of the Old Testament God.

Psychological Perspective

All that I’ve covered so far is purely religious or spiritual belief. There are a lot of witches and pagans who are not strictly polytheistic but instead they choose to view other gods as psychological archetypes. For example, say if I wanted to love myself more and be more confident in my physical appearance, I might turn to Aphrodite. I might not actually believe she exists as a literal goddess, but I may subscribe to a psychological archetype of Aphrodite, basically invoking the idea of her and aiming to be more like her. This way, I’m technically working with Aphrodite for self-improvement, but I don’t necessarily believe that other gods exist other than the Christian God, and I’m certainly not worshipping Aphrodite over the Christian God, I’m simply studying what she stands for and how she might handle issues with self-esteem if she were a real person.

A lot of Saints are Ex-Pagan Gods

A lot of Christians are required to choose a "patron saint" to work with when they are confirmed. For Christo-Pagans, many choose St Brighid. She was a Pagan goddess so beloved by her people that they made her into a Christian saint. She is also a triple goddess (maiden, mother, crone), so you can work with her in unison with the moon phases and the wheel of the year.
Other pagan deities converted to saints include Kernunnos; the Catholic Church replaced Him with Saint Hubert and Saint Tatheus. And Sainte Ann was replacement for the Pagan Goddess Ana or Dana.

To sum up Christo-Paganism...

Taking all this into account, there isn’t really a reason why you can’t choose to work with other gods in your practices if you choose to believe that they are merely counterparts of Spirit or The Source, or psychological archetypes, or Saints, or some sort of belief similar to that. As long as you are praising the Christian God most, whatever you define that be, you’re not really violating any Christian values as stated in the Bible. Whether you think the Christian God is The Source, or you think ‘He’ is a counterpart of The Source, it still works.
And if you are drawn to Paganism because you feel that Christianity lacks the female aspect of God, this works for you too. Whether you believe the Gnostic concept of the female principle of the True Divinity, or if you prefer the energy of other female pagan goddesses like Gaia, Diana, or Artemis, for example. You can work with female Saints, or study goddesses as psychological archetypes.

Christian Wicca

I define a Christian Wiccan as someone who is a Christian and they also follow traditions set out by Wicca, this can be Gardnerian Wicca, Alexandrian Wicca, Dianic Wicca, or some other sect. A Christian Wiccan is someone who conforms to Christian values laid out in the Bible, whilst following fundamental Wiccan beliefs like the threefold law, the Wiccan Rede, and recognition of both the God and Goddess.
Things that separate a Christian Wiccan from a Christo-Pagan (in my opinion):

A Christo-pagan may choose to worship other gods from other pantheons, but may not subscribe to the dual aspect of the deity that Wiccans work with.
A Wiccan will revere both the God and Goddess, whereas a Pagan might not.
A Wiccan believes in the threefold law and observes the full moon as a sacred event, whereas a pagan might choose not to.
It is possible to be an atheistic pagan (if you follow pyshcologcal archetypes for example) but in my opinion, it is impossible to be an atheistic Wiccan. Wicca is a polytheistic religion by definition; that means you can't be a Wiccan without believing in the existence of a God and Goddess.

Obviously there is a lot of wiggle-room and intersection between a Christian Pagan and a Christian Wiccan, and your personal beliefs and practices are highly subjective, but this is how I am distinguishing these terms so I am able to explain these concepts in a way that can be digested easily.

The God & Goddess according to Christian Wiccans

Every Christian Wiccan has a slightly different view on their own religious practices, but from what I can gather, a lot of Christian Wiccans like to replace the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit with the Wiccan Goddess. Some believe that the Holy Spirit is the lost female aspect that Christianity is severely lacking in.
Other Christian Wiccans choose to work with Jesus to represent the God in their work, and The Virgin Mary as the Goddess. This makes a lot of sense because the Wiccan sabbats observe the Goddess giving birth to the God, and obviously Mary is the mother of Jesus.
Which belief you choose, or maybe a mixture of both, is completely up to you.
The sabbats are much the same as previously discussed, since most Christian holidays are Christianised versions of the pagan festivals that the Wiccan sabbats are based on.

Criticisms of Christian Wicca

It is vitally important to note that Christian Wicca is not without controversy. And I’m not just talking about the whole ‘Bible condemns witches’ thing, I’m saying that there is a significant portion of the witchcraft community that criticises Christian Wicca specifically. Honestly from my research I haven’t really found any witches criticising Christian Witchcraft or Christo-Paganism (with informed opinions), it is Christian Wicca specifically that raises problems, and this is why:
The Bible is rooted in the belief of a single deity, known as God. There are no other acceptable deities. Wicca, in contrast, involves the reverence of two deities minimally, a god and a goddess. If you worship God alongside a goddess in equal reverence, then you are breaking the Christian commandment to worship only God, and you are denying his existence as the only God. If you attempt to be a monotheistic Wiccan, you lose the polarity and unity of separate halves that is fundamental to Wicca. To clarify; Wicca is not a monotheistic religion; there is a God and a Goddess, with equal importance.
There are four general reasons why people attempt to be both Christian and Wiccan:

They believe in God and Jesus but want to practice magic and think you need Wicca to do that.
They want to be Wiccan because they find it appealing, but they’re afraid of going to hell if they change religion.
They believe in God and Jesus but are also attracted to certain things embraced by Wiccans without realising that these are by no means fundamental to Wicca. You don’t need to be Wiccan in order to respect nature and experience the glory of God through it, for example.
They believe in God and Jesus but object to certain things within their church, such as misogyny or homophobia. Again, you don’t need Wicca to do this. You can find a different church or denomination, or you can adopt some of the ideas I discussed previously in the other portions of this post.

