For the last few years, there has been a rising tide of books and essays ruminating on the supposed menace of Paganism.
In December 2023, The Atlantic published “The Return of the Pagans,” written by Rabbi David Wolpe, a prominent scholar in conservative Judaism. Wolpe and the magazine carefully distanced themselves from any suggestion that his article was about modern Pagan communities or connected to contemporary oppression – as Wolpe himself admitted, “As a Jew, I am not likely to overlook the cruelties of religious people to one another throughout the centuries.” Still, the framing raised red flags in Pagan circles, since invoking “the return of the Pagans” carries centuries of baggage and may now be an exercise in foreshadowing.
The following year, in 2024, John Daniel Davidson, senior editor at The Federalist, released Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come. Davidson’s book did not hesitate to draw sweeping conclusions: “America as we know it will come to an end,” he wrote. “Instead of a republic of free citizens, we will be slaves in a pagan empire.”
Davidson told Glenn Beck in a broadcast interview that Paganism was the only real alternative to Christianity, a zero-sum framing that cast modern Pagans not as neighbors but as civilizational enemies. Davidson clarified that he wasn’t predicting temples to Zeus on Times Square or “a surge of Witchcraft, although we are seeing that surge.” His warning was starker: “Evil is coming, worse than you can imagine.”
Against this backdrop of escalating rhetoric, a new title from Humanix Books has entered the fray: The Pagan Threat: Confronting America’s Godless Uprising by Pastor Lucas Miles, author of Woke Jesus. Released on September 16, the book has quickly gained traction on social media, aided in part by the presence of the foreword penned by Charlie Kirk, the recently assassinated conservative activist.
Promotional copy describes The Pagan Threat as a work that “meticulously exposes the inherent dangers that challenge the core fabric of our faith and civic unity. From exposing an evolving techno-paganism to blatant idol worship, Pastor Miles navigates the intricate terrain of safeguarding the nation and the pulpit against the rising tide of paganism.”
Unlike earlier authors who hedged or dismissed their links to modern Pagan practitioners, Miles leaves no ambiguity in The Pagan Threat. The book is explicitly about today’s Pagan communities. He defines “paganism” in sweeping terms as “a blanket term used to describe those who have abandoned mainstream forms of religion for esoteric practices, often rooted in polytheism, ancient rituals, worship of nature, spell-casting, sexual acts, and altered states of consciousness (with or without psychedelic substances).”
From there, Miles catalogs modern Pagan traditions in detail, even capitalizing “Pagan” for clarity. “Falling under the broad terminology of ‘Pagan’ exists a virtually endless and ever-expanding list of self-identifications,” he writes, naming Wicca, Druidism, Heathenry, Witchcraft, Shamanism, Thelema, Theosophy, New Age, New Thought, Baltic, Celtic, Hellenistic, Norse Reconstructionism, eclectic Paganism, and more. He also notes practices such as spellcasting, tarot reading, and astral projection.
Unlike Wolpe’s rhetorical gestures or Davidson’s dystopian warnings, Miles provides a list that leaves little room for doubt about his intended adversaries.
He offers descriptions that, on the surface, sound like reference entries:
- “Druid practitioners seek to reimagine, albeit with limited historical and archaeological evidence, the religious paths and rituals of the ancient Druid priestly class, with an added emphasis on nature, cycles of the seasons, and the sacredness of the land.”
- “Modern Heathenism, also known as contemporary Heathenry or Heathenry Revivalism, refers to a modern Pagan religious movement that seeks to revive and reconstruct the religious beliefs, practices, and cultural traditions of the ancient Germanic peoples, particularly those of pre-Christian Northern Europe.”
- “Witchcraft is a multifaceted spiritual and magical practice that encompasses a wide range of beliefs, rituals, and traditions. At its core, witchcraft involves the harnessing and manipulation of natural energies to effect change in the physical world or in oneself.”
The purpose of these descriptions is not neutral. They are preludes to framing all of them as tools of cultural sabotage. Lucas explicitly links Paganism to liberal politics through a metaphor of parasitism: “Paganism is a much more suitable and beneficial long-term environment for the Woke parasite to take root.” According to the book, without the guiding “lamppost” of biblical truth, Pagans seduce Christians into Marxist and “woke” ideologies. Exposure to Pagan thought, he claims, will ultimately kill the Christian “host.”
The argument escalates quickly. Miles writes that Christianity has long been a unifying basis for science, politics, and law, bringing equality and enabling human talent to flourish.
“Such is the hatred for Christ by modern Pagans,” he writes, “that these beneficial contributions are vastly ignored and eclipsed by unfounded accusations of patriarchal dominance, justifying global conflicts, and condoning hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community.”
Paganism, he insists, seeks to dismantle this legacy. Paganism is the root of not only Marxism but abortion, and the wellspring of historical atrocities that range from Viking raids to the holocaust.
His warnings grow darker still. “Witches, traditional Pagans, neo-Pagans, and theosophical elites,” he declares, “have infiltrated major nonprofit organizations, entertainment agencies and studios, research labs, religious institutions, educational centers.” The implication is clear: Paganism is not just a belief system but an organized conspiracy threatening both church and state.
The danger of The Pagan Threat is not limited to its rhetoric. Librarians report that even the request to purchase the book has been accompanied by harassment. One librarian, requesting anonymity, told The Wild Hunt: “Our institution, unfortunately, has become known for the backlash we’ve drawn from alt-right groups. As staff, we often feel like we’re waiting for the next incident — our director has received death threats, and employees have been harassed. I’m honestly nervous about backlash if I reject this item, which is why I’m not disclosing the name of my town or region.”
Others echoed this fear. In several cities, librarians reported that requests for The Pagan Threat arrived with threats to strip libraries of public funding or label them “enemies of the state” if the book was not stocked. Such intimidation underscores the volatile environment in which staff must make collection decisions and the high stakes of introducing a book that openly names modern Pagans as a danger to society.
What are we to make of The Pagan Threat? Miles has done the legwork to name and categorize his target: his catalog of contemporary Pagan identities and practices is unambiguous, and his metaphors, calling Paganism the “environment for the Woke parasite to take root,” are unmistakably threatening.
“Don’t just read PAGAN THREAT — internalize what it has to say,” Kirk wrote in the foreword. “Then, share its message with your Christian friends, before they are seduced by Paganism themselves. We have a faith and a country to save.”
From its opening pages, the book makes clear that Miles is not simply diagnosing a cultural trend but urging a zero-sum struggle against living people and communities. For dogmatic Christian readers who prize scriptural certainties over historical realities, such clarity may be compelling; for most others, of any faith, it is rhetorical violence masquerading as religious concern and analysis.
A harder truth also emerges in the book’s pages: political identity offers no protection.
Conservative, liberal, libertarian, or apolitical readers may differ in diagnosis or remedy, but none are shielded when a religious practice is cast as an existential threat that must be erased from society.
That is why Miles’s language matters beyond argumentation. When critique becomes categorical demonization, labeling entire communities as conspirators, parasites, or enemies of state and church, the effect is not abstract debate but real-world danger: heightened stigma, threats to pluralism, harassment of public institutions, and the possibility of violence.
For Pagans, the message is unmistakable. The Pagan Threat does not debate ideas in the abstract; it names our traditions, our practices, and our communities as enemies of faith and nation. It frames neighbors as parasites, cultural saboteurs, and infiltrators. That rhetoric carries real danger, not only in how outsiders view Paganism, but in how institutions are pressured to treat us.
This article is not just a critique of a book; it is a warning. The threat described by Miles may be imagined and rooted in false history, but the consequences for modern Pagans are likely all too real.