Ed Brayton has an interesting post up about the V.A.’s refusal to allow soldiers buried in military cemeteries to have Wiccan symbols on their headstone, despite the V.A.’s tendency toward religious inclusiveness — they allow headstones with religious symbols for atheists and obscure religions such as the United Moravian Church. But no Wiccans.
One prominent member of the religious right, Paul Weyrich encourages Christians to boycott the military until it refuses to allow Wiccans to serve their country.
A little quibble with terming Moravians as obscure. Moravians may be a little rare on the ground here in Indiana, but they are a very early protestant group, with roots back to the 14th century and John Hus thus predating even Luther. They were important in the history of Bohemia, and are not too uncommon in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. I am not sure though of the connection, if any, between United Moravians and the Moravian Church in North America.
Two of the best historical sites of Moravians
are in Bethlehem PA ( founded Christmas Eve 1741,thereby the name of Bethlehem) and Winston-Salem.Both cities have a historic district well maintained,and you can tour all the historic district buildings along with the cemetery where the last of the Mohicans is buried. Bethlehem was a closed city to anyone except Moravians til the 1850s, and later became the home of Bethlehem Steel.The industrial area was called South Bethlehem and later merged with Bethlehem.The steel works are all shut down and the rusted remains will soon be turned into a huge casino,resort type area. The city is economically depressed and this would help bring back the tax base. It has not yet been approved by voters,but it is predicted to be approved.Also Bethlehem is noted for last several years of hosting MUSIKFEST in mid August, with many well known entertainers attending. Winston-Salem became a tobacco town and had to look for another ecomomic base also.But tobacco money seems to have survived through corporate mergers.
The Moravian church in Bethlehem still has a strong presence and they are the ones mainly fighting the casinos for ‘moral reasons’.