And I totally get it, all four of these reasons were the reasons for my inner conflict with Christianity, Wicca, and witchcraft as a whole some years ago. A lot of these reasons just come from simply not knowing enough about Wicca and witchcraft yet. The main things you need to realise if any of the aforementioned reasons apply to you is that:

You don’t have to be Wiccan to use magick or practise witchcraft, and
The practices you see commonly associated with Wicca are not exclusive to Wicca. Wiccans do not have monopoly over nature worship, burning incense, using altars, crystals, tarot cards, or meditation. You don’t have to be a Wiccan to do these things. For example as previously mentioned, you can be a light worker, you can be a secular witch, you can be an eclectic Christian, or something else. There are so many options.

For me personally, I eventually abandoned both Christianity and Wicca, but I kept some of their basic ideas in my practices. I still follow Jesus’ teachings and I have a great deal of respect for Him, and I have also adopted Wiccan practices like honouring the esbats and calling upon the God & Goddess to assist me in my spells. I don’t call myself a Christian Wiccan for these reasons though.
There are a number of reasons why some witches reject Christian Wicca, but the main reason is that there are just too many fundamental differences between the religions which means that you can’t combine them harmoniously. For example, Christians believe that God is wholly good, and Satan is the embodiment of evil. Whereas Wiccans embrace their deities’ shadow side as well as the light, as they exist in nature. Nature is not wholly good or wholly bad. Christians believe that humans need salvation from sin, but Wiccans believe that humans make their own choices, not because The Devil is tempting them. So those are fundamental beliefs in the religions that directly oppose one other.
With all of this said, the witches who have these criticisms are not gatekeeping. There is nothing wrong with combining Christian and Wiccan beliefs into something new. The problem is, they say, is when you insist on labelling yourself as something you no longer are. There’s certainly nothing wrong with bringing certain Christian concepts into your Wiccan practice or certain Wiccan concepts into Christian practice. But the choices should make sense just like any other belief system. Can a Wiccan follow Jesus’ ethical teachings? Absolutely. Can a Christian worship outdoors, creating their own sacred space? Of course. But neither of these situations results in a Christian Wiccan.
So those are some of the criticisms of Christian Wicca, just so you are aware of them. I’ll reiterate that I do not necessarily believe all the criticisms, but I do believe that they are valid. I still think that you can call yourself a Christian Wiccan if you want to, but just be aware of the reasons why some witches are opposed to the idea. Again, to my knowledge, the only source of controversy for Christian Witchcraft and Paganism comes from Christians themselves, but for Christian Wiccans, some of the backlash comes from the witchcraft & Wiccan community too.

Final Message

I just want to say that even after reading this post, the answers aren’t going to come easy. The pursuit of your spiritual path takes years, a lifetime, even several lifetimes according to some. So don’t get worked up about finalising your beliefs and your path, because there’s no deadline. There’s no standardised test asking what you believe in and what your practices are. Your beliefs and your path will change as you grow.
So whether you choose to be a Christian witch, a Christian Wiccan, a light worker, an omnitheist, or whatever, please remember that you are valid, you are enough, and you are accepted. Even if you can’t find a single place where you belong, you are accepted here at BroomClosetWitch, okay?
And for other witches and pagans out there reading this, please be kind and give Christians exploring witchcraft & paganism a place where they can feel welcome. It is so tough, knowing that there are some parts of your church that you don’t fully agree with, or you feel are missing, and then being told that if you even question these things, you will suffer eternal damnation. It is so heart-breaking being manipulated into worshipping a deity you fear, because apparently they love you unconditionally.
And then, coming from a place of toxicity and hoping to find yourself in the witchcraft & pagan community, only to be marginalised and told that your path isn’t valid. That is truly terrible. So please give these folks a place to call home. You don’t have to agree with them, you just have to give them a place to be accepted and validated. Paganism & witchcraft is an all-inclusive community.

TLDR;

You can be a Christian and practice witchcraft (because the Bible was mistranslated)
You can be a Christian witch as long as you don't use magick to harm
You can be a Christian and work with pagan gods, as long as you revere the Christian God above all
You can call yourself a Christian Wiccan, but there are some criticisms you should know about (because Wicca & Christianity are so fundamentally different from each other that a lot of people say they're incompatible).
Look at different belief systems and make up your own mind; religion is a highly subjective thing and only you can truly know God for yourself
Be kind and give Christians exploring witchcraft & paganism a place where they can feel welcome

meaning of bibliography video

noun, plural bib·li·og·ra·phies. a complete or selective list of works compiled upon some common principle, as authorship, subject, place of publication, or printer. a list of source materials that are used or consulted in the preparation of a work or that are referred to in the text. a branch of library science dealing with the history, physical bibliography. From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Related topics: Newspapers, printing, publishing. bibliography. bib‧li‧og‧ra‧phy /ˌbɪbliˈɒɡrəfi $ -ˈɑːɡ-/ noun (plural bibliographies) [ countable] 1. TCN. a list of all the books and articles used in preparing a piece of writing 2. TCN LIST. Word forms: plural bibliographies. 1. countable noun. A bibliography is a list of books on a particular subject. At the end of this chapter there is a select bibliography of useful books. Synonyms: book list, record, catalogue, list of books More Synonyms of bibliography. 2. countable noun. bibliography definition: 1. a list of the books and articles that have been used by someone when writing a particular book…. Learn more. Cambridge Dictionary +Plus Key works: Frege 1892 and Russell 1905 are seminal works on meaning and reference. Kripke 1980 and Putnam 1975 argue, among other things, that semantic properties are determined by factors external to language users. Grice 1957 and Davidson 1973 explore the relation of language and thought. Quine 1951 rejects the idea of philosophically interesting truths in virtue of meaning and knowledge in n. pl. bib·li·og·ra·phies. 1. A list of the works of a specific author or publisher. 2. a. A list of writings relating to a given subject: a bibliography of Latin American history. b. A list of writings used or considered by an author in preparing a particular work. 3. Definition of bibliography. 1 : the history, identification, or description of writings or publications. 2 a : a list often with descriptive or critical notes of writings relating to a particular subject, period, or author a bibliography of modern poetry. What does bibliography mean? The definition of a bibliography is a list of sources you used when writing a scholarly... bibliography (n.) 1670s, "the writing of books," from Greek bibliographia "the writing of books," from biblion "book" (see biblio-) + graphos "(something) drawn or written" (see -graphy).Meaning "the study of books, authors, publications, etc.," is from 1803. Sense of "a list of books that form the literature of a subject" is first attested 1814. A list of the books of a specific author or publisher, or on a specific subject. ‘a bibliography of his publications’. More example sentences. ‘The books also contain substantial bibliographies of the authors' works and critics' commentaries on their works.’.

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Meaning of bibliography - YouTube

About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators ... A bibliography in which each item has an annotation - a brief summary of how each source is useful to an autho... Video shows what annotated bibliography means. ~~~ Biography ~~~Title: What is Biography? Explain Biography, Define Biography, Meaning of BiographyCreated on: 2018-10-25Source Link: https://en.wikipedia.o... Video shows what bibliography means. A section of a written work containing citations, not quotations, to all the books referenced in the work.. A list of bo... What is bibliography & what is reference - bibliography meaning explained in simple terms and easy to understand - what is annotated bibliography - what is t... See here, the definitions of the word bibliography, as video and text.(Click show more below.)bibliography (noun) A section of a written work containing c... Please Subscribe To Support The MD VideoMartin https://www.youtube.com/user/jutawanklikmartin/featuredhttps://alibaba228.blogspot.comSpeak English https://07... About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators ... Definition and spelling of the word BIBLIOGRAPHY. created for Audio-Visual Lexis https://www.avlexis.com Contents of this video (00:00)... Full Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLALQuK1NDrh9HgAQ22wep8X18Fvvcm8R--Watch more How to Write Essays and Research Papers videos: http://ww...

Bibliography | Definition of Bibliography by Merriam-Webster

meaning of bibliography

meaning of bibliography - win

Meaning of "Habilitationsschrift" in bibliography

What does "meaning" mean? This is actually a complex question! Here's a start-- the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on "Theories of Meaning". Notice the long bibliography, and see if you recognize any names.

The Abbeville institute says abolitionists were actually southerners and makes me question the nature of humanity

John Steinbeck's "The Pearl", a relatively short novella, packs quite a wallop, embodying so much of what I like about his writing.

Domestic violence is not gendered

Merle Bombardieri is ready to answer your questions!

Syrian Christian Rebellion - Kerala Minority Histories

"If you get a poisonous snake, it often means that there was a problem with the formatting of your bibliography."

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FAQ: Combining witchcraft and Christianity?

First and foremost...

Witchcraft & Christianity

How to be a Christian Witch

Further reading

Christo-Paganism

Psychological Perspective

A lot of Saints are Ex-Pagan Gods

To sum up Christo-Paganism...

Further reading

Christian Wicca

The God & Goddess according to Christian Wiccans

Criticisms of Christian Wicca

Further reading

Final Message

TLDR;

meaning of bibliography video

meaning of bibliography top

Meaning of bibliography - YouTube